Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rico Marciano on June 5, 2012 at 12:57pm

Good for you, Todd!

Kickstarter is a very innovative program used to raise funds for creative projects. I've spoken to my attorney regarding Kickstarter, and she likes the program...however, the only downside is--if you do not raise the amount of money that you stated as your goal--in the amount of time allotted--you do not receive any of the money. Another point is, the people who donate like to see that the person they are donating to, has donated to another project themselves.

Good Luck, Todd!

Permalink Reply by Candace "Zee" Zorowitz on June 5, 2012 at 5:50pm

Todd - That is the coolest thing I have seen! I spend part of everyday with social media and seeing what's new but this is my first look at Kickstarter for a book promotion. Hats off to you. Signed up. Looking forward to that PDF and complementary letter come December. Please let us know when you make your goal.

Permalink Reply by Todd Edward Dillard on June 11, 2012 at 9:06am

Thanks for your support! I'll be posting updates every week or so, so feel free to comment/follow along.

Permalink Reply by Todd Edward Dillard on June 11, 2012 at 9:30am

Hi everyone,

So it's been six days since I started my kickstarter campaign, and I wanted to provide an update and see what you all thought. After six days, I've managed to raise $810 dollars, with $600 dollars coming in the first three days of aggressive facebook, twitter, and emailing, and the latter $200 coming in the last three days of marketing silence, as I had to travel to be in a wedding.

What's interesting is the data they provide on how your backers arrive at your website. Thus far, my backers are 50% percent "direct links," meaning I sent someone a link and they copied it into their browser and donated, and 25% percent from my facebook account, and another 15% from kickstarter placing my project on the homepage or various people searching for projects online. The rest come from waenetwork, or a social networking management site called hootsuite. 

I've also had several fellow writers and artists contact me -- some to wish me luck, some to mention they're artists and if my project succeeds they'd be interested in working for me.

Kickstarter won't "favorite" your project, however, if you don't have a video, so I think that's something I'll try to add this week. If I had to do it all again, I'd post a video with the project launch, and maybe choose my artist, ask them to sketch out one of my poems, then post that as a jpeg to my campaign page. Also, I'd open a kickstarter profile first and donate to  fellow artists -- evidently the more generous an artist appears on their kickstarter.com page (like, if they've back a bunch of projects) the more backers they get. 

So there ya go. Thus far, I would say this has been a success, and I hope to raise the remaining $690 in the next 24 days and have a fully illustrated book completed by December.

Permalink Reply by jeff herman on June 11, 2012 at 3:37pm

I've heard that this model may be one of publishing's future methods.

Permalink Reply by Todd Edward Dillard on June 15, 2012 at 11:50am

Just wanted to keep this post up. It's been 11 days, and I've raised $1350 bucks, coming well within sight of my goal of $1500. I've already negotiated payment for Paul Tunis as my artist and sent him a batch of poems to start working on. You can check out some of his delightfully quirky and eerie art at www.deathbyorphans.com. 

 

Also, I stopped by the Cathedral School to read some of my poems to a class of kindergartners, and walked away delighted and humbled by their laughter and questions. You can check some of that out here.

 

Check back on my kickstarter page next week for scans of the kids' interpretations of some of my other poems!