Crowdfunding is getting people to finance your book (or other project) before you write it or create it. A recent example is internet guru Jim Kukral. Here’s how the press release from PR Newswire describes him and his project:
"Jim went direct to his audience with the idea for a new series of books about how to build a business around a lifestyle on the Internet.
The campaign utilized crowdsourcing [note: what they mean is crowdfunding; crowdsourcing is using crowd participation to create content] to enlist his audience to pre-fund the book series, called "Business Around a Lifestyle." Kukral created a series of monetary pledges ranging from $25, all the way up to $10,000 for sponsorships.
He raised over $16,000 in the first seven days of this promotion.
'If a regular guy from Cleveland, Ohio can raise $16,000 in less than a week without a publisher to produce his book, why can't you?' said Kukral, a noted keynote speaker and Web entrepreneur.
'Everything else you need to get a great book done can be put together on your own from freelancers. Book covers, editing, proofing, etc. This model means you're essentially pre-selling your book before you even write it, and that's just part of the revolutionary changes coming to the publishing world. The walls are crumbling down, and aggressive and smart entrepreneurs are running through the gates to grab their share of self- publishing gold.'"
We have to take that “ordinary guy from Cleveland” line with a grain of salt, unless you are an ordinary guy or woman who has a massive following on the internet. Kukral had an easy way to reach lots of people already interested in his topic. The releases’s brief bio of Kukral reflects this:
"Jim Kukral is a 16-year Internet marketing professional who was recently named by Dun & Bradstreet as one of "The Most Influential Small Business People on Twitter." Jim also serves as a Program Faculty Member for the University of San Francisco's Internet Marketing Program where he teaches classes to students around the globe on the topics of Internet marketing, Web monetization and social media. In addition, SmallBizTrends.com chose Jim as one of 100 top small business influencers online."
However, the model is interesting and people who don’t already have a big following also have used crowdfunding successfully.
While Kukral’s goal is to raise $20,000 to $30,000, it’s certainly possible to produce a book for much less than that.
Part of the goal of a crowdfunding campaign is to make sure there’s a ready audience for the finished product, and that can make it worth doing even if you don’t need the money in advance.
I’ll be writing more about crowdfunding and how to do it; for now you may want to have a look at the most popular crowdfunding site, www.Kickstarter.com to see what kinds of books and other projects are being funded—or failing to.
(Writers are entrepreneurs, too. That's why I think you'll get valuable ideas from my books: "Marketing for Entrepreneurs," published by Pearson, and "Do Something Different," published by Virgin Books with a foreword by Sir Richard Branson. You can get them from Amazon or your other favorite book seller.)
