Ryan North set a goal of $20,000 on the crowdfunding site
Kickstarter for an illustrated “select your own adventure” book, To Be or Not to Be (yes, based on
Hamlet).
It took him only six days to get to over $120,000, at which point there was an article in The Guardian about it. By the end he raised…wait for it….$580,905! That’s about £381,000.
Why was it so successful?
1) He is already well known for his work on Dinosaur Comics, the Adventure Time comic series, and for co-editing the best-selling short story anthology, Machine of Death.
2) He recruited a stellar line-up of illustrators, each of whom has their own followers, to do the pictures.
3) The article in a national newspaper couldn't have hurt
4) People liked the project.
Of course there are many projects that don’t reach their goal in the time the creators set for raising the money, in which case no money is turned over to the artist or writer at all.
For instance at the time of this writing Momma Love: How the Mother Half Lives, a proposed hardcover book with “portraits and 40 mothers’ moving personal stories (that) provide an honest look at the highs and lows of the motherhood experience”, has raised only 66% of its desired $35,000 goal with six days to go.
The Barefoot Diaries, by Verity and Stu McLellan, described as “A journal of roots, rhythm, reverence and relationship", still has 19 days to go but has raised only $37 (1% of the goal) so I’d say things are not looking good.
Even though it really helps to arrive with a following, there are writers who worked very hard to push their Kickstarter project and reached their goal.
What about you? Any projects kicking around that you might like to try to finance this way?
(If you want to discover 100 creative, low-cost ways that people have used to market themselves or their product--and that you can adapt for your marketing--see my book Do Something Different. It's published by Virgin Books and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)
