{"id":6576,"date":"2011-12-03T14:49:08","date_gmt":"2011-12-03T21:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=6576"},"modified":"2011-12-03T14:49:58","modified_gmt":"2011-12-03T21:49:58","slug":"thoughts-on-kickstarter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/thoughts-on-kickstarter\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on kickstarter"},"content":{"rendered":"

So as many of you know, I ran a kickstarter campaign as an experiment to see if I could raise enough money to fund my next release, Desert Stars<\/strong>.\u00a0 Over the course of the month, about a dozen people pledged over $300, but ultimately it wasn’t enough to meet the goal.<\/p>\n

First of all, I want to thank everyone who made a pledge or spread the word.\u00a0 I appreciate all of your support, no matter at what level.\u00a0 My biggest obstacle at this point is obscurity; without you, I’d never be able to overcome it.\u00a0 So thanks!<\/p>\n

While the campaign was a bit of a disappointment, I learned a lot from the experience.\u00a0 My strategy going in was to set a modest goal and give a variety of high-value rewards at various pledge levels.\u00a0 However, I didn’t do much to publicize the project, mostly because self-promotion makes me so uncomfortable.\u00a0 That was probably the biggest single reason why the support never reached a critical mass.<\/p>\n

If I were to do it again, I would work out a plan for the marketing and publicity before launching the campaign.\u00a0 I would also run the campaign for a longer period of time and talk about it more, just to make sure people are aware of it.\u00a0 Also, I would try to get an endorsement from someone with an established audience that overlaps with my own.\u00a0 It’s hard to tell people you’re awesome, but if someone else who is awesome tells them, they’re much more likely to believe it.<\/p>\n

Will I ever do a kickstarter campaign in the future?\u00a0 Probably, but only after I’ve built my fanbase a little more.\u00a0 Kickstarter isn’t a good way to launch if you don’t already have a devoted following.\u00a0 Like everything at this point, it’s a catch-22.\u00a0 In order to be successful, you have to be noticed.\u00a0 In order to be noticed, you have to be successful.\u00a0 Obscurity is the biggest obstacle, and there’s no sure way to overcome it besides trying and failing until something finally works.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, while the kickstarter campaign was a bit of a setback, it’s not going to prevent me from releasing the book.\u00a0 I’ve secured an alternate source of funding, and should be able to have it out by January if not before.\u00a0 As a gesture of gratitude to everyone who made a pledge, I’ll send you a free copy once it’s out.<\/p>\n

Thanks so much!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So as many of you know, I ran a kickstarter campaign as an experiment to see if I could raise enough money to fund my next release, Desert Stars.\u00a0 Over the course of the month, about a dozen people pledged over $300, but ultimately it wasn’t enough to meet the goal. First of all, I… Continue reading Thoughts on kickstarter<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[44],"tags":[89,42,639,659,599],"class_list":["post-6576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ds","tag-career-decisions","tag-frustrations","tag-kickstarter","tag-obscurity","tag-thoughts-reflections","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-1I4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6576"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6580,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6576\/revisions\/6580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}