Kickstarter - a How To
Greetings, people of earth!
Since my Kickstarter project for Heroes Wanted is due to launch tomorrow (*flails arms around like Kermit*) I thought I'd throw together a quick blog post to explain how Kickstarter works for those unfamiliar with it.
Here's a link to the preview of the project if you want to see what I'm talking about.
Have a look round while you're there - there are some very cool projects you can become a part of. The first one I supported was the Snowgum Films production of Terry Pratchett's Troll Bridge - http://www.snowgumfilms.com/trollbridge/
Anyway, back to Kickstarter!
What happens is that I set a target that I want to reach over the course of the campaign - in the case of Heroes Wanted it will last for 30 days and I'm looking to raise at least £2000 (a little over 3000 USD at this point in time).
To do this, I've set up a series of reward tiers that I hope will entice you fine folks to pledge a certain amount.
For example: if you pledge £5 then, if the Kickstarter completes successfully, I will email you Heroes Wanted in all available eBook formats by the delivery date.
Now the thing to remember is that at this point it is just a pledge, no money is exchanged until the end of the 30 days and you can cancel your pledge at any time during that period (though I hope you won't, obviously!).
Once the 30 days are up, if the total number of pledges totals £2000 or more then the Kickstarter will fund - it is at this point that the money is taken from your account and transferred to me (after Kickstarter and Amazon have taken their cuts). After this, I'll send out a questionnaire via the Kickstarter website asking for any relevant information and I will start to organise the reward packages.
If we are wildly successful and sail breezily past my £2000 target with time to spare then I can set stretch goals - higher targets to aim at. For example, I could say that if we hit £5000 then I would hire a professional illustrator to do fancy artwork., and then I could create new reward tiers offering that artwork as a shirt or poster.
The stretch goals are an optional thing and not reaching them has no effect on whether or not the basic project gets funded.
That's it, in a nutshell, but if you've got any questions then you can get in touch with me via the contact form on the site, on Twitter or on Google+ and I will do my best to answer.
Thanks for your time, now let's do this! GRRRRRR!
(That was meant to be a manly growl type thing)
Allen