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

It's all Kick(start)ing off!

We here at Donnelly Towers (that would be me and Midge)  are excited to announce the imminent launch of the Heroes Wanted Kickstarter project that I've been banging on about for the last god knows how long.
Well, to be honest, the dog couldn't give a monkey's about it but I'm excited.

But yes, it's here, the moment is almost upon us - next Saturday, the 13th of July 2013, I will press the Big Green Button on the Kickstarter site and the campaign will go live!

There should be all kinds of swag available, like t-shirts, bookmarks and even physical copies. Honestly, the prospect of holding a physical copy of a book I've written is one of the most exciting things about this whole enterprise! 
The main reason for the crowdfunding, besides just the opportunity to provide these cool add ons, is to help pay for professional editing (a very expensive business, in case you didn't know).
This is going to be very interesting, one way or another - let's see what happens!

Here we go!

It's all kicking off here at château Donnelly (note: I don't actually live in a castle)!
First of all, I've released an updated version of my first novel, Crystal Eyes, out into the wild - this version has fewer typos, a swanky new cover design and a deleted, bonus chapter!
If you've already bought it, I believe that deleting it and re-downloading it should get you the new version.
If you don't have it...well, I just don't know what to say to you. I'm deeply hurt. But you could make me feel better by going and buying a copy (go here for details)!

But that's not all! I'm finally ready to begin the Kickstarter campaign for Heroes Wanted - it should be going live within the next few days! 
This will let me get professional editing and provide cool swag like paperback versions, t-shirts and whatever else occurs to me! 
Keep an eye on the blog and my twitter feed to find out when it goes live.  Believe, you won't be able to miss it.
I'd be thrilled if you would join in with me on this little project and I'm very excited to finally release Heroes Wanted into the wild!