Fund your dream with Crowdfunding!

Lemme throw the “I want to publish my book” equation at you.

  

Line editing $6,000 + Limited income +

Printing  $1,500 + Mortgage +

Illustrator $3,500 +    =      1.5 kids +

Marketing $2,000 + Car Payment 

 ------------------------------                   --------------------------
                      $12,000                           ( -$57.23 + X)

                               How do you solve for X?

The answer is:

1. Marry a millionaire
2. Sell a kidney
3. Win the Lotto
4. Crowdfunding.

If you chose a-c, more power to you but the only answer that does not require drugs or luck is crowdfunding.

But what is crowdfunding?

Think of crowdfunding as gift giving on a global scale.

It is not venture capital investing, where you must show a profit. Nor are you selling your rights to your work. With crowdfunding, Individuals from around the world offer donations to your project, prior to publication, in exchange for a gift.

A gift?  Like a set of purple earphones?

Not exactly. 

If you’re a writer you might offer to “give” your benefactors a signed copy of your book for $20 that will cost you $10 per book to publish.  The gap between the cost and the donation is what you use to fund your editing, printing, cover design etc.

With my AR graphic novel, The Goths, I offered my benefactors the opportunity to play one of the characters in the Augmented Reality elements.  For a lesser amount we would name a character in the book after them or have their artwork used as graffiti in the background of a scene.  

So how do you go about crowdfunding?

First choose an online crowdfunding service.  Here is a list of just some of the more popular sites.

Kickstarter

Indiegogo

Rockethub

Gofundme

Do your research.  Not all the services are the same or charge the same percentage.  
Kickstarter uses an all or nothing model where you only receive funds (minus their fees) if you meet or exceed your funding target.   They are also the most well known crowdfunding site but they don't accept every project that is submitted.

Indiegogo has a flexible funding option where you receive all the funds contributed minus fees regardless of your funding target.

I chose Indiegogo over Rockethub for my "Smittens Says" campaign because it requires fewer clicks to make donations.

After you  choose your crowdfunding service, then you get "jiggy with it."

1. You create a project proposal including a synopsis, pictures, list of team members
2. record a pitch video.  That’s right.  It’s you talking, juggling your dog or pony.   Whatever fits your personality and your project just as long as it’s you.
3. create a list of gifts that people will want, your book, their name in the credits...etc. 
4. establish a paypal account
5. upload your proposal
6. market online 
7. keep marketing
8. prod friends to share your link **
9. prod them harder 
10. add project updates that include "George Clooney wants to play the lead role"
11. prod your friends with your boot, a hot fire poker and pepper spray **
12. get funded!!!

Twelve easy steps.  That's all it takes!

Lemme know if you launch a campaign.  I promise to share.  I hate pepper spray.  

** Shares are essential for any chance of success.  "Likes" won't get anyone to your campaign.  The key to funding success is volume, so you need to reach beyond your own sphere of influence.  You need the 6 degrees of online friends to achieve success.  So even if your close friends don't back you with money... REAL friends SHARE!

Happy New Year! Turbo Monkey Resolutions

by Ellen

It’s that time of year again.  You know, that time when we reflect on the past year and make promises to ourselves for the New Year . . . a resolution!

People have been making resolutions since the time of Julius Caesar, way back in Ancient Rome. The Romans believed in a god called Janus. Janus had two faces, one looking backward into the past, and one looking forward into the future. The Romans would ask Janus for forgiveness if they had done wrong in the previous year, and then make resolutions for behaving better in the New Year. And if you didn’t know, our month January is named after the Roman god, Janus.

Resolutions come in all shapes and sizes. Some are based more on luck, like resolving to win the lottery. Others are more realistic, like resolving to save money for a special writer’s conference that you really want to attend. And then we have the most popular resolution: to lose weight. But we won’t go there, not on New Year’s Eve, with New Year’s Day Dinner still ahead.

What about writers and illustrators and their New Year’s resolutions? Most people visiting the Monkey tree house are writers, so perhaps you’ve given a resolution some thought. The Monkeys have, and I’d like to share them with you.

Amy:  I resolve to create a writing schedule and write regularly . . . instead of only when the mood strikes me.

Craig:  I resolve to make a million dollars this year by creating a Trans-media company that creates printed books with Augmented Reality, wildly enhanced e-books, whimsical apps and web based TV series.

Ellen:  I resolve to move on and write a new book.  T.S Eliot best put it, "For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning."

Hazel: To finish more often.

Julie:  My resolution stems from Terri Farley's wise words about how people around us will only take our dreams/efforts as seriously as we ourselves do. I want to draw some more boundaries and shake up my schedule to mesh with my goals. I need to make the pie chart that represents "how I spend my life" be more in line with the pie chart you'd see for "what matters to me."

Kristen: I hope to finish a rough draft of my current WIP by March 20th.

Marilyn:  In 2013 I want to finish the projects that I began in 2012, take a class in an aspect of writing I've never explored before (e.g., screenwriting), and read more than I do now in the genres I write. This all means that I'll need to use my internet time more efficiently and cut down on my TV obsessions (i.e., Shark Tank, Real Housewives). Or maybe I'll record them instead ;) 

Sarah:  My resolution will be to write through more than I have. I've always been that person who revises and revises those first few chapters. Pounding out the rough draft of Valiant last summer drove home the value of getting the entire draft down before revising. (Of course, I spent a lot of time thinking about it before I wrote it.)

So there you have it, our New Year’s Resolutions over here at the tree house. We hope you drop by next year, but for now, all the Turbo Monkeys are wishing you and your loved ones a very healthy, happy and prosperous New Year!