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12 hours left on my animated short project. Currently 71% to goal. I'm expected a large pledge later in the evening, so it will probably be cutting it pretty close. http://kck.st/LvZPHv
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Aug 16, 2012 04:46
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13 hours left in my campaign. We're definitely not gonna reach our goal amount, but it's a flexible funding campaign, and every little bit helps. We've currently raised enough to pay off the majority of our equipment costs, which means we'll be able to shoot at least some scenes of the film. Here's the campaign page again: http://www.indiegogo.com/siobhanfilm We have rewards starting at $10.
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Aug 16, 2012 20:01
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 Kickstarter Link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/awesomerobo/awesomerobo-apparel About Us Hey guys, we just launched a Kickstarter for a tshirt line created by 3 goons (and goonettes) and 2 friends, in collaboration with a bunch of up and coming comic book artists from around the web. I'm a game developer as my main job (Torchlight 1&2, Defense Grid, unannounced stuff), but have been wanting to launch a shirt line on the side and continue work on a website I run with volunteers called Awesome-Robo.com Rewards And Funding Goal Funding goal: We're hoping to raise $2000 to fund the rest of the shirts in time for a convention in October that we pooled our money together to attend in October. (Austin Comicon). Even $1 will help our little dream come true! Rewards: Shirts! The designs are screenprinted on 100% cotton, preshrunk tees. Some reward tiers also have awesome postcards with a drawing from myself.  Tshirt DESIGNS DOOM! By Dan Hipp  Crazy Fox by Daniel Bressette (aka ClearlyWrong)  Rollus (Samus+Roll from Megaman) by Corew Lewis  Fight! By Omocat  Robopanda by Pac23  Thank you guys in advance for any support, and thank you ExtraNoise for the thread. This project has been a year in the making, and a lot of love has been put into this.  27 days to go!http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/awesomerobo/awesomerobo-apparel The Scarlet Hot Dog fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Aug 18, 2012 |
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Aug 17, 2012 05:12
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The Scarlet Hot Dog posted:Thank you guys in advance for any support, and thank you ExtraNoise for the thread. This project has been a year in the making, and a lot of love has been put into this. Very well put together campaign. I hope you have some stretch goals in mind.
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Aug 17, 2012 13:32
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:Very well put together campaign. I hope you have some stretch goals in mind. We just decided to start working on some to add in a upcoming weekend update based off of some suggestions. I honestly did not see this coming. I'm kind of floored at the response, thank you to all contributing goons for your generosity! A lousy week has been made much better. 
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Aug 18, 2012 02:53
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 3 Days To Gohttp://www.indiegogo.com/oldcollege We've hit our funding goal, and more! We're $500 over our $3000 goal, but the fundraising campaign is gonna be over very very soon. This means this will be the last time to get in on the deals that we've got going. $15 gets you a 140 page B/W comic anthology with 15 different stories, AND a 22 page fully water colored issue #1 of Afterman. These prices will not last at all, and all of our first editions that are gonna get printed will be sold at Cons. This is very likely your only chance to get one of our first editions/ $35 gets you double first rewards, a special thank you in each book, 2 8x5 promo cards, and we sign yo poo poo! $50 gets you tier 2, AND A T-SHIRT LIKE SHITTTT MY GODDDD. These prices are stoop! So take advantage of our ill-thought generosity and make us really put in those godawful hours signing all your books and shipping everything. But really, we just want to see our books in the hands of awesome readers, we really hope you take advantage of the now pre-order status on your books because it'll be more difficult to get you reading in the future when the prices inevitably go up. Thanks for reading!
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Aug 28, 2012 22:22
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Hey Artlovers, Artists, people needing money and alike- Just wanted to put a feeler out there to people who are looking for a new web-series to follow from its origination (at its singularity if you will). My girl and I invented a story based off her experiences working as a Party Princess. It's both a work-place (job I hate) type comedy, but also has some fantasy twists. I'm happy to report we were successful on our recent Kickstarter campaign so I'm not even begging for money here! I'm simply seeing what people on this forum might think of the idea, and whether you would consider imbibing the first episode when we have it available. Here is the link to our finished campaign: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joshbed/crowned-a-comedy-fantasy-web-series-about-princess We are also on Twitter: @CROWNED_series and will be having a blog where we post our episodes, behind the scenes vids, give-aways, and fun things. If you think this discussion belongs in another thread or forum, please let me know which one. peace and princess magic, ifoundkitty
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Sep 1, 2012 01:02
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 Fine art prints inspired by the TV show Breaking Bad! Kickstarter here! Blog here! So what's the goal of this whole thing? We're looking to have a run of at least 250 prints made from a series of five charcoal drawings. At 16x20, the prints alone will cost us over $2500 to produce. Add in the cost of scanning, shipping, and packaging, and that number looks more like $5500. I think this is a reasonable goal based on the popularity of the show, and the quality of these drawings. Who are we? Caitlin Stewart is an incredibly talented professional artist with over a decade of experience and training. She loves what she does, and I think she's very good at it. This series of drawings started after I introduced her to the show, and she was hooked. The show made her want to draw. After doing a couple of sketches I realized that there was a huge community of fans that would love these types of drawings. So now I'm doing my part to support her and spread the word about this awesome series of charcoal drawings. Rewards! I think the rewards we've come up with are really cool. Anyone that chips in ten bucks or more will receive an awesome postcard with one of the first two designs. Here is a digital proof provided to us by the print company we're working with to have the postcards made.  For $45 we'll send you a copy of one of the five prints, along with a postcard. The prints will be 16x20 (potentially 18x24 if we're able to raise enough), printed on high quality matte finish paper. We've had test prints produced by a local print studio here in Philadelphia and they look really good considering we were working with a low quality source image. After having digital scans made the prints will look even better.  Next we have part of the creation process! These artist mock-ups are used to determine perspective, scale, and tonal balance of the final piece. They're also pretty badass. They're on pieces of 6x9 sketch paper, and anyone donating $100 will receive one of these mock-ups along with the corresponding print, and a postcard!  Finally we have the original pieces of art themselves. I almost want to just keep them and hang them up around our apartment. Seriously, they're that cool. But for $300 you can have one of the original pieces, a print, and a postcard. $300 may sound like a lot, but the amount of work that goes into making these is pretty insane, and they're definitely worth it.  We just launched yesterday and we're already nearing $500 in donations. I'm pretty confident that the project is going to be funded, but I'd love for goons to get in on the action. I'd love to hear any suggestions or answer any questions that people might have. The Breaking Bad thread in TVIV was hugely helpful in putting this project together, so I feel like I owe you guys something. Thanks! Update: So we're now over $1400, which is about 25% of the way towards our goal after only 3 days. We're getting a lot of amazing donations coming from this thread. I just want to seriously say thank you to every goon that supports us. Reminds me exactly why I love this community so much. You guys are awesome. Dr. Wright fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Sep 3, 2012 |
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Sep 1, 2012 01:27
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We need votes fast! Please help us win the GOOD magazine contest promoting recycling and reuse of e-waste. It is a mixed media art show consisting of music, video, sculpture, writing, and A.R.G. elements. We are stuck in second place. All we need are votes. The contest ends in under 24 hours. Vote Here The Lost City of Abstractus  http://diggingthefuture.com quote:*In June of 2012, an outdated piece of technology was found embedded in the concrete behind Bearno’s in the Highlands of Louisville, Ky. It didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary at first. Management says they have no idea where it came from or how it got there. They had difficulty removing it and found that it was attached to something much larger. A team was called in to examine, which led to archaeologist Dr. Eti Visiony beginning an excavation.  quote:Items that can be brought in for discounted admission: More photos and entrance to the story at the project blog http://diggingthefuture.com Please please please vote for us here: Vote Here
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Sep 5, 2012 00:26
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I'm doing a little Kickstarter to try to create a line of plush toys based on a character from my comic: It's my first attempt at Kickstarter and merchandising in general. I've already gotten the prototype and have the production company ready to do a small run if the Kickstarter goes through. The hardest part was coming up with the reward tiers, since other than "one of them toys there" I didn't really know what else to offer.
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Sep 5, 2012 07:20
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ZnCu posted:I'm doing a little Kickstarter to try to create a line of plush toys based on a character from my comic: It's a good looking plush toy, and the shot where he's leering over the blue robot was goofy in a great way. I think you would have really benefited by getting a tripod and a slider to do a more professional video. Showing us the product is half the objective. Who are you? What inspired you to make this rust monster plushy? This is an incredible opportunity to get people to notice not only this one product, but you and your brand. Don't squander it. quote:The hardest part was coming up with the reward tiers, since other than "one of them toys there" I didn't really know what else to offer. Accessories. Make unique themed hats at the $100 level. Construction hat, pirate hat, ninja mask, tripoint cap, chefs hat, baseball cap, etc. The only thing better than a cute goofy thing is one with a silly hat on it. At the $150 level, include a Bag of Dice Holding that has velcro that attaches to his hands or on his back or something.
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Sep 8, 2012 19:42
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Howdy goons! A good friend of mine, and quite a talented costume designer/creator, is currently busting her rear end off in a lovely job at a bridal store with a poo poo manager. What she would love to do would be to create costumes and accessories for people, and from her experience at conventions and the like she's fairly sure she could do quite well, but she can't devote herself to it when she's spending 50+ hours a week being unappreciated at work. Thing is, to get off the ground, she would need the funds to upgrade her sewing equipment, cover material costs and general expenses for the short term. So in the hopes of getting things going, she's turned to Indiegogo, Kickstarter's poor cousin. While it has friendlier funding options for users, it just doesn't have the userbase or community that Kickstarter has, so projects tend to have a harder time getting the attention they deserve. That's where you fine folks come in! http://www.indiegogo.com/SilverLotus I'm sure we've all had lovely jobs, and dreams of what we really wanted to do, so I bet a lot of you know how she must feel. I'm hoping to get the word out while the campaign is still going, help her get her dream off the ground. I've already contributed as much as I could spare, so all that's left is to reach out to bigger communities. So click this link, check it out, donate if you feel like it, or just spread the word to others you think might want to help or be interested. She does really fantastic work, I can personally attest to her skill. Thanks to everyone who takes the time to click, and even more to those who donate!
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Sep 9, 2012 04:03
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:Accessories. Make unique themed hats at the $100 level. Construction hat, pirate hat, ninja mask, tripoint cap, chefs hat, baseball cap, etc. The only thing better than a cute goofy thing is one with a silly hat on it. Cripes, that's a brilliant idea. I hope it's not too late.
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Sep 9, 2012 07:36
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Just a little update on the fine art prints inspired by Breaking Bad posted earlier in the thread. The Kickstarter link is here. So we're 10 days into the project, and we've raised a very respectable $1660! I'm pretty happy with the progress so far, but we're going to need to get the word out to keep up with our goal. A lot of our donations have come from goons, which is truly awesome! If you or anyone you know wasn't able to snag a print from the Breakinggifs series of posters, this is a chance to own some awesome art inspired by Breaking Bad. Any help spreading the word about the project would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!
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Sep 11, 2012 05:11
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Dr. Wright posted:
If you haven't been keeping up with the show, just be careful with that link because there's a pretty big spoiler illustrated.
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Sep 11, 2012 12:24
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I am one half of a two man band. I'm out of the country for the foreseeable future, and we need high quality band pictures! I need someone who is very good at photoshop to piece together some high res band photos for us. We need them within the next couple of days. Because we are starting from scratch, you can tell us what you need from us for source images. I am willing to pay decent money for these services, let me know what you think is reasonable. Thanks! band at heavymeta dot net
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Sep 12, 2012 13:55
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Iucounu posted:I am one half of a two man band. I'm out of the country for the foreseeable future, and we need high quality band pictures! If you don't get much of a response from this thread (pretty much used for crowdfunding projects) you can try http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=1450923 or just making a new thread in SA-Mart.
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Sep 12, 2012 15:27
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So, a guy I know is doing his thesis film project and would like some money to help with it. Being his thesis film, it's pretty drat important and will really help him in later life if it is as good as he knows he can make it. Its a film called Brain Matters and is a dark comedy based very loosely around the true story of a pathologist who stole Albert Einstein's brain, except in the film the brain communicates with him telepathically, which probably didn't happen in real life. Anyway, here's a link so you can read about it for yourself and donate. The rewards are fairly normal stuff, but if you donate $50 or more he does swear he will give you a backrub if you're ever in Arizona.
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Sep 14, 2012 00:21
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http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/893449238/reality-not-included-comic-anthology So a group of university friends and acquaintances started talkin' months ago like they were gonna do a big collaborative anthology comic/illustration collection, compile all our work and get it printed into a book. Now, these types of student group projects have a tendency to go the way of "Goon Projects", so I was cynical at first and kind of poked fun. Somehow, despite my sarcasm, they still listed me as a contributor. Imagine my surprise when, several months later, things started to come together and they went and put together a Kickstarter. I was pretty surprised and a bit sheepish since I was the rear end in a top hat who was giggling at it all and in the meantime some of these guys and girls have produced some really cool-looking stuff. Additionally, they reached out and got some of our alumni at Dreamworks, Disney, Laika as well as some video game concept artist alumni to add in too. It's turned into a really neat collection of art that runs the full gamut of "student art" from beginner to freshly minted industry professional. Some people produced mini-comics while others have done a few illustrations. I have a couple illustrations I'll be adding in. The Kickstarter is to get the book printed to give the contributors something to showcase at expos, primarily CTN. Digital pdfs of the book as well as physical copies (starting at the $30 tier), as well as posters and such are the main rewards. There aren't any huge names in here that you'll recognize, but if you like collecting art books or throwing a bone to some students who are really working hard of their own initiative to get somewhere with their art, then maybe it's worth it to you to chip in and get some arts? In any case, by helping it succeed, you'll make me personally look even more like a bit of an rear end, so everybody wins!  Edit: I'm credited as Worth Dayley, by the way. https://instagram.com/mutatedjellyfish/ mutata fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Sep 14, 2012 |
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Sep 14, 2012 04:47
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District is a brand-new goon-run online literary journal. We have many contributors booked through the month of October, but we don't want to run out of steam. Please check out our site for our initial feature of five poets, three fiction writers, and one installation artist. Q: How often will new content be added? A: We will feature two artists a month, up to eight fiction writers, and up to ten poets. All content will be archived in its appropriate section and searchable. Q: Are you online-only? A: For now, yes. We would like to publish an annual best-of print anthology at some point in the future. That's a bit far off, though, for now. Q: What makes you different? Aren't there like a billion literary journals out there? A: Of course there are. What makes us different is accessibility. We publish what we consider to be the best work out there. Sure, some of our writers are Pushcart Prize nominees, but this does not influence our editorial process. Several of our October contributors will have their work published for the first time, and we are extremely happy about that. Q: Who are you? A: We are a three-woman editorial staff based in Georgia and Texas. You can find us on the About page. We are in the process of adding links to our websites, so check it out in the future. (Not posted yet as of Monday morning CST, USA). If you have any questions, email them to editor@districtlit.com. We also tweet using colorful language.
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Sep 26, 2012 14:57
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The Pandabot, a friendly affordable 3d printer for designers, students, architects and artists Basically, the Pandabot is a 3d printer that was conceived from the beginning to be an well priced, aesthetically pleasing, easy-to-use 3d printer for designers and average consumers. Since we had that in mind, all of our design decisions are based around ensuring that the machine is easy to use (self-calibration, very low vibration, very quiet, plug-and-play), while also using manufacturing techniques that allows us to build these at such a low price that ordinary students can afford to own one. Our lead designer is a former architect, so he has made sure that this Panda looks amazing in an office or in a home environment without sacrificing the ease-of-use. (The video at the kickstarter explains) As well, we designed this so there isn't a need to build anything, you just pop the two pieces together, plug it into a computer, and off you go. We were featured on BNN: When we got there, we had taken the Pandabot by a very bumpy taxi ride and had minutes to get it up and operational for the live show. Everything literally worked like a charm, and it was printing while I did the interview. We also were featured by the National Post in Canada. Basically, because we are a group of individuals from Toronto trying to get this scaled enough that we can take advantage of the great 3d printing community in Toronto to expand 3d printing in general. Any support is wonderful, if you want to get a pandabot of your own, there is a support level that will help us with the tooling we need to produce these, or you can simply get a t-shirt with our upcoming logo on it, or even getting a sticker to show your support. I'd love to get this baby into the hands of some goons and see what they could do with it.
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Oct 5, 2012 16:27
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I'm working on an application prototype that I want to try a Kickstarter on. It's a web application that's looking to mix notetaking and Getting Things Done style task management in a way that's hopefully faster and less time consuming to organize than current offerings. Either way, it's a bit of a hail mary before I have to go back to work with a second kid on the way and a need for income. That said, I'm Australian, which makes it difficult to get on Kickstarter. The processes I've seen to get on there, such as getting an American Credit Card, setting up an LLC, all sorts. Quite frankly it seems beyond me and I don't have cash to burn on it either, merely time to work on my product. Is there any other way to get on Kickstarter, be it partnering up with a contract to someone who can act as a proxy for me or whatever. There are of course alternatives but the advantage from being on Kickstarter with an established and trusted crowd-funding brand seems undeniable.
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Oct 11, 2012 00:09
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 Do you want to help The Goon become an actual movie? (Done by my workplace, Blur Studio?) Kickstarter here! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/624061548/the-goon-movie-lets-kickstart-this-sucker
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Oct 12, 2012 17:44
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We've just launched a campaign on IndieGoGo for our indie film, Panic. We're hoping to raise 20k in a little more than a month, and you can help us do it! We shot a concept trailer over a weekend which is tacked onto the end of the campaign video, so please check it out. Panic is a thriller focusing on Gordon Mannis, a man framed for a serial killer's murder. He's quickly hunted by both the police and the serial killer. Suffering from debilitating panic attacks as all forces close in, he struggles to survive the night in order to clear his name. I'm the DP on the project, so let me know if you have any questions about our gear or anything. This was my favorite shot from the trailer:  Here's an album of a few more shots. And you can find a few cast/crew photos on the IndieGoGo gallery.
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Oct 17, 2012 16:13
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Lanithro posted:We've just launched a campaign on IndieGoGo for our indie film, Panic. (I know you're just the DP, but this is a critique of the crowdfunding campaign so most of it is probably for the producer/campaign manager) The good: You have a video. The filmmaker talks to his prospective donors about the project. The rewards won't consume a majority of the money donated. You offer some insight into the tone of the film. The not so good: Your project is based in the US, but you're on Indiegogo. You're going to get significantly fewer projects views than if you launched on Kickstarter. Therefore you need to have a much higher donation rate to make up for this. You have a flexible funding campaign. This tends to project insecurity about the project (at best). This is further muddled in the campaign description by saying that the $20k is actually seed money to take to a production studio or something in hopes someone will match it to increase the budget further. Or if you only raise $20k, you will make it for this microbudget amount. What if you only raise $5k? What happens then? Can you deliver the same kind of film you pitched? Probably not. You have a 45 day campaign. Shorter campaigns tend to do better than longer ones. All campaigns suffer from a lull in the middle, so all that's happening is you're having a longer lull period. The first few days and the last few days are all that matter for the majority of campaigns. I think the filmmaker pitch could have used a few more takes. He's nervous, and that's fine because he's a behind the camera person. But you can work on it and do it a few times until it's just solid. It's just like a scene in a movie: he's the actor, he has a script, and he has to nail his beats. It's not worth taking chances over. The concept trailer tries to do too much. The stills look good, but the video is handheld, the audio (especially in the fast food place) is troublesome, and the fight scene is unconvincing. Again, I think a well rehearsed single scene that let you focus on the acting and tone would have served you better. The interaction in the car has eye line problems (driver is looking at someone in the back seat). You've got a shot if you have a really in depth marketing plan to pimp this campaign. If you're just linking it on facebook, you're probably not going to raise more than $3,000. Good luck.
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Oct 17, 2012 17:19
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^ Super helpful, thanks. I'll pass this onto the team so we can make some adjustments.
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Oct 17, 2012 17:40
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My first venture into this crowd funding thingie (in Australia so had to go with indiegogo): Anti-mold lens caps! http://igg.me/p/257095?a=1636811  Any questions/suggestions? Somebody fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Oct 18, 2012 |
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Oct 18, 2012 09:24
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doczoid posted:My first venture into this crowd funding thingie (in Australia so had to go with indiegogo): A video would be a good idea. Your rewards are also kind of abstract. Pay money now for a discount later isn't as easy a sell as pay money now for the product later. Why not pick a few common lens cap sizes and give $20 donors one of their choice? Any reason why you are going with flexible funding? You can still do fixed funding on IG. What if you don't raise enough to hit the MOQ amount?
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Oct 18, 2012 14:36
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I shot the pledge video for this band as well as their past two music videos. They're trying to raise money to fund the next album and video. 17 days to go and (counting a cash donation off the site) we're just at about 50%. This is a pretty interesting thread, and I'm trying to write up some suggestions and send it over to my pals, but if you fine folk would give it a gander and give me some feedback (or hey, donate!) then I'd really appreciate it. Hudson K's page.
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Oct 18, 2012 19:55
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I've launched a Kickstarter for a tabletop role playing game: Base Raiders is based on material from my campaign, the Heroes of New Arcadia, from the RPPR Actual Play podcast. This is a full standalone RPG, based on the FATE RPG system. $15 gets you a PDF and $30 gets you a book.
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Oct 20, 2012 19:28
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 Anyone remember Neovella? If not, good! I'm launching https://www.pen.fm soon as a reincarnation of Neovella, and more! Presently, self-publishing poses a number of technical hurdles, and Amazon is going to cut out a minimum of 30% of your revenues for every sale of an ebook. With PenFM, I'm building a social writing/reading network where you can provide feedback in real-time to writers, and see them write their stories in real-time. At any point, readers can buy an e-reader ready copy of your story, and PenFM will handle the grunt work. Help democratize publishing once and for all! http://www.indiegogo.com/penfm?c=home&a=1527205
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Oct 26, 2012 01:44
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The Tragic Hero posted:
I loved Neovella back in the day, i will be dropping some bucks on this.
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Oct 26, 2012 09:41
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The Tragic Hero posted:
I don't know anything about online publishing. The quality of the video leaves a lot to be desired. Inconsistent cellphone footage of a bunch of caricatures using your product is not a convincing demo. The title sequences are very low effort: no capitalization, buzzwords, etc. Finally, I don't know why you need $25K. Did medical bills just pop up? Someone about to get evicted? Those are things that people can relate to. But if you just want to get paid for doing something you're going to do anyway, that's a much harder sell. Is this a social game? The video makes it seem like this guy starts off writing something, then gets trolled, but enjoys being trolled and people dogpile on. I got a definite DrawSomething vibe from it. There also seems to be a timer that counts down when people are writing. I would have preferred a straightforward video that talks about the service and showcases a serious collaborative effort. But then I realized that you can pretty much do that with Google Drive + Gchat right now. But then in the IG campaign it talks about publishing. Apparently Amazon charges too much for self-publishers, but I didn't see specifics on how much your site will charge. As rewards you offer publishing credits, but what do those get you? What are the legal ramifications of me trying to sell a work that both myself and another person worked on? Even if you are cheaper than Amazon, how will you measure up in terms of exposure? While actually turning a word doc into an e-reader capable file is an obstacle for some authors, I bet the bigger reason they sign on to Amazon is because of the massive customer base. I think the social writing game idea is cool, and I think more publishing competition is cool. I just don't know about them being packaged together. And I guess I'm getting old, but the idea of creating another account on another website just makes me feel fatigued. Especially when it's a friend-circle setup, so not only do I have to make an account, I have to get my friends to as well.
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Oct 26, 2012 16:31
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State of Goon Panhandling: In the past two years, goons have pimped 100+ projects. I weeded out campaigns that cancelled themselves (I think there were 3) and campaigns that goons were not attached to (just reposting from engadget, etc). Out of 68 projects on Kickstarter, 42 were successful (~62%). Out of 24 projects on IndieGoGo, 5 were successful (~21%). I was critical of 12 of the projects in this thread. None of them made their funding goals. I was optimistic for 5 of the projects in this thread. All but one met their funding goal. I hope the takeaway here is to launch fixed funding campaigns with a polished video and a concise goal.
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Oct 26, 2012 17:20
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Yeah, IndieGoGo's Flexible Funding seems on paper to be awesome for campaign starters, but in reality it just looks like a cash grab. Despite my campaign succeeding at IndieGoGo, I would not choose to do that route again. I think Kickstarter has the appropriate visibility and brand recognition that is essential. My gut just says it more legitimate, and I think that's the tipping point campaigns need after you bleed your friends and family of their money haha.
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Oct 26, 2012 23:24
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:I don't know anything about online publishing. Collaborative writing is just one side of this beast, and honestly it's just the lesser, more marketable side for a crowdfunding campaign. Online publishing in its current state is a pretty big pain for would-be authors. Step 1 is writing content. How do you get feedback? How do you know if people will want to read it? Yeah, I guess you could send around a google doc and have friends and colleagues edit it, or communicate feedback via email once they've reviewed it. That's the conventional route, save for something like this that puts it all in one place for an asynchronous discussion on each part. With PenFM, if you opt to do so, you can crowdsource the feedback and have anyone jump in and let you have a piece of their mind on your content. If you just want a whitelist of trusted editors, that's offered as well. Having worked in epublishing, I've heard people gush over the idea of something like this. Editors would use it over the current alternatives. Step 2 is converting work into a format that's accepted by distributors, and namely the devices (Kindle, Nook, etc). It's a painful and long process if you want something that looks respectably formatted and clean. Going from a Word doc to these formats is not going to cut it. I've published and sold five ebooks on Amazon and B&N, and this is a silly process that should be automated. PenFM has you write in its own service and interface for a reason--I've automated the conversion process in way where at any point in writing, you can go straight from what you see to what you get--a perfectly formatted file you can put on your e-reader. Cover image, table of contents and all. Step 3 is distribution. As mentioned in part 2, distribution channels accept only a particularly-formatted file. On PenFM, if you choose to distribute elsewhere, it's again just that single click retrieval of your work. If the community grows large and well enough, and you happen to have a following (and we do author page type stuff to help you promote all your work), PenFM can grow to become a competitive distribution channel in its own right. The current model is an up-front fee per story/publication, and you get any format for current and all future editions of that document. A massive consumer base on Amazon isn't necessarily a gimme in terms of distribution. Their marketplace is swarmed with ebooks, and good marketing is the key to selling even a few copies. When you have a community, a following doesn't hurt you. So why 25k? Sure, operation costs are only 1-2k of that. We have two people on this team, and maintaining a service like this isn't a one-step. We're gunning for that amount so that we can spend several months without needing to take our attention off of this single project. There will be bugs to fix, consumer feedback to address, and unforeseen opportunities. Thank you for the skepticism and feedback. A friend of mine who alerted me of it wasn't as receptive, but it's a great deal of what's likely to come for us when talking the idea through to prospective users and perhaps investors. Thanks for that.
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Oct 27, 2012 04:22
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The Tragic Hero posted:Step 1 is writing content. How do you get feedback? How do you know if people will want to read it? Yeah, I guess you could send around a google doc and have friends and colleagues edit it, or communicate feedback via email once they've reviewed it. That's the conventional route, save for something like this that puts it all in one place for an asynchronous discussion on each part. With PenFM, if you opt to do so, you can crowdsource the feedback and have anyone jump in and let you have a piece of their mind on your content. If you just want a whitelist of trusted editors, that's offered as well. Having worked in epublishing, I've heard people gush over the idea of something like this. Editors would use it over the current alternatives. That might have been the state of Google Docs a few years ago, but right now I can create a Google Doc, share a link to it to anyone, and those people can read/edit it according to my desires. There is a comments section in the document that gives you asynchronous communication, and you can always use Gchat (with video/voice options) for faster feedback. The crowdsourcing of feedback is interesting in theory, but consider that some of the more popular websites that do this feature an internal currency model that requires a writer to review other work before they're allowed to get feedback on their own. I've always assumed this is because people are more interested in their own work than someone else's. Do you think that's accurate, and if so how do you reconcile that with your system that doesn't force people to participate before they solicit for reviews? quote:Step 2 is converting work into a format that's accepted by distributors, and namely the devices (Kindle, Nook, etc). It's a painful and long process if you want something that looks respectably formatted and clean. Going from a Word doc to these formats is not going to cut it. I've published and sold five ebooks on Amazon and B&N, and this is a silly process that should be automated. PenFM has you write in its own service and interface for a reason--I've automated the conversion process in way where at any point in writing, you can go straight from what you see to what you get--a perfectly formatted file you can put on your e-reader. Cover image, table of contents and all. This right here seems to be the most valuable part of your whole project. Have you considered launching a service that just does this? Or are there already plenty of sites that do this? quote:Step 3 is distribution. As mentioned in part 2, distribution channels accept only a particularly-formatted file. On PenFM, if you choose to distribute elsewhere, it's again just that single click retrieval of your work. If the community grows large and well enough, and you happen to have a following (and we do author page type stuff to help you promote all your work), PenFM can grow to become a competitive distribution channel in its own right. The current model is an up-front fee per story/publication, and you get any format for current and all future editions of that document. A massive consumer base on Amazon isn't necessarily a gimme in terms of distribution. Their marketplace is swarmed with ebooks, and good marketing is the key to selling even a few copies. When you have a community, a following doesn't hurt you. So an author could write their work on your site, utilize your ebook conversion process, then choose to publish it with your competitor? I'm operating under the assumption that the vast majority of a given PenFM author's sales will come from outside the site. If that's the case, then to cast the widest possible net they would publish on your site and Amazon. They'd then send out links to their fans on where to buy it. People are going to click on the Amazon link because they already have an account, they trust the site, etc. I agree that a massive consumer base doesn't guarantee sales, but it's the best starting position, all other aspects being equal. I'm incredibly skeptical that you're going to be able to form literary communities to rival the benefit of Amazon's exposure. quote:So why 25k? Sure, operation costs are only 1-2k of that. We have two people on this team, and maintaining a service like this isn't a one-step. We're gunning for that amount so that we can spend several months without needing to take our attention off of this single project. There will be bugs to fix, consumer feedback to address, and unforeseen opportunities. Then hopefully the pitch and the product are strong enough. quote:Thank you for the skepticism and feedback. A friend of mine who alerted me of it wasn't as receptive, but it's a great deal of what's likely to come for us when talking the idea through to prospective users and perhaps investors. Thanks for that. Yeah I have no qualms about putting you through the ringer. This needs to be done before you consider stepping in front of anyone who might give you money. Finally, I think you're missing at least one reward tier. You jump from $20 to $110. I'd add a tier around $50 and maybe one at $80? I also had a lot of questions regarding the rewards in my last post so I won't re-hash those. Good luck and thank you for having thicker skin than some.
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Oct 29, 2012 16:43
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:That might have been the state of Google Docs a few years ago, but right now I can create a Google Doc, share a link to it to anyone, and those people can read/edit it according to my desires. There is a comments section in the document that gives you asynchronous communication, and you can always use Gchat (with video/voice options) for faster feedback. The crowdsourcing of feedback is interesting in theory, but consider that some of the more popular websites that do this feature an internal currency model that requires a writer to review other work before they're allowed to get feedback on their own. I've always assumed this is because people are more interested in their own work than someone else's. Do you think that's accurate, and if so how do you reconcile that with your system that doesn't force people to participate before they solicit for reviews? I worked at an epublishing startup (where I soley developed their cloud reader webapp) previous to venturing off onto this route. We used GDocs, and the editors who I had claimed would gush about PenFM are the same who worked with GDocs professionally. One of the projects we almost build there was a WYSIWYG like PenFM's, and while the publishing team was in love with it, management over-ruled its financial feasibility. Yes yes, you pinterest can share a link to a number of trusted people. You can do the same with PenFM AND share on facebook twitter & email in order to get an experience that I'm not sure you're taking into account. That experience is of the less professional variety--one which helps would-be authors become more and more encouraged to continue writing their stories. Writing is HARD when you're just starting out, and it's a questionable use of time when you're not sure if you'll ever even be read. And again I think the key component here that really separates out GDocs from what I'm building is the entire community and social network side of things. In my co-writing startup, Neovella, the community really took off and matured so long as the site was maintained and bugs fixed. Unfortunately I ran out of savings to continue it (as a non-engineer), but I still get people contributing to stories on the site to this day because of the community aspect. I sent out an email to all users of that site telling them about PenFM and received in response a surprising amount of appreciation for continuing the work. Apparently, writing CAN be social, and when it is, people love to do it. quote:This right here seems to be the most valuable part of your whole project. Have you considered launching a service that just does this? Or are there already plenty of sites that do this? Such services exist. I did at some point consider building an API for it, as I'll have to do for PenFM use anyways, but there is a lot that can go wrong when you're not in control of such things as precise formatting. PenFM's enforcement of formatting rules is what makes this service do-able, and when you're that far along, why not put some social integration into it? Analytics from the social cloud reader I built for my previous employer really seem to indicate a lot of potential for these. quote:So an author could write their work on your site, utilize your ebook conversion process, then choose to publish it with your competitor? I'm operating under the assumption that the vast majority of a given PenFM author's sales will come from outside the site. If that's the case, then to cast the widest possible net they would publish on your site and Amazon. They'd then send out links to their fans on where to buy it. People are going to click on the Amazon link because they already have an account, they trust the site, etc. Yep, and in such a case they MIGHT have to pay up-front to do so privately and escape the community and public side of PenFM. The important part here for us and authors is that Amazon charges a MINIMUM of 30% of your royalties if you go with them. Consider the potential one-off fee for this service through PenFM to be PenFM's cut for distribution through us. And then they can very easily just push through Amazon/B&N with our provided file formats of their story, which is better for them to do than us because the money transfer side of things is much more difficult to manage if we have to do multiple logins just to get sales data at those distributors. quote:I agree that a massive consumer base doesn't guarantee sales, but it's the best starting position, all other aspects being equal. I'm incredibly skeptical that you're going to be able to form literary communities to rival the benefit of Amazon's exposure. Competing with Amazon is one of the many potential end-games for PenFM, but it's definitely not something I see happening short of "viral" growth (still skeptical about the concept) and perhaps a year out. Possible, but sure, unlikely. To this day, I really have not seen a movement online for writers or any large community for writers online, short of NanoWriMo, which is just a month-long thing. We're also going after writing competitions, to host their submissions for editing and feedback, and perhaps distribution as well. It makes these works a bit more public and actionable than spreading the GDoc love around to your contact list. quote:Then hopefully the pitch and the product are strong enough. Working on a new one now, to replace the current co-writing twist. Does "democratizing the publishing process" ring a better bell for you? quote:Yeah I have no qualms about putting you through the ringer. This needs to be done before you consider stepping in front of anyone who might give you money. Finally, I think you're missing at least one reward tier. You jump from $20 to $110. I'd add a tier around $50 and maybe one at $80? I also had a lot of questions regarding the rewards in my last post so I won't re-hash those. Thanks again for it. We'll consider the 50 and 80 tiers, but do you have any reasoning for these? We did a bit of research about indiegogo and kickstarter before deciding our perk pricing, and it seemed that after the $20 price point, people are in a different mindset of giving altogether where 110 isn't going to be out of the question. As for rewards themselves... the publishing credits are our internal currency for downloading stories. When you download a story in any format, you can continue to re-download that story in any format at any later time, as the books themselves get updated. For example, you find one which is promising but only 10 pages in. You can support it by downloading right then, and in exchange receive it at a later time without charge--the advantage being that it may be cheaper due to the length. Still pending the final decision on that, however. Cheers.
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Oct 29, 2012 21:03
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Kickstarter just launched in the UK, so I'm hopping on board and trying to get my webcomic in print! It's going pretty good so far, but the more the word is spread, the better! The Widdershins Kickstarter is GO! The most-magically charged city in England is in trouble, with invisible monsters caused by ill-formed spells roaming the streets, and wizards passing out by the dozen, stricken by some unknown ailment. Through coincidence, and perhaps a little intention, the fate of Widdershins rests in the hands of Jack O'Malley- A workshy vagrant who just happens to have the exact right gift needed to help, but no intention of doing so. Aided by a kindly German violinist and a fussy wizard who only barely scraped through his degree, he'll have to save the city- whether he wants to or not. I'm looking to fund Widdershins Volume 2, and here's the chance to help! It'd mean an unutterable amount to me and my business to have this book crowdfunded, it really would, so please take a look if you have time!
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Oct 31, 2012 19:48
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 I've also jumped on the Kickstarter bandwagon now that it's launched in the UK! The project (which I'm co-writing) is a 6-part audio sitcom called (as the above image suggests) A Brief History of Time Travel, and is pretty much as it sounds. Here's our official blurb: Thrown together by a combination of time, fate, and administrative error, accountant Eric Street, genius inventor Professor Miles Wanderlust and temporal enforcement agent Nina Seventeen find themselves stuck in the past with a broken time machine – and worse, stuck with each other. Cursed to jump randomly through human history, and pursued by Oscar Basingstoke, a bumbling temporal enforcer who’s never been that good with dates, the trio blunder their way through a variety of historical settings, trying not to cause too much damage and hoping that they’ll eventually make it back to the future – assuming there's still a future left when they get there. Our main influences are probably quite obvious just from the title - things like Red Dwarf, Hitch-Hiker's Guide and Doctor Who - and we'd be really grateful of any support you could give, whether that's backing the project or just sharing the link. We've written the first episode script and outlines for the rest of the series, we've got some professional actors involved, and we want to record it so that we can give it a proper release. The money from Kickstarter will go towards paying the cast and production crew (except us). Please ask questions if you've got any. The Kickstarter link is here: https://bitly.com/Sw9OhV and I've written more about why we're using Kickstarter here: http://chaos-theatre.tumblr.com/post/34696858468/a-note-from-behind-the-curtain Thanks!
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Nov 1, 2012 01:09
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