Sudden random Kickstarter/crowdfunding question, not that I’m actually planning to do this, I’m just curious:
Part of the hard thing about crowdfunding is figuring out how much you oughta ask for. I happen to believe in being pretty transparent about that sort of thing, hence my breakdown of why I was asking $4K for “No Dominion” (which really ought to be NO DOMINION now, but I can’t quite get over the quotes habit). And I’m watching the various price points set to Make It Go for other novellas, revisions projects, etc (all of which, btw, are the kinds of numbers I think I’d be asking for for those kinds of projects), and I’m wondering–
–well. Wondering where the line between “I think we can reach this dollar amount and Make It Go” and “If it goes at this dollar amount I’m selling my services very cheaply” lies. With a new project–say a brand-new novel series, just for the sake of argument–would I price it at approximately what I’d expect from a traditional publisher, that being what my time is apparently worth? Where, then, do you set the rollover point for “Yay, patrons have now bought themselves book TWO in this series!” Because that’s going to be a *much higher* point than just 2x what the first book cost. I mean, you’ve got to add in production costs, even if there’s not any print edition, you’ve got to consider the possibility you’re never going to sell this thing traditionally and may never make another penny from it, you have to think about a lot of detail work that isn’t necessarily something the reader would guess was part of the cost. Or do you run a whole different Kickstarter for book two? Or…or what?
The thing with Kickstarter, of course, is that it’s all or nothing, so if you’re in a position where nothing is worse than a low-all point, obviously it’s better to lowball and hope it goes higher than the base dollar amount you’re asking for. But this comes around to the whole e-book pricing issue: undervaluing your work, creating a scenario where the consumers expect EVERYTHING to be priced at $.99 regardless of how much work has gone into it, and in the long run that certainly doesn’t do me individually, nevermind the community at large, any good.
*waves hands* Discuss! Discuss! Because this is a topic of great interest not just to me, I suspect, but everybody who is running or thinking of running crowdfunding campaigns.
– continue work on webpage
– write the PRSI letter
– finish the tree house
– vacuum
– sign my name (literally) 1000 times with the above ink
– answer faith’s email
– go to bed early. for the love of god, go to bed early.