I’ve got at least one more crowdfunding post to do, I think–one that’s more about future projects for me rather than probably being wildly useful in general–but this one is comments from the crowd: things people have said/asked in comments on these posts. I’m not attributing them, but they will perhaps give you (the general “you”) an idea of what other things to think about when launching a crowdfund campaign.
I will add more questions and commentary to this if people have more to say. :)
On excitement/saturation levels, if the question is “So people don’t get frustrated if you keep mentioning a project that’s not available yet? They do this with ebooks, so one learns to not mention them until they can be ordered.”
The answer appears to be:
“Having frequent, excited mentions of it helped, because even if I forgot about the open kickstarter tab after first checking it out, it would have reminded me to poke at it again.”
and
I think the biggest reason why you got funded in the first 24 hours is the whole you were way excited before kicking it off and were mentioning it for *ages* here and on twitter. Yes, getting excited before it is even launched is very contagious.
And a piece of advice on that topic, from the person who kept encouraging me to talk about it even when I thought I was probably being really, really obnoxious:
If you are unsure if you are oversaturating your audience with the “All Kickstarter, All The Time” channel, ask. Ask them, ask a friend, ask a neutral party, etc.
From someone who’s supported others of my crowdfunded projects: I’m wondering how No Dominion stacks up to your other crowd funded projects from outside Kick Starter. This time was more exciting [for us] because of that feedback loop of being able to track how excited other readers were by the comments and pledges…
The words “blown out of the water” barely begin to apply. In my first post I talked about the dollar amounts I’d been paid for novellas in the past. The $4K was for “Banshee Cries”, the one ‘official’ novella I’ve done for Luna. The $3K and $3500 novellas were both Old Races stories done via crowdfunding. My Old Races Short Story Project took in about $4K over the entire course of 2011. So we’re talking orders of magnitude here, in terms of comparative successes.
I actually need to do a poll about that, because I’d *really like* to know what made ND get a response on such a phenomenal level. Was it because:
– it was Walker Papers instead of Old Races
– it was *Gary*
– it was Kickstarter
– you didn’t even know I’d ever run any other crowdfunded projects
– of where you heard about it
– because I wouldn’t shut up about it
and probably some other things I should add to that but can’t think of right now (suggestions welcome).
For me : it was *Gary*.
I’d done ORSSP last year as well, but I’d opted out of the prior crowdfunding for the Old Races (and wished I hadn’t, later on, since now I’m trying to scrape up the money for Baba Yaga’s Daughter instead of having gotten in on it earlier). I think my choice for why I went after No Dominion is mostly that it was Walker Papers though, since it is my favorite of your series. And the possibility of the short stories that went with it, since I always love more info on secondary characters.
I will agree that having you not shut up about it helped a lot too, since I did debate for a while over whether I had the money, and since you posted about it almost daily, I couldn’t forget about it.
I too bought in for all three, I think a the same level. But, I did upgrade when the Kickstarter rewards looked so crazy good at $25. If I was buying in I didn’t want to miss a single sentence you were going to write. Also buying a print Baba Yaga’s Daughter.
Am on a very, very limited income and your books are consistent excellent entertainment that I read again and again. Walker Papers more than Old Races, but that is a “so far” betting they even out long term.
Also hoping Catriona is pestering you for her trilogy!