Crowdsourcing a print run?

What do people here think of the idea of using places like KickStarter to publish books? e.g. Asking for $50,000, and anyone donating more than $15 gets a copy from a self-published print run, and anyone donating more than $5 gets a ebook.

edited 12th May '12 5:47:21 PM by Yej

Isn't that... you know... kind of the point of Kickstarter: sell indie shit?

I mean, there's nothing objectionable about it. It doesn't exactly appeal to me personally, for various reasons, but I suppose I'd consider it if I thought it'd actually work.

edited 12th May '12 5:51:14 PM by Flyboy

Uh... it can work...

But, there are a few tips:

• Utilize what base you can drum up well by engaging them from the get-go.
• Get the news about through any channel you can think of.
• Nurse the drive carefully by actively looking after it and your backers.
• Keep the rewards interesting (and, keep some back from the start to produce throughout to keep people interested in updates: learn from Rich... plan the rewards, rather than create them on the fly).
• Graphs work for some demographics, but other non-reward, customer-interface incentives can be found.
• KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE.

Do all of the above, and there's no reason not to have success whatever the medium. But, the most important part is to already have some existing base to play to. Oh, and to actually like them helps.

Kickstarter is an amazing resource for people to help get their products off the ground, but as Euodia said, it requires planning to pull off effectively- knowing what incentives your demographic would like is a good research topic before you actually post the kickstarter, and trying to be as transparent as possible in where the money goes and the development of your project is I think one of the main conceits of Kickstarter

It takes work and planning but there's no shortage of success stories

Yeah looks like a good idea and as the others said, best to see what people want as their goodies before you do it.

I've seen a few authors do this, but they all had a level of fame even if it was from self/web publishing. But hey if people donate and you can cover the cost of the prizes go for it.

Well, it worked quite well for Order of the Stick, but that had a huge built in fanbase that had been constructed over a 9 year period.

It's not impossible, but you'll need an audience who will both know what you're doing (Kickstarter is getting bigger and bigger; it's harder to find random cool indie projects on it if you don't already know what you're looking for) and who will be interested in supporting your project. If you don't have that audience, and you don't have a hook to obtain one, Kickstarter might not really be viable.

Also, start small. Maybe with a $5000 print run. A lot of people may well see the $50000 tag you've listed here and conclude that it won't work, which will make them less likely to support it.

edited 19th May '12 5:56:32 PM by UCReview