Great Crowdfunding News!

I'm excited to report: with just a couple of days to go in the Launch Curse Bearer Kickstarter Campaign, the small army of backers has reached the campaign's goal of $3500 worth of funding! As of Thursday morning, the amount raised tipped over the "success" level, so that means all of the marketing stuff I have planned for the book is a go. Of course, the campaign remains open to donations until midnight of the Saturday, September 15th, so if you or someone you know was still thinking of contributing, it's not too late. The one thing about advertising and marketing--there's no such thing as too much of it.

The crowdfunding trend is one I am finding very interesting. Projects tend to have excellent success or crash completely. From what I am seeing, it has about 20% to do with what the project actually IS and 80% to do with how that project is presented.

For example: a book project with a garbled description is pretty much doomed to failure. The general public seems to think, "Dude, if you can't even write a paragraph on your Kickstarter page, why would I read a whole book of your garbage?" Little do they know how incredibly hard it is to boil a book or a related fundraising campaign down to a few pithy paragraphs. To this day, I admire advertising copy writers for their skill in this.

If your video is one of you sitting on your futon with a blank wall behind you and your cat occasionally getting is the way...well, it's not going to go well. People want to feel like they are getting behind someone destined for success. I, honestly, was extremely worried about my video, because I know it lacked production quality (my fault for having to throw it together in a matter of a few days), but fortunately, it seemed to be just good enough to get people to hang with it.

And I don't think it's any coincidence that the most successful projects combine a completely "I never would have thought of that" concept with a hysterical video. We all like a laugh, and apparently, we'll throw money at people who make us smile. (Note to self--figure out how to be funny.)

In a time where so many of us are scraping as best we can to pursue our dreams, the crowdfunding trend seems to be an excellent option. That is, until so many people try it that it loses its novelty, and then we'll be looking for new options.

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