Crowd-funding is becoming
more and more popular among people working in the arts—writers, musicians,
artists, film-makers—as a way of raising money for projects. Rather than going
to official funding bodies for money, artists worldwide are appealing directly
to audiences and readers through crowd-funding sites such as Kickstarter,
Pozible, Indiegogo, Zoshpit, and more.
In its essence, crowd-funding
is not a new concept, especially in literature: the subscription model of past
centuries, where investors clubbed together to publish books, is basically
similar. You could say in fact that it is thanks to crowdfunding that
Shakespeare's plays occupy their central place in our culture for the First
Folio was 'crowd-funded' by his friends and associates, not long after his
death, because they did not want to see his plays(which till then had been
circulating only in pirate editions)to die with him...
Modern crowd-funding has been
greatly facilitated by the fact of the internet, of course, which makes it very
easy for a wide circle of people to contribute to projects they believe in.
Basically how it works is lots of small investors(or several bigger ones)
contribute to your nominated project by pledging x amount of money, for which
they get y amount of 'perks' which depending on value range anywhere from a
simple 'thank you' to copies of the work, merchandise, all kinds of things.
Many thousands of people have raised money towards their projects that way. Not
only does it raise money, though: it also guarantees you sales, readership,
audience, and is a great promotion and publicity tool.
I'm in the middle of a crowd-funding
campaign right now, for a project dear to my heart and those of two artist
friends, David Allan and Fiona McDonald. Together, we've embarked on an
exciting adventure—the creation of our own small picture-book publishing house,
Christmas Press(motto: 'picture books to cherish every day'), with the launch
title being Two Trickster Tales from Russia.
The book comprises two traditional Russian folk-tales (Masha and the Bear; and
The Rooster with the Golden Crest) retold by me, illustrated by David in
beautiful classic Russian-influenced style, and elegantly designed by Fiona. Two Trickster Tales from Russia is the
project for which we're seeking crowd-funding towards printing costs, through
the Indiegogo site:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/first-christmas-press-picture-book
Christmas Press initially
began because we were frustrated by the fact that one of the stories from the
book, Masha and the Bear, which David and I had presented as a picture-book
project to several mainstream (and independent) publishers had been very much
praised but regretfully declined as not being commercial enough to fit
publishing lists focussed on bigger print runs and school sales. But we were
sure that such a classic-feel book would indeed have a market, especially a
gift market—people buying it for children and grandchildren, and nostalgic
readers as well—and as short run printing is very reasonably priced these days
in Australia, we decided to take a gamble and go ahead and publish it
ourselves, with another related traditional Russian story added. (Both the
texts, by the way, have appeared individually in children's magazines, so I
knew they had success with readers themselves.)
But another reason for
initiating Christmas Press was more general.
In our opinion there is a niche that isn't being filled at the moment by
any Australian publisher: retellings of traditional stories from all over the
world, beautifully and classically illustrated, for the whole family to share.
Instead of bemoaning that fact, why not be proactive and see if we could fill
that niche ourselves?
Crowd-funding our launch
title seemed a natural extension of our own small-scale, grassroots
approach—going straight to the readers. We researched the process extensively
before launching into it, because not every crowd-funding site is the same.
Early on, we dismissed the idea of Kickstarter, the most famous of the sites,
because you need a US bank account for that; and then it was a question of
deciding between two different types of crowd-funding model, the 'fixed' or
'all or nothing' model, which sites such as Pozible and Zoshpit(for musos) work
on, where you must reach your nominated funding target to be paid anything at
all (people who contribute to such projects get their money refunded if the
target isn't met and the project doesn't get up); and 'flexible' funding, which
Indiegogo functions on(though it also has a 'fixed funding' option if you
want.)
Flexible funding means you
get to keep the money raised, even if you don't reach your target, with a small
commission taken out by Indiegogo of course—the commission is slightly higher
if you don't reach your target than if you do. We chose the Indiegogo flexible
funding model because a/we had committed to our project going ahead,
regardless, had already started work on it and negotiated with the printer and
b/we felt that having contributors from the start who would not have to wear
the disappointment of the project not going ahead, was a much better look for a
brand new small publisher! What we felt was that even if we didn't reach our
target, the funds raised would help very much to defray the costs; the goodwill
and excitement generated too was very valuable indeed.
Once we'd decided on the
site, we signed up--it's free to do so—and started planning our campaign pitch.
This consists of a written pitch introducing your project and what exactly you're
seeking support for (in our case, printing and associated costs), as well as
images and a pitch video. You don't have to have pitch video, but all the
evidence is that campaigns work better where there is one. Some people have
very elaborate clips, but we chose to do it simply and cheaply: using images
from the book, a simple video-clip creating program (Windows Movie-Maker), a
little bit of text introducing us and the book, and some music(originally
written by my son for one of my own book trailers). The images speak for
themselves!
Then came the devising of the
list of the 'perks' to offer contributors, which is directly related to the
amount they fund you for. For instance, with ours, a $25 contribution gives you
a $25 perk of a signed copy of the book, posted anywhere in Australia(basically
a pre-order for the book), whilst a $50 perk consists of a signed copy of the
book plus a signed limited-edition print of one of the illustrations; and so it
goes on, through different perks, right to a $1,000 biggie with all kinds of
things offered—books, prints, merchandise, and a beautiful matrioshka 'nesting'
doll, hand-painted by David, featuring characters from the stories.
With a picture-book, of
course, the possibilities for perks are endless; not so easy with a novel! Then
we had to decide on the length of our campaign—these can run from 30-60 days
but Indiegogo recommends 45 days as being the optimum length. We took their
advice. We made sure all our social media sites were up and running: there's a Christmas
Press Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/ChristmasPress ,ably run by Christmas Press editor and
publicist, Beatriz Alvarez (who also doubles as Fiona's daughter!), a Christmas
Press Twitter account, https://twitter.com/ChristmasPress and of course a
website:
http://christmaspresspicturebooks.com/
We also had to decide on such
'housekeeping' details as how contributors might pay, such as credit card
and/or Paypal, and enter all that information, for the benefit of Indiegogo (it
is they act as the broker, collecting funds, and they who will deposit the
funds into your nominated bank account, minus commission, at the end of the
campaign.)
And then we took a deep
breath, hit the Submit button, and the campaign went live!
A third of the time into our
campaign, and we've raised nearly a third of our target amount and are
delighted by the generous support of our contributors, many of whom are also
writers, illustrators and other people in the book industry : it is simply
wonderful to experience such warm collegiality. The adventure continues!
© Sophie Masson
The
internationally-published, award-winning author of more than 50 books for
children, young adults and adults, Sophie Masson is a versatile writer who
loves writing in different genres and loves experimenting with new media. Her
latest novel is Scarlet in the Snow
(Random
House Australia 2013) and forthcoming in August is her Romance Diaries:
Stella
(ABC Books), published under the
pen-name of Jenna Austen. Last year Sophie began releasing collections of her
short pieces as e-books through her own micro-publisher, Sixteen Press, but her
new print enterprise of Christmas Press, in partnership with artists David
Allan and Fiona McDonald, is really exciting her at the moment. Readers
can have a look at the crowd-funding campaign, and contribute if they wish, at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/first-christmas-press-picture-book
