Hello my fellow bookworms and page turners, and welcome back to my Comic-con Panel breakdown, The second Panel of t he day was performed by Kate Russell, the Author of the crowd funded novel (Elite: Dangerous)”Mostly Harmless”. During this panel she outlined the particulars of what she feels you would need to run a successful campaign, and read from her latest publication Mostly Harmless.
Elite: Dangerous itself was a successful Kickstarters campaign, and as Kate is a massive Elite fan, when they were selling
the wrights for 4,500 for a book. She started her own campaign in order to raise money to write her book “Mostly Harmless” which was of course successful and raised £17,005 by 811 people / backers.
Kate then went through the different types of crowd funding including :
· Reward Based – Investors receive a tangible item/service in return for their funds.
· Consumer Lending – Investors are repaid for their investment over time.
· Donation Based – Contributions go towards a charitable cause.
· Equity Based – Investors receive a stake in the company.
· All or Nothing VS Flexible
These all included real examples, such as the Potato Salad Kickstarter from last year, after this Kate gave us a break down of her campaign strategy along with a pretty nifty PowerPoint presentation.
Hit the ground running
Make sure you tell your story from the heart, get as on point as you can, use video and audio to promote your idea, the power of media is a powerful thing. You need to convince people with a purpose, a larger vision, or — at the very least — a lot of passion. Explain why the world needs your project now. – don’t waste time getting big guns in your project, keep it simple and get it out there.
Be social
Make sure you interact with your Backers, talk to them. Issue updates, answer questions, you have to remember that backers are emotionally invested. If you go away they will wonder where you are. – also use social media to connect with your backers and promote your campaign, don’t stop till they have had enough.
Design a simple, well-thought-out rewards system.
You need to convince people with a purpose, a larger vision, or — at the very least — a lot of passion. Explain why the world needs your project now. Keep it simple and make sure there are different rewards levels, for her novel she had stretch goals where the backer could name a character and she would kill them in a very horrific way. examples like this i think are great as its a unique opportunity that I certainly would consider, and would convince me to donate.
Fundraising is like a full time job.
Cancel everything.. seriously everything fundraising takes up all of your time and all of your energy you need to be at it every day until the stretch goal has ended, and remember it isnt over until the fat lady sings!
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Kate Russell, then sat down and did a reading of chapter two of her novel, it was so encapsulating, I swear most of the audience stopped breathing through part of it as you could hear a pin drop.. I really cant do it justice, so I recorded most of it for you watching pleasure, so please give it a look, and then Click here: to buy the book as I did!
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And that concluded the Panel, if you wish to check out any of their work, or follow them on Twitter I have copied all the relevant information below.
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Website :Mostly Harmless
Twitter: @katerussell
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Until next time, read more books!
Between|the|Blurb 