Kickstarter For Dummies

Aimee Cebulski is an accomplished freelance writer, photographer and publicist and used Kickstarter to successfully fund her book, The Finding 40 Project. She is passionate about helping others harness the power of crowdfunding.

Introduction 1 About This Book 1 How This Book Is Organized 2 Foolish Assumptions 2 Icons Used in This Book 3 Where to Go from Here 3 Chapter 1: Introducing Kickstarter 5 Looking at the Concept of Crowdfunding 5 Understanding How Funding on Kickstarter Works 7 Recognizing the Advantages of Kickstarter 8 Knowing What Kickstarter Does and Doesn t Fund 10 Reading the Fine Print Before You Start 12 Reading through the FAQ 12 Going to Kickstarter s virtual school 14 Following Kickstarter s guidelines 14 Discovering the Crowdfunding Process 15 Chapter 2: Laying the Foundation for Your Kickstarter Campaign 19 Transforming Your Passion into a Kickstarter Project 20 Prepping to Start Your Project 21 What Makes Your Project Unique? Writing a Short Project Description 24 Creating the Long Project Description 26 Choosing media to support your description 27 Risks and Challenges 28 Making a Compelling Video 29 Outlining the content for your video 29 Choosing tools to make a great video 30 Understanding Kickstarter Categories 35 Introducing the categories 35 Choosing the right category 42 iPhone Elevation Dock: Realizing a Market Niche 43 Chapter 3: Deciding How Much to Ask For 47 Figuring How Much Your Project Will Cost 47 Outlining broad expense categories 48 Listing individual expenses 49 Trying to estimate those costs 50 Examining other Kickstarter campaigns 54 Estimating Potential Donations 57 Who you gonna call? 58 Evaluate your potential reward levels 59 Rewarding your backers 61 The Order of the Stick: Building on a Fan Base and Offering Creative Rewards 64 Building on a fan base 67 Getting creative with rewards 69 Throwing in the perks 71 Chapter 4: Creating a Realistic Timeline 73 Creating a Timeline for Your Campaign 75 Staggering the Reward Dates 78 Experiencing Success and Then Delays 79 iPhone Elevation Dock 79 Pebble E-Paper Watch 80 Chapter 5: Setting Up Your Campaign 83 Kickstarting Your Kickstarter Account 84 Filling Out Your Project Profile 86 Setting Up Backer Rewards 90 Telling Your Project s Story 91 Uploading your video 91 Filling out your project description 92 Adding Details about You 93 Activating Your Payment Account 94 Preparing for Kickstarter Review 96 Double-checking your campaign uploads 96 Conducting a final review and submitting your campaign 96 Chapter 6: Managing an Active Campaign 99 Launching Your Campaign 99 Creating a Compelling Call to Action 102 Contacting Potential Backers 102 Sending personal e-mails 103 Posting on Facebook 104 Using a Facebook business page 107 Tweeting about your campaign 108 Posting your campaign video on video-sharing sites 110 Tracking Your Backers 111 Contacting Your Backers through Kickstarter 113 Sending a message 113 Posting updates 114 Promoting Your Deadline 117 Paying to Promote Your Campaign 119 Buying advertising on Facebook 120 Purchasing other Internet or newspaper ads 121 Using promotional events and ideas to drive backers to your campaign 123 iPhone Elevation Dock: Getting the Word Out 125 Finding 40: Learning from My Own Kickstarter Campaign(s) 127 Looking at my project 127 Filling the content 128 Failing to use my own networks 129 Not strategizing properly 130 Second campaign: Success! 130 Chapter 7: Kickstarter for iPhone 133 Downloading the App 134 Logging In and Out 136 Touring the Kickstarter App Interface 137 Discovering projects 137 Checking other projects activities 138 Peeking into your profile 139 Managing Your Campaign from the Kickstarter App 140 Viewing and replying to messages 140 Seeing your account activity 141 Posting project updates for your backers 142 Chapter 8: Seeing the Light at the End of Your Campaign 145 Handling a Struggling or Unsuccessful Campaign 145 Thanking Your Backers 147 Building a Community around Your Project 148 Sustaining the community after your project ends 148 Fostering your community offline 149 Delivering Rewards to Your Backers 151 Downloading your Backer Report 151 Surveying your backers 154 Keeping Up with Kickstarter 157 Chapter 9: Ten Unique Reward Ideas 159 Cover Me! : Featuring Backers on Your Cover 159 The Shirt Off Your Back : Offering T-Shirts 161 Naming Rights : Including a Backer as a Character 162 Autograph, Please : Signing Your Work 163 Casting Call : Rewarding Backers with Bit Parts 164 Curtain Call : Sharing Tickets to Your Show 165 Hero Worship : Making a Backer the Hero of Your Project 166 Dinner Guest : Meeting Your Backers in Person 167 Sign Me Up : Offering Subscriptions 169 Fly Me to the Moon : Bringing an Out-of-Town Backer to an Event 170 Chapter 10: Ten Resources to Help with Your Campaign 173 Finding Kickstarter-Specific Resources 173 Learning from Other Kickstarter Stories 175 Budgeting for Your Project 176 Making a Business Plan 177 Writing Well 179 Copywriting Well 180 Writing Press Releases 182 Building a Basic Website 185 WordPresscom 187 Blogger 190 Tumblr 191 Taking Great Photos 191 Promoting Your Project or Event 192 Index 194