Friday, May 18, 2012

Kickstarter Campaign for Water!

Being an indie or self-published writer is very much like being a busker on the street trying to entertain the passing masses, hoping to catch people's eye long enough that they'll toss you a coin or two. All the while trying not to flat out beg for money, waving your books in the air, screaming like a crazy person. It's a delicate balancing act, let me tell you.

I absolutely love being a self-published writer. Part of me wishes that I had been one of the first to jump on the bandwagon back in 2010, but I knew my books weren't ready, so it was for the best that I waited. But sometimes it's really hard to be a self-published writer; you have to absorb all upfront costs of production, and sometimes are harder than others to do so. And then there was Kickstarter.

Kickstarter is this amazing website for artists of all medias, to set up campaigns for their fans (new and old) to help them with the cost of their production. Basically it works kinda like a pre-order program for fans. One other draw back as an indie writer is that the big book sellers wont allow us to set up our books for pre-order like the traditionally published writers, and that's fine, it's cool, maybe they will in the future. So, we turn to Kickstarter. 

I have set up ten levels of donation/rewards to help fund the production of Water. It will be a 30 day run, ending the day before Water is published. Your donations will help me with the costs of proofreading, editing, cover art and printing and shipping the paperback copies of the book. In return for your pledges, you'll get stuff! Cool stuff, if I do say so myself. I've listed it all on the campaign page. There is just one catch: I have to, have to!, reach my funding goal of $1,500.00 by the end of the campaign otherwise it counts as a fail and I don't get any of the money pledged. So that means even if people pledged $1,499.00, it would count as a fail and I don't get that money. Simple as that. So if you can't afford to help pledge, don't worry, I totally and completely understand, but you can help by spreading the word about my campaign. Again, it's a delicate balancing act of advertising and enticing versus begging and running people down on the streets. So if other people help, it's not quite so obnoxious.

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