The Ringleader: a Kickstarter Project

Hello all! I'm excited to announce that I am starting a Kickstarter project so I can self-publish The Ringleader--you know, the art book featuring my Circus series that I keep talking about? I am so close to finishing it and Kickstarter will give me the funds to do it properly.

Never heard of Kickstarter? Well, it's basically a crowd-funding website that specializes in creative projects. What happens is the creator of a project (in this case, me) sets a monetary goal that he/she needs to meet in order to produce a specific project. If someone likes said project, they can "back" it for as little as $1. For each monetary level, the creator of the project offers rewards or incentives that vary by project. The rewards often include copies of the final project. The cool part is that money only exchanges hands if the project gets funded in full:

All-or-nothing funding protects creators from being stuck with a fraction of the funds they need and an audience expecting fully funded results.
-Kickstarter website

I started looking into Kickstarter at a suggestion from my Aunt Lynne. The first step was to do a lot of research about how the projects work. I looked at tons of projects (mostly from the publishing category since that's where my art book would fit under). I read countless proposals, watched lots of different project videos and looked at the wide range of rewards that different creators offered. 

Probably my favorite project was an illustrated novel for adults called Caelum Sky by authorstrator Andrea Radeck. She has these awesome illustrations of this little red dinosaur character who is super cute. Sadly, I missed the chance to be backer for her project, but I plan on watching for the release of her book so I can buy a copy. 

Once I got a feel for how other people had outlined their projects, I was able to start brainstorming how to set up my own. I believe I am going to set my goal at around $5,000 which would be enough to cover the rewards and a publishing run of 150+ copies of The Ringleader in hardcover (and with a  dust jacket). For rewards, I am offering bookmarks, Limited Edition mini prints, as well as copies of The Ringleader, when it gets published. 

working on my video in iMovie

Probably the trickiest part has been creating a video to showcase my Kickstarter project. While not necessary, having a video greatly increases the chances of a successful project. Thankfully, I discovered that my Mac has a program for video editing (iMovie) and although it is not the fanciest program, it has allowed me to edit the video to make it more engaging by adding image stills and voiceovers. I am getting pretty close to being done with editing the actual video portion. Then I will have to decide if I should add music or not. 

My goal is to finish it up by the end of next week so I can launch my Kickstarter project. Be sure to follow me on Facebook and Tumblr for updates!

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