Kickstarter For Dummies

Learn to: Develop a campaign page that inspires contributors Establish rewards for your backers Estimate how much money you need to raise Use social media to enhance awareness Find backers and bring your dream project to life with Kickstarter Do you have the next blockbuster movie, award-winning game, or bestselling graphic novel in your head? Just need funding to make it happen? Learn how to use Kickstarter with help from this handy little book, and connect with backers who want to fund your project. See how to make your idea irresistible, develop your campaign, and bring your dream to life! Join the crowd — learn how crowdfunding works and the advantages Kickstarter offers Kickstart your campaign — profile your project and showcase its uniqueness in a compelling video Dollars and sense — examine all the cost factors and make a detailed, realistic estimate of your fundraising goal Build your base — determine likely backers and grow community support for your project Everybody wins — create rewards for your backers at different dollar levels Drop the flag — kick off your campaign, track your backers, and monitor expenses Spread the word — promote your campaign with press releases, online ads, events, and social media Open the book and find: Case studies of successful campaigns Tips for delivering your project on time Why your video is so important Hints for estimating donations What to include in your project description Ways to communicate with your backers How to use Kickstarter on your iPhone Ten creative reward ideas

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

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.