Kickstarter campaign target

Happy New Year to all!

With the festive season safely behind me I think it’s time to look in a bit more detail at my Kickstarter campaign for The Oracles of Troy.

I spent last Saturday morning shooting the all-important Kickstarter Campaign Video! All successful campaigns have a video, or so Kickstarter tell us. Which makes sense, as most people like to see who they’re giving their money too.

It’s something I’ve been thinking of with nervous anticipation (dreading) for a few weeks. For one reason, I don’t really feel at home in front of a camera. I don’t mind giving talks in libraries or prisons, or teaching classes of children about writing, but there’s something about staring into the cyclopean eye of a camera that unnerves me. For another, until very recently it looked as if the video would have to be shot at home using my digital camera – not exactly the professional image I wanted to portray!

A series of fortunate events occurred to prevent that. In a chance conversation, a parent of one of my daughters’ friends told my wife he was travelling to Westminster to film a senior politician. Seeing an opportunity, I phoned him to ask if he would be help me shoot a Kickstarter video. As it happens, he was thinking about setting up his own Kickstarter campaign for a book on photography, so thought it would be a useful experience to be part of. It seems the Fates had a hand in the matter.

The shoot took almost four hours for what should be a three or four minute video. A lot of that was setting up the camera and sound equipment, getting the lighting right and so on. The rest of it was thanks to me forgetting my lines. The video is now with my friend for editing and should be ready in a week or so.

Take a look at these links to see how great a video can look: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/breadpig/to-be-or-not-to-be-that-is-the-adventure and https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marishapink/finding-arun-the-debut-novel-by-marisha-pink.

Apart from the video, I can also give a bit more detail about the campaign target. This is the total amount of sponsorship needed to cover the cost of printing the book. If the target isn’t met by the end of the campaign, nobody has to pay a bean. Unfortunately, nobody gets a book, either. So, if you’re a fan of the series I hope you’ll be as enthusiastic about reaching the target as I am – well, almost.

All the quotes are now in and the cost looks like this:

• Pre-press costs (includes such things as set up, administration, allocation of ISBN number, legal deposit, bar code, typesetting, proof revisions and other mysteries) = £610
• Printing cost for 1,000 paperbacks = £2,452
• Printing cost for 250 hardbacks = £984
• Professional marketing and distribution (includes dissemination of a Books Trade Information Sheet, retail trade distribution service, sales representation, holding stock, order fulfilment, customer invoicing, liaising with bookshops/distributors, sales/marketing advice, local, national and subject specific press releases, placing of review copies, marketing material artwork etc.) = £600
• Storage (for 1,000+ books at the publisher’s warehouse for 6 months – my attic isn’t big enough!) = £180
• 500 cardboard book wraps & postage labels = £207
• 500 postcards = £55
• 500 bookmarks = £58
• Cover design (this is an expansion of the current e-book design to include a spine and reverse in both paperback and hardback dimensions) = £204

Total cost (less postage, which I will cover) = £5,350. It may sound an ambitious target, but compared to similar book projects on Kickstarter it’s quite normal. Even modest. But it certainly won’t be easy. The campaign will need all the support it can get, so please, please, please help in any way you can. Sponsoring the campaign is the best start. Not only will you get one or more of the exciting rewards on offer (see my previous post), you’ll also have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve made a vital contribution to the publication of a book which, I hope, you will love. You can also tell your friends face-to-face or by sharing a link on your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Every little bit helps. And you will earn my undying gratitude.