As most of you know I'm in the middle of my second Kickstarter campaign. After successfully funding my book Shadow Survival, I dove into funding books 2 and 3 in the Scoutcraft series-a series that's envisioned to serve as a group of training manuals around the Way of the Scout. The second campaign is well under way, and I've gotten some questions about why I'm using Kickstarter and what I'm hoping to achieve. So, I decided to share a bit about my process and why I'm doing what I'm doing.
Why Kickstarter?
1) Well, first of all Kickstarter is a creator-focused and creator-driven platform. As opposed to options like GoFundMe which focus on supporting people through tough times, Kickstarter is focused on bringing creative projects like books, graphic novels, comics, board games, and even films to life.
2) But, what about traditional publishing? Well, the publishing world has become more and more challenging to work with (especially in the last 5 years). Next year, I do actually have a book coming out from a traditional publisher. But these days, creators get less and less (or nothing) up front and take longer and longer to ever see any returns on their work (if ever). Advances have disappeared, many projects that used to be funded are no longer funded, creators are sometimes expected to do all of their work up front with no guarantee of success, and there are some very shady business practices that are happening making it virtually impossible for creators to know if they're getting their fair share. (This just happened with Limp Bizkit and the streaming music industry).
3) Many of the projects on Kickstarter are more than a little outside of the box and explore topics that the traditional publishing industry probably wouldn't be interested in (like scout skills and the way of the scout for instance).
4) Kickstarter allows for total creative freedom, and once you reach your goal not only do you have your project funded (which actually allows you to create the product the way you want) you retain all the rights to the project and can publish it or use it however you want.
In short, Kickstarter ultimately is an empowering, grassroots approach to creative works, and it greatly support artists and creators directly. It allows projects that wouldn't normally see the light of day to come to life, and it allows creators to have legal and creative say about their work that doesn't exist in the traditional publishing industry.
Overall, I've loved working with Kickstarter, it's allowed my creative ideas to flourish, and I'm excited to see where it goes.
My current Kickstarter campaign for volumes 2 and 3 of Scoutcraft ends two weeks from today...
You can support the project HERE: Scoutcraft Volumes 2 and 3
And, remember Kickstarter is an all or nothing approach! If a project isn't fully funded, then the creator doesn't get any of the funds.
Thanks for considering and for your support,
Nate
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