Would-be author undeterred, vows to try again
What better way could there be to finance a how-to book about tapping into Kickstarter-style crowdfunding than to ask the Kickstarter crowd to do the funding?
Call the book: “Crowdfunding: a Guide to What Works and Why.” Seek $35,000 on Kickstarter. And stand back to watch the crowd open its wallet.
One problem: The crowdfunding crowd this time wasn’t funding … at least not enough. After launching his solicitation on July 6, veteran technology writer and would-be how-to author Glenn Fleishman was forced to pull the plug 17 days later after garnering just under $4,000 in pledges toward his $35,000 goal. The result is the painfully ironic screen capture you see above (red highlights mine).
And tweets like this one (right):
So is Fleishman discouraged? Heck, no; quite the opposite: He’s committed to trying again, as he explains in a July 23 update on Kickstarter, headlined “Suspending Project.”
And Fleishman’s resolve was echoed in his answers to a few questions I sent via email:
I presume you’re aware that people see irony in what happened. What’s your reaction to that reaction?
“To retool and try again! Hard-won lessons are won by failing, and people love a Cinderella story. I learned a few key things, and I had to try this to learn.”
Had you considered beforehand what not making your goal might look like given the subject and especially the title of your book?
“Yes! And, in fact, I thought that the title would bring in publicity that would help sell the project to people who wouldn’t otherwise have heard about it. But I was told by a number of people, including friends, they hadn’t followed my links as they thought I was joking. Oops.”
And, since it’s been a few weeks since you wrote that update on Kickstarter, has anything changed regarding your plans to try again? Any timetable?
“July turned out to be completely insane for me in terms of deadlines, and then I had a few days to collapse after meeting all of those. I’m trying to get through August, get my kids back into school in September, and then I will have some breathing space to retool.”
You’ve got to wish a guy this upbeat well … even if you don’t want to fund his Kickstarter project.
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