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3 days ago
Suw Charman-Anderson
commented on a projectJust wondering what's happened to this project? It's nearly two years now, and it'd be nice to have an update.
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on April 11
Suw Charman-Anderson
commented on a project updateIf you're interested, I expanded on this post a bit for my Forbes blog: http://www.forbes.com/sites/suwcharmananderson/2012/04/10/when-crowdfunding-becomes-yak-shaving/
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on April 11
Suw Charman-Anderson
commented on a projectHi Scott. Yes, I could have done a lot more to promote it, but it got to a point where spending time on promoting it when it was pretty clear that it didn't have the natural momentum to complete was an opportunity cost. I'll write a more detailed post mortem at some point but the initial burst of pledges lasted only three days. After a week of pretty heavy promotion it wasn't making any progress at all, even after a tweet from a friend with 1.6 million followers! At that point I realised that it wasn't developing a life of its own, which is what it really needed to do, and that it was doubtful that even an extreme bout of promotion would help. At that point I reassessed my plans and decided that I'd be better off spending time working on the story rather than on the promotion, and that's what I did. It's sad in some way that it didn't complete, but on the other hand, I'm actually happier with my Plan B. The story will be finished, will be made available, and I will make some hand-bound copies, so it's not over!
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on April 10
Suw Charman-Anderson
Posted project update #2Next steps
Firstly, a huge thank you to all of you for backing Queen of the May. We may not have reached our target, but your support still means a lot to me. However, the project doesn’t end just yet! I will finish writing Queen of the May — I’ve spent my spare time in the last few weeks thinking about background, character development, and plot, and have started writing new scenes to add in. I’ve a fairly clear To Do list in terms of editing the story ready for beta readers and I’ll crack on with that over the coming weeks. I hope to get it out to my beta readers by the end of May, get revisions in by the end of June, and finish the final draft by the end of July.
Once the story is finished, you’ll be able to get hold of it in all the major ebook stores, or free from my website. I will also get 50 copies printed up, but not bound. It turns out that getting small books bound is really expensive because you have to sew the pages together, you can’t just glue them (the pages tend to simply fall out if you do). At short run volumes prices get silly, so the only way I’ll be able to produce this as a physical object is to hand-bind every copy. I’ll confirm options and prices in due course, but it’s likely to be a choice between a very simple binding in buckram bookcloth, and a super deluxe full leather binding.
If you want to keep up-to-date with how the project unfolds, you can keep an eye out for updates here, join my mailing list, read my blog or follow me on Twitter.
Overall, I find myself quite comfortable about the way that things have turned out. I could have set the goal lower, and I think I probably could have whipped up enough support to hit $5000 but, as with Argleton, that would have restricted me to working on the project only in my spare time. Given Argleton took nearly two years from conception to completion, that isn’t a situation I would relish. At $10,000 I could have actually devoted the vast majority of my time to it, as I would not have had to worry about getting new consulting work in. For me, it really was an all-or-nothing proposition. Either I raised enough to pay for my time, or I didn’t.
More importantly, I’ve also realised that I’m putting the cart before the horse a little bit. Whilst Argleton has had a great reception from those who’ve read it, I still don’t have a high enough profile to be able to run a career off Kickstarter. I think it’s possible to do so, but one needs to have a much bigger community for it to really work. So I’m going to focus on getting the horse and the cart in the right order, which means writing a lot more and spending less time in Excel trying to figure out reward levels. In some circumstances, Kickstarter can turn out to be a form of yak shaving. Well, my yak’s naked now and it’s time to focus on the writing!
Post Comment -
on April 10
Suw Charman-Anderson
backed a project
Wollstonecraft by Airship Ambassador
A Snicketesque girl-power adventure featuring Ada Lovelace and Mary Shelley at 11 and 14 in 1826 London, for ages 8-12
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2,293% funded $91,751 pledged
- 2,936 backers
- Funded Apr 30, 2012
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on March 21
Suw Charman-Anderson
commented on a projectThanks Roland! Shipping to Canada is indeed included - it's the same from here as shipping to the USA. And I'm very glad to have you on board!
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on March 15
Suw Charman-Anderson
Posted project update #34My new Kickstarter project has launched!
Post CommentHi Argletonians!
For those of you who enjoyed my Argleton project, you might be interested to know that I’m doing it all over again! Queen of the May, my new Kickstarter project has launched and is another fiction/bookbinding project. This time you have the option to pre-order a leather-bound hard copy as well as chances to name a characater or have the book dedicated to you.
I know some of you have already pledged, for which you have my undying thanks. Again, reward levels start at a very affordable $3, so I hope that you’ll pop over and lend your support. I’d also be grateful if you could take a moment to tell your friends about it as the more people we get involved now the more likely we are to make the goal.
The story this time is about, Shakti, a botanist who is spirited away by faeries from a park in central London to become their Queen for a year. Trapped in the Summer Lands, she has to find a way to decode faerie magic so that she can use it to escape back to the human realm. Rather than looking at technology, this time I’m exploring ideas around memory and the scientific method.
If you’d like to read a little background to the story, I have started by writing about how barbed wire inadvertently fenced in the faeries.
I hope to see you over on the Queen of the May project soon!
Best,
Suw
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on March 15
Suw Charman-Anderson
Posted project update #1One fifth funded, spreading the word, and some background
Post CommentFirstly, a huge thank you to all of you who have pledged to support Queen of the May! I am passionate about my writing and bookmaking and to have your backing means a lot to me.
We are now 21% funded and whilst we still have quite a long way to go, it really is a great start. The next big milestone is to reach 30% funded: Kickstarter stats show that 90% of projects that reach 30% funded will be successful, so the key thing now is to get the word out to as many people as possible and encourage them to take part.
If you want some ideas about how to help spread the word, this blog post might just help. The long and short of it, though, is that every last tweet, email and social network update counts. Projects like this succeed because lots of people think it’s exciting enough to tell their friends, and then their friends tell their friends. So please do take a moment to recommend this project to others - that’s how we will get this funded!
For those of you who’d like to get a better feel for the May Queen’s world, I’ve started writing blog posts exploring the background to the story. In the first of what will be a series, I examine how barbed wire inadvertently fenced in the faeries. There are no plot spoilers involved so feel free to go and take a peek. I promise it won’t ruin your dinner.
If you’re reading this on the Kickstarter site and haven’t yet pledged because you’re having troubles with Amazon Payments, it may be that you are falling foul of a long-standing bug where some people who have non-US accounts with Amazon services such as Mechanical Turk are assumed to be in America. One easy way round this is to create a new Amazon account for Amazon Payments only. JungleDisk has instructions that should help.
If you are outside of the EU and don’t have a credit card, which is required for Amazon Payments, then Double Fine Adventures has some advice on how to work around that. To be honest, the video’s worth watching even if you don’t have problems, just for the lulz. You might also find further advice on their forum thread.
And don’t forget that if you want to back this project but have to wait until payday, you can still follow along by creating a Kickstarter account and clicking the almost invisible star just above the pledge stats box.
Finally, if you have any questions at all about the project, please do leave a comment or message me through Kickstarter. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.
~ Suw
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on March 8
Suw Charman-Anderson launched a project
Queen of the May by Suw Charman-Anderson
Every year, faeries steal a human woman to be their Queen. This year, they pick the wrong one. Inc. hand-bound hardback editions.
Funding Unsuccessful (04/10/2012) -
on February 27
Suw Charman-Anderson
commented on a projectVery strongly agree with Chardonnay that it's incredibly important to have female voices in this project too, and am glad Matter are looking into it.
Suw Charman-Anderson
London, United Kingdom
I'm a writer with a passion for geekery, cats and bookbinding. My previous Kickstarter project was the novella Argleton, a story of maths, maps and motorways. The free ebook of Argleton has now been downloaded 10,000 times and the Kindle version has rece... view more
If you're interested, I expanded on this post a bit for my Forbes blog:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/suwcharmananderson/2012/04/10/when-crowdfunding-becomes-yak-shaving/