Kickstarter

Dear Kickstarters,

Thank you all again for your support of Where Albatross Soar.  A lot has happened since the initial Kickstarter campaign was cancelled.  The quick and dirty is that I launched a separate fundraising site at www.WhereAlbatrossSoar.com and many of you moved your pledges over there.  If you are one of those re-pledger people, please feel free to disregard this update.  You're very much in the know, totally awesome and have probably just received your books (or you will in the next couple days)!  If you did not re-pledge on the new site, you are still awesome and I have learned that many of you missed some of the previous updates or forgot to make your pledge on the new site.  If you don't see your name on our supporters page then we did not receive a payment from you and cannot yet give you the bird, but NO WORRIES!  Where Albatross Soar is finally in print and if you still want to get/give the bird, you can order copies directly from our website above or on Amazon (where your ratings & reviews are also much appreciated).  

Alternatively, you may also support our NEW KICKSTARTER PROJECT where you will find a full length online preview of the book, and cool new prizes including my new book - Surf Poetry!  Again, if you've already re-pledged, by all means disregard this.  You've given above and beyond and I'm not trying to suck any more dough out of you ;).  That said, if you feel inclined to share this new Kickstarter project through your networks, go right ahead!  Although the first Kickstarter campaign was unsuccessful from a fundraising perspective, it did provide us with some useful exposure so we're giving it another shot now that we have a finished product.  Funds raised will help accelerate our marketing efforts and help us soar into the digital/app space!

So to summarize:

1) Thanks again!
2) Click here to see if you're on our list of people currently getting the bird.
3) If you want to support/share our new project or see an online preview of the finished product, check out our new Kickstarter campaign.
4) You can order & review Where Albatross Soar or Surf Poetry on Amazon!
5) You can follow us on Facebook here!

Your friend in flight,

Bryan

That's right, 12 days & counting with lots of coin still to raise. 
The long & short of it is we have an aggressive funding goal and short timeline to get there.  What's it all mean?  Well for me it's some sleepless nights, elevated blood pressure and an uptick in shameless plugs for Where Albatross Soar (apologies in advance).  For you, if we fall short of the funding goal it means Kickstarter/Amazon won't charge you for your pledges, you won't get your rewards, and the Albatross will have to explore alternate funding options in order to take flight.  Let's not let that happen!  It's a daunting task, but I think we can get there.    

A few more updates:
1) If the project gets funded, all backers at the $18 level & up will get a beautifully designed Where Albatross Soar bookmark mailed to them for EACH book they pre-order.  This will arrive BEFORE CHRISTMAS so that you can get your favorite surf-tyke stoked for what's to come!  You'll also get a "work in progress" PDF version of the story emailed to you so you can share it with friends & family over the holidays.

2) Updated prizes at the $1, $10, $300 & $800 levels! 

3) Please email me if you have any relevant contacts in the media, surf industry, school systems, etc who I should be sure to reach out to. 

4) Some preliminary illustration concepts are in!  We have several talented illustrators who are still putting together their creative directions/proposals, but if you care to see some of the first batch here they are!  We plan to name an illustrator by mid December.

Many thanks for all of your support.  I'm so grateful to all of you.  2012 WILL BE the "Year of the Albatross" one way or another ;).

Happy Thanksgiving!
Bryan 

ps... It has been suggested that I ask people to change their Facebook pics to the new Albatross project image and put a link to the kickstarter page in the comments/image description.  That seems like a lot to ask, but if you care to, go for it!  I'm honored :).  Email me & I'll send you the image or just snag it from my profile.

Well folks, we're on our way!  Let me confess, that this fundraising stuff is one of the more stressful, humbling activities I've done in quite some time.  A necessary evil I suppose, so thank you all for the support, encouragement, feedback and putting up with all my emails & Facebook updates. :).

That said, the end of this week marks the midway point of this project's duration on Kickstarter and I'm happy to report we're nearly half way to our funding goal (41% of the way to be exact).  Hopefully we can move the needle a little more in the next few days. 

We've also piqued the interest of some very talented illustrators and had some exciting press this week.  Jim Moriarty (CEO of the Surfrider Foundation) plugged for us on Twitter, and today we're the featured story on the Korduroy.tv homepage!  You can also access that interview directly here.  For those unfamiliar with Korduroy, they're a very popular surfing site so this is some exciting exposure for Where Albatross Soar as well as Ride Anything.  

I can't thank you enough for all of your support.  I really appreciate it & am excited to get the next phase of this project under way!

Sincerely,
Bryan K.