How to Practice Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding exists in many forms, which can seem confusing -- especially to newcomers. It helps to read a few articles about how to do some of the major things involved in cyberfunded creativity. This page provides an overview of many different topics, for creators and patrons and others. The complete articles appear on their respective sub-pages.
5 Steps to Crowdfunding Success
The most popular crowdfunding projects have certain things in common. Doing these things doesn't guarantee success -- nothing does -- but will certainly move a project in that direction. Name your project, design a landing page, use tags, include audience interaction, and post a donation button.
Read the rest of "5 Steps to Crowdfunding Success."
Read the rest of "5 Steps to Crowdfunding Success."
Earning Perks
A majority of crowdfunded projects include "perks" or incentives that reward participants for doing things the creator finds valuable. This encourages people do more of that. Some perks apply to one specific person in recognition of their activity. Other perks activate when a collective goal is reached, and then become available to a wider group or to the public in general. Let's take a look at some things which creators choose to reward and encourage.
Read the rest of "Earning Perks."
Read the rest of "Earning Perks."
How to Begin a Crowdfunded Project
You've read about Crowdfunding (aka Cyberfunded Creativity), a business model in which creative folks sell their work directly to audiences online. You've probably seen one or more projects by other people. Now you're considering a project of your own, and you aren't sure how to get started. Here are some tips...
Read the rest of "How to Begin a Crowdfunded Project."
Read the rest of "How to Begin a Crowdfunded Project."
How to Boost Your Audience
Crowdfunding (aka Cyberfunded Creativity) lives or dies based on its audience interaction. The quality depends not just on the talent of the creator, but also on the scope and liveliness of the audience. The better an audience a crowdfunded project has, the higher its chances of success. Here are some tips for improving the activity and size of your audience, useful for cyberfunded creativity and for blogging in general.
Read the rest of "How to Boost Your Audience."
Read the rest of "How to Boost Your Audience."
How to Make Constructive Comments
Cyberfunded creativity thrives on feedback. One of the most important things you can do to support your favorite crowdfunded projects is leaving comments. This shows your interest so that the creator knows what things people are viewing and enjoying. Here are some ideas for making your comments as useful as possible.
Read the rest of "How to Make Constructive Comments."
Read the rest of "How to Make Constructive Comments."
How to Make a Landing Page for Your Project
What is a landing page? How do you make one for your crowdfunding project? What should you include in your landing page? Learn about landing pages, their essential components, and some additional options.
Read the rest of "How to Make a Landing Page for Your Project."
Read the rest of "How to Make a Landing Page for Your Project."
How to Monetize Your Crowdfunding Project
In order to qualify as crowdfunding, a project must have some way of making money. This distinguishes crowdfunding from hobby projects of similar nature. There are many different ways to monetize a crowdfunding project. Let's take a look at some crowdfunding methods and general principles.
Read the rest of "How to Monetize Your Crowdfunding Project."
Read the rest of "How to Monetize Your Crowdfunding Project."
How to Review a Crowdfunded Project
Reviews are a prime route for connecting creative material with new viewers. However, very few review markets are willing to review crowdfunded projects. So, that leaves it up to the crowdfunding community itself. Anyone can write a review; it's not that difficult. The crowdfunding communitieson LiveJournal and on Dreamwidth encourage reviews. Some websites specializing in a specific type of material, such as weblit or webcomics, may also allow member reviews. For instance,Web Fiction Guide and Web Comics Nation have reviews. Reviewing is a good non-cash way to support your favorite projects. Here are a few tips ...
Read the rest of "How to Review a Crowdfunded Project."
Read the rest of "How to Review a Crowdfunded Project."
How to Support Your Favorite Author
Who is your favorite author? Do you know how much that author makes when you buy their work? Do you know how many copies of a new book a store typically orders? Often, not much. Your choices as a consumer, and your word-of-mouth advertising online, can make a difference to the authors you love. Many of these ideas generalize to supporting other types of creative work besides writing.
Read the rest of "How to Support Your Favorite Author."
Read the rest of "How to Support Your Favorite Author."
Is Crowdfunding Right for Your Project?
There are a lot of different factors that could influence a project's suitability. While planning your project, it helps to outline its features as best you can and compare those to the set of things that crowdfunding does well vs. what other business models do well. Then choose the closest match.
Read the rest of "Is Crowdfunding Right for Your Project?"
Read the rest of "Is Crowdfunding Right for Your Project?"
Non-Cash Support Methods for Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding depends on interaction between creators and patrons of crowdfunding. While it's important to keep the "fund" part in mind, the "crowd" part is vital too. It's the "crowd" that distinguishes this business model from a plain old store online. This concerns multiple aspects including the individual viewers interacting with the creator(s) of a project, the community spirit generated by the audience as patrons and fans talk amongst themselves, and word-of-mouth advertising as people promote a project elsewhere. Noncash support is useful for fans who are enthusiastic but short on funds, and for patrons who want to help with more than just money.
Read the rest of "Non-Cash Support Methods for Crowdfunding."
Read the rest of "Non-Cash Support Methods for Crowdfunding."
People Who Boost the Signal in Crowdfunding
Traditional publication in most media comes with someone to pitch your work for you, such as promoters and agents. Crowdfunding generally entails promoting your own work. However, not everyone is comfortable with self-promotion; many creators feel awkward or embarrassed about asking people for money. Fortunately the crowdfunding community is well supplied with fans doing word-of-mouth advertising.
Read the rest of "People Who Boost the Signal in Crowdfunding."
Read the rest of "People Who Boost the Signal in Crowdfunding."
Sample Online Community Parameters
Cyberspace is what we make of it. It contains what we bring into it. Therefore, it is what we choose for it to be. When you create a venue here, it helps to establish some guidelines for interaction so people will know how to behave. As a crowdfunding participant, it's your responsibility to help keep the venues looking nice so that other folks will want to join the fun.
Read the rest of "Sample Online Community Parameters."
Read the rest of "Sample Online Community Parameters."
Types of Perks
Perks, also called incentives, form a mainstay of the crowdfunding business model. A perk is anything offered by a creator to an audience to reward or encourage certain types of behavior. Most perks connect closely with a specific project so as to ensure their audience appeal, although some are more general. Some types of perk only work with a particular mode of project, while others can apply to anything. Let's take a look at some popular perks...
Read the rest of "Types of Perks."
Read the rest of "Types of Perks."
Types of Crowdfunded Content
Cyberfunded creativity includes a wide range of activities and products. These group together into some broad categories of crowdfunding. You may find it useful to browse the options if you're thinking about creating a project of your own or looking for projects to follow. Let's take a look at some popular types of content that appear in crowdfunded projects.
Read the rest of "Types of Crowdfunded Content."
Read the rest of "Types of Crowdfunded Content."
When You Can't Find an Audience
Haikujaguar wrote a post about being an indie midlister. I commented about the value of interaction within a niche market. Then Jsl32 observed, "It is precious and I find it to be amazing in so many ways. But that makes it so much more crushingly brutal when you can't find an audience in the new world of micro-appeal."
Yes, that's often a miserable experience, and there can be many reasons why it happens. You can do something about most of them.
Read the rest of "When You Can't Find an Audience."
Yes, that's often a miserable experience, and there can be many reasons why it happens. You can do something about most of them.
Read the rest of "When You Can't Find an Audience."
Links
Other people have written a number of useful articles about various aspects of crowdfunding. Please check them out. The more widely you read, the higher your chances of success. Especially watch for advice from creators fielding popular projects; they may be onto something.
"A Beginning of a Basic Overview of Starting a Webserial" by Aldersprig
"Cafe Wednesday: M.C.A. Hogarth" interview on ErgoFiction
"Crowdfunding on Facebook" by Brad
"Crowdfunding? Kickstarter Has Some Advice" by Mathew Ingram
"Crowd-Requesting: A New Gatekeeping Model" by M.C.A. Hogarth
"Has China Found the Future of Publishing?" by Alison Flood
"How to Create Your Own Crowdfunding Profile" by Wil Conley
"How to Crowd Fund Your Film" for United Kingdom producers
"How to Crowdfund Your Product Release" by Meilin Miranda
"How to Crowdfund Your Startup" by Kieran Masterton
"If You're an Author, Piracy Doesn't Matter" by Jake Kerr
"Lee & Miller History Lesson re: Crowdfunding" by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
"The Pomplamoose Problem: Artists Can't Survive as Saints and Martyrs"
"Secrets of Running a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign" (science) by Jai Ranganathan
"Sustainable Funding Models" by C.E. Murphy
The Three Micahs (creative business series) by M.C.A. Hogarth
Collection: Music in the Post-Scarcity Environment
This series on the evolution of the music industry includes discussion of crowdfunding for musicians, but also generalizes well to contemporary economics and the crowdfunding business model as a whole.
"Emily White and Making Money in the Post-Scarcity Environment"
"It’s Worse Than I Thought: How the Recording Industry Made Music Ownership a Negative Value"
"Even Pressing Play Makes My Fingers Ache: Making Recording Profitable Again"
"Touring (Part 1)"
"Touring (Part 2)"
"The Long Tail of Zero is Still Zero (The Thousand Fan model)"
"The Same Model as Music (Manufacturing in a Post-Scarcity Environment)"
"The Prestigious Internship (a Fraud in Three Parts)"
"Google Makes its Move"
"Facebook Destroys Everything"
"Why YouTube Ignores Heather Dale (and will ignore you)"
"A Beginning of a Basic Overview of Starting a Webserial" by Aldersprig
"Cafe Wednesday: M.C.A. Hogarth" interview on ErgoFiction
"Crowdfunding on Facebook" by Brad
"Crowdfunding? Kickstarter Has Some Advice" by Mathew Ingram
"Crowd-Requesting: A New Gatekeeping Model" by M.C.A. Hogarth
"Has China Found the Future of Publishing?" by Alison Flood
"How to Create Your Own Crowdfunding Profile" by Wil Conley
"How to Crowd Fund Your Film" for United Kingdom producers
"How to Crowdfund Your Product Release" by Meilin Miranda
"How to Crowdfund Your Startup" by Kieran Masterton
"If You're an Author, Piracy Doesn't Matter" by Jake Kerr
"Lee & Miller History Lesson re: Crowdfunding" by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
"The Pomplamoose Problem: Artists Can't Survive as Saints and Martyrs"
"Secrets of Running a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign" (science) by Jai Ranganathan
"Sustainable Funding Models" by C.E. Murphy
The Three Micahs (creative business series) by M.C.A. Hogarth
Collection: Music in the Post-Scarcity Environment
This series on the evolution of the music industry includes discussion of crowdfunding for musicians, but also generalizes well to contemporary economics and the crowdfunding business model as a whole.
"Emily White and Making Money in the Post-Scarcity Environment"
"It’s Worse Than I Thought: How the Recording Industry Made Music Ownership a Negative Value"
"Even Pressing Play Makes My Fingers Ache: Making Recording Profitable Again"
"Touring (Part 1)"
"Touring (Part 2)"
"The Long Tail of Zero is Still Zero (The Thousand Fan model)"
"The Same Model as Music (Manufacturing in a Post-Scarcity Environment)"
"The Prestigious Internship (a Fraud in Three Parts)"
"Google Makes its Move"
"Facebook Destroys Everything"
"Why YouTube Ignores Heather Dale (and will ignore you)"