Champagne and Socks

Posted by AlisaK

After a somewhat longer than intended break, Live and Sassy is back! In the first episode of Season 2, we talk all things Kickstarter.

Links to some of the projects we discussed:

Amanda Palmer’s kickstarter for her new album, Theatre is Evil, art book and tour.
M K Hobson’s Kickstarter for The Warlocks Curse 3.
Cecila Tan explains the logistics/business of her kickstarter to produce a paperback version of her online serial, Daron’s Guitar Chronicles, in this wrap up.
The Feminist Speculative Fiction anthology (edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer) project Kickstarter.
Tobias Buckell: Mitigated Futures Kickstarter.
Tim Pratt: Grim Tides, A Marla Mason Novel Kickstarter.

We hope you enjoy the podcast, and hope to take much less time to get the next episode out to you all.

You can listen to the episode here or subscribe via iTunes!

2 Comments

By Josh Gentry (@joshagentry) on 1 July 2012 at 2:21 am

Interesting to hear publishing professionals discuss this topic.

Most Kickstarter campaigns I’ve seen for books are not straight pre-sales. They are a fascinating mix of pre-sale and patronage. You are helping make something happen that wouldn’t, otherwise. You get to feel like you are a part of creating something cool. And as a result, you kick in more than you would pay for a straight pre-sale.

Also, a big chunk of the money raised usually comes from a few big ticket rewards that are far beyond pre-sales.

It’s very cool. Does it change publishing? It allows lots of small projects to get done that wouldn’t get done based on profit and loss. This is cool. Is it a game changer for publishing, probably not.

A different question might be, could green-lighting of a project based on Internet pre-sales be a game changer for publishing? Maybe? Might we see a model where publishers say, “We’ll publish this book if we get N pre-orders at normal rettail price?” Could you see Twelfth Planet Press doing that?
By Alisa on 1 July 2012 at 2:07 pm

I’m really not sure at this stage. I think I’m still really sounding out the possibilities of this sort of a model and means to fund projects. I’m definitely watching and taking notes and seeing where things go.