10 Tips for Kickstarter Success

Imagine a website where artists and entrepreneurs can post a page, ask for money, and accept donations. In return, those seeking money offer up prizes and goodies to entice people to contribute. That’s Kickstarter.

It’s fund-raising with a twist: You must reach your goal in order to be paid. If you ask for $100 but only $99 gets pledged, you don’t get anything. If you asked for $100 and got $500 in pledges, good for you! Payments flow through Kickstarter via Paypal or Amazon and each takes a cut. 

I haven’t run my own Kickstarter campaign but I have contributed. In the past week alone, five painters doing a variety of art shows, a radio program, a book author, a theater troupe, and an independent publisher have all asked me to donate money. Here is what I’ve observed:

1. Ask for Less Than You Need.

You did the math. $10,000 would completely fund your dream including the flowers, security, clowns, and a lighting designer. It would even pay for your food, phone, and rent for the next six months so you could devote yourself full-time to the project. Ask for 1/3 or 1/2 of that. If you truly have a fan base, they’ll surprise you.

2. Make a Video.

Part of the fun of Kickstarter is watching the videos and seeing how people sell themselves. If you’re going to run a campaign, watch a bunch of videos before you make your own, and do make your own!

3. Keep the Video Short

Friends might give you three minutes. Half of that time is for your audience to pull out their wallet, register for the site, choose which donation level they want to pay into, and press the submit button. A lengthy video means that your audience will burn out their (short) attention span watching your long-winded video leaving no time for the payment process.

4. Make the Video Fun

You don’t need to have animated graphics and flying robots to show some character in your short video. If you can entertain and educate potential patrons for 1.5 minutes then maybe you deserve their money. Fail to be succinct and the audience will have more time to find holes in your story.

5. Give Good Prizes

Unless you’re Lady Gaga, nobody wants a signed photograph of you as incentive for donating $50 or more (I’ve actually seen that). Be realistic. Ask your brutally honest friends if they would donate to your cause in exchange for a half hour phone call with you as a prize. Take your donation rewards and imagine them on another campaign. Would you pay for those same things if they came from someone else? Do something unique for the people who support you. Make them feel special.

6. Don’t Apologize

“So today I’m here on Kickstarter to ask for money for my project because the amazing thing I’m going to do costs a lot of money, but it’s going to be great…” We know why you’re on Kickstarter! There’s no need to be sorry about trying to make the world a better place. Tell the (short) story and demonstrate how donations to your project will make a positive difference in the world.

7. Have a History of Success

You might have some trouble if nobody has ever heard you sing a song before and suddenly you’re on Kickstarter trying to raise $10,000 for your first album. Build a history of successes before you run a fund raising campaign. Once you have a history of success, your fans and friends will be more likely to offer money in advance.

8. Read the Kickstarter Blog

Take advice from the people who live it everyday. The Kickstarter blog often has suggestions and tips for creating a successful campaign.

9. Thank Everyone Who Pledges

I’ve donated to a few campaigns and was immediately thanked afterwards. That made me feel like they noticed and appreciated my small gesture.

10. Support Others.

Every dollar makes a difference. If someone you know ran or runs a Kickstarter, chances are they know exactly who supported them and who did not.

More Reading:

10 Tips for Funding a Successful Kickstarter Project

10 Crowd-Funding Tips from Kickstarter Filmmakers

My Kickstarter Experience: The Good, Bad, and Ugly

Nancy Duarte’s TEDx Talk: You Can Change the World

Nancy Duarte founded Duarte Design, a presentation design and training company. In this inspiring 18-minute TEDx East talk, Nancy explains how communicating ideas can change the world.

Storyworlds Across Media Conference

This looks like a great conference!

Storyworlds across Media.
Mediality - Multimodality - Transmediality
June 30 - July 2, 2011 at Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany
http://www.storyworlds.de

Thursday, June 30

Introduction

10:00-10:45 Karl N. Renner (Mainz):
Introductory Remarks

10:45-11:30 Marie-Laure Ryan (Boulder/Mainz):
Storyworlds across Media

Panel 1: Transmedial Worlds

12:00-12:45 Lisbeth Klastrup/Susana Tosca (Copenhagen):
A Game of Thrones: Transmedial Worlds, Fandom, and Social Gaming

12:45-13:30 Colin B. Harvey (London/Bournemouth):
A Taxonomy of Transmedia Storytelling

13:30-14:15 Van Leavenworth (Umea):
The Developing Storyworld of H. P. Lovecraft

Panel 2: Transmedial Storytelling

15:45-16:30 Jason Mittell (Middlebury):
Strategies of Storytelling on Transmedia Television

16:30-17:15 Mélanie Bourdaa (Bourdeaux):
The Many Facets of Transmedia Storytelling

17:15-18:00 Maria L. Leavenworth (Umea):
Transmedial Narration and Good and Evil Vampires

Friday, July 1

Panel 3: Transmedial Concepts

10:00-10:45 Frank Zipfel (Mainz):
Fictionality across Media: Transmedial Concepts of Fictionality

10:45-11:30 J. Alexander Bareis (Lund):
Mediality and Mediation: The Role of the Narrator in Transmedial Narratology

11:30-12:15 Jan-Noël Thon (Hamburg/Mainz):
Subjectivity across Media: On Transmedial Strategies of Subjective Representation

Panel 4: Visual Storytelling

14:00-14:45 Patrick C. Hogan (Connecticut):
Painting as a Challenge to Narrative Discourse Analysis: The Visual Art of Rabindranath Tagore

14:45-15:30 Werner Wolf (Graz):
Triggers (Framings) of Narrativity in Literature and Painting

15:30-16:15 Gyöngyvér Horváth (Budapest):
Narrative Ramification: A Visual Response to Transmedial Narration

Panel 5: Multimodal Storytelling

16:45-17:30 Jared Gardner (Ohio/Mainz):
Graphic Narrative and New Media Convergence

17:30-18:15 Wolfgang Hallet (Giessen):
The Rise of the Multimodal Novel: Generic Change and Its Narratological Implications

18:15-19:00 Jeff Thoss (Graz):
Media Rivalry Revisited: The Case of Scott Pilgrim

Saturday, July 2

Panel 6: Interactive Storytelling

10:00-10:45 Jesper Juul (Copenhagen/New York):
The Paradox of Interactive Tragedy: Can a Video Game have an Unhappy Ending?

10:45-11:30 Michael Fuchs (Graz):
“It’s Not a Lake. It’s an Ocean.” Alan Wake, Transmedia Storytelling, and Meta-Media-Convergence

11:30-12:15 Marco Carraciolo (Bologna):
Those Insane Dream Sequences: Distorted Experience in Literature and Video Games

Panel 7: Spatial Storytelling

14:00-14:45 Elke Huwiler (Amsterdam):
Storytelling in Performances: A Historical Perspective

14:45-15:30 April G. Wei (Hong Kong):
A Poetics of Navigational Narrative

15:30-16:15 Erwin Feyersinger (Insbruck):
Transferring Narratological Concepts of Space to Augmented Reality Environments

16:15-16:30 Marie-Laure Ryan/Karl N. Renner/Jan-Noël Thon:
Closing Remarks

Participation is free, but since the number of participants is limited, registrations will be accepted on a first come, first served basis. Please be sure to register no later than May 31, 2011 by sending your name and institutional affiliation to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Contemporary Uses of Narrative Online Course

Contemporary Uses of Narrative
Internet based course at master level, 7,5 ECTS
Fall semester 2011: 1 September through 3 November
Course language: English
Course code HG-NE350
Course fee for students outside EU/ESS: 10 000 SEK

In our contemporary world, narrative seems to have become something of a key symbol for interpreting phenomena from various fields of society.

Producing companies no longer sell products; after having for some time merchandized brands, today they trade stories about their brands. Political parties nowadays feed their potential electors with narratives instead of with ideologies. Business leaders use various form of storytelling as techniques of leadership. Mass media have obviously left their traditional role of neutral reporting in favor of describing reality in terms of dramatic and emotionally engaging stories.

The process of meaning creation involves severe reductionist elements. Intricate social, political or cultural situations are reduced to simple dichotomies, complex personalities are rendered in the form of stereotyped role characters, and slow, composite, undramatic processes are simply disregarded.

To be able to understand the mechanisms of this development, one has to be familiar with the basic structural elements of narrative making it an efficient cultural form for creating meaning in individual and collective experiences.

Drawing its examples from the fields of politics, business management, marketing, and tourism, the course invites the student to reflect over the possible cultural, social and political consequences of the changing uses of narrative in contemporary society.

More information: Professor Ulf Palmenfelt .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Welcome to submit your application at http://www.hgo.se/utbud/hgo/HET802

Call for Papers: Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics: A Journal of Qualitative Research

Call for Papers (New Journal): Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics: A Journal of Qualitative Research

A new journal published by JHU Press has put out its initial Call for Papers.  The journal is entitled Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics: A Journal of Qualitative Research.  All three of these descriptors are central to the medical humanities, so this looks to be an exciting and promising journal.  Here are some details on the approach and scope of the journal:

Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics (NIB) provides a forum for exploring current issues in bioethics through the publication and analysis of personal stories, qualitative and mixed-methods research articles, and case studies. Articles may address the experiences of patients and research participants, as well as health care workers and researchers. NIB is dedicated to fostering a deeper understanding of bioethical issues by engaging rich descriptions of complex human experiences. While NIB upholds appropriate standards for narrative inquiry and qualitative research, it seeks to publish articles that will appeal to a broad readership of health care providers and researchers, bioethicists, sociologists, policy makers, and others.

Thick content, indeed!

And here are the guidelines for submission.  NIB has planned three symposia to kick things off for Volume 1:

Issue 1, July 2011: Living with Conflicts of Interest in Medicine (Symposium Editor, James DuBois)

Preference given to story proposals received by October 15.

Issue 2, September 2011: Nursing Aides in Long-Term Care Facilities (Symposium Editor, Amy Haddad)

Preference given to story proposals received by October 15.

Issue 3, December 2011: Experiences of Hospitalized Psychiatric Patients (Symposium Editor, Charles Lidz)

Preference given to story proposals received by October 15.

Sounds terrific, so do consider submitting your work.

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