Need money to finance your creative project? Crowdfunding may be your solution.
So you’ve poured out your heart and soul over the past several years, completing your first draft manuscript. You’ve shared it with lots of people, and the consensus is, “This is good! But it’s a little hard to read. Needs editing.”
You do your homework and find a skilled professional editor you really like, who is also a mentor, coach and ghostwriter. She understands your passion, sees your vision of how this book is really great, even has excellent ideas for how to make it even better. And she will work closely with you to turn your manuscript from “good” to “great,” while preserving your voice, teaching you, and enhancing the essence of your book. She is also an expert with connections in the publishing world, understands the industry and how to get “in,” and will guide you through the process of finding an agent. You want desperately to work with this person. But there’s only one hitch. Her five figure fee — a fee totally worth it considering the wealth of services she will provide, including an education AND finishing your book — is simply more than you can afford. In frustration, you realize that the only thing between you and moving ahead with your dreams and goal of publishing a great book — is money.
So, what are your options?
A) You could keep trying to edit it yourself, and hope it will be done right.
B) You could settle for a cheap non-native editor overseas, and hope it will be done right.
C) You could do what the average author is doing: skip the editing, go straight to self-publishing an unedited first draft, and wind up with an unreadable book that won’t sell and that won’t earn more than $200. Might as well throw away the manuscript.
D) You could go back to school, take classes in writing, editing, and publishing, and learn how to do everything yourself. But that takes thousands of dollars, too–and a lot more time that you’ve got.
E) You could go to the bank or a relative for a loan.
F) You could launch a crowdfunding campaign.
Crowdfunding is a new way to raise money for creative or personal projects. The “crowd” is your extended network of friends, family, associates, and others who share a common interest in your passion. It is important before you launch your campaign to build that network, first, correctly. And choose the right site for your project. There are now more than 100 different sites specializing in helping people raise money this way.
To learn about how do it the right way, contact me or come to one of my workshops, “Blueprint for Crowdfunding a Creative Project” on Thursday evening, April 10, at GreenSquare Center in Glendale, Wisconsin, to learn more about about how to make it all happen!
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