The final countdown! Seven days to go…

March 25, 2014 ~ Tehani ~ Leave a comment

This is it! The final week of the Cranky Ladies of History Pozible campaign is underway! We are at $9900 with an amazing 180 supporters on board the Cranky Ladies train, and Tansy and I are just delighted with the result so far. We have smashed our first stretch goal of more art by the brilliant Kathleen Jennings, and we’re aiming high — if we can hit $12,500, we can add another 25,000 words to our book! That’s more stories and more great authors to enjoy, which would help make the book even more awesome.

But what’s in it for you? Why back a crowdfunding campaign that is already funded? There are lots of good reasons (including the fact it makes us do a little dance!) and I wrote about some of them here — exclusive campaign rewards! Publisher dancing! All good things 🙂

In case you missed it on the weekend, we got some more mainstream media notice with Linda Morris from the Sydney Morning Herald writing a great article about the cranky ladies, which was published on Sunday. We’re so pleased to see that our Cranky Ladies are receiving such attention, and with the previous ABC News Online article and radio appearances and everything, have to say it’s pretty cool. Stay tuned for a few more interviews/articles to come!

I might sound a bit like a broken record, but I really can’t thank enough everyone who has pledged and signal-boosted the campaign over the past three weeks. You’re amazing. And thank you as well to the very excellent people who have taken part in our Cranky Ladies Blog Tour — it’s been such a fantastic response, and it’s still going! Check out the posts so far, and keep an eye out for more to come.

Cranky Ladies, storming the world!

Backing a funded crowdfunding campaign

March 19, 2014 ~ Tehani

We’re very fortunate to be in the exciting position of reaching our funding target with half the campaign still left to run, and some people might be wondering what use backing a campaign that has reached its target might be. There are lots of reasons to still be part of the crowdfunding that you might not know, so here are a few of them!

1. Exclusive rewards! Many of the Cranky Ladies campaign rewards are exclusive to the Pozible crowdfunding campaign. They will never be offered for sale in any other way, because we wanted something that made our backers special. For example, the Cranky Ladies of History 2015 calendar will be created by Tansy (mostly), just for our backers — no other copies will be made available! The same goes for our art prints and the beautiful brollies at varying levels — exclusive stuff is cool!

2. Pre-ordering books is hugely helpful to boutique publishers — pre-orders help us decide on print runs and for boutique press, this is essential information. Even ebook pre-orders help us work out the interest in advance, and it’s all appreciated.

3. Being part of the story — I’m a geek in this way. We might not have quite the same coolness quotient that the Veronica Mars movie campaign or the Amanda Palmer Kickstarter, but it’s fun to be able to say, “I helped that happen” — just me? 🙂

4. Future-you will thank you! When the book arrives in your inbox/post box in February 2015, you can exclaim delightedly over it because it’s like a present from the past! Wait, that’s not just me too, is it?

5. Tansy and I both do little dances of joy when we get a new pledge — you can’t see it, but trust me, it happens!

The Cranky Ladies team of editors, authors and artist are hugely grateful for all the support the campaign has received, in pledges and signal-boosting, and can’t wait to bring this book to life — our backers have made that happen, and we thank you!

All the Cranky Ladies!

March 3, 2014 ~ Tehani

We’re only into day 3 of our campaign and we’re over a third of the way towards funding – can you see my happy dance?! Tansy and I are so excited about the support and signal-boosting we’ve been lucky enough to receive, and want to publicly thank everyone who has already pledged, and also every single person who has posted, tweeted, blogged, Facebooked and so on about the campaign, because we know how much of a difference it makes. THANK YOU!

We’re starting to see fantastic posts about cranky ladies popping up as Women’s History Month gets underway, and we’re linking to them on the Cranky Ladies Blog Tour page – one of my favourite things about this book has been learning about historical figures I had not come across, so this blog tour is just excellent!

With the marvellous support we’ve already received, we’re adding some new rewards tiers – take a look at the Pozible site and see if anything new takes your fancy over the next couple of days! The first new tier is already up, with more to come – more cranky lady goodness!

Cranky Ladies of History: the crowd-funding campaign

February 25, 2014 ~ Tehani

During March, FableCroft Publishing is running the Cranky Ladies of History crowd-funding campaign on the Pozible platform. The campaign goes live on March 1 and will close on March 31, running for the duration of Women’s History Month. Our goal is to raise enough to pay our wonderful contributors the professional rates they so rightly deserve, and to create the very best book we can.

It’s our very great pleasure to also announce that we have been successful in securing a brand new Arts Tasmania grant associated with our campaign. The Crowbar funding is ONLY awarded to successful campaigns, but is assessed in advance – we will receive an extra $2,000 for our project if the Pozible campaign fully funds, which is is extremely exciting. We were Crowbar’s very first applicants, so we’re absolutely stoked to be approved for this! The funding is linked directly to the success of the campaign, and although we are approved by Arts Tas as eligible, they are only able to award the funds to successful campaigns, which is a bit scary, but extra incentive to do a brilliant job on our campaign trail 🙂

We are so grateful to so many people who have already offered support to the campaign by way of commitment to the project, and to those people who are already planning to participate in our Cranky Ladies of History blog tour. During the month, people from all over the world will be posting about THEIR favourite Cranky Ladies, and we will be linking to those from the FableCroft blog, Twitter and Facebook, as well as rounding up all the links on our dedicated Cranky Ladies page. It should be loads of fun, and also a fantastic way to learn about all those wonderful, irascible, eccentric, CRANKY women of history who pushed the boundaries of the societal norms of their time and place, and deserve to be remembered.

We will have more information about the Cranky Ladies project and the creators who are on board over the next few days – hope you’ll join us for the ride!

If you would like to host, post or guest blog about one (or more!) of YOUR favourite Cranky Ladies, please let me know! We want to plaster the internet with cranky women, and the more the merrier!

Notes from Pozible information session

January 19, 2014 ~ Tehani ~ 1 Comment

Back in November last year I attended a really interesting Pozible crowdfunding information session in Launceston. I tweeted and made notes, but completely neglected to collate my notes, which I’m doing now for my own reference (and anyone who is interested!). While the session was specific to Pozible (and very well presented by the friendly, approachable and knowledgeable Reuben), much is also relevant for other crowdfunding platforms. So here it is (reminder, this is in reverse order of tweets – perhaps read from the bottom up!):

Undelivered rewards are surprisingly uncommon. #crowdfunding
Pozible charges 5% service fee on total raised IF project funds – no charge if it doesn’t. #crowdfunding
6:16 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>

Pozible subscription #crowdfunding model now available – could be of interest in publishing!
6:15 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>

As creative people, your traction is in how you tell stories; you have the advantage to involve people at a personal level. #crowdfunding
6:09 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>

Success rate goes through the roof just by attending a Pozible information session. #crowdfunding
6:06 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>

When the campaign is over, thank your supporters – a lot! #crowdfunding
5:58 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-mentions=”reubenacciano KaleidoscopeTPP” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>

Hee! @reubenacciano played the @KaleidoscopeTPP Pozible video because I asked a related question – he said nice things! #crowdfunding
5:45 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-mentions=”tansyrr” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>

Research several projects similar to yours – 8-10 including a couple of unsuccessful ones (to consider what NOT to do). #crowdfunding
5:44 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>RT: @Krasnostein: interesting – lots of this stuff not true for my Pozible campaign – Twitter the best platform for publishing #crowdfunding
5:40 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-mentions=”Krasnostein” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>90% of campaigns that reach 25-30% in the first week will fund – the “sheep” effect. #crowdfunding
5:39 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>Significantly more Pozible traffic via Facebook than from Twitter! #crowdfunding
5:34 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>Offline engagement: talk about project in the real world. Plan a live event halfway through. Have iPad there to demo Pozible! #crowdfunding
5:33 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>Reinvigorate campaign by adding special rewards AFTER target has been reached – stimulate interest again. #crowdfunding
5:28 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>Heh. “I’m special” is a really popular narrative in social media. Unique rewards can be very effective, even at high price. #crowdfunding
5:27 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>90% of successful Pozible #crowdfunding projects have a video as part of the project page, and these raise more money.
5:25 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>… Creative rewards; strategic planning; offline engagement. #crowdfunding
5:24 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>How do you convince people to pledge to your #crowdfunding project? Be personal/transparent; use video; use social media (40% of traffic)
5:23 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>Most common pledge on Pozible is $100, then $25, then $50. #crowdfunding
5:17 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>

Stretch goals show you’re ambitious & have a plan #crowdfunding
5:14 PM – 27 Nov 2013

· Details

 </div> ” data-you-follow=”false” data-you-block=”false”>

Pozible has around 59% success rate – Kickstarter is 44%, Indigogo 20% #crowdfunding