Kickstarter for the Average Musician

Kickstarter and fanfunding, are the buzzwords of the moment. Thank you Amanda Palmer!

But realistically, how easy is it to reach a target?  

You have an email list of fans, but how many will give you some of their hard earned cash?

There are many questions like this that the average musician needs answers to, so John Oszajca of Music Marketing Manifesto has recently interviewed someone at the other end of the scale to Amanda Palmer, singer/songwriter Kat Parsons, who recently reached her modest amount (in comparison) of 20,000 US Dollars to record her album, and asked her why she chose Kickstarter what her pledges were, how she engaged her fanbase to reach her target.

The interview is a podcast on his website and you can hear it here.

 

Link

http://www.musicmarketingmanifesto.com/mmm-podcast-episode-7-kickstarter-for-the-average-musician-with-kat-parsons/

 

3 Legal Tips for Amanda Palmer-Style Crowdfunding

Here at Make It In Music we have been following with interest the Amanda Palmer Kickstarter story. It has definitely been a game changer. Indie musicians everywhere are now looking at the DIY approach in a new light. There is money to be had.

Earlier this month we took at look at this, with Crowdfunding - Beware of the Goldrush - 20 Things You Must Consider  looking at things that concern your commitment to the fans that have invested in your music.

But we forget there are other implications to suddenly having a million dollars fall in your lap.

Martin Frascogna has written an article covering possible legal and financial implications to consider when setting up a kickstarter project.

Martin states,

Raising millions via crowdfunding doesn’t come without questions, and more so, legal implications. Where does all the money go? Is there a legal obligation to investors? Because Amanda’s successful Kickstarter will inevitably inspire others to initiate crowd funding campaigns, artists can avoid future pitfalls by implementing the following techniques.

1. Treat It Like a Contract

2. Assure the Proper Entity

3. Transparency Is Key

You can read his full article in the Midem Blog here

Links

http://makeitinmusic.posterous.com/crowdfunding-beware-of-the-goldrush-20-things

http://blog.midem.com/2012/06/martin-frascogna-3-legal-tips-for-amanda-palmer-style-crowdfunding-success/

 

 

Crowdfunding - Beware of the Goldrush - 20 Things You Must Consider

The music industry has been recently turned on it's head. Who by? Amanda Fucking Palmer that's who.

She seems to of got what she wants just by asking for it, and she has made it look easy. One million dollars in just a few weeks is an incredible acheivement, and one many people are thinking they can replicate with ease.

Amanda came from the fortunate position of having a healthy sized fanbase to start with, and has obviously displayed a knack on how to entice and engage the crowdfunding public. Even to the point of managing to get a number of fans to part with 5000 dollars each for her and her band to perform in their living rooms. 

But there are many many things to consider.  Writer Scott Steinberg has written a free book, "The Crowdsourcing Bible"  and puts forward these questions that anyone considering crowdfunding should ask themselves for starting their project, music based or not, the principles and questions remain the same.

 

1.  How good is your idea – really? Are you certain that people will be interested in it?

2.  Why is your product, service or venture destined to sell – what value does it offer the customer?

3.  What differentiates your project from existing competitors, or alternatives that have come before? Are you utilizing an existing brand, IP or personality that has a pre-existing base of fans or consumers? (Using an existing, if perhaps older, brand or IP which consumers have fond memories of can be a very effective strategy.)

4.  Can you express your idea simply and at the same time get people excited about it?  If not, it may be that the idea isn't all that compelling, or that you may not be the right person to communicate or present it.

5.  Do you have something tangible to show when presenting your venture – some visual aspect of your project that can help other people visualize it?

6.  How well do you know and understand your target audience?

7.  Do you have confidence in your ability to reach out and connect with potential backers?  Have you planned which vehicles you will use to reach out and connect with them?

8.  Have you calculated just how much money you need – truly need – to get your ideas off the ground? 

9.  Have you factored in all financial variables, including the costs of reward fulfillment, payments to the crowdfunding service, and taxes?

10.  Have you been sensible enough to build a budget that allows for breathing room in certain areas, and factors in conservative projections?

11.  Are you positive that you can fulfill all your promises, including completing the project in the allotted timeframe, and delivering on all features and content covered in your pitch? Have you considered the impact on your product’s brand identity, or your own personal brand, should your campaign not succeed?

12.  Do you have some great rewards in mind to give backers and fans incentive to donate?  Have you mapped out your reward tiers? How will you offer these rewards, and what dollar amount will you attach to them?

13.  Can you offer meaningful rewards at a variety of investment levels to attract all potential patrons?

14.  What specific or unique rewards will you use to get people talking? Can you create any singular ones that can be utilized in social media campaigns or for press outreach?

15.  Do you understand all the personal and professional demands that the process of running a crowdfunding campaign demands from creators? Are you prepared to put 110% effort into making your crowdfunding project a success?

16.  Do you have at least some marketing, public relations and social media connections and savvy?

17.    What promotional campaign activities do you plan to pursue leading up to and during launch? How will you keep the buzz going after your crowdfunding project debuts?

18.    Are you ready and able to take a big personal risk?

19.  Do you – and at least a few other people you can look to for support, whether financial, emotional or otherwise – fully believe in your project?

20.   Who can you turn to for help, whether in terms of assistance with asset creation, financial backing, raising awareness or just help spreading the word?

 

With the forthcoming crowdsourcing boom, there are bound to be many failures, don't let yours be one of them. Luckily for you Scotts book is available to download for free.  Just click here.

 

Links

http://www.amandapalmer.net/category/news/

http://www.booksabouttechnology.com/

 

 

 

Learn from Ginger - a fan funding masterclass

This is pretty much the gospel when it comes to how to fan fund a record.

Ginger Wildheart has raised more than 5 times the money he asked for to make a triple album.

Sure, he has history and a fanbase to fall back on, but you should have some kind of active fanbase before you even attempt fan funding. Maybe not as many as Ginger, but the fabled 1,000 fans is a minimum really.

Read the interview with his manager here.

There's a lot I love about the interview:

People love music, they love great bands and they love a great story. The industry is very different than it used to be but in many ways is stacked more in the artist’s favour than ever before. With such a direct line into fans, an artist has complete creative freedom to explore, and at the same time fans also have complete control as to which projects they want to see come into fruition. Its an ideal scenario for both parties.

And then there's his view on what's essential for every artist:

The importance of honing your craft can never be underestimated. There are so many bands that rush to play live and record. It really is a false economy. You only get one chance to make a first impression, so make sure it’s one people won’t forget in a hurry. No amount of tweeting and Facebooking will make up for your band’s miserable live performance!

Read the whole thing as it has general insight for every musician plus great detail on fan funding.

Once you've read that go and watch Ginger's pitch for fan funding and look at how he updated pledgers with almost daily videos (the Activity area at the bottom of his pledge page). I know he has that heritage to rely on, but that didn't stop him doing a great job just to make sure anyway.

A lot to learn here.

 

3 tips for your fan-funded record

We've looked at fan funding a lot - such as in this great post full of tips here.

But, this post on Digital Music News reduces the advice to 3 great points that you NEED to know.

Today, as we watch the labels shift and recorded revenue streams dry up, the idea of patronage has resurfaced.  Platforms like Kickstarter and Pledge Music market themselves as direct financing engines and have helped artists raise some serious cash.  And this can work: I just raised more than $10,000 on Kickstarter, but not before learning some surprising lessons.   

Read them here.

Fan Funding Case Study

On the ever excellent Mic Control blog they are running a series of posts on fan funding - and this one is especially good.

The piece looks at one band's decision to use Kickstarter to raise the money to make their first album but it also has input from the studio where they were going to record - which adds a different perspective.

What I like about it is that it goes into detail about how the band came to decide on fan funding, and what they did wrong!

In retrospect, we should have anticipated these sorts of questions. We also should have prepared a short video presentation for the Kickstarter page. Seeing a short pitch with real human beings in it makes the project seem more personal; all we had was a relatively formal, but excruciatingly vague description of what we were trying to do. Sure it made sense for our fans who had seen us live, but it didn’t introduce our band to strangers stumbling across the Kickstarter page. All we had was a photo of us on stage performing, and since we were all very unhappy with the quality of our demo recording, we didn’t even have an example of what we sounded like.

Read the whole thing here.

The emergence of crowdfunding

As part of We All Make Music's 'Best of 2010' series, Rocket Hub have put together this list of 4 signifcant developmenets in fan funding.

Fan Funding or Crowd funding - whichever you prefer - really came of age in 2010 and this list gives you some places to go and learn more about how you can use it in your music career.

Read the post here.