… or is it really dumb? What am I missing?
What do you think are the pros and cons of a DIY campaign? Have you ever tried, or considered trying a crowdfunded campaign to sell pre-orders?
With the work left to do on my record dwindling down, I have begun to think about how I’m going to release this lovely work of art.
I think I’ll try a DIY crowdfunding campaign to sell pre-orders.
Crowdfunding is Probably a Good Idea
I wasn’t initially intending to run a crowdfunding campaign, but as the money spent on the record has reached up into the thousands (and thousands) and with other mounting monetary obligations (such as our baby due April 2nd, and our cross-country move planned in August,) I’m thinking that it would be a good idea to run a campaign to drum up pre-order sales to cover the cost of mixing, mastering album artwork and duplication.
There is another motivation for running a pre-order campaign. I’m testing the waters. From the start of this project about a year ago, I wondered if I would even have any physical CDs printed. Running a pre-order campaign will allow me to gauge the interest in a physical CD.
Kickstarter & PledgeMusic
I have run a successful Kickstarter in the past when Wayward Vessel released our second full length record in 2012. It was a pretty good experience, and we raised about 115% of our $5,000 goal. It was a ton of work to reach out to our family, friends and fans, and manage all of the perks, which made it hurt when Kickstarter took their hefty chunk to cover the various fees. It seems like Kickstarter didn’t do too much for us other than provide a website and some social media tools via the website. Plus folks are sick of Kickstarters, aren’t they? I’ve received records from less than half of the projects that I have contributed to, and I know I’m not alone there.
This time around, there are some different options.
I like the idea of PledgeMusic, and they do “make” the band deliver on the perks by holding back a percentage until it’s all of the project’s obligations are met. I would have been interested in trying PledgeMusic, but I was denied access to their tools because of my lack of social media presence. This makes total sense, since their campaigns are largely based in social media. If I don’t already have a social media presence, they’re tools will not be effective and I would have a smaller chance of reaching our campaign goal, and PledgeMusic’s ROI wouldn’t be there..
So instead of running two campaigns; one campaign to drive up my social media numbers, and then one to release my album, I’ve decided to run the album release campaign myself (with the help of my top secret team, my family and the bluegrass community, of course.)
What’s Next?
I’ll have to think about what these crowdfunding sites offer. What am I missing by running a campaign on my own?
- Is it worth the money you give a crowdfunding service to gain access to their network?
- Would I get a bunch more “random” pledges by using a crowdfunding service?
- Are the crowdfunding services doing more work than it would appear?
- What’s a realistic goal for a small artist’s first release?
I have found a couple tools in the WordPress universe that I can use to help me turn my website into a crowdfunding platform. I’ll talk about them as I continue to explore my options.
What do you think are the pros and cons of a DIY campaign? Have you ever tried, or considered trying a crowdfunded campaign to sell pre-orders?