Tossing smooches to the Medicis

"Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it." -- Samuel Johnson

Doonesbury begins what I hope will be a sustained arc on Kickstarter. If so, we're off to a good start. And, even if this is only going to be a short take, it's already made a point.

Point being, I think there is, first of all, a certain "them as has, gets" quality to Kickstarter that goes unmentioned.

Passing the hat in your livingroom is different than passing the hat in a stadium.

Kickstarter works well for people with an established fan base. I'm not sure it's an effective mechanism for someone trying to start out, unless you keep your goal appropriately modest.

And, even then, what do you offer as incentives to upsell donors? Once you've given them a copy of the album, book, whatever, where do you go from there? At the next level, you sign it. Then, at the level above that, you ... um ... sign it and add smooches.

Wait, I'm copyrighting that: From now on, the term for additional, upscale Kickstarter incentives that don't materially increase the value of the basic incentive is "smooches."

However, I like the idea of babysitting and lawn care. Toggle continues to bring practicality to a strip in which everyone else seems to live on theory.

Meanwhile, over at The Gutters, Rus Wooton and Ryan Sohmer sound off on some Kickstarter gripes I've heard but (well, except for the first one a couple of times) haven't experienced:

I'm not sure why I haven't run up against the problem of funding projects that don't happen, though I've got some theories.

During the elections, one of my sons questioned my impatience (putting it mildly) with people who advocated not voting, on the theory that Obama was not the perfect candidate and that, consequently, Romney would be no worse. Not that he was hoping for more Scalias on the Supreme Court either, but he just didn't see this phenomenon as particularly widespread and suggested that the disconnect might lie in the difference between our news feeds.

This doesn't mean that I have more than the average allotment of silly friends (and certainly not you). But I have a much larger group of Facebook contacts, which is a blend of actual "friends" in the three-dimensional sense, business contacts, professional cronies, long ago school chums, etc etc, while he is friends, for the most part, with people with whom he tends to agree on most things. "Friends" in the archaic sense.

And it could well be that, similarly, my positive Kickstarter experience derives from having backed only a couple of projects, and those for people with a pretty well-established track record.

Were I more generous and more in touch with the starving artist demographic, I'd probably have more experience of backing projects that didn't come through. 

Sohmer himself had a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign (if "wildly successful" can be defined as going nearly five times over goal) that I might have backed had I known about it in time, because the book looks like a great present for young parents.

I hope that doesn't mean he now hates his partner in the project. And I'm assuming they didn't bombard their backers with petty updates. 

I suspect, however, that, when you're in his corner of the business, you deal with a lot of dreamers and starving artists, and tend, as the rant suggests, to be approached often for money by that guy in the bus shelter.

Particularly since, as I've said before, there is a certain element of Kickstarter that involves back-scratching and could degenerate into a bunch of people passing the same $20 bill around in a circle.

So here's a question I'd like an answer to: A major benefit of Kickstarter over some other crowd-funding sites is that the money doesn't happen if the goal isn't reached. I think that's an excellent policy.

But my question is, do you get to see who your donors are before you make your goal? 

Because if the guy at the bus stop starts telling me about his new project, I'm going to try to put him off. If he's standing in front of me, that's hard to do.

But if everyone who knows him knows he's a Cliff Clavin and the project isn't going to happen no matter how much money he raises, we can all smile and just not give to his Kickstarter campaign.

Will he find out? Or can I let him think that some of the $175 pledged towards his $22,000 goal was from me?

Meanwhile, here's one that I have supported, and that I endorse. The original campaign to make a documentary film about cartooning made goal, but then they were faced with the licensing costs for some really important materials they wanted to use, and so have launched a re-start.

Is it fair for them to come back for more? Yeah, I think so. They're not the first to be gob-smacked by the cost of licensing.

In fact, if you listen to this On the Media report, you'll learn that it can cost as much as $10,000 to have someone sing "Happy Birthday" in a movie or TV show.

And, when I did a children's biography of Nellie Bly and wanted to use a century-old photo of her, the owners wanted $4,000. Fortunately, it was far from necessary.

Not so in this case. They spell out what they want to use and what it's going to cost them, and you should have a look and think about it. They've already hit their minimum, the film is going to happen, but these clips all look legit and necessary to me.

I mean, how can you talk about the impact of "Peanuts" without being allowed to play the Vince Guaraldi tune? (And they can't just do this like I can!)

I want to see this happen. I want to see the film but, more than that, I'm hoping Dave Kellett will come over and rake my lawn.

 

 

Comments

[Brian Fies]

I'm going to take a little piece of your essay and run with it...

I thought of you this weekend when I read a good review of the new book "Eighty Days," about the race between Nelly Bly and Elizabeth Bisland to beat each other around the world in opposite directions. Just bringing it to your attention...

Your "Happy Birthday" and Bly photo stories just intersected with a Chesley Bonestell (space artist) item on io9.com to remind me of my efforts getting the rights to reproduce other people's copyrighted stuff in "Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow." Bonestell's reps were a dream; all they really wanted was acknowledgment and a couple of free copies. General Motors drove a harder but still-reasonable bargain to reproduce something of theirs--$300, IIRC, after I went to some trouble convincing them they actually held the copyright. Disney never got back to me so I worked around. Your Bly reps are nuts to demand $4000 but I guess it never hurts to ask. I'll bet the author/publisher of "Eighty Days" got a better deal for their cover photos.

[Mike Peterson]

As it happens, I compared notes with Brooke Kroeger about the shot of Nellie that was on the cover of her biography (which was a primary source for my own). We didn't compare prices, but she said the copyright holder had pitched a small fit over the fact that they cropped the photo slightly, clipping the plumes at the top of her hat.

As I recall, the conversation began with my observing that I now understood why authors give such thanks to the people who arrange for all these permissions. What a hassle!

And, yes, I suspect major publishing houses get a different deal than the one-timer calling in from East Overshoe.

Incidentally, her biography of Bly is about to be released as an eBook and, whatever the price turns out to be, it's well worth it.

[Mike Peterson]

And, yes, my mother is ahead of you on the Bly/Bisland book -- big surprise, eh? Haven't decided if I'm going to try to fit it onto the teetering stack of books on my bedside table.

Kroeger dismissed Bisland's attempt as too little, too late, and I've heard suggestions a couple of places (besides from her) that going East to West created several disadvantages for Bisland aside from the fact that Nellie was simply the right person for the gig.

Nellie -- never one to miss a chance for self-promotion -- also dramatized a few of her "close connections" and "near disasters," while Bisland apparently had a couple that didn't need hyping and genuinely did derail her attempt.