The Better World Book Kickstarter (May 2019)

Just $452 to go to get to the next stretch goal (World Domination Gardening 3 DVD Set)….very excited!!!  Then we start working onward to Micheal Judd's book :)

Lyda Eagle wrote:Yeah, I have posted to all the ones I can think of. I know over 350 people have "seen" them but only 7 people have really responded to it.  I get a lot of "thumbs' up but not sure if they are really checking it out.  Of course I have gotten reprimanded for trying to sell something ... even when I said that really wasn't my goal. I just think this is something everyone could use.And that you get so much it is like getting tons of free stuff.   And I realized I have been using my spiffy link wrong, so I am not sure just how many actually did go and back the kickstarter.  I will keep trying hopefully more will at least check it out and see that it is a great deal.

how did you use the link wrong?

to go to the kickstarter    



CLICK HERE!

Greg Martin wrote:Just $452 to go to get to the next stretch goal (World Domination Gardening 3 DVD Set)….very excited!!!  Then we start working onward to Micheal Judd's book :)

if we hit that ....


Here is all the stuff for people that support at $5 or more:

- Permaculture Playing Cards eBook (4 gift codes)
- Care and Feeding of a Rocket Mass Heater (4 gift codes)
- Rocket Ovens Cooking Microdoc (4 gift codes)
- Hugelkultur Microdoc (4 gift codes)
- 21 Podcast Review of Sepp Holzer's Permaculture
- Permaculture Experience eBook (gift code)
- Build a Cob Style Rocket Mass Heater DVD (Stream) (4 gift codes)
- Build the Giant Solar Dehydrator (81 min stream) (4 gift codes)
- 5 Hour Video Tour of Wheaton Labs (4 gift codes)
- cool public thanks
- access to the secret inner circle forum

So the people at $100 get all that, plus:

 - 12 physical copies of "Building a Better World in your Backyard", or 36 ebooks, or mix and match
 - one of the physical copies will be signed by both shawn and i
 - your most creative name appears in the book
 - early access to the manuscript
 - the book Clean with Cleaners You Can Eat by Raven Ranson
 - the 3-DVD set (as streaming) World Domination Gardening

And then if we plow through all of the stretch goals, the people at $100 also get:

- the book Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist by Michael Judd
- the Homestead 8-inch Rocket Mass Heater Plans by Erica Wisner
- 4 gift codes for Davin Hoyt's Giant Solar Food Dehydrator Plans
- the book Organic Pools DIY Manual by David Pagan Butler
- an audio book version of Building a Better World in Your Backyard
- the documentary Chemerical
- the book Dairy Farming - the Beautiful Way by Adam Klaus
- the book The Scoop on Poop by Dan Chiras
- the book Compost Everything by David The Good
- 70 video presentations by 52 speakers from Permaculture Voices 1
- 32 video presentations from the Eat Your Dirt Summit
- access to the bootcamp program and certain events a wheaton labs
- 7 additional microdocs (4 gift codes for each)
     o how to weld
     o skiddable structures and porta cabins
     o the rocket season extender and greenhouse rocket mass heater
     o wofati natural buildings
     o the easy bake coffin
     o welding a j-tube grate
     o Justin Rhodes' basecamp tour of Wheaton Labs
- early/rough versions of four other books I’ve been working on
     o hugelkultur book
     o fallacy book
     o a book on doing kickstarters
     o community book

And the top contributors (who want these things) will receive:
- a ticket to this year’s permaculture design course (6 tickets)
- a ticket to this year’s appropriate technology course (6 tickets)
- a stay for two here at Wheaton Labs with a rocket mass heater (6 tickets)
     o allerton abbey
     o the tipi
     o the red cabin
     o the love shack



My guess is that once the audiobook is in, then oodles of people will raise their pledges.

I hope you're right,  Paul.

For my own part, I just hope the audiobook comes out on Audible, and that their setup benefits you. They are the single platform with the most publications, and that would be good for distribution.

-CK

Only $47 dollars from the next stretch mark goal!

We made the stretch goal for WDG!!!


(On tablet so will post excited image later)

Shawn Klassen-Koop wrote:We made the stretch goal for WDG!!!


(On tablet so will post excited image later)

For you Shawn

We made the stretch goal for WDG!!!

paul wheaton wrote:

Lyda Eagle wrote:Yeah, I have posted to all the ones I can think of. I know over 350 people have "seen" them but only 7 people have really responded to it.  I get a lot of "thumbs' up but not sure if they are really checking it out.  Of course I have gotten reprimanded for trying to sell something ... even when I said that really wasn't my goal. I just think this is something everyone could use.And that you get so much it is like getting tons of free stuff.   And I realized I have been using my spiffy link wrong, so I am not sure just how many actually did go and back the kickstarter.  I will keep trying hopefully more will at least check it out and see that it is a great deal.

how did you use the link wrong?

Instead of copying the link and pasting that , I clicked on it and then copied the embedded short link, which is just generic.  
Not sure what I was thinking.
I did go back and fix them but I am pretty sure anyone that  was going to use them already had.  Oh well, I can still hope  that it reached a few people.

Next up:

$65,784!

I upped my pledge because of Ravens book and the world domination gardening video, woohoo!  

Kyle Bob wrote:I upped my pledge because of Ravens book and the world domination gardening video, woohoo!  

Spiffy!

Kyle Bob wrote:I upped my pledge because of Ravens book and the world domination gardening video, woohoo!  

sweet!

I've been getting proofs of the second edition of Clean with Cleaners you can Eat back from Tracy faster than I can read them!  The drawings are amazing!  

Although, I'm a bit suspicious about how she knew what kind of sink I have in my kitchen.  

Working with Tracy is like having someone read my mind, extract the cloudy shape idea and transform it into beautiful art.  It's a privilege to work with someone with that much talent!  

Here's the message that shawn is arranging to go out in the dailyish/weeklyish tonight:

We hit another stretch goal!  

So the people at $100 get the big pile of goodies at the $5 level, plus:

- 12 physical copies of "Building a Better World in your Backyard", or 36 ebooks, or mix and match
- one of the physical copies will be signed by both Shawn and I
- your most creative name appears in the book
- early access to the manuscript
- the book Clean with Cleaners You Can Eat by Raven Ranson
- the 3-DVD set (as streaming) World Domination Gardening

The next three stretch goals are:

$70,000 - Michael Judd’s book Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist
$75,000 - 200 copies of the book to libraries!
$80,000 - Erica Wisner’s spiffy new Rocket Mass Heater plans

And then we have stuff for $85k, $90k, $95k and then at $100k the biggie of everybody at $100 and up gets the audiobook version of Building a Better World in your Backyard.  

And then we have detailed out stretch goals every $5k until $160k.    And the offers are still coming in.    We just got word that we now have permission to add three more things, although we are hammering out the details today.   Those three things are:

Sepp Holzer’s movie Desert or Paradise
the book Sustainable Happiness by Sarah van Gelder
the book Together Resilient by Ma’ikwe Ludwig

Sepp says “hi!”  :)

Sepp.  He’s so cool.

How exciting is this?  What a fun ride!

As always …   if half the people reading this message back us at the $100 level, we will have blasted past the full list of all the stretch goals!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/better-world-book?ref=27nors

We sent a similar message as an update to the kickstarter peeps a few minutes ago.

Here is what the cover of michael's book looks like

and here is a link to the book on amazon https://amzn.to/2ZSwD74

And here is the link to world domination gardening:  https://richsoil.com/wdg

And here is the preview trailer video:

For the kickstarter update, we can include images.   Since Sepp is offering his video "Desert or Paradise", all of the images of the DVD cover are in german.  The one I have is in english.  We wanted to get it out quickly, so I grabbed a fun image that has sepp in it.  

....   (my favorite part is the dandelions) ...

I sent out the update a little while ago.   We were hovering at a little under $66,000.   So I thought I might go and check to see if we had crossed the $66,000 line and I can announce it here in this thread.

8 people raised their pledge to $100 or more!  So we went way past $66,000!




$66,924!

I love the eco levels !!!
If just the people that are backing now would up their pledge by $20 we would be over 100,00.
If they did 20 it would be over 121,000.
So I am putting my money where my mouth is.
Who will join me??? :-)

Lyda  I like the levels too.
Some of us are hampered by spouses who aren't prepared for the level we would like to live in.
So, we do what we can and gently nudge our spouses toward a more sustainable lifestyle.
I figure in a few years I will have inched us into a higher level.

$67,244!

Cool! That means we are almost half way to the next stretch goal!

I've taken a look at Michael's book. It is beautiful. The photography in there is amazing. I look forward to when I can get around to reading it!

What exactly do I do to upgrade from one level to another?
I thought it might be a good FAQ on the kick starter page to make it really simple for folks to upgrade.
For instance if I am already pledged at the 20$ level, do I just pledge at the 100 $ level? Will I now get/pay for, both? Does a higher pledge cancel the lower one?

I don't know how it is done, but about half the upgrades mention upgrading to a new backer level and half of them don't mention the new backer level.  So I think about half the people are upgrading to the new backer level properly and half are not.

A new pledge cancels the original one. And it will confirm what your pledge was before, and what the new one is. Once you confirm that it is correct, will change the pledge. The trick is to choose the $100 reward level, and not just input a custom number for the lower pledge. You need to select the box for the new pledge - if you just input a new number but still have the $20 pledge selected, you wont get the incentives at the $100 level. It essentially says I want the incentives at the $29 level, and want to add an additional amount on top of that without other incentives

Fyi to those who have already upgraded - you will know if you did it right because the total you are pledging will have shipping on top. So if you upgraded to the $100 level it will show your pledge as $115 because of shipping. If your pledge is $100 even then you didnt select the $100 reward level - you increased your pledge at the previous reward level.

So if you want the $100 reward incentives go back and select the $100 reward box and make sure it includes the total of $115 for shipping

$67,984!




Is it possible we might hit the next stretch goal today?

Shawn Klassen-Koop wrote:


$67,984!




Is it possible we might hit the next stretch goal today?

With enough hard work.  Yes.

What will we try today?  I like the idea of trying to add more stretch goals.  Somehow, I feel like if we have stretch goals out to $200,000 then that might happen.

I super like how things are going with David the good.   he put a book in as a stretch goal and then wrote a lovely bit on his site:

https://mailchi.mp/floridafoodforests/help-paul-wheaton-and-get-my-book-for-free-and-check-out-this-rocket-oven

And he brought in 29 backers!

Let's do that about 20 more times!  

I have a few more stretch goals in the works! Just sorting out the minor details.

$68,094!

So here's the thing. We've been working hard for the past 21 days. And we've reached almost 1800 backers! I am so grateful! And yet I also want to reach many more people with these ideas.

So... brainstorm time... what do we need to do in order to bring in 1000 more backers?

Like I said earlier, I have a couple more stretch goals in the pipe. I like the idea of adding more movies. They are fun to watch and generally easy for us to fulfill. We have a few movies already, but I'm wondering if you have any suggestions for movies you would like to see included on the list. Feel free to go pie in the sky with your hopes. You never know until you ask.

I don't know how to do this, but I think it needs to get beyond the "permies.com" circle.  We can support it and increase support but the pool of supporters within permies is not big enough.  Getting it out into other arenas is where the traction can really pick up.  But I have no idea how to do that.  Paul posted it on Reddit, hopefully that goes viral.  I don't know how else to do it but I think it needs to get in front of different eyeballs.

Most of the funding we have now is permies.  And the biggest part of the income has been from the monthly-ish email which has 70,000.   What might be a big, on topic, mailing list with more than 100,000?

If the goal is more supporters, as opposed to increased support from people already supporting at a lower level, I think it might be prudent to investigate stretch goals that kick in at a lower level.

This might also result in more funds from existing supporters. If, for instance,  I am a $15 level supporter,  and there's something really excellent added for the $30 level, it's possible that I might double my outlay. If there's something better than that at the $50 level, it's at least conceivable that I might consider more than doubling my original contribution.

Also, the format is still set up to reward more money rather than more supporters. Perhaps a stretch goal that kicks in above a certain number of supporters would be a good idea.

-CK

I think that if we added 1000 backers, most of them would average about $15.  So we would have added $15,000 which would knock out three stretch goals.   And I think the $100 is getting super duper sweet - so a lot of people will raise their pledges.  

But for now, I really want to infect new brains.   Brains that have not yet heard about the book.   People keen on the environment.  People that would groove on "luxuriant environmentalism".  

Well, what about tweetstorming something out to famous people outside of permaculture - like celebrities who have a cause : michelle obama and the whitehouse garden, bill and melinda gates do a lot of relief work in africa, david attenborough, jane goodall, Leo dicaprio, angelina jolie, cate blanchette, brad pitt, al gore, ed begely jr, jamie oliver...

Create a theme song or music video

Get a popular band or a local band to perform said theme song

Capitalize that sex and humor sells and give some attention to making it sexy or funny.

Create a new fresh video to share

Create a video of paul being funny or doing standup - essentionally being himself :)

Create a billboard

Hand out flyers at the missoula market

Have a booth at the missoula market

Get the green society at the local university involved


Write a rap song about the book


I like the idea of providing a few stretch incentives at lower levels also - create a round it up campaign like they have at goodwill. Round up to $50 or whatever

Paul and co can do the dance from the thriller video as a promotional bit


Reach out to all of the tv personalities on hgtv or the food network. They tend to like food and green things. Some of them might feel a connection

Thats what I have for now

Yay brainstorming! Thanks for playing Bryan!

Bryan C Aldeghi wrote:Well, what about tweetstorming something out to famous people outside of permaculture - like celebrities who have a cause : michelle obama and the whitehouse garden, bill and melinda gates do a lot of relief work in africa, david attenborough, jane goodall, Leo dicaprio, angelina jolie, cate blanchette, brad pitt, al gore, ed begely jr, jamie oliver...

I have been trying to reach some people on the twitter. And to my great surprise, I have occasionally received a response. Though none of the ones you have mentioned.

I think with this sort of thing it is often super helpful if someone else shares about our project. Because then it doesn't look like I'm just promoting my own book for my own selfish (save the world?) reasons. So... anyone wanna tweet about this and see if you can get the attention of some big names?


Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go finish verse 2 of my new rap song. :)

Bryan C Aldeghi wrote:Well, what about tweetstorming something out to famous people outside of permaculture - like celebrities who have a cause : michelle obama and the whitehouse garden, bill and melinda gates do a lot of relief work in africa, david attenborough, jane goodall, Leo dicaprio, angelina jolie, cate blanchette, brad pitt, al gore, ed begely jr, jamie oliver...
...
Get the green society at the local university involved
...

So, in order to reach a broad audience, I think the celebrity appeal is sort of the "top-down" approach, kinda like getting on Oprah's book list... (you DID send Oprah an advance copy, didn't you?!?!)

The university environmentalist student groups, is like a "bottom-up" or grassroots approach...

I'm at work now... but a quick google search for "environmentalist club harvard university", brought me to this page student groups at Harvard which has a few contacts listed. I'm sure that most colleges/universities have similar groups...
Now that's a pool of a couple thousand contacts to seek out and send a well-written appeal (form letter) to...

Maybe, there's an angle to appeal to these groups by donating a book(s)/ebook(s) to them as a kickback for promoting the campaign to their membership? or a reward level just for student groups?