The Better World Book Kickstarter (May 2019)

This is awesome. What a breath of fresh air - heart warming to witness. Raise the sails! Much thanks.

$17,883 so far = Double Funded

It has now passed double the funding goal!  

Last night I checked and was not live yet. Went to bed early.
This morning; double funded! Dude, are you serious? :)) On this part of the planet we are just waking up :)

Yay!!! Congratulations guys!!! Congratulations all of us who want to see permaculture get off the ground!



P.S. I can't believe how awesome and generous the rewards are, especially the earlybird rewards!

Just passed $20,000 and going strong!!!

Shawn Klassen-Koop wrote:

lesley verbrugge wrote:Hope this is the right place to post this -

I went to change my pledge from $80 (12 books with its ouching $50 for shipping) to Glory $100 -still 12 books but an ouch and a half $75 for shipping. Is that right or have I missed something? Is the early access to the manuscript a physical copy hence the extra postage?

So happy to see those pledges rolling in so fast guys,

Lesley

Hey Lesley, thanks for your support!

Shipping is a bit of a mess. I tried to talk a bit about it here:

https://permies.com/t/107089/International-shipping-world-book-kickstarter

As far as I understand, once the kickstarter is live we can't change the shipping charges on the reward levels. But if you have ideas on how to lower our costs, please post there.

Hi Shawn, Yes, I already read about the challenges you face. No doubt due at least in part, to European refusal to import American frankenfood. (Did you hear your ambassador telling the Brits that chlorine washed chicken is totally safe?? LOL) The weird thing is that by increasing my pledge by $20, to have our names in the book, the shipping (for the same number of physical books) rises from $50 to $75 That's what I dont understand. I know you have done everything you can to keep shipping down, but this looks like a glitch with kickstarter? I also realise you have better things to do at the moment. I'm not whining, just curious to know why the shipping rises like that for the same physical product. Unless, as I posted, the manuscript early access is a physical copy?
Well done btw!!
Lesley

I was sending out kickback codes last night when I got too tired and had to go to bed.  So I have some more of that to do.   And contact my supporters from a few of my previous kickstarters.   And some people that bought stuff from me in the past.  And I still have a long "todo" list.  

The monthlyish finished going out while I was asleep.

It's funny ...  when shawn and i talked about "maybe it will do so get that we can do stretch goals!"  and we always talked about the first stretch goal at $20,000 although we might really have to set it at $15,000.  

Here's a fun experiment.   I read somewhere that to be on the new york times best seller list, you have to sell 3000 copies in the first week.  We currently have 550 backers.   But a lot of those people have a lot of books.  So maybe we are already past 1000 books?  

Umm... wow... umm...

I just woke up to see that we have over 550 backers.


But I feel like we're just getting started.

Shawn Klassen-Koop wrote:But I feel like we're just getting started.

Yeah.  I did the math.   We aren't even done with the first day.  In fact, we haven't even finished sending out emails.

I pledged,  and had to do a double-take. You've almost tripled your asking amount!

Good work, and good luck!

-CK

By the time I logged in 3.5 hours after it launched, you were more than fully funded.
Well done! Thats pretty impressive and amazing.

Time to set some more challenging stretch goals!  And now maybe the two of you can get some well deserved reward for yourselves for all this work. A vacation.... a massage... new earth moving equipment... wiggle room in your budget.... or just something shiny. :)

Of course with success like this the next book is something on the rise of the permies empire, and how to slam dunk kickstarter :)

I think that there was a point where shawn ran a whole bunch of spreadsheets.   In all of those spreadsheets, it came back and said that we would break even (and get paid zero) at about $15,000.  The price of all-the-things in the kickstarter is so low that I think we end up getting paid minimum wage for all of our work at about $150,000 or so.  

I would like to put in a new well at the lab.   I think we might need to get to $600,000 or so until my cut is enough to get that well.   So I need to PUSH MORE!   :)

Those sound like good stretch goals to me. Pay those who develop all this... and ensure the World Domination Station stays hydrated!

Maybe there is even a permie person who is reading all this who can help dig a well for you in montana... or who know a person... or who has the inside track... or who has $600k... etc. Anybody?  dehydrated leaders just arent so effective anymore. They tend to all shriveled instead of squishy and robust.

Paul and Shawn, It would be great if you could put a link to the kickstarter in your signatures.  It's purely selfish reasons.  I don't' want to hunt around trying to remember where the link is.

I'm also wondering if video plays have anything to do with where you are on the popular list.  I remember my KS tracked those as if it was important.

Here is a challenge - for those who have supported the kickstarted, or support Paul and Shawn's world domination, add the kickstarter to your signature. Instead of just Paul and Shawn, lets have everybody have it as a signature until the kickstarter ends

I thought I knew how to have it be clickable in my profile...but it isnt yet. so somebody show me how!

lesley verbrugge wrote:The weird thing is that by increasing my pledge by $20, to have our names in the book, the shipping (for the same number of physical books) rises from $50 to $75 That's what I dont understand. I know you have done everything you can to keep shipping down, but this looks like a glitch with kickstarter?

It is not a glitch. It just doesn't make sense... yet. Stay tuned.

Bryan C Aldeghi wrote:I thought I knew how to have it be clickable in my profile...but it isnt yet. so somebody show me how!

It's tricky. You have to use the bb code tags rather than html:

 [url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/better-world-book?ref=7briw1]Better World Book Kickstarter - make the world a better place, one book at a time![/url]

Shawn Klassen-Koop wrote:

lesley verbrugge wrote:The weird thing is that by increasing my pledge by $20, to have our names in the book, the shipping (for the same number of physical books) rises from $50 to $75 That's what I dont understand. I know you have done everything you can to keep shipping down, but this looks like a glitch with kickstarter?

It is not a glitch. It just doesn't make sense... yet. Stay tuned.

clue:

https://permies.com/t/160/99513/ready-World-Book-kickstarter-April#868853

As the original quickstarter question (Is there enough interest…) has long since been answered, I'd like to throw in another one – what about translations?
Our growing season is fairly short and just kicking in here in Latvia, but by the end of the year we might have a very print-on-demandable copy. How do we proceed? Whom do we ask?

Janis Jansons wrote:As the original quickstarter question (Is there enough interest…) has long since been answered, I'd like to throw in another one – what about translations?
Our growing season is fairly short and just kicking in here in Latvia, but by the end of the year we might have a very print-on-demandable copy. How do we proceed? Whom do we ask?

I'm not sure if I understand you, mostly because I'm trying to do 20 things at once today. Are you suggesting that you might want to translate the book into latvian? Or that you know someone? Or just that you would like it to exist?

Shawn Klassen-Koop wrote: I'm not sure if I understand you, mostly because I'm trying to do 20 things at once today. Are you suggesting that you might want to translate the book into latvian? Or that you know someone? Or just that you would like it to exist?

Shawn, you are amazing, but take it easy ;) 20 at once is kinda risky, esp. knowing your last days' schedule.
Yes, I do suggest that I (alone, but hopefully with a bit of local crowdsourcing) could do a LAT translation this year. Just thought that perhaps this question might be relevant for other languages. You know, old folks and/or them country folks who already struggle to build a better world in their backyards and didn't have time for English.

If anyone wants to talk about the possibility of translations (no promises), you can email

info (at) buildingabetterworldbook.com

I hope that you will understand if I take a while to respond.

As requested, here is my review of Paul & Shawn's book: MOTHER EARTH NEWS

Permies Thread about it

It looks like you're on the second page (first "Load more") of trending on Kickstarter!

Is this the correct link? Mother Earth News

Yes Mike! Duh, I should have put the link to Mother Earth News as well as the thread!

Today I learned that it takes me more than 24 hours to send out all the emails.

Shawn Klassen-Koop wrote:We are officially 24 hours in and 799 people have pledged $28,736.33 so far!

This is a strong vote for permaculture!

Let's keep going!

I just got a micro-blog post up about the campaign on the steem block chain (steemit, steempeak, etc.). Hopefully that will bring some more people Really awesome to see how well the book is doing on kickstarter!

Shawn Klassen-Koop wrote:

Bryan C Aldeghi wrote:I thought I knew how to have it be clickable in my profile...but it isnt yet. so somebody show me how!

It's tricky. You have to use the bb code tags rather than html:

[url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/better-world-book?ref=7briw1]Better World Book Kickstarter - make the world a better place, one book at a time![/url]

Awesome! Thank you for explaining that. Now it works! Therefore - to those who have already supported this amazing project and to those who want to help spread the word, I challenge all to put it in their signature on Permies! Go!

{SHOCKED} Not everyone on Permies has heard about Paul & Shawn's book??

Bryan, challenge accepted! Thanks Shawn for making it easy peasy to change my signature.

By the way, can I say how totally amazing and wonderful Tracy's illustrations and designs are? I bow down to you, Tracy!

Aww, shucks. Thanks, Rosemary. It's kind of a dream come true to be a book illustrator. This is my second book, and I'm hoping for many more to come!

Congratulations guys on an awesome kickstarter!

About to add my pledge, its close to getting quadruple funded!

I have no idea what translation costs are, but I think a great stretch goal would be to print a Spanish language edition of the book.

There have been some comments on the kickstarter about getting an audiobook.   Shawn and I have talked about it a few times - back when we weren't sure if we would sell more than a handful of books.  And that seemed a bit arrogant at the time:  to talk about an audiobook when we weren't even done writing the book.


And now seems like the perfect time to do this.  


The first suggestion was that I record the audiobook.   And the next suggestion was that shawn record it.  


This came down to the long list of things I need to do.   And on that list, there are things that can be farmed out and things that cannot.  Suppose it takes 400 hours to record the book, edit it, and jump through all of the hoops to make the book be an audiobook.  Should I do that or write a new book?  

Shawn can help me write a new book or record an audiobook.  



(note, I have about four more books in different stages of completion)


Shawn tells me that there are services that will take your book and do all-the-things for a fixed price.   And a massive catalog of famous people to do the recording.   I had the idea that it might be worthwhile to hire a famous person, so that the famous person would then get their brain infected by the book!  And that might somehow create opportunities.  

In the meantime, before the kickstarter started, cliff ponder wrote to me and said he has set up a business of doing just this!  So that's an option too!



Part of the challenge here is that the process is expensive.  And we have priced the rewards really low - so there isn't a lot of margin left over for more stuff.

So maybe now is the time to talk about how much it costs (for ALL of the audiobook steps) and try to figure how far of a stretch goal we need to get to to have the funds to pull it off.  

That's an excellent idea, Paul! I just hope there's an audiobook offering for my contribution level.

You should see if Christopher Plummer is available. Or maybe Donald Sutherland. Or David Attenborough!

Or Morgan Freeman!

-CK

Suppose we get an audiobook created.  My guess is that it needs to be distributed through audible.com.  Do they have a way so we can say "here's 200 email addresses, see to it that they get their copy."

??

I will see if I can find anything, but official queries might have to be made by someone with their name on the book.

By the way, I haven't mentioned this before, but I really appreciate how the cover of the BWB reminds me of those of the SAS Survival Guide series by Len Wiseman, especially if it was intentional.

A targeted survival guide-style book might be a separate volume entirely,  but this sounds like it will encapsulate the spirit of a permaculturalist's survival guide, at very least.

-CK