The Better World Book Kickstarter (May 2019)

It looks like the campaign just hit 1000 backers!!

paul wheaton wrote:

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.  

In my opinion I think it is worth at least looking into the costs of doing an audiobook version.  Having it professionally done and available via the mainstream audio book networks could allow this to have a much wider reaching audience.  I know for myself I "read" most of my books these days via audio books I access through my local library.  The audio format lets me listen to them while I'm working since much of my work is brainless labor.  I know many people do this as well.

Once you have some real dollar cost estimates then the question will be whether or not the potential benefits out weigh the costs.  You need to know the costs first though.  It could be a great, though ambitious stretch goal for the kickstarter.

If we get Liam Neeson, let's have him say "what I do have is a very particular set of skills, skills for building a better world in your backyard..."

I think it would be neat to change the image on Kickstarter to say “funded in less than 2 hours!” Or whatever it was.  

Helps drive excitement

Shawn Klassen-Koop wrote:We just reached 1050 backers!

And 400% funded.

The time has come .... to talk about stretch goals.  

A couple of issues ....   we have priced stuff really low, so we don't have a lot of margin to buy stuff.  


I think an earlier stretch goal would be stuff about book signatures and a book packing party at my place.   Shawn would drive over here for that.


Another .... but way, way out, would be about doing an audiobook.

Other ideas?

paul wheaton wrote:The time has come .... to talk about stretch goals.  

A couple of issues ....   we have priced stuff really low, so we don't have a lot of margin to buy stuff.  


I think an earlier stretch goal would be stuff about book signatures and a book packing party at my place.   Shawn would drive over here for that.


Another .... but way, way out, would be about doing an audiobook.

Other ideas?

What about printable pages of some of the art work?   People could frame them, use paint, colored pencils, crayons, etc whatever they want. It could be for adults or kids.

I know you had pod cast of some of the chapters, maybe do it for a few more or all if possible and put it together?

I'm still good with the time to get all the extra early bird goodies right??

Simon Johnson wrote:I'm still good with the time to get all the extra early bird goodies right??

Yes there are just a few hours left on the earlybird goodies! They end at 2 PM mountain time.

Currently #1 in "publishing" out of 45,453 projects!!!  (and #43 overall, out of 437,529 projects ....I think that's still climbing:) )

Congrats Paul and Shawn....you're doing us proud!

I would love to have bookmarks.  Maybe two per book?  Something useful and a pretty picture.  I could give one to a friend.

How about a privately accessible pod cast?
$50,000 pledged: Paul and/or Shawn talks about the book
$75,000 pledged: Paul and/or Shawn talks for a decent duration about their 4 favorite chapters
$100,000 pledged: Paul and/or Shawn does a 30 minute podcast about every chapter

Pledge levels are made up just to give an idea.

While I like the thought of signed books more, there is also the possibility of going an easier route of autographed bookplates.  These are essentially signed sheets of paper or stickers that can be put into the book.  Shawn could sign a bunch then ship them to Paul to add his signature, then they can be shipped out with the books.  It could be just the simple signatures or the bookplate can have nice fancy graphics as well.  I would think some of the pen and ink illustrations from the book could make for a nice illustrated bookplate, or better yet commission the artist who did the illustrations (sorry I'm forgetting who that was) to make something especially for this.

A bookplate is not quite as valued as the actual book being signed, but there is an actual market for just the signed book plates.  Doing a quick search, here's a link to one site (which I know nothing about) showing this.  https://www.vjbooks.com/Author-Signed-Bookplates-s/1132.htm  They seem to think a "laid-in" bookplate, as in non-adhesive is preferred these days.  

I bet autographed bookplates could make the shipping costs lower overall for signed books.  Just a thought. :)

This just came to me and I thought I'd toss it out there.  Autographed bookmarks.  

I'm not actually sure I like the idea more than signed bookplates and nice bookmarks as separate items, but it's another idea.

Here are a few ideas for stretch goals that shawn and I have come up with:

- have tracy add 100 doodles throughout the book - in margins and stuff

- the signed copies thing

- everybody at $100 or higher would get a gift code for the World Domination Gardening 3-DVD set (HD Streaming)

- we set aside 200 copies of the book for libraries

- the "waive the gapper fee" thing

- the audiobook thing

- some very early copies of books i have half done
       o hugelkultur
       o fallacy
       o kickstarter


stuff suggested here so far:

- bookmarks

- super secret and private podcast about the book

- bookplates

- autographed bookmarks



We have now talked to a few people about the idea of adding some really significant, cool stuff as stretch goals:

- raven ranson's ebook about edible cleaners

- Michael Judd's book (as an ebook) "Edible Landscaping"

- Erica Wisner says she is currently working on some rocket mass heater plans that will blow all her other plans out of the water

- Davin Hoyt is offering his Giant Solar Food Dehydrator plans as 4 gift codes to each person supporting the kickstarter at $100 or more

- Jacob Lunk Fiskar's "Early Retirement Extreme" book, as an ebook, to the top 100 supporters.


Anybody else have some ideas?

To go to the kickstarter


CLICK HERE!

Sorry I don't have any original thoughts for stretch goals(yet, I just woke up) but I really like the audiobook idea. I  enjoy Paul's voice, so it is saves money to have Paul read it,cool. I do get how attractive a celeb could be, along with the "infection" factor.
I could only swing a Glory level backing (can't wait to give away some books!), and was hoping for be at a level for access to  the PDC hours. I am psyched for any additional pearls from Paul that are added.  I imagine offering things already in existence will be the most "cost" effective.
So cool to be funded so fast! Let me go do some yoga and thing about those stretch goals.  

Audiobook! That’s how I read most of my books these days, too. If it’s really good and can be used as a reference, then I buy the print version. We can distribute to libraries as well and get a larger audience.

I love the library idea.  I was planning on donating a book or two to local libraries, but 200 would spread the book to a much larger audience.  I'm not exactly sure how Google's algorithms work with libraries, but if we're lucky this will improve the SEO of Paul's kingdom even more.

Of course for my personal benefit I'd love Erica's plans, more books and the like too ;)

Shawn and I have talked about how when the book is done with the professional editing process, to send it off to another professional editor.   It seems like that could be a high up stretch goal.  This might make the final product 0.7% more polished.  

Click on the thumbs up for this post if you think this would be worthwhile.

IMHO more content sounds better than more polish.

Unless you are talking polish sausage.

paul wheaton wrote:Shawn and I have talked about how when the book is done with the professional editing process, to send it off to another professional editor.   It seems like that could be a high up stretch goal.  This might make the final product 0.7% more polished.  

Click on the thumbs up for this post if you think this would be worthwhile.

Personally I'm going to vote that this would be a waste of money if not detrimental to the book.  I envision that the role of the editor is to first catch all the little typos and grammatical errors, admittedly a very hard task since everyone so often seems to read right over them.  Of course, if everyone is missing them then it means the writing is still conveying the information well.  Anyway, while a professional may be slightly better at this task I would think that all your own polishing work, and the people reading and providing feedback would have caught pretty much everything.

The second major thing I think editors are about is editing for clarity, that is shifting wording around a bit to make the underlying concepts more clearly communicated.  This is an important job.  However, if you already have a professional editor going over it, AND you've had many people reading it to offer feedback, not to mention the kickstarter supporters at the high enough level who also get to see an advance copy to give feedback, then I'd say that if a section isn't reading clearly by this point you would have heard about it!

The downside that you can run into with editors is that they may feel a need to be changing things just to justify their fees.  What can happen is that your "voice" ends up getting stripped out of the work and the resulting document has zero personality.  I've had this many many years ago when I did a bit of professional writing.

I'd say, have confidence in your writing abilities and save the money on dual professional editors.  :)  

David Huang wrote:

paul wheaton wrote:Shawn and I have talked about how when the book is done with the professional editing process, to send it off to another professional editor.   It seems like that could be a high up stretch goal.  This might make the final product 0.7% more polished.  

Click on the thumbs up for this post if you think this would be worthwhile.

Personally I'm going to vote that this would be a waste of money if not detrimental to the book.  I envision that the role of the editor is to first catch all the little typos and grammatical errors, admittedly a very hard task since everyone so often seems to read right over them.  Of course, if everyone is missing them then it means the writing is still conveying the information well.  Anyway, while a professional may be slightly better at this task I would think that all your own polishing work, and the people reading and providing feedback would have caught pretty much everything.

The second major thing I think editors are about is editing for clarity, that is shifting wording around a bit to make the underlying concepts more clearly communicated.  This is an important job.  However, if you already have a professional editor going over it, AND you've had many people reading it to offer feedback, not to mention the kickstarter supporters at the high enough level who also get to see an advance copy to give feedback, then I'd say that if a section isn't reading clearly by this point you would have heard about it!

The downside that you can run into with editors is that they may feel a need to be changing things just to justify their fees.  What can happen is that your "voice" ends up getting stripped out of the work and the resulting document has zero personality.  I've had this many many years ago when I did a bit of professional writing.

I'd say, have confidence in your writing abilities and save the money on dual professional editors.  :)  

I agree.
I find Paul funny.
Why mess with that???

Audiobook please!  You have lots of podcasts.  The market is there.  It would also make it more likely that children will be listening.  Infecting the young with these ideas seems like a good plan.  I would very much appreciate the audio version of this book.

I have wanted a version of the PDC/ATC that is edited for audio.  I can listen, but not watch, them at work.  I'm guessing many do the same.  Many of the speakers are teaching by showing, but interspersed in the video is tons of really good teaching.  I've sat through twenty minutes of shoveling noises and people tromping around just to hear a snippet of advice.  A great example of this is the group work on earthworks where they created a small version of a dam and spillway and poured water over it discussing flooding events in real time with buckets of water.   It was great, but it took wading through a lot of prep work to get there.  More people would watch/listen if it were edited down.  That sounds like a butt load of work, but it's content you've already created.  If that is a possibility I would pay for the PDC/ATC stuff again!

I would want to hear Paul do the audiobook, not some actor.  

Edit:  you could have two levels. One where Paul reads it and that’s that.  No polish, leave in pauses, coughs etc.  and one where someone edits

Dominic Crolius wrote:Audiobook please!  You have lots of podcasts.  The market is there.  It would also make it more likely that children will be listening.  Infecting the young with these ideas seems like a good plan.  I would very much appreciate the audio version of this book.

I think one of the big values of the stretch goals is to bring in more support.  I'm guessing that no one will put more support to this project for a second editor, but an audio book might.  A Spanish version might also.  I personally like "If it hit's a million dollars Paul and Shawn go on a year long world tour pumping the book"  

M Johnson wrote:I would want to hear Paul do the audiobook, not some actor.  

Me too.  I get the actor concept, but Paul has that je ne sais quoi!

To be clear, even if it's not a stretch goal... If someone wants to give me a million dollars I'm sure I can arrange a year long world tour...

I think the book would benifit from a proofreader-editor (one that looks at the consistency of spelling, punctuation, and grammar).  This makes a huge difference for the quality of a book.  It doesn't edit 'voice' or 'style' of the writing.

You probably don't need a copyeditor unless you want one.  It would be important to find one that matches with your style.

I like the idea of anything that will get the work into the hands of the largest number of people. The idea of setting aside books for libraries is a good one. Perhaps some kind of set-aside for schools.

To me, the thing about the second editor is that they have a different style.   They don't make changes, they make suggestions.  

Stuff I think is magical with a good editor:

1:  sometimes a sentence can be interpretted in more than one way.   Like when you are reading a sentence and then stop and have to read it a second time to understand what the author was attempting to say.   A good editor will make some small change so that all readers will interpret it in only the correct way.  Make a few dozen changes like that and the whole book becomes a far more enjoyable read.

2:  sometimes a good editor will find a way to say the same thing with less words.  Maybe even compressing two rambling paragraphs into two clear sentences.   Thus improving the "wheat to chaff" ratio.  

3:  a good editor will spot dry patches that need a bit of life added.  


We had a bit that said

Peeing on good soil makes the pee a hundred times more valuable than peeing on dirt.

and somebody noted that it seemed a bit flat.  I agreed, so I snazzed it up a bit:

Peeing on good soil works about a hundred times better than peeing on dirt. Pee and dirt makes for stinky mud. Most plants are just not into that sort of kink. Rich soil is loaded with carbon and micro-organisms ― this team of about 400 trillion beasties has been craving some good urine, and their new slogan is “WE’RE RICH! WE’RE RICH! IN ALL OF OUR DEEPEST FANTASIES WE NEVER IMAGINED SUCH AMAZING WEALTH!” This is the part where you can tell this massive population “yes, I am a generous god.”

4:  I think a good editor will spot flow issues between chapters, or sections or paragraphs.

5:  A good editor will discover inconsistencies - or things that could be interpreted as inconsistent.

6:  a good non-fiction editor (especially one that is not familiar with my stuff) will discover points that won't get by on their own and will need clarification, maybe an additional image.  



So these are the sort of things I am thinking about when considering a second pass of an editor.

Diane Kistner wrote:I like the idea of anything that will get the work into the hands of the largest number of people. The idea of setting aside books for libraries is a good one. Perhaps some kind of set-aside for schools.

I could also see the "books for schools" and "books for libraries" as additional gift incentive categories.  I could see people giving more money for those options.

Greg Martin wrote:

M Johnson wrote:I would want to hear Paul do the audiobook, not some actor.  

Me too.  I get the actor concept, but Paul has that je ne sais quoi!

Which would you rather have:

a:  the audiobook of this book read by me. or

b:  the audiobook of this book read by somebody else, plus a new book about hugelkultur by me.

??

I like the idea of a quick and dirty podcast style audio book presentation.

Hell, I'd even read it to get it out there for you Paul.  Maybe that should be stretch goal audio book #1 with "Paul will eventually read it with some additional editorial commentary" audio book coming much, much higher.

For additional goals, perhaps a poster with some building a better world to do's or bullets?

Maybe some "marketing stickers" with a link to where people can buy the book after the kickstarter for supporters to plaster on interesting places like their car, their local coffee shop, etc.

Perhaps the option to "add on" (as in, you you can add extra money to your pledge) a bit of money for a Permies T-shirt?

I'd love to see some of the PDC and ATC content released, this way.  Perhaps the segments most likely to differ from "conventional offerings" or those segments most likely to have the biggest impact if they were shared about?

If you want to talk to me about reading the thing, or I can help with any of the other merch I mentioned let me know.

paul wheaton wrote:

Which would you rather have:

a:  the audiobook of this book read by me. or

b:  the audiobook of this book read by somebody else, plus a new book about hugelkultur by me.

??

Both???  Ok, not your question....I'd pull the hugel lever.

Translate it into Spanish and french (I live in France and my friends dont speak or read English!) and . . . ?

Send a copy to every national library in the world!

Audiobook - YES! I'd prefer to hear Paul read it

No to the paid editor - for all the reasons other s have stated