Starting the Kickstarter Pre-Launch

It’s official. I’ve been working very hard on my first Kickstarter crowd sourcing campaign by thinking through all of the rewards, creating a budget to complete the physical book and pressing of the Blu-ray discs, establishing an online “landing page”, and reaching out to my friends in the audio world to promote the campaign.

Things are starting to happen. I’ve been invited back to Scott Wilkinson’s The Home Theater Geek program on September 24th and have been in touch with Leo LaPorte about being a guest on his program “Triangulation”…we’re just trying to sort out the date. And Theodore Nicolakis has already interviewed me for his Poor Audiophile site. If you operate an online site or write for a site and are interested in an interview, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I’ll be reaching out to my friends and fellow writers as well.

I pulled together the graphics for the cover and printed some post cards last week. Here’s the artwork that I came up with:

Figure 1 – The promotional post card for “Music and Audio: A User Guide to Better Sound”.

I’ve learned that it’s very important for any crowd sourcing campaign to have a pre-launch website. It’s too late to start promoting the campaign after the KS day finally arrives (which is planned for September 14th). You can visit: Music and Audio Guide to see the landing site that I’ve put together. I hope you’ll take the time to go by and visit the site. I put a lot of time into pulling quotes and supporting material together. The section on what will be in the book is extensive: interviews, FAQs, illustrations, introductory as well as more sophisticated explanations of high-end audio with a focus on practical things that are affordable and easy. Of course, I’ll be pulling a lot of stuff from the over 1000 articles that have been published on this site and others.

Unfortunately, the people behind the WP Theme that I purchased for the landing page have not been terribly responsive to my inquiries about the CONTACT form that came with the theme. It’s not working correctly so I’ve had to improvise at this stage. Instead of filling out a form, there is a link to send me an email asking to be included on the list of those individuals that want to be notified when the campaign is launched. This is important because there will be limited quantities of EARLY BIRD specials or discounts available to supporters. If you think my efforts and this campaign are worth supporting, please send me an email and help promote this new book. This will guarantee that you’ll know when to stop by the KS page when it launches.

Figure 2 – Information on Music and Audio: A User Guide to Better Sound.

I’m genuinely very excited about this whole thing. The KS rules preclude projects that involved multiple creative projects…like making several new recordings. They want each campaign to support an individual project. However, if there is enough interest in the book…one of the stretch goals will be to fund a new recording session of an artist that you all can vote on. I’m anxious to make some more records but it’s been tough because they are so expensive to produce.

So there you have it…my first Kickstarter Campaign. Please consider signing up to the list and eventually become a supporter. And the most important thing is to help spread the word to your audio enthusiast friends. The more people that know about the Music and Audio Guide campaign the more likely I am to reach the goal. Thanks for you support. I really do appreciate it.