I was thinking about using kickstarter.com, (or some equivalent approach) to fund my next magic trick release. If you are not familiar with crowdfunding: what it is, (in-a-nutshell), is you set a specific funding goal, and then people pledge you money to fulfill your project, and in exchange you offer them rewards/incentives at tiered pledge levels. (ie level 1 would be a pre-order of the product. level 2 would be a pre-order plus something extra.. and so on). With kickstarter specifically, you can't keep the money unless you meet your funding goal, (also they take 5%)

I was just curious what people's thoughts might be to this type of approach. And if I did this, what type of incentives would you like to see?

Sounds awfully complicated.

If what you're offering has value, people will want to buy it.

If it doesn't, then you'd probably have to do something like kickstarter.com

Futureal, the problem is not whether people would buy it. I would not be doing this unless I felt confident in it. The problem is coming up with the money to get the product made to begin with. Unless you have the means to pay out of pocket, fundraising or loans are your only other options.

Pre-orders, with a right-of-refund disclaimer.

I'm very familiar with Kickstarter, having contributed to a lot of campaigns. I'm also planning to launch my own film-related project in the Spring.

It's interesting that some of most successful projects on Kickstarter, like the iPod watch, have essentially been pre-order situations. For the most part, though, the site wasn't really created with these in mind. The general idea is to build a community of people who support your creative endeavors and to get them to support you out of their interest in what you are going to do and the participatory feeling they get from contributing. On all the projects I've contributed to, the rewards are more tokens of thanks than things with real monetary value.

If you're going to do this just as a mechanism of implementing a pre-buy, then I think you might just be better off doing pre-sales and promoting it on the Café. If, however, you can put the work into building an online community of fans and can give both those who contribute and those who just come upon your page and site some form of content about you and your work, Kickstarter could be a good option. (I've been wondering when someone from the magic community would take advantage of it.)

One thing I'll say -- from people I know who've done it, a Kickstarter campaign can be hard work. If you have a high goal, it requires lots of promotion, lots of social networking, and lots of reach outs to friends and friends of friends. The people I know say they've basically devoted themselves to it full time for the duration of the campaign.

There are a few magic related projects on kickstarter already (mainly custom printed decks). Looking at them might give you some ideas for your own project:

Steampunk Deck
The Spectrum Deck
Magic Comic Book

I think using Kickstarter is an excellent way to bring a magic product to the market, yet still retain contol over the product.

In terms of insentives, usually the more you pledge the more you get. Maybe a deluxe edition of the trick with extra props for higher level pledgers? Or a nice carry case for the item (if appropriate of course).

Good luck,

Marty

Hey, Kickstarter is the way to go. I have reached out to some of the dominate magic websites and to get in bed with them, you have to give alot. This lead me and Juan G. to making our own site and going to kickstarter to get our Bicycle Eclipse Deck funded. We are the number 1 un-funded deck right now, $1,000 raised in 22 hours. People are really responding, but trust me, we researched a lot and but months of time into our launch to make sure it goes off without a hitch.

I would love to see your product on there, give it a try, there is no risk besides your personal time invested. I am LC Roman, Juan G. Perez is also on there, check us out, and I will Back you if you got something I can use.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/juan......ref=live

I looked into this for a non-magic project, and I think it's really well suited to magicians. I would suggest looking at Indiegogo, as I think there is a smaller percentage fee (no cut to Amazon), and you can still keep some of the money for the project if you fail to reach the goal. I think there's less red tape and restrictions on project type, as well.

-Aaron