….so this is what success looks like up close!
A million things to say, a million ways to start, but only one post to create. A lot of people make this look very easy.
From June 27 – August 10th, I ran a campaign on the NYC-based crowdfunding site Rockethub, in order to cover the recording costs for “Two People Made This Mess.” In 44 days, 195 people total donated either through Rockethub or directly to me (some people just don’t like the internet), to amass a whopping $8,004 against my goal of $6,500. Needless to say, I’m thrilled!
I am very proud of what we accomplished here, for a lot of reasons other than the pile of money:
The Song Monkey: I learned how to edit videos through this process and now feel way more confident than I used to, 9 videos later, and the Song Monkey series is set to continue through the next few months, possibly even past the album’s release! And yes, “Save Tonight” will be the next one.
I went to Hell and back learning to edit videos, “Cry Me A River” probably being the most strangely scaled example of ambition meeting incompetence.
The Mountain I Climbed: Social media marketing was a tough puzzle to crack, but as it turned out, the best thing to do was to message a bunch of people individually, and while I lost one “friend” (who, honestly, I nearly unfriended years ago) and offended one other for use of a form letter (he later fueled the album despite the sentiment), I ended up catching up with a lot of people that I had lost touch with along the way, people that I hope to spend more time with, both on- and off-line, in the future. These conversations cut through the tedium of the elusive search for Every Friend’s Name (Facebook won’t let you see your friends in alphabetical order — you have to enter “Aa,” “Ab,” “Ac,” and then deeper in, to find every name) and made every day of this campaign incredibly interesting and emotional. I hope I get more responses from these messages, because when you have 2,804 Facebook friends, it can be very difficult to remember your personal connection to all of them, and I’d like to be in better touch.
The Mountain We Built: This campaign wasn’t the result of a bunch of little piles and a couple of bigwig donations tossed off without a thought from people who sit among bags of money all day — it was the result of some sizable donations and a BUTT-TON of no-less-generous donations from people that didn’t have a lot to spare, but wanted see this album happen and had the good will to put their hard-earned dough towards it. We all say throughout our crowdfunding campaigns that no donation is too small, but I can say with all honesty that every time I saw even a single dollar hit the pile, I knew there was heart behind it. It means so much to me that so many people made this happen!
Special thanks to Addi Twigg and Jojo Gustafson for letting me take this image of their washcloths, which have undoubtedly burned themselves into your memory!
The Love: I’ve seen shout-outs used as premiums in crowdfunding campaigns, and that makes me crazy, because shout-outs are just “thank you”s done publicly, and that should be a given! They are gracious, diplomatic gestures, that give a tiny bit of recognition to the people who helped you and also help keep news flowing about your campaign. To be able to tell all the stories I told about my various contributors was a privilege, and while it was a lot of work to keep the prose interesting, it was work I loved doing and was proud to commit to. I have been physically exhausted throughout a lot of this campaign, often not being able to sleep more than 5 hours at a time, but the emotional high I was riding from touching back on all of these memories of friendship, love, and generosity throughout my life made everything better. Also, while we’re on the subject of love, I want to make it known that my beloved is one of the most patient, generous, wonderful people I’ve ever had the pleasure to know, and she was put to the test during this campaign, dealing with me in moments of anxiety, depression, self-doubt, frustration, and worst of all, insufferable triumph. She’s my lighthouse, and I’d have crashed into the rocks for sure at some point in all of this if she hadn’t been around.
The Support: When you are crowdfunding, it is very easy to feel like you’re not a person, so much as a money-asking machine, and that’s when you need your friends to surface and keep you sane. Ana worked overtime reminding me that I was loved, and the outreach that I found from friends along the way, constant reinforcement and encouragement, kept me feeling that I was more than just another mouse clamoring for cheese. Doing Addi Twigg’s podcast, getting Katherine Tasheff’s web-savvy advice, fielding compliments from Shawn Lewis and Jennivere Kenlon, waking up to plugs from ALOTT5MA at random (the first was one I asked for, the other two just happened on their own), discussing Song Monkey requests at length with people that love music the way I do, all of these things made this more than just some campaign. I’m super-grateful for all of these things and more.
I think if you ask any crowdfunder what they would wish for their next project, it would be unanimous: the goal is to never have to crowdfund again, to create a product that sustains and powers the next product, and that, the next, and so on. Fate being what fate is, though, it’s hard to say what the next few years hold, so I’ll say that if I end up doing this again, I hope that the next campaign can be as fun, as hard, as graciously recieved, and as worthwhile as this one was. You guys are, 122%, the reason I get to do this next album, and I am going to honor that as best I can.
You are the greatest — thank you all so very much!
Love,
Paul