How we collected 823 376 pub. to print a book through crowdfunding

After 1.5 years of operation of the EASY SCIENCE channel, we decided to start monetization. Of all the possible ideas (and there were a lot of them), we stopped at the simplest ones: a book, sets, and shows for children.

Started with a book. Our video clips with experiments were taken as the basis. Selected experiments for children (for ages 5-12 years). Next, they divided them into sections. And, taking for the beginning the first 4 sections (about water, a chicken egg, experiments with balloons and to balance), grouped them into 8 experiments. Total 32 came out. Then 32 videos were shot in the right format for children - with the appropriate music, editing and explanation. Then they wrote the text and made a book.
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And when it came to the "book" , then we are faced with a completely new area. First, we learned the possible options for creation and implementation through publishers. Those who responded offered either 10% of sales or 50-70 thousand rubles. right away It obviously did not suit us.

Then it was decided to print and sell themselves. Everyone who heard this idea smiled sweetly at best, especially the publishers. But the more interesting for us was the task to release ourselves and find a consumer!

Finding a typography to print a book was not easy. We started with a query in google “book printing”. Finished "well, where the hell is this book to print !!!". Then there were printing houses from “acquaintances" who were very nice and offered to print a book for 500-700-900 thousand rubles.

And this orgy lasted a week, until we asked the guys who had already printed the book directly. They told us directly: “you need to type in Pareto-Print in Tver. There are no other options". They said we did. Contact this printing house - and what would you think? They called the amount of 350 thousand rubles. Then I decided to go to their office in Moscow and find a catch in a very attractive offer. In the office, I was greeted by lovely aunties, who all told me about the publication of children's books and gave practical advice (about the font, about glossiness, etc.). In general, I did not find a dirty trick, I had to believe in them.

When the place for printing was found and the budget was determined, suddenly, the question arose: “where do you get the money to print the book?” An interesting and, most importantly, timely question, isn't it? But the answer was necessary. And it is needed in the near future! And then suddenly the phone rings and the voice on the handset says: "I think you have ideas for which you need money." From where the voice from the tube knew about our ideas and the need for money - I do not know. Or rather, it was still possible to guess about the money, but about the ideas ... But I didn’t hang up the phone, but asked for more details.

The voice in the tube was Leonid, a manager from Boomstarter.ru. So I learned about crowdfunding. And I began to study this “phenomenon”, which I couldn’t even correctly pronounce right the first time. I found out that the well-known “kickstarter” with its millions of projects, showered on the head of surprised startups, works according to the same principle. But in Russia, judging from articles and posts on the domestic Internet, with crowdfunding, everything is bad and it is not clear when it will be better.

This is what you need! After all, when everything is all right with something, it means that it is already a bad deal (I am aware that not everyone shares my opinion). In general, it was decided to engage in a “crowd” thing as well.

After a thorough study of other people's successful and unsuccessful projects on the boomstarter, I noticed (well, it seemed to me that I noticed) a lot of commonplace mistakes that the authors of these projects made. It seems that many projects are presented in such a way that no one ever even thinks to transfer money. But the authors obviously wanted the opposite.

As a result, I took myself as an example of one recent project that could, although not without difficulty, collect 300 thousand rubles. on print books for kids. I liked the way the author presented the book. After reviewing 15 times the presentation video, reading the text the same number of times, examining all the rewards, I got to the statistics - how many people transferred certain amounts. And I found out that the core was 500r charges. It seemed to me very important in the success of his project on a boomstarter.

Having written the text for the project and developed rewards, it was the turn of the video message to potential sponsors. And this item on the list was the most difficult for me personally. For several days I fell asleep and woke up with the same thought: “Presentation ... what is it and how to do it ?!” As a result, I wrote a simple script that included: the author's appeal to join the project, how the book was created and a small a piece of how to apply a book. Appointed shooting and the day removed. The last part was filmed in my house, and I asked my son to participate. Everything turned out from the first take, for which Mark (son) is a special thank you!

When everything was ready, the project could be launched! But instead of a couple of hours, the formalities took three days:

• the conclusion of the contract (we concluded on the legal entity, but it is possible and on the physical);
• layout of the text on the site (this is a catastrophe on a boomstarter);
• Moderation of the project on the service side.

Launch of the project

The launch took place on September 8th.

I am opening some insider for those who plan to launch a fundraising for their projects through crowdfunding:


I deliberately did not touch the moment with advertising and PR, as this is a separate and big-and-a-I story. I’ll say right away that no one except yourself will be doing this. No one! But, as I noted, the authors, for the most part, do not do this either. And in the end - no money.

It should be noted that one of the tenets of crowdfunding is “all or nothing”. If the project at least 1 ruble did not get the stated amount during the stated period, all money will be returned to the sponsors. And this is perhaps the most important point for those who plan to raise money in this way.

Fully aware that everything will have to be done by myself, I thought about the team. And he offered to work with me on this not easy, but necessarily interesting affair, to my colleague, Anatoly. The answer did not have to wait long - it was positive. So the "team" gathered. And, looking back at the distance traveled, I can say with confidence that I was not mistaken.

Well, what kind of undertaking does without planning? None An approximate plan was drawn up for how everything will happen. Of course, everything was taken, by and large, from the head. But it was necessary to start somewhere. Described all the possible actions that we can do, and what kind of results they can bring. They divided all this into “circles” (for some reason this name came to mind first). In each round there was a certain number of days and certain “gestures” required from us. And the amount of fees, of course. Further, these sums were broken up into 44 days, that is how many days we stated in the draft.



And in my story I got to our beloved and dear viewers. This is the “capital” that we collected bit by bit from the very beginning of the project SIMPLE SCIENCE. For those who do not know what a SIMPLE SCIENCE is a video channel on YouTube. At the time of launch, we already had more than 50,000 subscribers on the boomstarter. Is it a lot or a little? Unclear. But these are our viewers. By the way, we now have almost 100 thousand. That is, the increase since September - almost doubled.

In addition to the youtube-channel, we still have a blog on Habré, Vkontakte page and Facebook. This is all that we could rely on in our desire to publish a book with sponsors' money. And our hopes were met by more than 200 percent. But first things first.

Money to money is a bruised expression. But in this case it is very appropriate. I'll explain why. A potential sponsor, going into the project and seeing collected 0 p out of 380.000r., Will think very much: “is it worth it for me to translate, even if it is 100r? What if they are crooks ?! ” Well, or some other question will be puzzled. But the fact that he will think and doubt the prospects of a “zero” project is for sure.

Therefore, before attracting a potential audience of sponsors, you need to persuade the most liberal and dedicated part to become the first sponsors. And who is the most faithful? Yes, yes, these are your friends, acquaintances and relatives (although, about the relatives, it's someone like :). I spent two days on the phone and in correspondence through all possible channels with everyone I knew personally. The list included friends who drank tea at a cafe only in the morning, and acquaintances whom I had not seen for more than 3 years. But, I assure you, this is the best that I could think of. And for 2 days we collected 25 thousand rubles. Although I counted on 50. But 25 is something without which 380,000 rubles cannot be collected. (Taking this opportunity, I want to sincerely thank everyone who responded during these first two days, it was very important for us not only financially, but also morally!).

Now about Habrahabr. For two years we have been blogging the SIMPLE SCIENCE channel and have over 2.000 subscribers in our subscribers. And on the fifth day we are posting a simple post : "well, they say, and so, so we decided to make a book and ask to support us financially." It sounded like that. Well, from the video too. And on this day, the piggy bank was replenished with 167 thousand rubles. On the second day - another 72 thousand rubles. But this is neither more nor less than 67% of the required amount. It also was that habraeffekt about which often write!

After that, there were publications on Picaba’s website and in Vkontakte thematic groups, personal correspondence with those who voted in our polls through Vkontakte. As a result, for 10 days, gathered 100% of 380.000 rub. Anatoly will tell about this point of our work much better than me, because it all fell on his shoulders.

A little bit of PR

I want to start my part with a warning - when you launch a crowdfunding project, be prepared for dramatic changes in your life and your personal time. Rather, even so - personal time you do not have left. 886 people sponsored our project. Of course, I did not communicate with each of these 886 sponsors, but I communicated with a much larger number of people whom I literally begged to support anything — with information (repost), even with a ruble (even better — with information and a ruble). All channels of communication and information about our project can be divided into three main groups.

• Social networks;
• Entertainment sites;
• mass media

Social networks

The scheme of work with social networks was as follows: an informative post in the channel group with the obligatory reference to the project on Bumstarter, fixing it in the header and broadcasting (repost) to other thematic and not only groups. Thematic in our case is scientific or near-scientific. “Not only” - close to the topic of our project - groups for mothers, children, parents and so on. Our group is still friends with a couple of them.

Here, for example, in how many groups I have the rights of an editor or moderator (the ability to repost):



You see that the list is rather big (attention to the slider) and that the number of really large communities in our subject is among them. There were also those who turned up their noses, asked for money or their logo on the cover of our book in just one post.

Why did NEW groups agree to repost our project? You can talk about the nobility of our undertakings, a high moral component of the goal, but as soon as people see the collection of money, the reaction is the same for everyone - either distrust or “pay, gentlemen are good”. Few people have heard about crowdfunding, even fewer understand its features. Therefore, we often “paid” informational support. So on our site appeared a section with information sponsors. By the end of the project, he looked like this:



The main tool in social networks for us was the VK group (at that time - 20 thousand with a small tail). The group on Facebook was not so developed, and Twitter didn’t have anything to boast about. However, in the course of the project, it became obvious at FB that the public was more “businesslike” and responsible - it would support the ruble and would not throw words to the wind. Unlike schoolchildren who are hyperactive in VK. Now I have a lot of friends in FB, revolving in a crowdfunding environment, we exchange information, projects, Denis attends such parties (I prefer to stay in the shadows). But the prospects for development in this direction are still enormous.

It makes no sense to keep the same informational post about the project for a long time in the “header” of your group, you need to change the post, constantly remind about the project, inform ALL of the members of the group about it. As a result, I have worked out the following mechanism: each regular post, not always even tied to an update on Bumstarter, was accompanied by a survey. The essence was always the same - a call to support the project. Only the call was sounded every time in different ways and veiled. All polls were “open”. After such a survey, I contacted EVERYONE who responded "ready to support", "support", "be sure to help." And I wrote to each individual message. To say that it was hard to say nothing. I fell asleep with this project and woke up with it, without releasing the smartphone with the VK application from my hands. It got to the point that I asked the driver of the bus to stop at the “VK” bus stop. So he said: "VKontakte, please stop." Because he was sitting, having buried his smartphone. But all this is the prose of life. There are technical problems:

• if several people complain that your message is spam, your page is frozen. It is necessary to change the password (the old one will not be accepted), to confirm that the attackers did not crack the page.
• in 3-4 hours you can only send 20 messages to users who are not your friends (before the project I had a couple dozen friends, and by the end of it - 290 people). After each survey, I had to write to hundreds of other potential sponsors, so it becomes clear why free time suddenly decreases.
• The reaction of many survey participants (from misunderstanding and fright, who I am and what I want, to the threats from them against me) is also impossible to foresee.

How many polls brought VK and communication with the participants can be found here .

Entertainment sites

The second area of ​​work is popular entertainment sites with huge attendance. There are, for example, open “Peekaboo”, Yaplakal and closed “Lepre”. I didn’t have access to the latter at that time, and now I’m still in quarantine - I left about half of the allotted six months before writing anything to the main Lepre. By the way, Alexander, the author of another project on Bumstarter, which we also told on Habré, gave me access. In general, I focused on "Peekaboo" and "Yaplakal." With the second, to be honest, the relationship did not work out. Our videos and comics were perceived almost as an advertisement for the channel (apparently due to the presence of the logo), and I was allowed to do a post about Bum, they forgot about their promises, it came to a ban.

Relations have developed with Picaba. So it turned out to be an adequate admin, which does not forbid anyone anything - as long as there was interest from users. This interest is expressed in the ranking of posts. The system is simple and clear - “plus” - I liked the post, “minus” - I didn't like it, only registered users can vote. To get into the "hot" of fresh you need to gain a rating of at least 18 points. Posts are updated every 24 hours, the difference in attendance of "fresh" and "hot" is simply enormous! There really is a game worth the candle.

I am not a novice at Picaba, but I still cannot say what it is and what they eat with. He is so many-sided and multifaceted that he changes his face depending on the time of day and year (read, beginnings and endings of school and school holidays). The site has several so-called Leagues (associations of interests, let's say) - Good, Evil, Leni, Detectives, Grammarnatsi. There is the League of the Picassoons (now they are called the “Order of the Picasons” and this is a closed VC group where everyone helps each other). The founders of this group, with over a thousand thousands of users, had Picaboo (do you feel the prospects from the point of view of “promoting” posts?) Supported our project, shared ideas and decided to help. Some admins even supported the ruble, otherwise the group supported our posts on Picaba with a one-two-weekly rate. For our part, we placed the logo of the Order and their VK URL in the “information partners” of the book. Now, unfortunately, contact and understanding with the new leadership of the Order are completely lost, neither our book nor the fact that they are represented in it are completely uninteresting to them.

Here are some examples of posts on Picaba:

• Crowdfunding - what is it and for what?
• Let's publish together a scientific book for children!
• Thanks to everyone who helped us and help those who have not done it yet!
• Thanks to the puppets who supported the release of the children's scientific book "Simple Science"

Some important tips for deciding to follow in our footsteps:

• Please note that the first posts introduce Picaba to the very concept of “crowdfunding”, talk about some aspects of our project, then thank those who supported it. So we get several from one topic for the post. And quite popular, judging by the rating.
• The first comment to the news should be yours and contain a hyperlink to the project.
• You must have a rating BEFORE the publication of a series of posts about your project. That is, you must have a "name", a kind of "face" on this site.

I would like to share this observation: the material support from the posts for picaba was minimal compared to other areas. Peekaboo is more for recognition, not for fundraising. Of course, there were some income. And I even did a post listing those who supported Picaba with the project. But in terms of audience reach / project growth, this is the lowest figure. And note that the post listing picabushnikov scored the highest rating among a series of publications about the project. Consider this feature of the resource!

mass media

Perhaps the most promising and incomprehensible direction in the work. Because you can get everything, but more often than not you get nothing. If you are preparing or preparing a project in Boom, then you know that there is such a thing as a “project curator”. Down on the bumstarter you can see quite a few quite a few companies with well-known names:



In theory, the managers of "Bumstarter" will find you a curator. But for some reason in our case it was not so.

Our project on the topic approached Vesti. Science (they have now been replaced by Vesti.ru), but “VN” did not hurry to take us under the wing. Perhaps, because in 10 days we already did not need it - we have already collected everything. But, since we decided to continue the collections for the second volume, we still needed to join a strong resource. And it was very disappointing that no one wants to take our really cool project. A few days after the next publication from the “curators”, this very curator put the logo on our project. Well, I populated him with the wish to actively promote us through his resource. I do not want to say names, because on the same day the supervision was withdrawn voluntarily by the sponsor himself. It did not work out on an apparently successful project, giving one small note on your resource.

In the end, I was so tired that no one wrote about us from those who support Boom with information that I managed to publish on EACH curator resource who at that time collaborated with Bumstarter. It’s realistic to find contacts on the Internet, and warnings from Bumstarter’s managers that they don’t suit us, and others simply won’t write about us - this is just another obstacle, very easily surmountable. Plus, those I found through the Yandex’s subject heading. Here , who does not know. And by the end of the project, the list of publications was no longer small (here are a couple of links): Science 2.0 , the Internet magazine Lyceum , Crowdsourcing , Vesti . Science , Science and Life, and others.

Unfortunately, I can not translate “Public capital” into ruble currency, but I believe that some of the sponsors came to us after these very publications on a wide variety of resources. In addition, we now actively cooperate with many resources. So the work was not on time, but for the future!

Other directions

Logically, it would be worth starting with. But these are so obvious things that I will say a few words about them. To “other things,” I, first of all, relate thematic blogs, bloggers and simply “popular people” both in the blogosphere and in social networks. It is important to inform them about our project, to persuade to support INFORMATION. It is important to understand - if a person has not transferred you 50 rubles - this is not a tragedy. Tragedy, if he refused to make a repost.

Secondly, Habr. There are no comments here. There is no limit to our delight in the help of habravchan!

Thirdly, and, of course, the most obvious is our channel on YouTube. So to say, the goods (book) face. Nothing prevents us from placing links-calls to support the project on a bumstarter in the description of the channel, videos or in the videos themselves. Be sure to do it!

As a thank you, we printed in the book logos of all those who supported our idea:

At the time of writing this post, we have a second book and we’ve sent it to print.



And finally, we have reached the stage of selling the book. This is also a separate story, which has not yet been completed.

You can buy a book for 350r directly from us. In stores, it will cost about 500-600 rubles.

If you do not want to make a purchase through the site, then the order on this page is still working.

Now we are preparing to launch an application for iPad, which a few days ago was sent to moderation in appstor. If someone is interested, you can leave a request , and we will let you know when it will be open for download.

And good luck to all those who are going to try their hand at crowdfunding. Dare and do not listen to those who doubt the success of your venture!