Crowdfunding: Connecting Creators and Patrons

What a year 2011 was!

My full, gritty-details recap of the year is here: http://ellenmillion.livejournal.com/1257408.html

But for you guys, a briefer version, with a closer look at the crowdfunding parts...

Sketch Fest

Sketch Fest grew a LOT during 2011. The most major change is that I wrote the programming to allow artists to sell their own work - originals or prints! - through the site, with a low mandatory donation to fund web improvements and cover the cost of accepting funds. I was really reluctant to do this at first, because I wasn't able to deliver the goods myself - I had to trust my artists to keep their and mail what they promised.

So far, so good! I have received a few queries when things run late, but no complaints, and everyone on both sides of the sales desk has been fabulous to work with.

And it continues to pay for great webpage improvements: http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/sketchfesthistory.php

Join us TODAY for Sketch Fest #22. It's a special 48 hour event. :) http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/


EMG-Zine

EMG-Zine used to be my 'loss-leader' project - a free resource I funded out of my own pockets as a pet project and a companion to the merchandise line I ran. When I shut down the merchandise end of things, several years ago, EMG-Zine continued to be a financial drain, which is, frankly, not a good business plan.

So, I switched things up. Each 6 month period in 2011, I ran a fundraiser to support a 6 month period one year in advance. (I figured I would go ahead and see 2011 out, since I'd committed to themes and such.) If we didn't make the fundraising, the 'zine would shut down. It was a tough ultimatum to put out there, and I genuinely expected to run short.

Towards the goal, I counted any donation, any subscription, and any purchase of our hard copy anthologies. These all have costs associated with them, but I also pay in EMG credits, which can be redeemed for things like subscriptions or coloring books or portrait adoptions that have some minor profit padding in them. I figured it would just about come out in the wash. Any extra that I made over actual 'zine costs goes to programming awesome improvements on the webpage.

Both periods, people stepped up. The first half of the year, we just squeaked through, the second, we actually got enough to fund several hours of programming. (Still forthcoming!)

To celebrate, I have released the first volume of our anthology as a FREE pdf download: http://emg-zine.com/downloads.php Enjoy!!


Torn World

Even when I felt like I wasn't making much progress, or there wasn't a lot to post, the project actually thrived during 2011!

Torn World interview: http://sharedstoryworlds.com/2011/04/interview-with-ellen-million-creator-of-torn-world/

Torn World anthology: http://www.tornworld.net/familyties.php

Torn World coloring book: http://www.tornworld.net/coloringbooks.php

Sea Monster month in May was also great fun and a success.

Improvements at the webpage were pretty major, including new fiction pages, new article structure, artwork linking various places (articles and artists, primarily), the sidebar on articles and fiction that shows related artwork and articles and browsing tools, the beta of the language database, a better character landing pages...

More than 80 new stories were posted, plus artwork, character sheets, articles, poetry and more.

A number of stories and poems were sponsored, bringing income to several of our authors, and with some prodding, some of our wonderful subscribers remembered to give their credits (redeemable as cash!) to several of our wonderful creators in general appreciation for their work. One of ysabetwordsmith's Torn World stories was sold for publication and will appear in the January issue of Lorelei Signal! I crowdfunded several pieces of artwork - collecting dollars for progress, with the high sponsor receiving the finished original. In particular, Skykittens earned enough to be painted... you can see the inkwork here: http://hotlink.ellenmilliongraphics.com/ellen/skykittens-ink.jpg

Check it all out - and consider joining us! - at http://tornworld.net

There is a contest running to the end of January with the theme of Fashions and Fads. You can read about it in more detail here: http://torn-world.livejournal.com/94622.html



Personal Projects

In June, I found out I was pregnant, and my husband and I began a flurry of home improvements. Taking a hint from some of the year's minor crowdfunding successes, I opened up a painting project - I did small abstracts to people's prompts, with incentive perks and the option to buy the originals. My goal was improvements for the new nursery, in particular some good light-blocking curtains. You can see the recap of the project I did for this community here: http://crowdfunding.livejournal.com/326953.html

Thanks in part to what I earned doing nearly 100 abstract paintings, we went from this: http://hotlink.ellenmilliongraphics.com/ellen/photos/studio1.jpg to this: http://ellenmillion.livejournal.com/1256464.html

Based on the success of that project, I ran a second one in November, with the goal of finishing the EMG-Zine fundraiser. The results were more modest than the first fundraiser (I suspect that several people were as enthused by the baby news as by the paintings themselves, but don't have solid proof of that): http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/abstracts2.php It did contribute $195 towards our EMG-Zine goal! Without that, we wouldn't quite have made it!



And there you have a short look at my year in crowdfunding. I hope this has been useful; I have learned a lot through this community and enjoy watching projects unfold here. I hope we see many of you at Sketch Fest today... it starts in 5 minutes!!

EMG-Zine: This free, monthly e-zine for artists and writers of fantasy and science fiction has been funded through December 2012! We've also raised enough to cover several webpage improvements! As a big, giant thank you, I am offering a free PDF download of our first anthology: http://emg-zine.com/downloads.php

The Art of the Business of Fantasy Art, Volume 1 collects the juiciest articles from 2006, also included a selection of fiction and artwork from that year. Hysterical, serious and frightening by turn, this book is straight-forward dirt from the artists and writers in the trenches, and bound to become a dog-eared favorite. Cover artwork is by Amy Edwards, and articles are by R. Bail, Ursula Vernon, Janet Chui, Ellen Million, C.E. Murphy, Annie Rodrigue, Melissa Acker, Liiga Smilshkalne, Dawn Obrecht, Sonia Fedotowsky, Megan Myers, Audry Wildhagen, Sylvia Leung, Roy Griffin, R.J. Decker, and Joleen Flasher. You can't go too wrong with something that starts with a chicken and an egg and ends with 'Let there be light!' 118 pages, 40 in color. ~25 M PDF

Torn World: The most common complaint I've heard about Torn World is that there is an overwhelming amount of material... where do you start? How can you find out about things? In the last month or so, two amazing new features have been added to the webpage, putting the resources of the project at your fingertips.

First, the article database has been streamlined and updated, with a straight-forward, out-line based landing page: http://www.tornworld.net/settingoutline2.php

Secondly, our fiction pages have been given powerful organizational tools. http://www.tornworld.net/fiction.php

You can select a single serial or storyline collection to read through, choose a genre of story, or a kind of story structure, a specific theme, or see all the work created for one of our Muse Fusions. Do you only have time for a few flash fiction stories? Want to nibble at the romantic stories? Are you interested in a particular on-going plotline? Looking for stand-alone stories that will get you started in the setting?

What's more, if you are registered (always free!) you can log in and 'watch' any one of these storylines so you get an email letting you know when it's updated with new material. (Did you also know that you can 'watch' any single creator? If you've got a favorite author or artist, you can find out when they post new work!)


Sketch Fest: Our next Sketch Fest will be an experimental 48 hour fest! Due to popular demand, we are trying a longer fest, to include people who have conflicts with our usual Friday at noon - Saturday at noon schedule. Join us January 6-8, noon to noon Alaska time! http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/


As always, your thoughts and input are very welcome! Spread the word, if you know people who would enjoy these projects!

I'm pulling out my paints right now - free prompted abstracts are now open!

http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/abstracts2.php

This is a fundraiser for EMG-Zine, which is in danger of being canceled after the June 2012 issue. Free prompts are open during today's window, and there are a variety of prizes and perks to choose from! Tips will get you your original painting(s), entries in drawings for copies of our anthology, subscriptions (which come with advertising!), coloring books, larger originals and much more. Don't be shy about leaving prompts without tipping, though - some of the sponsorship options come with extra sponsorships for free prompters. Link back to this project to improve your chances of winning a free sponsorship!