Crowdfunding Schnauzers

Had enough of your Schnauzer for one day. Then sit back, relax and put your feet up. You can let off a little steam here about things unrelated to your four-legged schnauzer.
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BeeBee
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Crowdfunding Schnauzers

Post by BeeBee »

Well, not quite, but kind of.
I'm in the last stages of getting the new children's book off to a publisher. A book on puppy farming (surprise, surprise, I'm a one-trick-obsessive-pony) and rescue dogs, aimed at readers 8+. It's fictional, based on 2 schnauzers we know well, Renae and Twinkle (with shades of Susie-Belle and Cerise, and every other ex-breeding schnauzer we know). I've done the words, and Annabel Wilson has done the drawings (Annabel is not only a great illustrator, she's a teacher and mother, skills I needed onboard as I'm not overly familiar with the target audience =)) =)) )

For several reasons we decided a while back to self-publish, for example we want to control the timetable and content and these go out the window in the hands of a traditional publisher as I know from experience, and we want to be able to donate to animal rescues of our choosing if the book is ever profitable, again, much harder and more complex with a traditional publishing deal. (Books are not the money-spinners people assume, most full-time writers make very little money from books and to negotiate donations to charity for book sales is soul destroying). So, we decided a while back to self-publish and decided to give crowdfunding a go.

WOW!!

Neither of us have any experience of this at all, but we have been astonished at how generous and committed the section of the dog community who have backed our idea have proven to be. Our budget and crowdfunding target to get the book printed - no money was budgeted for our time spent producing it, or marketing - just to get it printed and produced was £2500. We didn't expect it to be easy to raise such a sum. We launched the Kickstarter on Wednesday afternoon and by Friday morning, less than 48 hours after launch, we were fully funded \:D/ :-bd

It really has been an incredible whirlwind that is exciting, heartening and a little bit overwhelming! So much needs to be done in the next 3 weeks now, the Kickstarter runs until the end of March and pledges are still coming in. We're now aiming to get a bigger print-run with the additional funding coming in, and hope people will donate copies to their local library and schools by pledging on the Kickstarter for dedicated copies for them. How amazing it will be to know copies of the book may be read in years to come and affect how those young readers source their dogs. Education of the next generation is key to stopping the abuses of puppy farms etc.
If you want to read more, you can follow the Kickstarter here on this link, or on my blog.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sa ... her-sister
Jasmine (RIP) Renae b.01.11.10, sister to Susie-Belle (RIP), Twinkle (RIP), Cerise & Albert Claude puppy farm rescues, my muses
Creator of Schnauzerfest a good thing made possible by 1000s of good people & dogs
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Susie-Be ... 0289434936
http://www.janettaharvey.com/
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Donald
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Re: Crowdfunding Schnauzers

Post by Donald »

Done. Good luck with it..
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Eddie
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Post by Eddie »

Good luck and I wish you every success. I hate this abhorrent industry and I am totally in favour of anything that can be done to raise awareness and limit its impact.
Our Mouse is a puppy farm survivor and after six happy years with us it seems she is still battling her demons.
Graham, Judie, Eddie (19-03-07 to 25-07-12), Mouse, Daisy and little Reilly. Image
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Re: Crowdfunding Schnauzers

Post by Maty »

How exciting for you both, I bet you didn't expect it to take off so quickly!

I know so little about crowd funding, what would have happened if you didn't reach your target? I didn't even realise you could go beyond the target, brilliant that you can increase the print run and fabulous to give people the chance to donate to local libraries and schools :)
Maty

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AB2012
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Re: Crowdfunding Schnauzers

Post by AB2012 »

Maty wrote:I know so little about crowd funding, what would have happened if you didn't reach your target? I didn't even realise you could go beyond the target, brilliant that you can increase the print run and fabulous to give people the chance to donate to local libraries and schools :)
Neither did we know anything, Kate before we started researching this last year!
It really has been a whirlwind, an exciting, enjoyable one at that! When Janetta asked me last year to illustrate her new book, I could not have imagined the journey that it would take us on. For me it has been the most brilliant excuse to do what I love best - read loads of children's books and DRAW! And the Kickstarter idea was something neither of us had any expectations for at all, except we knew we wanted the publishing freedom that it gives to do this our way; to get the book out to as many children as possible, and to donate some of the proceeds to charity. A larger print run as a 'stretch goal' will certainly help with these aims, now that we are fully funded and able to get the first batch printed.
If we had not reached our target no-one would have paid, or therefore would not have been able to enjoy the rewards that we are offering and the venture would have folded. So you can see why we are so happy to have done this in such a short space of time! :D But now we are looking forward to hopefully being able to increase the print run for more copies if we achieve our 'stretch goals'. :D
And besides all this - Janetta really has written a great story that children will love, that will inspire them to take care as adults about where they source a puppy or dog from, when they come to buy or adopt their own dog...or indeed to tell their parents all about it!
Alfie p&s standard boy, born 5.9.12; Reeva p&s standard girl. born 6.7.13- adopted 17.5.15
“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace.”
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AB2012
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Re: Crowdfunding Schnauzers

Post by AB2012 »

Donald wrote:Done. Good luck with it..
Thank you so much Donald! That's brilliant! :)
Alfie p&s standard boy, born 5.9.12; Reeva p&s standard girl. born 6.7.13- adopted 17.5.15
“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace.”
― Milan Kundera
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BeeBee
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Re: Crowdfunding Schnauzers

Post by BeeBee »

Donald wrote:Done. Good luck with it..
Thanks Donald :)
Jasmine (RIP) Renae b.01.11.10, sister to Susie-Belle (RIP), Twinkle (RIP), Cerise & Albert Claude puppy farm rescues, my muses
Creator of Schnauzerfest a good thing made possible by 1000s of good people & dogs
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Susie-Be ... 0289434936
http://www.janettaharvey.com/
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BeeBee
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Re: Crowdfunding Schnauzers

Post by BeeBee »

Maty wrote:How exciting for you both, I bet you didn't expect it to take off so quickly!

I know so little about crowd funding, what would have happened if you didn't reach your target?
We've been surprised in so many ways with it, learning a lot as we go. And, wishing we hadn't ignored some of the excellent advice we were given from a well known children's author who said it was going to be a huge amount of work managing a crowdfunding campaign =)) It is, but in an exciting way, we both just need many more hours in the day, it's a good job we both thrive on intense bursts of work and deadlines....well, kind of thrive :-"

It was a bit of a public gamble to put it out on Kickstarter, as Annabel says, it's all-or-nothing, so if the target isn't reached, it's failed entirely. We'd have had to look at plan b....there was a plan b?? =))
Thanks for all support here :)
Jasmine (RIP) Renae b.01.11.10, sister to Susie-Belle (RIP), Twinkle (RIP), Cerise & Albert Claude puppy farm rescues, my muses
Creator of Schnauzerfest a good thing made possible by 1000s of good people & dogs
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Susie-Be ... 0289434936
http://www.janettaharvey.com/
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Re: Crowdfunding Schnauzers

Post by Lou78 »

Good luck with this Janetta and a massive well done for spreading the message to a younger audience. I have read the excerpts on the kickstarter page but was filling up at my desk so had to stop that! *clears throat*, *dabs eyes*. I would love to buy that for my nieces and nephews but not sure i would be able to read it to them! I am terrible. :((

Kids are never too young to learn about this especially as it is sometimes the kids that want a puppy in the first place. Can't wait to see it hit the shelves. :-bd
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BeeBee
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Re: Crowdfunding Schnauzers

Post by BeeBee »

Lou78 wrote:Good luck with this Janetta and a massive well done for spreading the message to a younger audience.

Kids are never too young to learn about this especially as it is sometimes the kids that want a puppy in the first place. Can't wait to see it hit the shelves. :-bd
Thank you :)
We're not shying from the reality of what life in the puppy farm was like for our fictional dog, but, we know there'll be a lot of funny things that children will enjoy and it will hopefully show them the stark contrast in many dogs lives. We have some rescue dogs living good lives now appear, not from puppy farms, but typical rehoming scenarios. One in particular we think will make children smile and parents cringe when they read it =))

I've read a fair bit of kids literature over the past year to get a sense of what children can engage with, both topics and language, and if we look at some of the most popular books, eg from Michael Morpurgo, hard subjects can certainly be delivered to this age group (8+) and, in fact, they like to get behind tales of injustice. And puppy farming is certainly that.
Thanks again, hope you enjoy it when it's out this summer :D
Jasmine (RIP) Renae b.01.11.10, sister to Susie-Belle (RIP), Twinkle (RIP), Cerise & Albert Claude puppy farm rescues, my muses
Creator of Schnauzerfest a good thing made possible by 1000s of good people & dogs
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Susie-Be ... 0289434936
http://www.janettaharvey.com/
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