I regret making the reference to the kickstarter millionaire.

Here are examples of projects that I've actually helped fund with donations:

1. Pikes Peak Guy's coffee table book - I pledged and paid $75 to help this guy get his coffee table book published. His initial attempt failed. With a little social media help, he reached his goal. Now he is on I believe his 3rd printing and selling through local bookstores, Amazon, etc. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thepikespeakguy/365-days-of-pikes-peak-the-journey-0?ref=live note that if you search 'Pikes peak guy' on kickstarter, you'll see his failed first attempt.

2. Amy Winkles' album. They are in mastering right now. I forget what I pledged - I think it was $25. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amywinkles/amy-winkles-new-album-in-2012?ref=live

In both cases, these very different artists, one a photographer, one a firebrand rock/worship singer/leader, had financial goals in their artistic endeavors that were out of their personal reach financially - but were needed to get to the 'next level' of getting their art into the public's hands. They had a quite small, but established fan-base (of which I am a fan of both) that were willing to forward them a fairly small bit of cash, for a valuable product in return - should enough people join the pledge.

I have a great, signed, sleeved hardcopy of the Pikes Peak Guy's 365 days of Pikes Peak proudly on display on my coffee table - and it's glorious. It retails for $99 on Amazon for an unsleeved version. More importantly, it is sold at all of the major gift shops in Colorado Springs - the most appropriate place for them to be printed. It is a very high quality book - that was one of the artist's requirements - he went into some detail about how he selected the printer and his criteria for selection. He involved us backers in his process - which is worth some of the backing fee, IMO.

I will be getting a signed copy of Amy's CD. If it's anything as good as hearing her live, my money will be well spent. Amy's vocals remind me of the best of Pat Benatar and Melissa Etheridge combined into one. I wish there was a popular female rock singer right now, but there isn't. So, I bought into Amy's project knowing that at least the folks involved in her project will likely do right by her voice. On stage energy; hard to capture in a CD; but I was willing to take the risk that they'll get some of it done.

Perhaps more valuable to me in both of these endeavors is that I played a small part in allowing these two artists to pursue their dreams. Paying it forward, shall we say. I know one thing that the coffee table project allowed was to allow the artist to 'stair-step' their investment, for wider exposure, with very little out of pocket expenses except in the original creation of the photographs.

I think they are 'making it', using their own terms, and at their own pace - without any outside influence of publishers or corporations. This is what I mean when the world is a better place for this now, than it was even 20 years ago.

-Scott

My Songs, photos, writing,etc.
My Sound Cloud