It’s day 22 of the Kickstarter for The Hawaii Project, Thursday, April 23.
OK. I have 8 days left. $8,615 pledged, 24% funded, 119 backers.
The last major piece of press coverage I was hoping for has landed. Yay! We’re covered in Beta Boston, the Boston Globe’s tech-focused website. I’d targeted The Globe/Beta Boston as one of my original desired media outlets for coverage. Ironically, the coverage doesn’t come from journalists there I know and pitched, it comes from a freelancer who found me on her own and thought it would be good to cover. The world is funny sometimes. Today is World Book Day (http://worldbookday.com/), so it seems appropriate!
Duh. I forgot to ask the journalist to use my special link for the Kickstarter,http://www.thehawaiiproject.com/kickstarter. So all the traffic is routed direct to Kickstarter, where I have no way to track how many hits I got. I realize this about 4 hours later and ask them to update the link, which they graciously do, but I think I missed most of the immediate hits. Still, I’ll get long term SEO value from the link to my site instead of Kickstarter. (Side note: The Hawaii Project has never been on the first page of Google results for “The Hawaii Project” searches. I notice today it’s on the first page now – no doubt a result of all the backlinks I have been getting from press. I am now outranking the Hawaii Meth Project, thank goodness….although btw that seems like a great organization fighting meth use in Hawaii.)
Based on my google analytics tracking, looks like I got about 10 hits to the Kickstarter page *after* they changed the link. No way to tell what happened before. Mistake on my part….However, I see the outcome. I’ve gotten 4 pledges totaling $270. Not the “geyser” of donations I was hoping for 8). But every little bit…..
Side note: I get one comment on the article from a reader – the first comment I’ve gotten on any of the articles on The Hawaii Project. It’s slightly snarky and suggests Goodreads already does all the things I do. Hard to see how they’d know that as they’ve not used the product…but: Rule 29: Be (civil) In The Arena). (I have a set of work rules, somewhat analogous to Gibb’s Rules. I’ll publish them someday). In the meantime, Rule 29 is Be (civil) In The Arena. The Arena is The Internet. Be In The Arena. Put up a comment on any article written about you, even if it’s just a thank you, and even (especially!) if the article is critical of you. Respond to every single person who takes the time to comment on your work, even if you don’t agree with them. And be respectful. So, I respectfully respond to her criticisms, I think we end up agreeing to disagree. Which is fine. The dialog is there for anyone coming to the article later, and hopefully I build a reputation as being thoughtful, responsive and “not a jerk”. I may not win her over, but I may win over someone coming to the article later.
I spend the rest of the day analyzing where I stand on the Kickstarter, and paths forward. I’ll publish that tomorrow, on Friday.
Today’s music: Philip Glass piano music. Contemplative, non-interruptive, thought-inducing.