Why We Kickstart

With just a few days left to get Fireside funded, it’s looking like another barn-burner, and I wanted to talk a little about why we still use Kickstarter.

So last week, at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, there was a panel on hybrid publishing that got into a conversation about Kickstarter. Year 3 writer Sofia Samatar was at the panel and tweeted that a few people on the panel who had run one said it was so stressful they might never do it again. And then my name came up (I’m @takwordy on Twitter). Sofia tweeted, “Lol ppl asking why @talkwordy keeps killing himself w/ kickstarter.”

My reply: “haha. I have only done FIVE Kickstarters I can stop anytime I want.”

But man, yeah, I guess that is a lot. So why do I do it?

There are a lot of reasons, but it all boils down to this: It’s still the best way to gather the money and fans needed to keep newer magazines like Fireside or the revived Crossed Genres going. We’ve been doing Fireside for more than two years now, and I have everything I need to keep the magazine going — time, experience, and my skills as an editor and organizer — everything except the money.

We’ve been working hard to move toward more of a subscriber model, but we’re not there yet. A big stumbling block for Fireside was that right after the first issue funded, Amazon closed their ebook subscription service to new publications, and that had been one of the best ways for fiction magazines to build and keep a regular subscription base, because Amazon is familiar and easy. We could have tried a standalone subscription drive, but really, that’s what the Kickstarter amounts too: a subscription drive that guarantees the health of Fireside, without the risk that we will raise only part of what we need and have a diminished magazine as a result. (With the added bonus of rewards!)

There are starting to be some interesting options, like Patreon and cheaper ways to create magazine apps, that we are exploring as a way to shift to a more ongoing subscription model. We think we can get to that point over the next year, but in the meantime, Kickstarter is the only way we have to bridge that gap, guarantee continuity for the Fireside, and keep paying writers 12.5 cents a word.

Fireside has always been an experiment, with fair pay for great storytelling at its core. We’re not going to back away from that. We want this Kickstarter to be our last, and we will take your faith in us and turn it into publication that will be around for a long time.

We’ve got three days left. We’ve always made Fireside happen at the last minute, and we will do it again, with your help.

Thank you.