I have a gazillion of browser tabs open, and that needs to change. So I'm going to give you a gazillion of links!

First of all, Franklin Habit has mashed Victorian knitting into an entirely non-Victorian baby hat that is definitely worth a look for its mohawk fringe. (Victorian, of course.)

Gamergate is still not dead - but you can auto-block them on Twitter. Here's an interesting article about that (which also explains what "sealioning" means).

If you need to insult someone, here is a much cooler way to do it (and much more long-lasting): Names for plants and creatures.

Having too much stuff in your house can be a problem - but one that you can tackle by getting rid of things you don't use anymore. Running out of storage space for archaeological finds? Much worse, and much harder to solve.

An article about recreating a Roman hairstyle is open access online at the EXARC journal.

If you are in Germany and would like to go to a creativity retreat, there is a project up on Startnext called Hand-Herz-Seele. Margit from Alte Künste (my partner-in-crime from the LonCon last year) is one of the teachers there, so you might get a chance to dye with her. The project is currently collecting "likes" to be able to start the actual funding stage.

Speaking of dyes and colours, Ask the Past tells us how to dress a child. Now that's still the proper way around there - blue for girls and pink for boys. As it should be. (Someone got it wrong some time after 1890...)

In the wake of the Con Man campaign, I've looked at a few other campaigns on Kickstarter and Indiegogo recently, as well as at stuff on Patreon in the wake of Amanda Palmer's getting started out there. Yesterday I looked at a Kickstarter project trying to fund a video... and I realised a few things about those campaigns and me. So here's my thoughts on the subject.

I've helped fund a few campaigns during the last years, but really only a few. I tend to be very picky on where to invest my money, and a project really needs to get me enthusiastic about it before I will contribute. There are things that all the campaigns I spent money on did, however, and if they are missing, the chances are extremely high that I won't contribute even if the general idea is something I like. Here's the stuff.

1. Make sure I hear about it.
Yes, I know, that one's a Thank You Captain Obvious. However, it's important - the more people that know your campaign and speak about it, the better your chances. Ask your friends to spread the word,  and also ask those that visit your project page, whether they back you or not. If you know someone with impact on the 'web, ask them to spread word, too.

2. Make both the text and the video informative.
All crowdfunding platforms will let you post a video and a text. They often stress the importance of a good video. Me, I read the text first, and watch the video afterwards if I'm still interested. I'm most delighted if the text and video both convey the essential information but are not completely similar. A badly-made video will turn me off - it makes it seem as if you have not taken this seriously enough to part me from my money. Typos in the text and poor grammar? You have probably lost me already. Typos, poor grammar and poor layout? If you are planning to self-publish a book, you have definitely lost me.

3. Make sure I learn enough about your project.
I need a reason to get enthusiastic about your project. Concept art, design snippets, a trailer, music demos, drawings - you surely have detailed plans for your Thing, and I will want to see enough of them to let me a) understand what you are trying to do and b) become enthused about it. For you, a one-sentence description might be enough; it's not enough for me.

4. Offer me stuff for my contribution.
Whether they are called perks or rewards or whatevers, they are the backbone of the crowdfunding system for me. I'll own it right here and now: I might be generous towards my friends and colleagues, and other people that I know at least a little, but my altruism towards strangers is quite limited. Note that I wrote "invest" and not "donate" in the second paragraph of this post? Now you know why. If I'm helping fund your project, I want something back. There's always a few backers who will just want to give you money, and that's fine. Me? Sorry, but I'm not one of them. Offer me stuff. Lots of stuff, in different tiers, starting small. Digital things will work fine for me and won't be too much work for you to send to lots of people, or cost lots of postage.

5. Make your stuff attractive.
Attractive stuff, for me, is things I won't get later or otherwise, or things I will have to shell out more money for if I want them. I'll spend more on things that are guaranteed to be backer-only or campaign-only things. I'll also be more willing to contribute to a higher tier for something that I will only get that way. My decision process might be sped along if you have a limited number of early bird rewards as well - otherwise I'm inclined to ponder contributing or not for quite a while, possibly until I am sure the thing will definitely get funded. You also get me to invest if I feel like I'm getting a good deal - such as something for less than the retail price it will be sold at afterwards. Cut me a deal. I'm helping fund your idea, after all.

6. If you are funding a Thing, offer that Thing in your rewards.
I came across that one in a campaign to fund a book recently. The author was trying to fund a book... and that book was not offered in the rewards. At all. AT ALL. I read the sidebar three times because I could not believe it.
Now... if your campaign for a Thing sounds interesting enough for me to want help fund it, chances are about 100% that I am interested in said Thing. If I fund it, I want to get it. In the seriously weird case that you don't offer me a chance to get it in the funding, I will not contribute, period. To boot, it will feel as if you're laughing at me.
It's fine if you offer other stuff, in addition; it's also fine if your Thing only comes in a high tier because it is a physical object that costs a lot in production and you need to calculate correctly, and there's lots of other stuff coming before that tier. (I'm all about calculating properly, as you might know.)
If you make a book, or a film, or music, you'll have the highest probability of getting me if you offer a digital download for a low price. (I live in Europe. If I have to add shipping costs, which is usually the case, physical things that may be fairly priced will quickly escalate to "quite a lot of money".)
Tied in with this: be very clear on how your Thing will be available later. Will it be a downloadable film for free, and I get early access as a backer?  Will it only be available for a price? Or only for backers, forever? Only for backers at first, and maybe for everyone later?

7. If your thing is artsy, make sure I learn enough about your art.
Want to fund a music project? Let me listen to what you do first. Either include snippets of music long enough and not voiced-over in your video, or add links to your music that are easy to follow. I will not buy music I don't like, and I want to know if I like it before I invest in your campaign. I'm a stranger. Show me your stuff, I might love it.
Same applies to film or art. Give me snippets, give me samples, give me links to your previous work. As long as I don't know whether I like your style or not, and I can't find out easily, you won't get my support. If I like your style, I might help fund. Even if your style is not to my taste, if I like what you do on a level of crafts appreciation, I might still spread word about your project.

8. Start your rewards small.
Start your perks or rewards section with the one dollar option that buys "a heartfelt thank-you for helping make this happen" or something like that. Give me a 5$ section next with a little download or digital whatever exclusive to the campaign. And if you are doing music, art, books, I'll expect the next tier to give me access to the digital version of the Thing, and to be somewhere in the range of 10 to 25$. You have more chances on my money if it's in the 10$ range than in the 20$ + range.
Yes, it is possible to donate any amount of money without getting a perk, and that includes low amounts, obviously. However, I've seen campaigns that start with a 100$ perk as the first thing - and even if the campaign runner writes that every little bit of money is very welcome, it feels to me like anything below that sum is not really welcome, or appreciated and seen as helpful. No matter how often that is stated in the text. I look at the rewards bar very soon in my evaluation, and you have most probably lost me already if there is no single-digit option in it.
For the record: I've never spent less than the lowest tier to give me the actual Thing, and more money just as often as not (the lure of the exclusives!), but I've never spent anything on a campaign that did not offer the one-dollar option for a thank you. (Contributing anything will also give access to the backers-only feed, which might be a perk on its own if you do update there regularly. Which you should, see next point.)

9. Keep us updated.
Celebrate positive developments with your backers. Read their comments and answer them. Address their concerns. If a lot of them request something, try to make it possible (unless, you know, it's a really, really bad idea, in which case you should explain that it is and why.) They - we - are your fans and we're invested in your project. Do take us seriously. Frequent updates and answers to comments will make me feel like you are taking us seriously, and appreciating our support, and are very invested in the campaign.
If you run into problems and things will be late, tell us. Chances are very high that you will get support and understanding as long as you communicate with us. We want to support you and your idea, after all, not make you feel bad and stressed out!
Give us updates on the backer page, and if possible stretch goals. I will get excited if the digital stretch goal goods are given out to every tier of 5$ and above, or at least for every tier that gets stuff and above. It will make me spread the word in hopes to get more for the same money. Yes, I'm greedy. You can use that greed for your own purposes here.

10. Don't whine.
I've seen a few campaigns that ask for money because someone is in dire straits due to health reasons. They usually come with a list of this-and-that amount of money needed to pay for this-and-that, and with an undertone of whine. Or with an undertone of "I'm not really motivated to work for a living, so will you just hand me some moneyz kthxbye". Both of them, even if they are in there by accident and if the person is actually a kind, sweet, motivated and hard-working person will instantly turn me off. Undertones of whine sometimes occur in other campaigns, or in campaign comments, and they will turn me off there likewise. Yes, life is hard. Yes, your funding might not go as planned, or hoped. But if you start to be negative, you will probably lose more people than win.

And that, my friends, is how you get me to contribute to your campaign. If I like what you are doing, that is. Does it sound harsh? Maybe, but that won't change the fact that this is exactly what I am looking for when I decide on whether to participate and contribute... or not.

So. Anyone has a campaign they would like me to know about?

 

Springtime is a good time to take stock and plan stuff and get new things started - not just seeds. It's also a good time to make decisions about the future. And in this context, I'd love to have some feedback from you!

I've made more spindle whorls to replenish the much-diminished stock, and if you have bought whorls from me, I would very much appreciate to hear what you think about them, and if they are as good or better or worse than you expected. Or if they give you any trouble. I'm especially interested in some feedback about the disc-shaped whorls.

So if you have bought one of my whorls in the past, or used them, or if you are planning to and have comments, please let me know your thoughts either in the comments here or per mail to Diese E-Mail-Adresse ist vor Spambots geschützt! Zur Anzeige muss JavaScript eingeschaltet sein. - and thank you so much for your help with this!

The world's oldest pretzel has been found in Regensburg - a carbonised baked good that dates to the eighteenth century.

Terry Pratchett's name will be sent around in our equivalent of the Clacks towers.

The indiegogo campaign for Con Man has reached almost 2 million USD.

For those of you with a delivery address in Germany, I am running a spring special in my shop:
 there's a 5 € discount on shipping for delivery inside Germany this week, until March 20. (Minimum order for this is 20€.)

And it's sunny outside - I hope you can enjoy some weather as fine as the weather here, too!

For a change, there's good news from the EU: the seed regulation draft has finally fallen through. (In case you don't know what I am talking about, here's an old article from the Guardian about the regulation.)

Things like this give me hope - if it was possible to get the seed regulation canceled for good, we might still get the same result for TTIP, the weirdness and utter fail that is the Digital Goods VAT,  and other weird ideas that someone cooked up without doing a reality check first.

My tomato seeds have sprouted, by the way. There shall be tomato plants this summer - five different old or old-ish kinds, and three of them grown from seeds that I have harvested myself. I hope this year will be a better one for tomatoes than the last!

Terry Pratchett died yesterday, aged 66, and the internet is full of eulogies for him.

I'm sad that he passed away. He was a brilliant writer, and his early Discworld novels gave me many hours of both contemplation and fun, a wonderful mix of the utterly hilarious and the deeply philosophical. If you wanted to think about religion, or what makes humans tick, or about the impact that belief can have, there was a lot of things to spark thoughts. He made puns that I deeply appreciate, and wrote characters that were at once over-the-top and absolutely believable.

I did not read a lot of his later works from Discworld; I felt that they lacked the lightness of the earlier novels, bringing the formerly hidden deeper thoughts more to the front and sometimes even pulling out a hammer to drive things home. I very much enjoyed the YA books, though, and I know a few people who remained avid fans of Terry Pratchett right through his career.

This development of his books and my taste in different direction actually made me realise that authors change, and novels develop, and readers change too. Like any other relationship, things can develop to make you grow closer, or make you grow apart, and it's perfectly normal not to love somebody's books over years and years. Or love them all the time. Terry's books and writing taught me that, and I am thankful for that as much as for his books and the hours of reading pleasure they gave me.

Thank you for your books, Terry Pratchett. Your stories will live on for a long time, and I hope that knowing this made facing death easier for you.

I blame a friend of mine.

Several years ago, for my birthday, he gave me as a present the DVD of Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog. That led to many, many interesting and amusing hours of DVD watching, not because we watched that half-hour thing so often (though I have listened to the soundtrack many, many times in the car), but because we branched out afterwards, wanting more from the actors. Neil Patrick Harris. Felicia Day. Nathan Fillion.

So we watched Firefly, and loved it*. We joined the mass of people who all say that it was canceled too soon (damn you, Fox!) and we'd have liked more, much more of it. But some things you don't get no matter how much you (and many others) would like it.

However. Sometimes, other stuff comes along that is also a good thing to have. And we are living in the blissful age of crowdfunding and internet communication and stuff (in short: something very much the future), so when John Scalzi posted a tweet yesterday about Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion trying to fund a tv-ish project on Indigogo, I did what you do in that case.

So @alan_tudyk and @NathanFillion crowdfunding a comedy series about science fiction cons? SEEMS RISKY TO ME https://t.co/BZk0MoeUjw
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) 11. März 2015

I went there. I looked, and I watched, and laughed, and then I waited a few long hours and showed it to the most patient husband of them all, who watched, and laughed, and logged in to indiegogo and threw some money at Nathan and Alan's project while I mumbled to myself "oh come on take our money already WE SO WANT THIS STUFF". You know. As you do.

They started their campaign on March 10. Yesterday night, when we went to bed, they had raised more than 750.000 USD, enough for five episodes. Right now, they are at a bit above a million USD, with more than 14.000 supporters. The campaign is running for a month more... they might have to invent some more stretch goals.

Oh? You want the link? Go here. Enjoy. Spread the word, if you like.


* We watched more than just Firefly, of course, but Firefly is the one relevant for the rest of the post. Just in case you are curious, though: Eureka. Castle. How I Met your Mother. The Guild. Buffy. Fun was being had, in varying degrees, though most of them were rather high.