Uncategorized

The Most Funded Book in Crowdfunding History

Maya 8 years ago

One book which we’ve seen popping up everywhere is Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls.

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls is a children’s book packed with 100 bedtime stories about the life of 100 extraordinary women from the past and the present, illustrated by 100 female artists from all over the world.

But one thing that has also made the news is that this book has become the most funded book in crowdfunding history. Raising more than 1.2 million dollars from 20,000 backers in 70 countries!

Via snapmunk

Francesca Cavallo and Elena Favilli are both from Italy.

With a background in both the tech world and the startup world, they moved from Milan to San Francisco with the objective of funding attention in Silicon Valley. They didn’t come to the United States with just an idea. As Francesca says, “We came to the United States with a product that already had 65,000 users.”

Despite their funding success, they were in for a surprise. “The gender gap in tech is something that we did not expect,” recalls Francesca.

Not surprisingly, the desire to help the next generation avoid the same problems would eventually lead to the creation of Good Night Stories For Rebel Girls.

When you’re trying to connect with and convince the broader public to foot your early-stage production bills, preparation is everything. So is paying attention. “We started working on it one year before the launch of the campaign,” describes Francesca. “The most important part of the work was that we really tried to understand what kind of vocabulary the parents in our community used to describe their experiences. Really what bothered them of gender stereotypes in raising their children.”

“We did a lot of interviews, a lot of surveys, and based on this constant feedback with our audience, we launched a newsletter.”

Through the newsletter they requested feedback and provided examples of female leadership that people could share with their kids. In doing so, they established a strong emotional bond with the people who would go on to become their backers.

Ultimately, it was the newsletter that led to the idea that gave birth to the book. “The newsletter had a very big following with great open rates,” Francesca recalls proudly. “So based on a project of the newsletter that was called, Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls’ we put together a book. Basically, a book proposal. But instead of going to a publisher with this book proposal, we decided to go directly to our backers and do a crowd-funding campaign.”

The backers were already emotionally invested, and per Francesca, this “very close and authentic relationship” is what made the all difference. It was a difference that allowed them to become the most crowd-funded book in history.

Read the entire article.

Image Source : Kickstarter page of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls’

Tags: