Julie Gribble

Kickstarter Case-Study: Maintaining Momentum in the Murky Middle

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Kickstarter Case-Study: Maintaining Momentum in the Murky Middle

It was an amazing, exciting, incredible first week!

We had a memorable party to kick it all off at KidLit TV in NYC, which we can all now relive here.

We reached 60% of our pledged goal in 6 days!

Now we enter the campaign’s inevitable “murky middle."

This is where many campaigns, even those with great head starts, like ours, often derail. You’ve dropped your pebble into the pond and captured the attention of those in the first ripple: your nearest and dearest. Now you need a way to keep the ripple expanding, beyond your immediate community of followers and friends, to theirs...

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SAVE THE DATE * SAVE THE DATE * SAVE THE DATE

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SAVE THE DATE * SAVE THE DATE * SAVE THE DATE

I WANT YOU TO JOIN ME AND TEAM TTT&T ON

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

You're the first to know: We’re going for it. Finally. There’s still a long way to go before we achieve a thriving and successful venture. But after years of foundation building, we find we can't truly grow without capital.

So we’re organizing a crowd-sourced funding campaign on Kickstarter to raise money for the production of the next Story App Tour to be released by Time Traveler Tours & Tales.

I'd like to say: “We’re kicking off with a Kickstarter campaign,” because of the fun alliteration. But it feels more like we’re taking a plunge, because of the inherent risk. To be honest, this adventure is super scary most times (especially at night when I'm tired and still haven't managed to reach the end of the to-do list). But each morning I wake up and dive right into the task again. Why?

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Time Traveler Tours & Tales Achieve Lift Off!

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Speaking to fellow SCBWI authors at the SCBWI stand of the Bologna Children's Book Fair.

Speaking to fellow SCBWI authors at the SCBWI stand of the Bologna Children's Book Fair.

Sorry to be so quiet of late, friends. There's a reason I haven't blogged in a while.

I've been busy these past several weeks traversing the globe to attend events surrounding the coming launch of Time Traveler Tours & Tales.

My first stop was Bologna, Italy, and the Bologna Children's Book Fair. That's where I first announced the coming of my burgeoning twin imprints, Time Traveler Tours & Tales, and where I revealed that my Team and I are now open for author submissions.

Un-agented authors, don't be shy!
All are welcome to submit.
Click here for our submissions guidelines.

 

My next stop was New York City and a Kidlit Meet & Greet hosted in my honor by Julie Gribble and Roxie Munro.

This is where I announced that Team TTT&T is now offering its expertise and experience, developing interactive apps and books for educational tourism and travel, to cultural organizations worldwide.

Coincidentally, on that very day, 5 May 2014, I landed the first museum client for Team TTT&T: Hildene, The Lincoln Family Home. Can't wait to sink my teeth into this project!

 

Back in Paris, it was my turn to co-host, along with my dear friends, Sue and Bob Greig, the Paris Thank You & Pre-launch Party.

Invitees included everyone in my Paris life who has thus far played a supportive roll in my circuitous journey from teacher to writer to accidental entrepreneur and now digital publishing maven. They included...

  • my teachers and coaches,

  • early readers and critique group partners,

  • pilot tour guinea pigs,

  • app tour beta-testers,

  • Kickstarter campaigns donators,

  • French translation partners,

and of course, the most important and supportive people of all: my loving husband, Jim, and our darling daughter, Lily.

WE HAD SUCH A GOOD TIME!
THANKS AGAIN, ONE AND ALL, FOR JOINING THE (AD)VENTURE!
 

At the Paris Thank You & Pre-launch Party, I introduced Team TTT&T.

I announced that I am now in partnership with creative development agency, Bluespark Labs, to power up the TTT&T publishing engine.

I spoke about our goal of building a network of international educators, the TTT&T Teacher Vanguard. And how we intend to donate a percentage of future annual profits in support of literacy education in development nations, organizations like Room to Read and the Uganda Community Libraries Association.

I made public our coming official launch of Time Traveler Tours & Tales -- now slated for late October in New York City. And I shared with my esteemed guests our latest, greatest piece of news: that we're merely days away from signing our first author (besides me, that is).

For more on that exciting development, do stay tuned. Details will come...