Crowdfounding Inês

It’s really been 12 very long days for both of us. 12 days since we launched the crowdfunding campaign, and they seem like months.

12 days with some hopes, some joy, but mostly doubts, and honestly, we weren’t really prepared. We weren’t prepared to how it would affect us, because it does affect us, and to be honest not in the best way. Surely everyday life had recently left us tired, and with limited time to work on music in the perfectionist way that we like. But we weren’t expecting that the campaign itself would be so emotionally draining, and we really start to find it even more complicated to focus on what we love: create music, create art, imagine sounds, or rather layers of sounds.

12 days means we’re halfway tomorrow from the deadline that we set for the 21st of June. It means we should have got at least half of our budget covered, or actually more, since it is hard to keep up with the energy as the days passe by, specially when we’re a small team of 2 people. It’s complicated to come up with new content daily, to re-share, to get in touch back with all the people that said would help promote the campaign and did not yet come back to us. And so far we haven’t reached 24%. Sometimes numbers speak for themselves. Let’s face it.

Some years ago, we would have tried to release it on personal finances, and then get the money back from sales. But we are at the moment not gigging enough to get some direct sales opportunities. Also the local labels we’ve been in touch with, although they did show some interest, did not lead to any production proposal. All that means crowdfunding really seemed like the only option we had, and with a few people on our mailing list, we thought we could easily reach enough folks willing to invest some pennies.

Now.

Now, yes, we do (try to) keep positive, we have been practicing how to sometimes fail and keep it up for quite a few years, and we are the living proof it is possible! (some useful tools here).

• I made a list of all we will do if by the 21st of June we hadn’t reached the 3000€ goal. And well, that felt good. It includes some travelling with no other purpose than travelling. It includes also some time with our lovely son, who has for most of his young life heard about the album Inês, and from whom we’ve asked a lot of patience while working in the studio and postponing playtime.
• We also are sure we’ll finish the musical part of the project, meaning having a digital edition. Maybe release it digitally, though it’s still costs for us, and we earn even less from digital editions. Or save it for later, who knows what’s around the corner?
• We’ll probably send a new newsletter out and ask for what folks think isn’t appealing in our project. Or on the way we presented it. Maybe too complex, when you only have seconds to convince people, we know our music needs time to dive in.
• If nothing moves by the end of next week, that is by the 17th, we’ll also consider canceling the campaign before its deadline so that we can plan for next summer instead of being waiting.

Anyway, I personally want to hear it from start to finish, I’d rather say, I need to hear it, and just that thought (together with the lovely and generous support of a few of you) gets me back on track.

But right now, everything is still possible – indiegogo page is here is you want to support us 🙂 

A galon / with heart,

* Simone.