Man Launches Kickstarter to Fund Kickstarter Pledge

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Man Launches Kickstarter to Fund Kickstarter Pledge


Drew Wagar wants you to help fund a big pledge to the Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter so he can write and release a royalty-free book based on the game.

For a pledge of just £4500, which translates into a little more than $7200, supporters of the Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous] will be rewarded with "The Writer's Pack," which gives them the right to write and release a single piece of written fiction, "subject to reasonable approval of the content," set in the game world. Frontier Developments will incorporate components of the work into the game and, if you can finish the book before the game is released, will even help you publicize it. What a deal!

That's some action that Drew Wagar, a U.K.-based author you've never heard of, wants a slice of. Alas, he doesn't have £4500, so he's gone to Kickstarter to raise the money. That's right, he's Kickstarting a Kickstarter pledge.

"I want to write an official Novel set in the Elite universe. The working title is Elite: Reclamation. It's going to be a full length story - I reckon on between 70-90k words," he explained on his Kickstarter page. "I'll write the story and get it to a publishable state. With the basic funding achieved I'll be able to publish an ebook (multiple formats). An obvious stretch goal is the ability to produce paperback copies. We'll need another £2,500 for that. Passing the £4,500 goal will also allow for professional cover design, type-setting and editing."

Wagar has previously written fan-fic novels set in the Elite-inspired open source game of Torn [http://www.oolite.org/]. He estimates that with a two-hour daily commute to and from his job in London, he'll be able to dedicate "up to eight hours every week, most weeks" to writing the book.

"I know how much I can write in a given timespan," he said. "I've done 120k in a year before, that's with a full-time job and a family on top. I can do this. It will be a mission, but I can do it."

Amazingly, with 38 days left to go, his Kickstarter is well past the halfway point, with pledges of £2756 thus far. That puts him in better stead than the Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter itself, which has 39 days to go and is still well short of its £1.25 million goal, leading to the obvious question of what will happen if Wagar's Kickstarter is successful but the videogame fails. The original plan was to pull the plug just prior to the end of the Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter so nobody would lose any money, but now he says the book is going to happen either way.

"David Braben (no less!) has indicated that the license for a piece of Fiction in the Elite universe will be available for £2,250 in the event that E:D fails to meet its goal," he said. "Thus, if we're successful here, they'll be a book regardless."

Hey, I've heard worse ideas. Get all the details at Kickstarter [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1245019716/reclamation-an-elite-novella-by-a-fan-for-the-fans].



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shiajun

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Jun 12, 2008
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This is getting ridiculous. Kickstarter isn't the only source of money in the world, but it wouldn't seem like that, would it? No matter how noble the goal, it's this sort of stuff that sucks energy from the whole Kickstarter movement.
 

dragongit

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Feb 22, 2011
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So we gonna have kickstarters for the people pledging for his kickstarter next? THats just basically people paying him for a promise he made to another company. Why not just have those people pledge to the game itself? Last I checked it hadn't reached it's goal.
 

Scars Unseen

^ ^ v v < > < > B A
May 7, 2009
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Excuse me while I set up a Kickstarter to support this project. Stretch goal rewards will consist of photos of me sitting on my couch playing games in varying stages of undress. I'll put my pants on at $3500.
 

ShakyFiend

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Jun 10, 2009
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Kinitawowi said:
xkcd [http://xkcd.com/1055/] got there first.
Goddamn ninja'd! Moment I saw this I thought "xkcd called it", ah well, I can one up you by embedding, ha!

 

Zombie_Moogle

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Dec 25, 2008
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dragongit said:
So we gonna have kickstarters for the people pledging for his kickstarter next? THats just basically people paying him for a promise he made to another company. Why not just have those people pledge to the game itself? Last I checked it hadn't reached it's goal.
Parasitic as this is, I gotta respect the creativity, not to mention the melon-sized balls on this guy.
 

Twilight_guy

Sight, Sound, and Mind
Nov 24, 2008
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Kickstarter: Nesting dolls edition!

This man wants you to pay to so he can elevate his fanfic to official status. Pardon me while I die of laughter.
 

ResonanceSD

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Dec 14, 2009
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I have a kickstarter project funded by indiegogo which is funded by the original kickstarter.

It's crowdorborus
 

Evil Smurf

Admin of Catoholics Anonymous
Nov 11, 2011
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What is going on internet! Get your collective shit together!

*le sigh*

This is why we don't get nice things.
 

1337mokro

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Dec 24, 2008
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It's short of it's goal? It's already HALF WAY. They have 600 k quid. Give it 3 more days and they have the 1.2 mil easily.