Jacksonville author and Review columnist Kate Ingram is looking for backers to help her raise funds to professionally edit, publish and market her memoir, Washing the Bones. To do so, she’s launched a campaign on Kickstarter.com.  Not familiar with kickstarter, huh? Neither was I until a few months ago. Since then, the website seems to be everywhere I look!

Kate Ingram with Cliff Beneventi

The Kickstarter website states that it’s the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects – music, film, art, technology, design, food, publishing and other creative fields. Judging by what I’ve seen, their claim is accurate.

If you’re a regular reader of the Jacksonville Review, the name Kate Ingram is synonymous with witty and heartfelt writing, evidenced in her hugely popular monthly column, “Soul Matters.” For three years plus, Kate’s columns have touched on numerous topics, mostly centered around her life, love, family and loss. From a publisher’s standpoint, her columns have been a smash hit, both in print and online, drawing the largest readership numbers.

At first I was skeptical that so-called “crowd-sourced funding” like kickstarter.com could work. Then I checked out the site and viewed dozens of artistically-oriented “projects” that interested me. The kickstarter motto reads, “A new way to fund & follow creativity.” I’ve been fascinated by one technology project in particular – the “Recoil Winder,” an ingenious device to store cables and cords for the Apple iPhone, iPod, iPad & more. The project is one of the most successful launches ever, having attracted 1,994 backers who pledged $91,000 (918% over the $10,000 minimum funding goal requested) by the product developer to complete the project. Much bigger projects for other “tech” products have generated upwards of $1.5M in capital, as well. Books have not yet generated this sort of funding, but there are publishing-related success stories. Trust me, Kickstarter’s website is so chock full of success stories and will make you a believer!

The concept behind Kickstarter is brilliantly simple: creators offer-up their projects, in various stages of completion and funding, and seek online backers who help fund the project to completion. Although they don’t receive stock or company ownership, backers are offered something in return for helping fund a project, generally a small token of appreciation related to the project. It is worth noting that “project funds” trigger a taxable event for the creator.

Projects are presented online using a mix of video and print with a high degree of professionally-produced and entertaining content. Ingram employed local videographer and web developer Cliff Beneventi to produce her Kickstarter presentation. Every day, new projects are launched on the site, making for an interesting place to spend time seeing what the creative set is up to. By all indications, traffic on the site is skyrocketing as is the interest in supporting this new-age digital philanthropy. Here is her video:

To succeed and receive funding, a project must have a minimum dollar figure to “fund” it by a date certain – and, it’s an “all or nothing” proposition. To contribute and assist a project, online donors simply pledge an amount that is then billed to a credit card account. Donations are instantly tallied and displayed online in real time and Facebook members who “like” a project are added to a “friends list,” enabling further online social interaction. It’s surely not your father’s way of funding, but an intriguing and profitable one for sure.

A project that generates the minimum dollar funding goal within a set period (usually 30 days) is then funded at a closing date. Projects failing to generate enough support are not. Ingram’s project, Washing the Bones launched on February 14 with a minimum financial support goal of $4,000 due by March 14. Donations to the book project start at $5 and move up, with corresponding perks for higher donations.

The topic of “loss” is of personal interest to Ingram to the Jacksonville resident and one with which Ingram is all-too familiar. Her father died when she was eight, a brother in 1994, her stepfather in February 1996 and that same December, her husband of seven months was killed while giving an aerobatic flight lesson in the hills east of Medford. Since then, the author and trained therapist has explored the topic of spirituality, loss, depression, both personally and professionally. Ingram’s memoir is a penetrating chronicle of loss and recovery but, as she is quick to point out, it’s far more than that. “This is a story about loss and finding a deeper more meaningful life. The hero’s journey, the journey of life is a quest to find your Self. This book is my Eat, Pray, Love, but perhaps a deeper, more soulful version of it.”

Even though her manuscript had been edited four times over two years, the author continues to refine it. In September, 2011, Ingram asked several friends to preview and critique Washing the Bones. That list included me, a reader who avoids “chick-lit,” like the plague! I managed to avoid opening the manuscript for a few weeks. However, once opened, I spent the next 72 hours engrossed in its pages, feeling honored for getting a glimpse into Kate’s most personal story. My immediate response was Washing the Bones needed to be published on a grand scale and deserved serious attention…Oprah Book Club type of attention.

Like me, you may be asking, “If the story is so good, why is the author looking for financial backers?” This is where the myth and reality of the publishing world collide. Like others, Ingram knows all too well that writing is one thing and getting published is another. In the corporate publishing world where profit is king, for a book to be considered for professional publication, the manuscript needs to be totally polished. It must be perfect. End of story. Getting to that point is the toughest part of publishing and requires a good editor. Hiring one good enough to get you published can easily run into the five-figure category.

Ingram has intentionally chosen not to self-publish – a well-researched decision that concluded with the fact that traditional publishers will expose the memoir to a far-broader and wide-reaching audience. “The successful publication of Washing the Bones will help me create the platform and credibility to speak nationally about the potential contained in tragedy and the value of grief. When I was widowed fifteen years ago, I sat with my journal in the Good Bean Coffee shop and thought, ‘something good has to come this.’ This book is the result.”

For more, log onto www.kickstarter.com and type Washing the Bones in the information box