this mistake cost me at least $4,000

Mondays are for mistakes!

Today’s mistake: ignoring good advice.  And this mistake likely cost me at least $4,000.

The story: In 2018 I did a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for my book and it was a failure.  Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform- similar to GoFundMe- with the aim to bring creative projects to life.  I wanted to raise money for my book to pay for design, editing, printing and other expenses.

The campaign failed for several reasons and I’ll take the next couple Mondays to share my mistakes.

My first mistake was not doing a video for the campaign.  Before I set up my project, I did research on successful campaigns. One thing successful campaigns had was a video explaining the project. 

I skipped the video portion. 

I made a mistake in not doing the video because I decidedly chose not to follow one of Kickstarter’s best practices. 

I may have thought I was too good for it.
I was above it.
I didn’t need a video. 

But the truth is I was scared.  I was scared of the camera and video but I was also scared of putting myself out there. It was already taking what little risk-taking ability I had at that time to even attempt the campaign so I played it safe. 

Doing the campaign without the video satisfied my desire to look like I got my work out there without completely doing what was necessary to fund the project. 

When have you ignored a best practice? 

When have you not followed good advice? 

Let us know in the comments.