The “Talking To Animals” Kickstarter Project is a learning experience for me, I have already reached 120 per cent of my funding with nearly three weeks to go and some good people who have backed the projected have contacted me to suggest adding additional rewards to raise more money for the project – it would surely be put to good use. I so appreciate the dialogue on Kickstarter, and the enthusiasm there for creativity, it is so lacking in the corporate and political world. And I have more than two weeks to go for funding the project.

People do care about books and arts, they do want to support them and keep them alive, contrary to conventional wisdom.

I have already offered photos, updates, and a limited number of books and e-books to people who pledge $25 or more but one of the backers – Corinna – wrote me this morning and suggested a good idea to raise additional money and offer a guaranteed signed and personalized copy of “Talking To Animals” when it is published, presumably sometime in 2015. I can’t afford to purchase and ship a hardcover book with photographs to everyone, but I could afford to guarantee a signed book to any pledge of $80 or more. That would help raise money for the project – the $9,000 I asked for was primarily for photo equipment, I didn’t quite dare to ask for more – and cover the cost of the books and shipping as well.

In addition, I am thinking of offering signed photo prints from the project as an additional reward, I haven’t quite figured that out yet. This feels very much like a collaboration to me, an interactive process of sharing creativity, it is thrilling to me to be able to have this conversation with my readers, old and new. So there it is, another reward (perhaps not the last) for the “Talking To Animals” project. I’m talking to B&H Photo next week. People who have already pledged $80 or more will, of course, get a signed book.

People can leave their pledges as they are, and they are appreciated, or upgrade them for the new reward, or do none of the above. For newcomers, I wanted to let you know in case this matters to you.  I had no idea what to expect when I started a Kickstarter project, it is a gamble I am glad I took.