Glas - Launching on Kickstarter
Kickstarter page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lens57/glas
After seventeen years of work, it is now time to release “Glas”, my new book. Pre-orders go live on Kickstarter on the 15th of August.
Glas is a luxurious book of black and white photographs of Scotland's most stunning island, the Isle of Skye. It is the product of nearly two decades of work, capturing Skye's iconic landscapes, quiet moments and dramatic spirit.
My photographs are enhanced by the verse of renowned poet Rody Gorman, whose specially commissioned Gaelic and English poetry brings Skye to life.
In his foreword, Lord Macdonald, High Chief of Clan Donald, describes Glas as "a masterpiece of the highest order".
Glas, Scottish Gaelic for "grey", has been deliberately designed as an antidote to the hyper-saturated digital world of pressure and urgency that surrounds us. It is a substantial book of over 220 pages, carefully curated to be uncompromisingly slow and gentle, allowing you time to think, and space to contemplate.
At 12x12" or 30x30cm and weighing about 2kg, Glas also comes with an accompanying Photography Index book. This contains stories, anecdotes and technical details about every image in Glas, keeping the flow of the main book free from distractions. Both books come within a high quality slip case for safe keeping. Every copy will be signed by me, stamped and numbered.
Why Kickstarter And What Is It?
Kickstarter is a platform for creators and inventors to obtain funding. For authors in particular, it helps by providing a place to gather pre-orders, which are vital for planning how many books to print. In return for a small slice of the action, Kickstarter hosts each campaign, provides promotional space, and handles all the money. Campaigns like mine are “all or nothing” in that if the desired total isn’t reach, the project is not funded and any pledgers don’t pay anything.
I have decided to launch Glas on Kickstarter to benefit from the global reach of their platform. Pre-orders (pledges) open on the 15th of August and I expect to be despatching books in November. The pre-orders will fund the final design, production and printing of the first edition Glas.
Glas is a rather epic book. Printing and binding is very expensive and has to be done by specialists. This isn’t cheap and cheerful “on demand” printing like you get from pulp Amazon novels. This is British printing at its finest, with carefully calibrated presses and sewn binding, custom-bound and enclosed in a specially designed slip case. Therefore the more I know about demand, the better, and I can plan the printing accordingly.
By running a Kickstarter campaign, I can see pre-orders being made in real time. It also gives buyers who pledge towards the campaign the confidence that I have committed to despatch their orders, and if the total target for the campaign is not reached they won’t have to pay a penny. When the campaign closes, hopefully having hit its target, I will know how many books to print which is particularly important as I have to pay the printing up-front before the presses are even powered on, and it is very expensive.
The Kickstarter project page for Glas
Working With Kickstarter
Working with Kickstarter has been a journey of discovery. It is my first time using it, so there has been a lot to learn.
Their website is great, with lots of helpful guidance and information for the noob to get started with. Their terminology such as “pledges” and “campaigns” and “rewards” was the first thing to get my head around. Glas pre-orders are a “project” to be funded. Contributors make “pledges” for certain “rewards”, in my case a First Edition of Glas, and can get “add-ins” on top such as signed prints from Glas in my case.
Once I had got to grips with the basics, it was a matter of setting up an account and everything that goes with it. You can’t launch a campaign without an account, and getting one involves providing all sorts of details, ID checks and banking details. Not too onerous and I am pleased they do these checks.
Account done, it is then a “simple” matter of setting up the project. This means writing up the “Basics” about the project and putting it in the relevant category, “Photography - Places” for Glas and a subcategory of “Publishing - Poetry”. A short description of the project is then needed, and then the biggie, a video.
Apparently 80% of successful projects have a video. I had anticipated this and have been gathering video snippets for the last five years for this purpose. I used iMovie to pull together a set of these clips and record a voiceover to create the video you see above. Trying to work out what are the key topics to hit, what to avoid, and how to present it all is really quite tricky and I hope I have got it right. Nice and short and punchy.
Another key part of the process is to present your “story”. For Glas, this is the seventeen-year process of creating the photographs that have gone into the book, and my own motivations that drove me to spend such a long time on this project. Glas is quite “deep”, containing multiple metaphors for human existence and behaviour. It is also important to describe Glas itself, the format, size, number of pages etc. I found this the easiest part of the process as Glas is very much a part of me so it is easy to write about.
Items, Rewards and Add-Ons
Once all the project basics are sorted out, it is on to the process of defining the items that you are offering, the reward “tiers”, and the “add-ons”. This is pretty simple - the basic “item” is the Glas book, with its accompanying Photography Index. Add-ons are prints of selected photographs from Glas. These are combined to make reward tiers that people pledge money to fund, and receive once the project is fully funded.
I decided to offer Glas First Editions at a discount (£140) to the price I will offer them on my website once I have stock (likely £160-170). This is to encourage people to pledge as they get the book cheaper than they would otherwise as a reward for committing early.
All-Or-Nothing
A key part of the way Kickstarter works is the “all-or-nothing” approach. You set a target amount, in my case £5,000. If the total of pledges don’t reach that amount, nobody pays anything.
This keeps everything transparent, and avoids any uncertainty.
The intention is to get that £5,000 of backing in thirty days. The campaign opens on the 15th of August, and this should give me time to get the books printed by the end of October, ready for despatch around the world.
Kickstarter Launch on 15th August 2025
It all kicks off on the 15th of August when the Kickstarter campaign goes live.
More info here>>> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lens57/glas