Well, that is interesting. Most of the backers of my kickstarter campaign are in the USA – followed by Japan, then EU countries.

Why do I have so few UK backers?

The large majority of my Youtube audience (I have around 200,000 subscribers) are in the USA. Many in the past have asked how they can support me and my drawing channel. They get what it’s about and understand that I’m doing a heck of a lot of teaching and motivation for free. Now I’m giving them the opportunity to further the relationships we have built up over the years.

Americans also understand about business. They realise that it costs to make stuff and that there is no such thing as a free lunch. That business is about trying to provide good service and working hard to make an independent living.

Americans applaud enterprise – my YouTube comments box is full of good wishes for my current campaign from US viewers.

In the UK the internet has descended on us as this great free thing – just there for the taking. Brits don’t see the need to pay for the all the incredible value it provides – either at source or in kind?

And Kickstarter – What the heck is that?

Americans get it instinctively – the idea of being self-sufficient and making your own way comes with mother’s milk and is learned on the sidewalk with childhood lemonade stalls and bake sales.

So what is Kickstarter all about?

Kickstarter is a way for creative people to reach and meet their audience, offering unique opportunities to support creators, to fund projects that may be too small or left of field to be of profitable interest to major publishers, manufacturers, film studios etc.

Backers help to bring projects to fruition, while being involved in the whole creative process. It’s fun, exciting and a good Kickstarter campaign has a series of compelling and unique rewards to attract support.

The good Kickstarter creator not only gets to make their book, movie, art or whatever, they include their supporters in the process through updates, insights and events.

However, if the creator is just a penny short of their target, they get nothing! That adds a certain frisson to the whole process.

My campaign is raising funds to create the Scaredy Cats book in the way I always intended it – bringing together the stories from a series that is now out of print. (To be a series it had to be written in a way I was never quite happy about.)

Scaredy Cats are Classic Scary stories, retold as cat stories – scary, but not too scary for children – funny even. The Kickstarter edition will be a collector’s limited edition and there are all sorts of rewards available. You can even have me read one of the stories in your home over Skype!

The campaign ends on May 31st at 6.00 PM UK time

If you are reading this and you live in the USA or or Japan, bless you for understanding! If you are British, go on… be bold – follow the link and see what it’s all about. You might even enjoy it! There’s even free P&P in the UK.