Crowdfunding Pleasant Green

This is kind of a speculative post. I'm thinking aloud...

Yesterday, on Substack, I published Where I'm At - October 2024, during which I talked about having an open dance card for the next few months and that I wanted to spend some of that time building out the Pleasant Green universe and exploring more storytelling possibilities within it (including another season of The Lovecraft Investigations).

In response, several people raised the idea of crowdfunding. I've been thinking about this on and off for a while. The issue with traditional crowdfunding models is that they require a LOT of servicing; people want merch and access and all sorts of things for their money and, because the funding is mostly made up of people spending £20 or £50, you end up creating and sending out hundreds of packages, all of which is over and above doing the work that you set out to fund in the first place. I'm not saying never, but the idea doesn't really appeal.

A new series of The Lovecraft Investigations would probably cost between £80,000 to £100,000. At £50 a throw, that's 2000 participants. That is a LOT of admin. And so that got me wondering if, within this fanbase, there are any whales? People who would come in for big chunks of investment, in exchange for being a part of the team - either bringing their skills and experience to bear in areas where we may be lacking (marketing and promotion, for example), or just getting to be inside the process, seeing how the sausage gets made.

Once I'd started musing on that, it occurred to me that there is another, even larger proposition to be cogitated on; my ambitions for the Pleasant Green universe don't stop at The Lovecraft Investigations. At least three of the movies I'm currently outlining are set in this space. There's another audio series I'm thinking about, and at least one, maybe more audio "features" (standalone 90+ minute stories). Beyond that, there are possible TV shows, novels, graphic novels and, of course, the Pleasant Green site, which is growing slowly but has a lot of possibilities. And that's before we even get to merch and games and box-sets and all that stuff.

The story possibilities are endless in a universe that spans two and a half thousand years of history and extends across the world (and multiple dimensions). Obviously I can't do the whole lot on my own so, as the universe starts to grow, I want to bring in more creators and let them play; making more stories across all media, building the whole thing out - dozens and dozens of stories across a whole range of forms.

So maybe the thing to do is to form a company that would encompass all this and find investors for that? When we made Temporal at Storypunk, we got independent finance and then sold the show to Audible and to Amazon for television. The investors got all their money back and made a profit, so we already know that model works in practice. Multiplying it, across an entire story universe and the whole range of media would seem to make sense.

Anyway, this is just me thinking aloud right now. If anyone out there has expertise in this area (or a cheque book made of gold!) feel free to get in touch.

Fuck it. Send.