As we’ve mentioned previously, we can’t put video in the book, but that’s not stopping us from taking it on our expeditions! We’ll be making video available to our project supporters and also possibly offering a DVD for sale later. In the mean time, here’s another video teaser from one of our 2012 dives:
Blog
Our First Share Drive!
Friends, we’ve been at this project for a while and we need some help to get to the next phase of the project. Soon, we hope to start a funding drive, but before we do that, we need to build the audience for our message. We need to let more people know about the project!
Currently we’re at about 77 followers on Twitter and about 70 “likes” on Facebook. So, here’s the plan: We’re going to start small. We want to hit our first milestone on each networking service of 100 likes or follows. To get there, we need supporters of the project to share links to us with their friends. As incentive to help us reach this level we’re giving away a 5×7 print of your choice from the project. That’s the $10 funding incentive we offer as a prize! One each to the 100th follower or “like” and one each to the supporter that referred the 100th follower or like! You’ll also be recognized on the website and in the book as a supporter!
Winners can select from one of the existing images we’ve already captured, or may wait for the project to complete and select one from a wider array later.
If our drive is successful, we’ll do it again later for larger like and follow milestones!
All you have to do is either be the 100th “like” or the 100th follower, OR, be the person that referred them! Share away!
As always, we thank everyone for the support!
Steve, Dee, Elizabeth, Dennis and Robert – The Underwater Sombrero Project Team
October is coming!
Underwater Sombrero fans, we’re getting closer! We’ve got quite a few images ready for addition to the book, but we need more. October is our next scheduled expedition to Sombrero Key and we’re still short of the funding we need to finish the project! Please take a look at our funding incentives page and see if there’s something that catches your eye! We’re not asking for donations (although we won’t turn them down), we’re asking for an advance purchase of a piece of the project. Your purchase helps us get Underwater Sombrero across the finish line!
As always, we thank everyone for the support!
Steve, Dee, Elizabeth, Dennis and Robert – The Underwater Sombrero Project Team
Keeping busy behind the scenes!
Friends,
While you probably haven’t seen much from us recently, it isn’t because we haven’t been busy! We’re head down, nose to the grindstone working through the images we got from our December 2012 expedition to Sombrero and trying to get ready for our October 2013 expedition. We got a bunch of great images last go around even with the equipment limitations we had, but we need to go back for more, and we really need the equipment upgrades we’ve been trying to get to do it right.
We’d welcome your help in the process. To make a simple donation, you can visit our donations page, but we’re sure you’d rather have a piece of the project. For that, you can visit our funding incentives page. Your purchase of a funding incentive gets you a part of the project, and the sales help us get the equipment we need to finish it!
As always, we thank everyone for the support!
Steve, Dee, Elizabeth, Dennis and Robert – The Underwater Sombrero Project Team
Barge Artificial Reef – Sombrero Key 2009
Reefs are such a valuable part of the ecosystem for many reasons that artificial ones are placed so as to expand existing reef systems or create new ones. This oceangoing barge was sunk as an artificial reef just southeast of Sombrero Key Florida, to extend the already extensive array of spur and groove coral formations. Enjoy our gallery of images from our 2009 expedition here!
Teaser Video!
While we obviously aren’t going to be putting video in our book, we are collecting video on our expeditions and dives. We’ll be using this, at a minimum, to reward our project supporters and possibly even to create a salable DVD which would also be used to benefit our target charity Reef Relief! Here’s a short teaser of some of the video we captured on one of our 2012 dives.
Somrero Key and Reefs – 2012
Sombrero Key Florida, about 5 miles south of Vaca Key and the City of Marathon is home to an extensive array of spur and groove coral formations which extend seaward from the Key’s lighthouse. These are some of the most beautiful coral formations in the keys. Enjoy our gallery of images from our 2012 expedition here!
Art Print – “Sombrero Light”
Weigold Photography is pleased to introduce our latest art print titled “Sombrero Light″! This image is currently available in several sizes and customization such as sepia, black and white and bordering is available. Please select a standard size below, or contact us for customization options at sales@weigoldphotography.com
Your purchase of prints such as this will help us fund our photography book project: Underwater Sombrero!
Can you spare a dime?
Friends, we’re getting close to our next expedition to Sombrero! Remember that we’ve already got the trip scheduled (and paid for) and we’re leaving in a few weeks.
We still need your help though! In order to make the most of the trip and get the photography we need to support our book project we need a few more pieces of equipment and to get it, we need to raise another $800 as quickly as we can!
We’ve learned that some of the equipment we need is on sale and if we can get it soon, we can save the project hundreds of dollars!
Please consider an advance purchase of one of our project prints or other funding incentive to help us get the equipment we need and make this project happen!
Here’s a handy link to purchase a 5×7 print and other incentives from the program:
If you’d prefer a bigger print or some other incentive, please visit our Funding Incentives page for other options. If you’d prefer to just make a simple donation, we’d welcome that also. You can do so by visiting our donations page.
Thank You!
Kickstopped!
It is safe to say that it has been a challenging 30 days as we tried to promote the Kickstarter funding drive to try to get this book published. We sincerely appreciate all those that stepped up and pledged their support. If you saw the last project update there, or looked at any of the new material here on the site, you know we aren’t giving up on this project.
If you were a pledged backer there and are willing to convert that pledge to an incentive purchase, please visit our Funding Incentives page and do so. It’s less clicks and hassle than the Amazon process from Kickstarter! You already pledged the money. Please follow through and get it to us!
As we move forward, we’ll be managing our own funding drive for this project. No more Kickstarter for Underwater Sombrero. When we started with Kickstarter, we new that we would have to promote the project ourselves as much as possible, both to our contacts and to our contacts’ contacts. We also had an expectation that we would receive some support from Kickstarter in the form of project exposure. That didn’t happen. Kickstarter keeps some 5% of project funds if a project is funded. For our $8000 Kickstarter goal, that would have amounted to $400. Our project would have paid $400 for nothing more than 30 days of web hosting. That’s it. Even the payments are processed by someone else at an additional expense to the project.
You can see the statistics yourself. Below is the final pledge statistics graph provided by Kickstarter. Only in the last 10 hours or so of the project did we get any attention from the Kickstarter website at all, and then it was as a result of the automatic “ending soon” feature which prompted two $1 dollar contributions from site members, likely wishing to simply up their “projects backed” stats without having to spend any money. So, after 30 days of hosting on a site with “Featured Projects”, “Staff Picks”, “Project of the Day” and a blog that discusses notable projects, not to mention Facebook and Twitter promoting projects, we got no attention from Kickstarter at all until the last 10 hours, and then only because their automated “ending soon” function picked us up, and then it was too late. We wonder how the outcome might have been if we had been publicized even just once by Kickstarter. Apparently we’ll never know.
Keep in mind also that we didn’t sit idle and hope for Kickstarter’s attention. We availed ourselves of every opportunity to tweet @kickstarter on Twitter, post on their Facebook page and tag them in Facebook posts. An email to Kickstarter HQ asking about being featured was met with an automated response which we interpreted as “keep marketing to your own contacts. Maybe we’ll notice you.”
So, Kickstarter for us turned out to be nothing more than web hosting for our project. Had we managed to get funded through our efforts, it would have been expensive funding at that. $400 for 30 days. We don’t need to spend that kind of money for hosting, so we don’t need Kickstarter! We also don’t need their help to manage online payments and we can offer incentives just like those offered on Kickstarter. As is probably obvious by now, we won’t be using Kickstarter again.
Moving forward, we’ll continue to run our funding drive, by our rules, on our own site. Payments are being handled securely by Paypal, and you don’t need a Paypal account to donate or purchase funding incentives. It’s even fewer clicks than the Kickstarter/Amazon process! No deadline. We can work on the project as funding becomes available. If you have questions, or want to discuss your contribution, please don’t hesitate to email us at info@underwatersombrero.com
If you were a Kickstarter backer, please visit our Funding Incentives page and select your incentive and follow through with the purchase. You already committed the money and it would have been collected today. We’re just asking that you please go ahead and get it to us!
As always, we thank everyone for the support!
Steve, Dee, Elizabeth, Dennis and Robert – The Underwater Sombrero Project Team
