Author Crowdfunds English Translation of Bestselling Book

Martijn Arets, author of the bestselling book Brand Expedition, an Expedition to Europe’s Most Inspiring Brands, will be getting the English translation and production done in an unconventional way. Arets will be using crowdfunding to sell a thousand stocks of his book over the next eight weeks.

Arets has already started the project at the Beursplein 5 in Amsterdam, a popular hangout for persons selling stocks. Last Monday he created awareness for his campaign using some guerrilla marketing tactics: in addition to the typical ROI of 20 percent of book sales, his backers will get copies of the book at no cost, admittance to private appearances, and advice sessions via Skype.

Banks generally aren’t in tune with what you do as an entrepreneur. The pro of crowdfunding is that shareholders become immediate ambassadors of your project. Because they share in the profits they’re very motivated to activate their own network. Investing is possible from €20 and after 7000 sold books after taxes, a break-even of their input is accomplished. In order to sustain the shareholders’ interest in the long run, they automatically get a share of 10 percent in any of the following translations.
Martijn Arets, Author of Brand Expedition

The author journeyed across Europe in an old Volkswagen T2 camper van in 2010 and interviewed the CEOs, founders and brand executives of twenty genuine European brands. He captured his experiences in the book. Arets will issue a challenge to the fans of these brands on Facebook and other social media to do a webcam reading of the chapter about their brand. This move is calculated to draw attention to the book’s English translation.