Production stages
The production stages of the project have different funding sources. The first ones already have their own funding, including writing, illustration, layout, in-app help documents, and building most of the augmented reality experiences.
Other stages depend on funding options that are being processed in Spain, such as printing, translation into English and distribution logistics for Europe.
So there are stages that are already underway and others that will need to be activated in the future.
All these stages of production are financed by the publisher itself:
Writing
The writing of the 85 articles that make up the book has already been completed.
Illustration
The original illustrations for these 85 items will be completed by the end of April.
Layout
The final arrangement of the texts and illustrations will be completed in May, along with the necessary proofs to make the final adjustments, but only for the original version of the publication, which is written in Spanish.
UX Doc
These descriptive documents are for internal use by our AR development team, and are all already defined.
Actions
This stage of production is the construction of the interaction logic of each game/experience, which is carried out in parallel with other tasks.
Asset build
This task is responsible for creating the CGI digital assets that the augmented reality scene uses, such as the modeling, texturing, illustrations, and animations that each experience includes.
AR Scene
Assembly of CGI elements with actions, positioning, virtual lighting and scale of the experience in relation to the book, recognition of the graphic design to trigger the corresponding experience.
Help
Writing and graphics of the help document required for each experience within the augmented reality application.
The following stages require support to be able to carry them out:
Correction
Proofreading of articles in Spanish and technical review of some of the content.
Translation
Translation of all articles into English, in order to prepare a future publication of global scope.
Phonetics
For both Spanish and other languages, the text-to-speech system requires additional text corrections to facilitate correct pronunciation.
Promotion
Start the product promotion campaign, even if it is not finished, through dissemination actions in institutions that may be interested in our publication, such as professional associations, professional chambers, educational institutes, publications related to the visual and cinematographic arts sector, thus creating a large international agenda of potential buyers of our educational products to prepare our next stage of production.
Kickstarter
Within the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform, we will launch a pre-sale of our first publication in Spanish, with the intention that our potential buyers, within the period of the campaigns that the platform offers of just one or two months, launch the call for voluntary contributions.
We estimate this campaign for the month of June.
Within the Kickstarter program we will offer different ways to support us, in exchange for different rewards:
Poster of basic principles of color science, with a minimum number of augmented reality (AR) experiences that work without the need to download any application on mobile devices, since we will base them on a web address that hosts and triggers the experiences.
Printed book in Spanish with 80 AR experiences, with licenses included for the use of our application on two different mobile devices.
Book plus poster, with licenses for four mobile devices.
Pack for educational institutions of 12 books, with a license for 25 mobile devices per book, and a masterclass recorded by the author to train teachers on how to use the publication in a classroom.
Thanks to crowdfunding we will be able to cover part of the first edition of our book, which should go to press between July and August.
Logistic
The stock of prints must be distributed within Mexican territory, but also sales outlets must be opened in South America, sending a number of copies to Buenos Aires to facilitate distribution from there, and also sending a good number to Madrid to provide intercontinental access to our publication.
The English edition may be financed from a European fund, which will also force us to think about international logistics for this second edition and make the reverse movement of the European stock to America and other continents.
AppStore
In addition to the physical distribution of the book copies, we must cover the distribution of the digital complement, publishing our augmented reality application for both the iOS platform of Apple devices, as well as Google Play for Android-based devices.
AR Server
Due to high app store fees, our app will not include in-app purchases, so our experiences will be hosted on other servers, optimized in packages that the user can download together or separately as needed. This saves the cost of the app, making it lighter for the end user's mobile device.
Payment
In order to collect the support that comes from Kickstarter, the website itself has its own payment method, but we must also set up an electronic payment platform to be able to market additional licenses that the user wants to use, since a book purchased by an individual has only two licenses and if the buyer lends only the book and not their devices, the person receiving the loan will not be able to run the application. That is why we must enable an agile means of sale that allows any occasional reader who does not own a book to be able to activate AR experiences on their device at a low price so as not to inhibit its use, for example 5 USD per additional device.
In the future, this same platform will allow us to market additional experiences, in addition to those created at the time of distribution of the first edition.
Users DB
Each book sale will generate an entry in a database in order to generate a user for our application. This database will be hosted on a server that will allow the cross-checking of other operations, such as the authorization of mobile devices.
ID Label
Each printed unit must be accompanied by a label included inside, which has a unique identification for each copy. This identification label will serve the buyer, along with the sales code obtained via Kickstarter or purchase invoice, to be able to register in a system that will grant the corresponding licenses to the chosen purchase model.
Authentication
Through a final process, the user will request the registration of mobile devices to trigger the augmented reality related to a particular book identified by a label, which will authenticate the device and allow for statistics on the use of the app and marketing of the book, always respecting the privacy of the user's personal data.
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