I think the trickiest line to walk is the one Willpowered mentioned: "People hate to be sold - but they love the underdog." Being genuine, believing in yourself and your product and having pride in it, but... the tricky part... getting people to realize that your product IS worthy, but you genuinely need help to make it happen. It's sort of an "investing in humanity" idea, I guess. Put another way, if your product or idea is so great, why isn't it already funded?
I'm wrapping up my first week in a campaign for a book, and I'm at 18% funded, mostly personal circle. I'm really struggling. I know the book, "A Conversational Guide To Backcountry Equipment: How to choose & use your gear & clothing" is/would be one of the most helpful in the genre. A publisher from a major imprint said it was the best of its kind he'd seen in his decades in the biz... but he couldn't risk publishing an unknown author. I'm working my personal and business FB, Instagram, regular updates... but I'm just not getting eyeballs on my campaign. I've sent hundreds of emails, & feel like they have a "sharing" tone like Willpowered mentioned, but I don't think I've gotten a single contribution from those emails.
Right now I'm feeling like the only way to have a successful Kickstarter campaign is to have a pre-established, huge social network. I don't know how I could be any more genuine right now, reaching out of the internet ether into people's computers. If anyone has some suggestions, I could really use some help. The project is live now, at
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/36 ... -equipment