A quick trip to fame and fortune seems to be a prevailing story these days: Post a video on YouTube and win a recording contract. Appear on a reality show and become a cookbook author.

Fund-raising is no different. With dozens of "crowd-funding" sites out there, three-year-old Kickstarter.com being the largest, anyone with an artistic endeavor can raise millions in capital in a minute. Right?

Artists wish. Certainly, there are some amazing success stories, like in February, when designer Casey Hopkins asked for $75,000 to make a luxury iPhone dock out of aluminum and got $1.4 million (the first Kickstarter project to break $1 million pledged) or when this year Philadelphia artist Rich Burlew asked for $57,750 to put his comic books back in print, and ended up with $1.3 million.

But for most people, it's a panic-inducing slog as they make a case for their cause while a clock winds down. Even as they collect seemingly tons of pledges, if the goal isn't reached by the deadline - which fund-raisers choose themselves - no money changes hands and the project is canceled. Donors can cancel their pledges up until the end, as well.

"That's nerve-wracking," said Lynette Shelley, whose Philly-based band Red Masque raised $2,222 in 2012 to make an album. But if the goal is reached - or better, surpassed - "donor credit cards are charged at deadline . . . and given to our Amazon payments site."

So, is there a secret to Kickstarter success? Philadelphians, with 488 funded projects and more than $4 million in pledges, have had their share of success. But there are many locals with tales of woe, too. All reveal lessons learned.

When choreographer Megan Mazarick and director Mason Rosenthal met in 2011, they immediately began collaborating on a performance, Mining the Mine of the Mind for Minderals. Once their participation in the three-week Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe was confirmed, their next step was fund-raising, which Mazarick loathes.

"It's time-consuming and feels like groveling," Mazarick said. "But I felt passionately about wanting to do this work, and if we did not make our goal, I would have found another way to make the piece."

Kickstarter pages list all the cause's information, including a video, an explanation of the project, and a list of what donation levels earn what rewards - for $500 pledged, a signed print from a hope-to-be-published photography book, for instance - but sitting back and waiting will not earn pledges.

In Mazarick and Rosenthal's case, the pair estimated their stage, marketing, and Fringe fees at $3,500 - Amazon and Kickstarter take about 5 percent each of funds raised - then recorded YouTube requests (which they credit as key to their success) and wrote personal "ask letters" - detailed e-mails about the show's content and style and why the show was important. Mazarick's letters to her 200-plus mailing list also apologized for having to ask for money.

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Crowd-funding sites such as Kickstarter yield a mixed record of success