Happy New Year!

In fall of 2024 I hosted my first ever Kickstarter campaign to launch my new book, These Gossamer Recollections.

I had a great experience and learned a lot about strategies for direct sales and crowdfunding. I thought I’d share 5 key takeaways from the experience.

1. It Was Fun

Yep, that’s right. I had a lot of fun running the Kickstarter campaign. Before I started, I was worried it would be a lot of work, not to mention stressful and difficult to manage. But I’m happy to say this was not the case. The platform was incredibly easy to navigate on my end. And designing the page, story, and marketing materials was really satisfying. It did take a bit of time, but honestly not too much. And it paid off in the end!

Now, I know my campaign was relatively small in comparison to some of the behemoths I’ve seen. But I think the workload was appropriate for the size, and I think that would apply to bigger campaigns as well.

It was really fun watching pledges come in, posting updates, and preparing the packages. I really enjoyed getting to put a personal touch on all the orders, and getting to actually thank the individual people who supported me. It felt really meaningful.

One area I’d like to improve on for next time would be the marketing initiatives. Figuring out how to get the word out to a wider audience. But… you know, isn’t that always the case?

2. It Was More Confusing for Customers

As fun and user-friendly as the experience was for me, I don’t think that was the case for my potential customers. Some people really dig Kickstarter and the way it’s set up. They feel confident navigating the pledge pages and sifting through all the options. Other customers found it utterly overwhelming. Several people told me they couldn’t figure it out and they’d rather just wait and buy it directly from me later. And honestly, that’s fine.

I used Kickstarter as a way to facilitate direct sales, and I was hoping more people would use it instead of the old school buy a book out of the trunk of my car method. But it’s important to realize that these crowdfunding initiatives might not be comfortable shopping experiences for some people. It’s good to keep using a wide range of sales methods, to make sure there’s a solution for everyone. In my experience, people do want to buy my books, but I have to meet them where they’re at with their shopping habits and whims. It’s not easy to cover all my bases, but I will keep trying my best. Kickstarter is a great new avenue to add, but it is not a catch all solution.

3. Do Something Special

I didn’t do anything fancy with this first Kickstarter, but I think for the next one, I will really lean into making it a unique offer. I’ve seen lots of authors who have success using Kickstarter for their exclusive special editions. I think this is probably a great idea. It’s good to give people a reason to use the Kickstarter instead of waiting to buy it some other way later. What’s the specific draw of the Kickstarter?

This time, I did offer some specialty add-ons and extra goodies, but I didn’t lean into those ideas enough. For my next book, I might try releasing the hardcovers exclusively on Kickstarter, and make them fancy! So, if you want a hardcover, the only way to get it is through the Kickstarter. This is partly because regular hardcover sales are kind of annoying anyway. The distributors take a huge cut and I’m not making much money on them so I don’t know that it’s worth it to sell them regularly… Plus, fancy hardcovers are cool and people seem to get excited about them.

4. Supporters Who Don’t Want Your Book

Some people in my life really want to support me, but they also really don’t want to read my books. Maybe they don’t really like fantasy or poetry, or maybe they just aren’t big readers. Whatever the case, I know some of them feel bad that they don’t support me, or they do buy the books but then they don’t read them and then that makes them feel guilty. Gah! I don’t want to make people feel bad!

But with Kickstarter, there’s an option to pledge the campaign and not receive an award. I thought this was odd at first, but then I had a few people choose this option. Even some total strangers. I guess there are just some super cool, generous strangers out there who enjoy supporting artists on Kickstarter. Magical benevolent people.

There was also an option to add on some additional support. So, some people pledged for a paperback and then tossed some extra money on top, just to be awesome and nice.

Both of these features are great! You never know who wants to support you and they’re just looking for an easy way to do it. So, let’s make it easy for them. Genius!

5. Plan Well and Be Realistic

This is an ode to excel sheets. Oh, how I love excel sheets. Or google sheets or whatever!

Before I started, I created a massive, comprehensive excel sheet mapping out the estimated costs for every aspect of the campaign. I factored in cost of producing the items, I weighed my books and used that to get shipping quotes for areas in Canada and the US. Every single expense I could imagine went in the sheet, including the percentage that Kickstarter would take. And then I used that to project how many pledges I was likely to get in each category and how many I would need in order to succeed. Projecting the sales takes a bit of guess work. Educated Wishes (for any Deadpool fans out there haha).

But I’m so glad I made this sheet. It meant that I was totally ready to go when it came time to fulfill packages and there were no unexpected expenses. In fact, some of my actual expenses came in well below my estimates, and my sales came in way over my estimates. Surprisingly low costs + surprisingly high revenue = yay!

Some Bonus TakeawaysShipping to the UK and Europe was not as expensive as I thought it would be. Next time I’ll include those regions and look into others as well.A longer timeline on fulfilment is okay. Most people don’t mind waiting (This will be necessary if I do fancy hardcovers).Some add-ons are lame and no one wants them. That’s okay.Add-ons get buried and people don’t know about them. Make sure you advertise your coolest items well. (I offered custom poems and very few people knew I was offering that!)Friends and family want to support you, but…do you want them to do it on Kickstarter where you have to give away a cut of the money? How many hand-to-hand direct sales are you prepared to do?

That’s all for now. Needless to say, I am definitely doing another Kickstarter soon! What are some other things to consider about doing these kinds of crowdfunding campaigns?