Knights of Washington - Why You Should Kickstart EVERY Book
Crowdfunding in general and Kickstarter in particular offer unique benefits to an indie author.
We’re planning to begin the launch of my wife’s new book, Knights of Washington: Muskets and Magic, with a Kickstarter campaign. I see authors asking about Kickstarter all the time. While I see tons of questions, the most frequent is usually some variation of, “Should I run a Kickstarter for my book?”
Yes. As an indie author, you should Kickstart every single book you write.
I’ll be more specific than that: you should run a separate Kickstarter for every single book, even in the same series. Run them individually, and space them out - even if every book is already done. And unless you have a very good reason not to, you should use Kickstarter specifically, despite its numerous issues. If you’re doing it any other way, you’re leaving money on the table.
Let’s get into the reasons why.
Give your fans a chance to give you more money
As you grow your audience as an indie author, you’ll start encountering Superfans. Superfans come in multiple varieties, but one very important variety is the kind who has lots of money and wants to help you succeed. Most of the time this kind of fan is uncomfortable just giving you more money. That's completely understandable. To be honest, I’m not really comfortable with fans just giving me money, either - and I’m not alone.
So give them an excuse! Add higher tier rewards to your Kickstarter campaign. Give them a way to give you money without just giving you money! Here are some quick examples of tiers and addons you can use for your Kickstarter campaign to get more money from your fans.
Hardcover books
Previous books in your catalog
Bookmarks, posters, t-shirts and the like
Special editions of your book (leatherbound, etc)
Dinner with the author
Name a character after the reader
Use your imagination!
Pro tip - don’t discount your product on Kickstarter. In general, all products in your campaign should be full price. If you have any way at all to justify it, they should actually be priced higher than normal! You can easily get away with this for Kickstarter only editions or items, but you can also get away with it just for the simple promise of “Kickstarter backers get the book first!” Just don’t overdo it. You can get away with hiking a $15 paperback up to $20 for Kickstarter if the backers get it first. You’ll probably make backers mad if you charge $30 for it and that’s all they get.
Again, Kickstarter backers want to help you!
It will not cannibalize your Amazon sales!
There are a lot of people who hang out on Kickstarter looking for projects to back. It’s just what they do. As an indie author with limited reach, you’d be very unlikely to reach any of them without going through Kickstarter itself. Some of them won’t even read your book. They won’t care. They just want to help you get it made! On my Kickstarters, we’ve gotten about 30% of our funds through the Kickstarter network. This means people who found us because we were on Kickstarter!
This is why I recommend Kickstarter specifically, and not other crowdfunding sites like IndieGoGo. Kickstarter has the largest community by far, and you’ll get the most out of it by using Kickstarter.
You will have some existing fans who opt to buy the book through Kickstarter and not Amazon. But if you followed my advice above, they’ll actually be paying you more money - and Kickstarter takes less than Amazon does, so you’ll keep even more! But you’ll also gain some extra exposure and word of mouth that will help your book.
Kickstarter backers are much more likely than average readers to leave you Amazon reviews - and they’ll leave those reviews early. Remember, they want to help you succeed! Let them. Recruit them to review your novel on Amazon within the first week of release. Those early reviews will easily make up for the books they bought on Kickstarter instead of Amazon.
But the best part? A significant portion of your superfans will buy your books through the Kickstarter and then buy them again on Amazon! At Silver Empire, we even had one superfan who backed all of our Kickstarters, bought all of our books again on Amazon, and then bought them again directly through our web site. We love you, Xavier, and we will never forget!
Kickstart each book separately and grow your audience each time.
When you’ve finished your campaign, Kickstarter gives you contact info for every backer. Keep that info! That’s the core group for your next campaign! You have a lot of leeway in setting the duration of your campaign, but 30 days is the sweet spot.
But… why run one campaign for three books for 30 days when you can run three campaigns for 30 days each and get three times the publicity? Each campaign, you’ll grow your audience - both from your own social media and marketing efforts and from Kickstarter itself.
But, I hear you say, what about those people who want to buy the entire series at once? Great! Let them! When you run the campaign for book 2, let them buy book 1 also. When you run the campaign for book 3, let them buy the whole set.
All your highest tier rewards, like a private dinner with the author? Offer them again! Let your superfan buy three dinners with you instead of one! Most of them won’t do that. But if you have one who will, give him the chance!
When should I NOT Kickstart my book?
Kickstarter’s guidelines are pretty strict that your campaign needs to be for something new. But they’re pretty lax on what they consider “new.” I’ve Kickstarted unwritten books, of course. I don’t recommend it, actually; I recommend you have the book finished first if you can. Kickstarting an unwritten book can put an awful lot of pressure on the author - who is most likely you! I’m sorry, Richard! The book was awesome when we finally delivered it, though! And any delays in writing it can agitate your backers. I’m sorry to all of you, too! We did finally deliver the books!
But you can also get away with a ton of other scenarios. Kickstarting a written but as yet unreleased book is perfectly fine. I’ve seen friends Kickstart re-releases of a book before. I’ve seen friends Kickstart new covers. We ran a Kickstarter - our only unsuccessful Kickstarter - to fund an audiobook edition of an existing book. I’ve never seen Kickstarter have a problem with any of that.
But if you can’t spin your project into being new in some way, don’t try it. Don’t risk getting banned.
If your project is in some way likely to get you banned, don’t do it. Read their terms of service!
If you don’t think you can deliver your project in a timely manner, be very cautious about running the campaign. If your book is already written, you’re probably fine. But if it’s not, think hard about waiting.
And make sure you’re ready to put in the effort. Kickstarter won’t magically generate money for free. Like every other sales platform, you have to work for it - and learn the ins and outs of Kickstarter’s system. I’ll have a lot more to say about that in the coming months!