Last week I launched a Kickstarter campaign to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of my first book (By Darkness Hid) being published.
I can’t believe it’s been ten years already! But then I took this picture and saw that, yes, it really has been ten years.
Twenty-three books in that stack, and I’ve never had an audio book–and not for lack of trying. So, I decided to remedy that fact, held auditions, and launched a Kickstarter to raise money to fund the Blood of Kings audio books (and to give me an excuse to print up a Limited 10-Year Anniversary Edition set of hard cover books). Want to see them?
And I also made book pillows.
I was actually really nervous about this whole endeavor. Back in 2013, I launched a Kickstarter for the RoboTales books, and it failed. As an introvert, I’m not great on camera. I’m not a salesman. And that’s okay. But those things are handy when launching a Kickstarter project, so I was super nervous.
But my readers were awesome* (Of course.) And in less than twelve hours, we had passed my first goal of $2500, which is enough to record the audio book for By Darkness Hid! And I was dancing around the house like Snoopy. Now we are halfway to having enough for recording book two! You can check out the campaign here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jillwilliamson/by-darkness-hid-audio-book
I’m ecstatic with excitement at how well this is going, but also with relief. It’s stressful to put myself out there! So, to those of you who supported me by backing the project or sharing it with others, thank YOU so much! I felt your hugs deeply, and they blessed my socks off. Considered yourself hugged back like I’m hugging the book pillows in that picture above. *grin*
You might wonder, “Jill, why do a Kickstarter at all?”
Well, audio book narrators are expensive! And while I’m using two new narrators, it’s always been important to me to pay people what their time is worth. I also really love to invest in young talent if I can. Well, I couldn’t. I’m in a weird transition phase of life right now. I’m between book contracts and going back to school to earn a masters in teaching. I had nothing to invest. But since my readers kept asking for audio books, I wondered if my readers would invest–if they would, in a sense, pre-order these audio books. If they didn’t, then that would show me that there really wasn’t enough interest in audio books for this series, which after ten years, really wouldn’t have been that surprising. But my readers did show up and support me. How do I know it was them?
Kickstarter has a dashboard that shows who the backers are, and I recognize almost every single name on that list as a reader from my street team, my Reader’s Group, or my Facebook author page. And for those backers who entered “Guest” rather than their name, Kickstarter still shows me where they came from. Only 5% of my backers came from Kickstarter. The majority, 94% of my backers, came from my own social media posts or posts of mine that others shared. The actual breakdown is: 51% from Facebook (my author page, reader’s group, or street team), 33% from my author newsletter, 8% from my Instagram, and 2% from my Twitter.
All that to say, if it wasn’t for my readers and the platform I have built over ten years to interact with them, this Kickstarter campaign would be failing right now.
Kickstarter is best used for people inventing something new and amazing. It can be tough to raise money on Kickstarter to publish books or audio books because there are already plenty of books and audio books in the world. So if you’re thinking about launching a Kickstarter, know that you’re going to need to bring in a lot of traffic on your own–unless you’re creating a book that is different, technologically speaking.
That’s my experience, anyway.
WHAT DID I HAVE TO DO TO LAUNCH A KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN?
- I set up an account on Kickstarter.
- I wrote all the copy describing my product and my plan.
- I came up with rewards to give my backers.
- I created a video explaining the project.
- I jumped through Kickstarter’s hoops. They needed three days to verify my identity, verify my bank account, and approve the project. This actually happened faster than three days, I think, because of my previous RoboTales Kickstarter project. I was already in their system.
- I spread the word to my readers.
This Kickstarter campaign lasts through the end of April, so there is still time for me to reach my two stretch goals. (A stretch goal is a goal beyond the initial goal. My stretch goals are to reach $5000 to fund books 1 and 2 and $7500 to fund audio books for all three stories in the series.)
THINGS I DID WELL
I set a low goal. The base goal of $2500 wasn’t all that much to raise in a month. People who set goals that are too high often fail to reach them. I didn’t reach my goal of $4995 with my RoboTales campaign. So $2500 was a more realistic place to start.
I created fun rewards. My limited, numbered Blood of Kings hardcovers are my most popular reward. They’re neat for fans and book collectors alike. And my pillows are super fun. I’ve been shocked how many people backed those pillow rewards already, with them being my highest investment.
I limited the pillows. “They” say it’s wise to limit your highest reward level. I did this, but not for exclusivity so much as for my own sanity. I timed myself as I sewed up my own pillows. I know how long it’s going to take me to make them. So I couldn’t leave that reward level unlimited. There is only one of me, and she is going to college this summer. She cannot be sewing pillows full time. 😉
I had some early backers. Lots of places online recommended that you talk to people before you launch and ensure that a handful of people plan to back the project. This makes your project look good when it starts out with some instant support. I’ll be honest, I was too chicken to outright ask people if they planned to back me, but I did purposely involve my street team and reader’s group in voting on rewards, and I showed them the pillows and the mock-up of the hard covers. I think this helped create some early buzz for the project so that when I did launch it, some people were ready to support.
THINGS I COULD HAVE DONE BETTER
My rewards and shipping are going to cost me too much. My rewards are cool, but they are costing me way too much. Also, because of the way I set up my prizes, anyone who backs me at either book level also gets swag, a map, and audio book CDs. I did factor in the costs of those when I figured my upper tier rewards, but I forgot that while the books will ship right away, the audio book CDs won’t be able to ship out until the books are recorded, which won’t happen for a while. So I will have to ship these things separately, which will cost me more. All that to say, I’m making very little “profit” on most of my reward levels since the cost to produce and ship everything is so high. And this means that at some point I’ll have to invest my own money in the project to cover this extra, which is money I’ll hopefully have when the time comes!
I didn’t make the greatest video. Videos are not one of my talents. I researched all kinds of articles online about how to create a successful Kickstarter, and almost all of them said to have a short video, under three minutes. Mine is six minutes. I thought about redoing it, but I was busy and decided just to go ahead. I’ve talked to several of my own backers who didn’t even watch the video! Some didn’t know there was a video, but a few agreed that six minutes seemed long and they wanted to support me and did without watching the whole video. Some said they watched it all. Still, I wonder if any potential investors stopped by and got bored by the video. Maybe none, but if I do a Kickstarter again someday, I will make a shorter video.
I didn’t hold anything back for stretch goal rewards. I am all out of ideas for cool rewards, and now that I’ve reached my first goal, I don’t have anything to entice new backers with. It would have been a good idea to come up with something fun to give as a reward if I reach my next two stretch goals. That would conceivably entice people to keep up the excitement as they all worked together with me to reach that next reward level.
So that’s where I am now. I’m sure I’ll learn even more as I go through the rest of the month and then through the process of getting the audio book produced and put up for sale, then shipping out all these rewards. What I learn will be well worth any bumps along the way when I see that (those?) audio book(s) up for sale!
Any questions?
Have you ever done a crowdfunding campaign? Have any wisdom to share? Leave a comment and let us know.
Jill Williamson is a chocolate loving, daydreaming, creator of kingdoms, and the author of several young adult fantasy novels including the Blood of Kings trilogy. She loves teaching about writing. She blogs at goteenwriters.com and also posts writing videos on her YouTube channel and on Instagram. Jill is a Whovian, a Photoshop addict, and a recovering fashion design assistant. She grew up in Alaska without running water or electricity and now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two kids. Find Jill online at jillwilliamson.com or on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
Ooh, interesting post with great tips, thank you. Having loyal readers to quickly rise to the occasion must be a boon for putting yourself out there.
And I must say those pillows are neat! Super fun swag idea.
Thank you, Samantha! Yes, I’m so thankful for my readers. <3
I’m so excited about these audiobooks (and that you’re using GTW people for the voices!). I need to help with the kickstarter .. just haven’t got around to it yet. I do have a question, that might be a post to answer … why do YOU have to pay for the audiobooks? I mean, why doesn’t your publisher do this? And is this how audiobooks are normally done; organized by the author rather than their publisher?
keturahskorner.blogspot.com
Good question, Keturah! No, this is not how most audio books are done, traditionally speaking. I am basically self-publishing these. Before a book is released, a publisher will decide whether or not to release the book in audio as well. If they decide to publish in audio, the audio book will release at the same time as the print book. In my case, my books have always been too weird (Replication) or too long (Kinsman Chronicles) for the big traditional publishers I’ve worked with to invest in making audio books. With Blood of Kings having been published by a small, indie publisher, there was never an audio book budget. Had I done a better job with sound back when I podcasted the books, we would have published those in audio then. Alas, I didn’t know how that little bit of effort could have paid off for all the time I invested, and I wasn’t able to use those recordings for audio books.
Most publishers will consider reverting audio book rights if after years pass and they decide not to invest in making them. About two years ago, my publisher reverted the audio book rights for this series to me. That means I’m in charge of any audio books made for this series now, so I must foot the bill. And recently, I acquired the audio book rights to the Safe Lands trilogy as well, so once I get the Blood of Kings audio books done, I can consider producing that series as well, and I very well might. I also own the audio rights to Replication, but since that is a stand-alone book that doesn’t sell a lot of copies these days, I doubt it would be worth the time and money to invest in an audio book. So when considering self-publishing an audio book, you have to consider if the book has an audience and will sell in audio.
Thanks for answering that … makes so much sense! And I seriously can’t wait for these audio books ;d
This is pretty interesting. Those rewards are really neat. I’ve never run a crowd-funding campaign and hopefully will never have to since my charisma is basically zero, but the idea of producing an audio book like this gets me thinking–what’s the feasibility of producing audio-exclusive books, i.e. stories that are specifically crafted to be related orally?
You certainly could do that, Colin. I’m not sure how any story could be crafted to be related orally only. (Give me more info! I’m curious what you have in mind.) Still, it seems like you’d have to write your script, so you’d have the story written down before you’d start recording, so to not publish in print and ebook seems like it would cut off a huge part of your market. Perhaps if you were to narrate or produce radio theater-like performances of out of print books, you might find some success, since people will already be looking up such books on audio. However, there are many free audio books out there already of classics. So you’d want to do your research first. If you’re going to invest all those hours in writing a story, it makes sense to publish it in print and ebook, because it takes an additional 2-3 hours for each finished recording hour to narrate, edit, and produce an audio book. I’m just rambling, of course. I only know how much time it takes me to write a book and how much time it took me to record, edit, and produce an audio book. So I’m going off that.
I was imagining a story similar in conception to The Odyssey and other tales born of oral tradition, that is, something that would be best related by word of mouth. Something like a myth or a Brothers Grimm tale. I guess it would end up looking like a script or a radio play when written out, so you could publish it in print. That’d probably be a good idea for the reasons you mentioned. I guess the main idea, though, is that it would be designed to be performed orally and then would be adapted to print form afterwards. I know oral storytelling is notably different from written stories, though, so it could be hard for an author to make something like that.
Thanks for entertaining my thought, by the way. 🙂
Gocha. So it wouldn’t read like a book anyway. More like a script. I say go for it, Colin, if you’re interested in that. I always thought it might be fun to try and write a podcast sitcom, kind of like the old radio shows used to be. So podcasting might be another angle to take such a medium to grow your audience. Either way, sounds like it could be really fun.
That’s so awesome! I LOVE the pillows!
I just self-published my first book through Amazon- okay, technically it’s a short story ebook, but still!- and I’m trying to promote it through my blog (which doesn’t seem to be working), Wattpad, and Facebook. It’s pretty hard to promote a short story, though.
But, my short story is currently the #1 new release for 30 minute reads for teens and young adults (I’m sorry, I’ve been bragging ever since I found out!). I really recommend using Kindle Publishing Services to anyone who wants to get started.
Congrats on your story and your Amazon ranking, Carynn. That’s very exciting.
Congratulations on publishing your first story! And that’s so neat that it’s the #1 new release for teens and young adults! 😀 I also self-published a book on KDP earlier this year and it’s not too bad of a setup. What is the name of your short story?
Wow, first time I got blocked for posting because it thought I was a bot, LOL.
I lost my long comment, but the main thing I wanted to say was that I hope that if there’s a way to (without getting in trouble with Kickstarter) ask in the post-survey or see if you will be allowed to delay the shipping of the physical hardcovers so you can ship it with the audiobooks. One of the previous Kickstarters I backed had a delay in shipping due to the manufacturer, so the creator kept us updated and included a few bonus swag (postcards) as an apology for the delay … I (and I’m sure other fans) wouldn’t mind a delay in shipping if it means you don’t loose money on this venture. Especially since audiobooks were being pursued because of reader interest … Anways, congrats again on getting fully funded!
Thank you! That’s good advice. And I suppose I could do that… I’ll think about it. I don’t mind investing some of my money in this project (as long as I have some money!). I’m just going to need to be smart about the shipping. I know that some people have told me they don’t actually want the swag or CDs, so I might make a Google Form to determine who wants what of their rewards. If some people opt out of some of those packages, that will save quite a bit. It has certainly been a great learning experience! LOL