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.

A stack of my published books. Ten year’s worth of hard work!

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?

I couldn’t afford to use Juniper Books, so I designed my own. <3

And I also made book pillows.

Squishy!

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?

  1. I set up an account on Kickstarter.
  2. I wrote all the copy describing my product and my plan.
  3. I came up with rewards to give my backers.
  4. I created a video explaining the project.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.