Self-publishing · Less obvious
Crowdfunding a book
Readers pay to bring the book into existence, in advance, in public.
Kickstarter, Unbound, and their cousins let you sell the book before you print it, often with extras: a name in the back, a special binding, a reading. It is part shop, part theatre, part market research. A campaign that hits its target has funded the print run and found its first readers. A campaign that misses has done so very visibly.
- Typical pay
- Successful book campaigns often raise from a few thousand to tens of thousands. Fees, rewards, and postage eat a startling share. What remains is a print budget and, if you planned it, pay.
- Ceiling
- Solid ceiling
- Speed
- First money in months
- Effort
- A job in itself
- Needs
- Needs an audience
How it works
- 01
You set a funding target, a deadline, and a ladder of rewards. Backers pledge; the platform takes a fee.
- 02
If you hit the target, you take the money, manufacture, and fulfil. If you don't, the pledges (on all-or-nothing models) evaporate.
- 03
A late stretch goal can fund audio, hardback, or a second title.
How to start
- 01
Come with an audience, or with a project so specific that strangers will seek it out. 'My novel' is not a campaign.
- 02
Cost every reward twice: once to make, once to post. Then add the hours of packing.
- 03
Have the manuscript further along than you admit. Crowdfunding a book you have not written is a different, harder trick.
Watch out
- 01
Fulfilment is where campaigns go to suffer. International postage is a trap with a smile.
- 02
You are making a lot of small customer-service relationships at once.
- 03
A failed campaign is public. That is survivable; a late fulfilment is how you lose the room.
Crowdfunding is what subscription publishing always was, with a progress bar. I like it when the writer already knows who the book is for. I wince when it is used as a substitute for knowing.