Kickstarter lessons and tips

I know many of my readers are considering or actively planning a Kickstarter campaign for their own book, so I wanted to give you a peek behind the curtain of my campaign. I learned so much from the experience, advice, and generosity of other authors (one reason I love being part of the indie self-publishing community!), and this is a chance for me to help others the way I was helped.

I’m writing this a few days before my campaign closes, so these aren’t final numbers. Kickstarter sends some automated last-call messages, and I have one more round of social media posts planned. However, I think the campaign will clear the final stretch reward, which I set at $5,000. As of Saturday, Oct 10, it’s at $4,735 from 127 backers.

The average pledge is about $37, and this number shows you one big advantage of Kickstarter: Many times buyers are spending more (and getting more) than they would on a single book purchased via a traditional launch. (Note, though, that none of these numbers take into account costs like printing, taxes, Kickstarter’s fees, and payment processing; shipping is charged separately after the campaign ends.)

Almost all of my highest-value pledges came via links from this very newsletter—that’s y’all! Thank you! The lesson for you: Try to send a monthly or even quarterly newsletter to keep your audience connected to you and up-to-date on your work.

I haven’t spent a lot of time on social media, but I’ve done a lot more than is usual for me and as far as I can tell via tracking links, the result of several posts across Instagram, LinkedIn, and Bluesky has been a total of three pledges. This number will look different if you are more proficient on social media than I am or have a bigger presence or larger following there. But if your presence is more like mine (quiet lurker for the most part!), then your result might look more like this.

Here’s what surprised me: The single most effective thing I did for the campaign was to build connections with other authors—especially those running Kickstarter campaigns for similar audiences around the same time—who shared my campaign with their own audience. Readers who know and like Kickstarter as a platform seem to be far easier to convert during a Kickstarter campaign than any other kind of reader. 61% of my backers fall in Kickstarter’s “Power” or “Core” groups, its labels for regular backers. Only 9% of my backers had never backed anything on Kickstarter before (and I recognize quite a few of them as personal friends and family—thank you, fam!).

Once I finished the major revisions to the book in July, I turned my attention to the Kickstarter campaign. In retrospect, I wish I had carved out some time earlier in the summer, or maybe even in the spring, to go ahead and create the campaign story (the main campaign page) and the basic rewards and tiers. First-time Kickstarter creators must have their campaign approved before being able to put up a simple pre-launch page, which only needs a main image and a tiny bit of copy. You can continue to work on the rest of the campaign behind the scenes, but in the meantime, your pre-launch campaign can start gathering followers. It turns out that having more followers can be very beneficial and give your campaign a real boost as it launches. (58 of my 115 pre-launch followers backed the campaign, and they accounted for 80% of the day-one total.)

Writing the campaign copy was very much like writing any kind of marketing copy for my book. Writing this kind of copy has its own challenges, but when you are immersed in the ideas and details, it comes fairly easily.

Much more challenging for me was creating professional-looking campaign images, especially product photographs of the beautiful hardcover edition. I ended up relying much more on cover mockups (see the tool I used in the resources section), and I spent a lot of time in Canva fussing around with graphics. I spent my design budget on getting new covers for the Novel Study series, but I would consider hiring design assistance for this aspect of a future campaign.

I had aspirations to make a campaign video, but that would have meant learning an entirely new skill set, and I skipped it for the sake of time. I was very proud, however, that I learned how to create a GIF from a flip-through video I filmed.

The other aspect that took an enormous amount of time was figuring out ordering and shipping logistics and costs. This was tedious and often frustrating work, especially in our current cursed timeline in which tariffs and shipping fees are changing almost daily.

For example, the first proof copy I ordered from BookVault in the UK was slapped with an incorrect $19 customs fee. Printed matter is supposed to be free of customs charges, but months later, I am still fighting with FedEx over clearing this charge and getting texts and emails threatening to charge me a $90 fee. But going through this experience made me decide that I would have all of the special edition hardcovers for U.S. backers shipped to me, which I will then send through USPS Media Mail, so backers don't have to go through the same experience. (BookVault UK now has a customs section on their ordering form which seems to have solved the problem, though I’ve seen reports that some authors are still getting the charge.)

I also spent a lot of time learning, against my will, about the new packaging regulations put in place by the EU, which require every non-EU seller, no matter what size, to have a registered agent in every single EU country. As a result, I haven't been able to offer physical book tiers to EU buyers. (Search for PPWR to learn more about this and pay attention to what other authors are doing in their own Kickstarter campaigns.)

I’ve done plenty of scary things. I’ve published two books before this one. I’ve spoken in front of large audiences. But hitting the green launch button on the Kickstarter campaign was surprisingly scary! I’d spent weeks carefully scrolling by the launch button, terrified that I’d accidentally click it before the launch date. (Don’t worry—it does ask if you are really sure!) I clicked the button, feeling slightly nauseous, then went out to the garage to do my usual smart bike workout and listen to a podcast. I hadn’t realized that I would get a push notification from the Kickstarter app on my phone about every backer and was first surprised and then very, very relieved to start seeing pledges roll in.

By the time I was done with my ride, the campaign had already cleared the $500 funding goal I’d set. I deliberately chose a number I thought I could almost certainly reach because I didn’t want the added stress of worrying about whether the campaign would fund at all.

I set the campaign to run for three weeks total, which felt like enough time for me to spread the word and see what kind of momentum it could generate on the Kickstarter platform itself. A few more numbers that will help you gauge the momentum of your own campaign: I gained just over 50% of the total so far in the first two days of the launch. After that, the campaign settled in at about $100–$150 a day, with a couple of larger bumps when the campaign was shared by another author.

Even though the preparation for the campaign was more work than I’d anticipated, I still think it’s worth it. I’ve already made a healthy profit on the book even before it goes on sale widely. The Kickstarter platform itself expanded my audience. About 40% of backers came from Kickstarter browsing and recommendation features. More importantly, I feel like the campaign gave me a chance to truly honor a book that is the culmination of almost two years of work.

The campaign also forced me to do things I’m often reluctant to do: reach out to existing connections and forge new ones, spend more time talking about my work on social media channels, and generally draw attention to myself.

Part of our job as writers is to make ourselves visible. That’s more important than ever in this age of AI—we need to show up for readers as our fallible, vulnerable human selves. It’s important and it’s hard! I’m glad I did it and also relieved that I’ll soon be able to focus just on the quieter work of writing this newsletter.

A few resources I relied on during the campaign:

You can still back the campaign through October 13! Have any questions about Kickstarter this piece didn’t answer? Reply and let me know or fill out the Ask the Blue Garret form, and I’ll answer them in an update in a future newsletter.

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