Surprise – Surprise – Surprise … December is an Excellent Month to deliver a Crowdfunding Campaign!
Say What … and Why you ask. Because people give more freely during Holiday times. It’s that simple. But, it takes thought, and definitely your energy.
Understand this:
Book CrowdFunding isn’t a piece of cake to accomplish. Only the minority succeed … as in less than 30 percent. And, in my humble opinion, with planning and execution, you can be in a successful minority.
To succeed with any campaign, authors must ask four questions including Is my project worth it? Let’s start there.
1 Is my project worth it?
Really … is it worth it? Be honest. Is this an ego thing … or is it your story, your how-to/solution new with a twist? Does it have a WOW to it? Is it interesting? If you can’t honestly say yes, yes, yes and yes, the odds are that you are going to struggle with getting funding. If people—your family and friends included—can’t get excited, do you expect perfect strangers to?
2 Is my book concept compelling?
You have your hat in hand … you are asking for money. Okay, what’s going to “seduce” the donor? What’s the aha … what’s the benefit for the completed book to the reader … what will the donor get in return—yes, feeling good in supporting you … but is there anything else (great rewards count here as well)? People will want to know how you will use their money; what they will get in return; and yes, that you are a good steward in moving the project forward. The video that you make must include this.
3 Do I think that my Crowdfunding project will fund itself?
Think again. If you do, you set yourself up for instant failure. Last year, the big Crowdfunding guerilla, Kickstarter, reported statistics that the overall success rate of all its Crowdfunding projects was roughly 50 percent that year. In the publishing category, 7,050 were started and 2,064 achieved or exceeded the original goal amount desired. In dollars, the successful book projects amounted to just shy of 23 million dollars and a 29 percent success rate.
Don’t be disillusioned—just because Kickstarter is where massive traffic is, it doesn’t necessarily mean that’s where you should be with your book project. Big crowds don’t mean that you or your book will attract them—and don’t ever get caught up in the denial, and I mean denial, that a few Tweets and Facebook postings are all you need to achieve success. You have the campaign to run—and it needs your full attention to push throughout all the days of it. Your marketing (yes, that is exactly what you are doing) needs to be far-reaching, ongoing and, gulp, effective for you to succeed.
4 Are my Rewards appropriate and alluring … or, gulp, are they mundane? 
First, have at least seven in the mix. Many backers support you solely on what your book is about; others look for goodies—those Rewards that come to them, depending on how much they commit to. Creativity counts and they should relate to the level of financial commitment.
As an ace author-photographer, when Ashlee Bratton offered a full photoshoot at a beautiful bed and breakfast site that included two nights lodging—of course, this wasn’t for a $50 commitment, it went for $1,500. Within your Rewards will be eBooks, Books, maybe Book Club chats, private workshops, teas (romance authors do well with this)—explore what others are doing … and then ask yourself, Do any of these work for my book project? or What can I offer my supporters with a twist?
Disclaimer time … within the AuthorYou Mini-Guide series is The CrowdFunding Guide for Authors and Writers. If crowdfunding is in your midst and you want a “how-to” guide without the fluff and just a step by step map, start with it. Available in print, ebook or audio. Get your FREE Money to Finance Your Book here.
Are you ready to take the step … and start the process?
Dr. Judith Briles is a book publishing expert and author of 37 multi-award books. She’s guided over 1,000 authors in creating their books, earned in excess of $3,000,000 in speaking fees based on her books and gathered over $2,000,000 in onsite book sales at her speaking gigs. Her latest book, How to Create a $1,000,000 Speech flips a difficult topic into a simple and easily comprehensible plan. If you want to get into speaking, this is the guide that will be the game-changer to success.
Listen to The Book Shepherd’s weekly podcast: AuthorU-Your Guide to Book Publishing.
Check the Events tab on The Book Shepherd for Judith’s annual Speaking Unplugged, Book Publishing Unplugged, and Book Marketing Unplugged 2-day workshops.
