Kickstart This, Reprise. Five Lessons Learned.

By Kerry Schafer

Last month I blogged on Kickstarter basics. At that point I had just hit the launch button on my Kickstart Nothing project for the third book in my Between trilogy and had no idea how things were going to turn out. Thanks to a lot of support from friends, readers, and total strangers, I am happy to report that the Kickstarter campaign successfully funded!

I’ve used the word “happy” but let me shade in relieved, exhausted, elated, and maybe even vindicated. The fact that there are people out there who want to read The Nothing enough to put money behind the unfinished book feels incredible to me. It makes me want to be a better writer, because it feels like this book belongs to everybody who backed it and not just to me.

So now that the campaign is over and done, let me tell you a little more about what I’ve learned, just in case you’re inclined to attempt this venture on your own.

1. Pick a launch date and build some momentum This is a tip I got from Jeff Seymour, and I’m glad I took his advice. Once I finally got my video done and the project written up I wanted to just click that little button and end my pre-launch anxiety. Thing is, it’s better to have a few people excited about the project in advance. Just like anything else online, a few excited people backing the project from the beginning and tweeting and/or face booking about it can go a long way toward getting other people buzzed. An initial surge of momentum to get the project underway is hugely important, so talk to your friends and readers in advance and make the launch an exciting event. Just as you would with a cover reveal or book release.

2. Kickstarter has an algorithm.  What exactly this algorithm is remains a secret, possibly involving the blood of rare chickens found only in the Amazon Jungle. Okay, it’s probably (slightly) more accessible than that, but I never figured it out. There were hints dropped (mostly by strangers popping up in my inbox offering to solve this riddle for money) that more backers and more people leaving comments on the Kickstarter project raises its visibility at the Kickstarter site. Sort of the same idea as favoriting authors on Amazon, I’d guess.

3. Kickstarter is a time suck. Be prepared to spend a month funneling much of your time into updates, social media, and staring at the Kickstarter page, willing the funding amount to rise. Unless, of course, you are the Potato Salad Guy. And then, I’d guess, you just snack a lot and laugh every time you look at your screen. Because, apparently, people will give thousands of dollars to help you make potato salad.

4. People are incredibly generous. You will be touched and humbled by the unexpected backers. People you know just a little (or not at all) who will drop a hundred dollars on your project (or two hundred, or more) and the people who you know are tight on money who still share two, or ten. This, more than anything, makes me want to be a better writer.

5. Add some excitement midway. There’s a plateau at the middle of a Kickstarter where nothing seems to be happening. I felt for a bit like maybe I’d inadvertently murdered an albatross. You know, the old, “idle as a painted ship; upon a painted ocean” thing. I thought maybe it was just me, but since I got a formulaic email from Kickstarter at about this time letting me know it was normal for things to slow down here, I figure it’s a common trend. Fortunately I had a brand new cover ready to reveal at this point and started splashing that around. People like covers, and this got the momentum rolling again. If I was ever inclined to do another crowd sourced project I would deliberately have something big to reveal about half way through.

And that is about it for my lessons learned. Now it’s back to the writing cave for me, because with this success comes the towering responsibility of getting a damned good book out to my readers on time.