The Pros and Cons of Doing A Kickstarter

Should I give the people what they want?

In my last post, I put out a poll to try and help me decide on something I’ve been hemming and hawing on since it first occurred to me. Namely, should I consider doing a Kickstarter for the next book (FYI I’m still on track for my predicted July deadline). The response was emphatic:

Mind you, I say it was emphatic, but being a doomy, gloomy type, I look at that result and start thinking - how many people is 3% of 37? (EDIT: of course I had to Google it, it turns out that it’s 1.11 people. For reference, if you are that 0.11 of a person, please get to a medical facility as a matter of extreme urgency).

So, that’s interesting. 35.89ish people would back a Kickstarter for my next book. Huh.

Kickwhat?

By the way, for anyone new to the word of Kickstarters, the craic is that it’s a platform where creators can pitch a project and it lives or dies on the basis of whether enough normal folk actually put their money behind it. So, let’s say I was looking for supporters to rally behind the next book. I might put together a campaign page for “SHAN NEW BOOK”**, I’d do a pitch video of me awkwardly staring just off-centre of the camera and explain what this new book is about.

Here’s a good example of a campaign for a book.

A pro pitching

Me looking natural on camera

You then add in loads of info about the book, the background, etc and then decide on a series of Rewards/Perks. Basically, this is what supporters can opt to buy in order to “back” the campaign. Here are the ones from the La Vie de Guinevere campaign (holy shit, hardcovers in America are expensive).

In some regards, it seems like a Kickstarter mostly functions as a way of getting some PR for pre-sales, but I’m sure there’s more to it than that. Plus it would be cool to create some of this merch for the new book, which already has a strong visual identity.

So, as to my previous hemming and hawing - what are the hems and what are the haws?

Hems and Haws***

Good stuff:

• Money for me! I sell books for a living, so I think this would be sensible.

• Give early adopter types (that’s you if you’re signed up to this Substack) a chance to get some one-off swag that wouldn’t ever be available again. That’s pretty cool, right?

• Get organised. I’d need to have sorted the print options/covers/book pitch before I did a Kickstarter, so I quite like the idea that it would mean I’ve got a lot of things figured out before the book goes live.

• Community. This is the biggest one for me. If I could get 35.89 people on board and excited about the book before it launched, then that really helps to give the book a headstart and early momentum. Book marketing is generally like Conan turning the Wheel of Pain in that it’s pretty tough to get going and eventually a ginger lad with a sword comes and buys you. So, if we could form a gang around the book, all wearing our cool branded Denim Jackets*, then that would be a good thing. At least until the ginger bloke comes and buys us.

• Virality! If the book hits its funding target, then you get to say cool things like, “Yeah, the book just hit 344% of its funding goal”. If you play it right that can pique interest.

Bad stuff:

• It’s a lot of work. The corollary to the earlier point about it being good that you have to get yourself organised is that you have to get yourself organised. So I’d need to get organised with what sort of artwork, etc I needed.

• Fucking things up. We must never discount this as a possibility, for while I’m widely acknowledged to be one of the most brilliant people on earth, I do occasionally kick the heel off my shoe just as I’m walking into Parliament to make a speech and have to limp/try and get people with guns to fix my shoe. i.e. I sometimes fuck things up. I really wouldn’t want to start off this new book by pissing off 35.89 people.

• Blahblahism - is Kickstarting a book a bit old hat? Is there a new cooler thing that I might not yet have heard about? Would it be cool to just sell the swag without the rigmarole of doing a Kickstarter?

• Going to the post office. I’d need to do that a lot and ours is run by vicious folk who scare me. I’m not sure that counts though as the awfulness of the Post Office is offset by its proximity to an excellent cake shop.

• Thinking of great rewards - but maybe you can help with that? [INSERT IDEA STEALING POLL HERE.]

Any other ideas for rewards throw them in the comments!

So, there you have it. A whistle-stop tour of my brain when it comes to this issue. I’m relatively sure I’m going to do it, but I thought it was important to think the thing through.

Thanks for listening/reading.

** Working title

*I’m not really thinking of doing branded Denim Jackets. Unless…?

*** Don’t ask me why the footnotes in this post are so out of whack. Anyway - hemming and hawing comes from hemis - which is an imitative of throat clearing and haw-haw, an impression of what upper-class English folks sound like when they laugh. Apparently.