Funding Your First Novel Using Kickstarter

Funding Your First Novel Using Kickstarter In November 2011, I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel WritingMonth) for the first time. Ten months later, Couple Friends was published thanks to my successful Kickstarter campaign in May 2012. I was able to raise $4,000 because 71 wonderful people believed in me and my book enough to want this dream to come true. What a great feeling. I was shocked Those dollars enabled me to hire a professional editor, book cover designer, and use a consultant to help me properly convert and upload my Word document so it could become a real, live book available for purchase. Without Kickstarter, I wouldn’t have a book published yet. However, the love and support of my backers meant more to me than the dollar amounts they gave. Whenever I doubted myself or became really frustrated doing what I thought was the last edit before the absolute final edit, I knew that I had 71 people in my corner. They took time out of their busy lives and reached into their hearts and wallets to help me achieve my goals. If that doesn’t put faith in you about humanity, I don’t know what will. And they were counting on me; I couldn’t just stop when things got hard. I was able to push through some tough times because I knew my backers believed in me. Another wonderful part of using Kickstarter to fund my novel was that when it was finished and available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, I had 71 people that were eager to read it. I had a built-in audience that was willing to help me Using a site like Kickstarter forces you to start marketing yourself and your book before the book is published, which is what we should all do anyway. You have to put yourself out there in the form of emails, social media updates, creating a Facebook event, and posting updates about your project directly through Kickstarter, which blasts out to your backers and can be made public on the Kickstarter website. I know that there is even more I could have done, but thankfully, I was fully funded in my final hour due to several generous souls. I will always be glad that I took my publishing dreams into my own hands and utilized Kickstarter to make my first novel a reality. And although I will not use Kickstarter to publish my second novel- Keepsakes,currently in the editing stage- because I feel like it’s up to me from here on out, I feel truly blessed that these crowdfunding platforms are available to authors that don’t want to wait for agents to offer representation or traditional publishing houses to say yes. Here’s a list of ten crowdfunding options to get you started, and please contact me if you have any questions. Good luck!  Ã‚      (triplepundit.com/2012/07/emerging-next-generation-crowdfunding-platform-roundup/)