Publishing has changed. We all know this. Or we should unless we’ve been living in a very deep and dark cave or listening to the every more trite reassurances from legacy publishing. Not only have the number of legacy publishers shrunk (the Big 6 is now the Big 5), but they have discontinued lines and orphaned any number of books and authors. The number of legitimate small presses has increased, many of them filling niche markets. Then there is the explosion of self-published books. Some of them are excellent, better than much of what is coming out of legacy publishing, while others aren’t worth the bandwidth it takes to download them. But that’s true of a number of books, no matter who the publisher is.
But with the influx of small press and self-publishing titles comes the question of how to fund your projects. There are a number of platforms online now where you can promote a project, ask for backers and funding. One of the best known is Kickstarter. And, before someone gets their back up, this isn’t a rant against Kickstarter. It’s not even a rant against those who use it. It is, however, a cautionary tale for both authors, editors and those who might consider backing them.
A little background. I’m not a huge gambler, especially when it comes to my hard-earned money. Unless I know someone really well and am very familiar with their proposed project — and everyone involved in it — I’m not likely to invest money in it. I’ve had family members and friends invest in every get-rich-quick scheme to come through the mail or over the internet and have watched them lose their proverbial shirts. So, I tend to err on the side of caution.
I’ve also seen the problems that arise when authors or editors pitch a product over Kickstarter or other platforms and never deliver. Not that long ago came the story of an award-nominated (possibly award-winning) author and editor with a small press who hadn’t paid royalties to her authors for years. She’d even run a kickstarter campaign, iirc, to raise money to help pay the authors. The campaign hit its goal but the authors saw nothing. It wasn’t until friends of one of the authors involved took to social media — and then others took it up — that the author/editor started reverting rights. There were tons of mea culpas, but the harm had been done.
To counter this, you have folks like Larry Correia. Larry has run and recommended some very successful Kickstarter campaigns for games, etc., that I’ve heard nothing but good about. He and Howard Taylor are two of the very few I would back. But I digress. This isn’t about the good ones, except to tell you to be very clear about what you are supposed to get and when before you hit the pledge button.
I’ll be honest, I have avoided discussing raising money for a writing project in this manner for a couple of reasons. The first is that I haven’t done it so I’m not intimately familiar with how the process works. The second is because I feel that this is a decision that each writer or editor has to make for himself. But events over the last six months, and especially the last few days, changed my mind.
Let’s start with having a Kickstarter for a book you want to write. I went to the Kickstarter site and did a search for “publishing” and then narrowed it to “fiction”. Of the first hundred or so titles I looked at, maybe eight of them will make their funding. Of those, most are asking for less than $1,000. In fact, many are asking for less than $500. Yet, for each one nearing completion of their funding requests, many, many more are not. One that stuck out to me was for a YA paranormal where the author admits she doesn’t see herself as a YA author even though she’s already written one YA paranormal series and who then attaches a snippet of the proposed work that isn’t safe for anyone under 16 to read. Maybe I’m strange — okay, I KNOW I’m strange — but telling your potential investors that you really don’t consider yourself to be a writer of the type of book you want them to buy into isn’t exactly the best way to convince them to hand over their money.
Then there is the one for the “small press” that is looking for something in the realm of $40k — and they may actually make it. Good for them. Of course, as an author and reader, I have a few questions that I don’t see answered in their description. The first one — and the most glaring — is the fact that they state their works are fanfic or based on fanfic. Yet I see nothing saying they have permission from the networks or original creators of the characters and settings to publish their work. Hmmmm….that is sort of a red flag. At least for me.
Then, when you start going through their levels of support to see what they offer, I have another red flag go up. When you read a certain level, you can get “free” editing from their editor-in-chief. Now, this may be the best editor in the world but first, if you are “investing” in this company at this level, the editing isn’t free. You have paid for it. Just as you have paid to receive copies of the e-books involved, often at more than you’d pay for them if you waited for the books to be published. But I have another concern. How many new or wannabe writers are investing in this or similar Kickstarters for the editing — often spending money they don’t have — only to find out they aren’t getting quality editing? Or even anything above proofreading or copy editing? (Now, I’m not saying that is what would happen here, but it is something I have to ask myself and something I hope everyone else is asking as well.)
But that’s not the only thing I have concerns about. It takes time to set up your Kickstarter page. Time I’d rather spend writing. It takes time to promote your project and then, if you do make your goal, it takes time to complete everything you have pledged to do as well as to keep your backers informed. Then there’s the ego hit if you don’t make your goal. Does that mean no one will buy your book and you should just move on, possibly even to another profession? No, it just means that the project didn’t hit with those who were looking for something to invest in on that particular day/week/month.
And all that brings me to what set me off on this topic. Friends of mine invested in a Kickstarter campaign because an author we know and trust was to have a story included in the pitched anthology. They invested to get a copy of the e-book and advertising space. Months have gone by and they found their in-box filled with many, many e-mails from the editor of the anthology. It included, iirc, one where he promised to sing. None of the e-mails said anything about how to get their advertising space, etc., and the project page said the book would be released in November. Well, here it is the beginning of December and no e-book. Things came to a head for them yesterday when they received notice that the hard copy of the book was now for sale and would they — as well as all the other backers — book-bomb the project. Oh, and still no copy of the e-book and no news on advertising space.
One of my friends took to Facebook and in a very tame manner expressed her disappointment because she felt she had not been given what she’d been promised and stated that she would probably never do another Kickstarter again. The editor’s response? Well, he came in all puffed-up and in-your-face and defensive. Instead of contacting her personally on a private IM or e-mail, he publicly took her to task for not loving all he had done to keep everyone informed, etc. In fact, iirc, he said she was the only one to be disappointed and that everyone had loved all the e-mails keeping them informed (or at least words to that effect).
Now, I happen to know other backers of this particular project, as well as several authors involved. So I know that there are others who felt the 50-plus e-mails were excessive since they said nothing new. It got to the fact that there were some who simply hit the delete button without reading them. The lesson here is the same one restaurants need to remember when they give less than acceptable service to customers. They probably aren’t going to say anything. They just won’t come back. That is the situation that editor now faces, not only with potential backers but with writers as well.
So the lesson here is that if you do a Kickstarter, be careful with how you contact your backers. Lay out in clear and concise terms when you will be completing the project they are investing in and how and when they will receive their awards. Don’t go onto social media and get into a fight with someone who has expressed concerns about the project. Take it into the next room and try to work it out. And, for the love of Bog, don’t blame someone else for what happened. Throwing a co-worker under the bus isn’t the way to do business.
Most of all, if all you are doing a Kickstarter, be realistic about what you are asking for and what you are willing to give in return. If the amount you are looking for is actually going to cost you more in time and effort, then maybe you need to rethink your plans. As a reader and potential investor, if you are getting an e-book in return, are you paying two or three times more for it as an investor than you would if you wait for it to be published? If you are, you’d sure better either know the author and want to help them out or you’d better be getting an early release for it. As a writer looking to invest for the “editing” services, make sure you know exactly what you are getting for your money. Also, be sure the person who is going to be doing the “editing” is qualified, especially for the work you want them to look at.
In other words, do your homework.
For those doing the Kickstarters, be clear in what you want and what you are offering. Think long and hard if it is going to be worth your time and money and effort to set up the project page, do the promotion and then do the administrative end should the project actually make its goal. And — and I can’t repeat this enough — be darned sure you are ready to take the ego hit if the project doesn’t make its goal. If you aren’t, then stay far away from projects such as this.
Most of all, if you are running a Kickstarter campaign, always follow the most important rule Jim Baen instituted on Baen’s Bar: Don’t be a butthead. (in other words, don’t spam your backers. Don’t expect them to do your promo for you and don’t — I repeat DO NOT — get mad at them when they express disappointment because you haven’t followed through on what you’ve promised.)
Mad Genius Club 
28 responses to “To Kickstart or not to Kickstart. That is the question.”
AMEN!
So, basically, treat this as a business, not as a hobby, and remember to act like a professional.
It also helps if you’ve got the manuscript ready to go, IMNSHO, and you’re looking for editing and covers and a small print run, especially if you’re someone who doesn’t have a lot of work already under your belt. Some kickstarters are done by authors who have established audiences (I seem to recall Tobias Buckell doing something like this for one of his books with some success), to see if there’s enough interest in getting the book out there, but that’s something that an established author will do who already has an audience, and someone who doesn’t have their 1000 true fans yet probably won’t fund that way.
Having said that, there’s got to be other ways to fund your writing, connect with an audience, and launch a successful writing career than Kickstarter.
Zachary, you hit the nail on the head when it comes to writers. Too many either forget or just don’t get that we need to treat our writing careers as a business. That means conducting ourselves in a businesslike manner when we are doing anything, including writing. Yes, I know, there are screams of outrage on this but if we are going to be successful writing, we need to be serious about it. That also means, as you pointed out, finding ways to connect with our audience and fund our writing. I’m just not sure what the best way is. What I do know is that Kickstarter isn’t it, at least not for most of us. Our egos won’t last long if we put up Kickstarter project after project and we don’t make our goals. It’s a good way to bring the writing to a complete stop.
But… but… writers are super special snowflakes! (I do not except myself from this description, though usually we just lose the “snow” and call me a little flaky.)
I’ve been reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “David and Goliath”, and yesterday hit the part where he’s discussing the rise of Impressionism in France, and how they basically had no chance of getting recognized by playing the same game everyone else was – going to the salon. They were little fish in an enormous pond that hated their guts.
So they made their own pond.
Which gave me a couple of ideas. They’re pie-in-the-sky, but…
You could set up a sort of “fiction co-op” where authors agree to participate, a “buy-in” of so many words (100,000 words, or something), and a commitment to produce so many words in a certain period for continuing membership, and have readers pay a monthly membership fee to read anything and everything that gets posted for that month. Sort of like MGC, but pay-to-read and with a lot more fiction. Or like Tracy Hickman’s “Dragon’s Bard”(?) but with more than one author. The problem is the same problem as with any starting indie-writer. How do you promote the co-op? And how do you deal with the various authors and the money sharing, and the initial startup costs… like I said, pie-in-the-sky, but something that might spark someone else’s thoughts.
You also could do what a lot of people I used to follow do, and that’s release the work for free over audio (did that myself with a lot of stuff). That might help build an initial audience, and it would be easy to build a “pay the author” link to something like PayPal and embed it in the audio file, so that if the person likes what they hear, they click the link, automatically go to PayPal and make a suggested donation (depending on the work, the number I had was $1.99). Reduce friction, make it as easy as possible. The problem THERE is that people have already consumed the product – they’ve already listened to the story.
So… I’m still thinking. (when i should really be doing more writing, practicing my craft, playing with ideas, etc…) Maybe a two pronged approach? Where the podcast acts as a feeder to the co-op?
You might check out The Grantville Gazette at http://www.grantvillegazette.com/ for a current product similar to what you proposed about a “fiction co-op” (and just laughed because I spelled it “coop” first and the juxtaposition was funny to me as I thought about chickens). Shared universe. Multiple authors. Buy yearly access or individual issues.
I’d probably do another kickstarter by someone like Larry Correia or Howard Tayler – actually, I was trying to come up with reasons to fund into Sandra Tayler’s book, the first one was loved by my kids, but they are all too old for the second one. But no more unknown entities. It’s not just publishing, I bought in a project for a wholly different industry and that one is running some four months late and counting now… Really, when you commit to a project, you must plan for unexpected delays, even if you don’t see how it could possibly happen. No one will complain about early delivery!
Mine is not kickstarter, but Witchfinder is sinfully late, mostly through my stupid health…
Sarah, the difference between what you are doing with Witchfinder and what others alluded to in my post are doing is that you are keeping everyone in the loop and are doing so without spamming their inboxes with emails.
Nor is Sarah sending us videos of her singing. If she were doing a music collection that would be appropriate. As an author publisher or editor it is the height of faceslap to your supporters. Shut up spellchuck, it is a word
Absolutely, Cedar! To go back to Zachary’s comment above, you have to treat it like a business. If you are bidding on a project in “business”, you do your best to foresee problems that might arise. So why not do that with a kickstarter campaign as well?
Kickstarter is not intended for investment, but for subsidization along the old subscriber model.
An idea from the half-bakery: a small publishing house built on Kickstarter & CreateSpace. Here’s how it would work—
The author pitches the book. (Aimed at potential readers rather than publishers, but there’s probably not that much difference.) The mini-publisher isn’t much of a gate-keeper; so longs as it’s in a genre he can fond editors & cover designers for, he can let the actual market determine
The author sets the advance, keeping in mind that if he’s too greedy the book won’t get funded.
The mini-publisher will have contacts with good free-lance editors, cover & page-layout designers, etc., etc., and know how much they charge. (For example, there’s a Hun who’s spoken here of being available to lay out books with LᴬTᴇX.)
The Kickstarter campaign starts. Remember, we’re looking for readers (or deep-pocketed sponsors), not investors. Depending on the response, the book either
• fails,
• goes to e-publication only, or
• gets a print run.
But first—
The money comes in, and the author gets his advance.
The author sits back down and starts writing the book. This is indie, so you’re blogging about the book as you write it; some of those blog posts get reposted as Kickstarter updates. You can probably also get some alpha & beta readers from the supporter pool (and charge for the privilege!).
The editors & designers get hired, and edit & design, until the book’s ready.
The book goes up for sale. Subscribers get the book editions they’ve (effectively) pre-paid for. (It’s not exactly pre-payment, since they have no actual guarantee of getting the books, but the author and publisher have a moral [if not legal] obligation to think of the sponsors as if they were pre-paid customers.)
Profit!!!
Joel, it is an investment from the supporter. Perhaps not in the financial definition of the term, but it is nonetheless. And yeah, that is exactly the way it is supposed to work. But it doesn’t when folks don’t build in for delays or when they don’t follow through with what they promised. Or when they promise something they can’t or won’t deliver. That is one of my issues with it. Another is that too many will support a Kickstarter project based on the promise of “free” editing and yet what they get in return is anything but. Then there is the ego hit the author gets when they put up a project and it doesn’t meet its goal. Kickstarter is great for some projects but not, imo, for most authors or, in fact, for most writing projects.
I agree with you, Amanda. (I’m sure this isn’t much of a surprise, as what you’re saying is completely sensible.) I have been watching the plethora of Kickstarter campaigns with a bit of alarm . . . and I kept wondering exactly what you were — didn’t the people running these campaigns realize they’re running a business of a particular type? Don’t they know that all of their communication will be perused, so they’d best handle themselves appropriately as much as they possibly can?
Or to put it another way — there are only so many Harlan Ellisons out there who can get away with being, shall we say, less than polite in public. (More than once, even.) Most of us absolutely cannot behave like that and expect to do well in our chosen fields — that’s one reason why anyone over twenty-one is appalled at Miley Cyrus’s behavior, because it seems extremely counter-intuitive. (I don’t think those under twenty-one are paying much attention to her behavior one way or another; they either like her or they don’t, and all this outrageousness isn’t designed to do anything for them, IMNSHO.)
Life really does interfere at the oddest of times, which is one reason I’m extremely leery of Kickstarter. That being said, there are a very few people I probably would back (providing I was in funds myself at the time) because I would believe in them enough that _despite_ life’s unwonted interference (or perhaps because of it), they *would* get the job done, finish what they start and do exactly what they promised.
Barb, you said exactly what I was trying to. Thanks. Like you, there are some folks I would chip in on a Kickstarter campaign. But they are few and far between. As a writer, maybe I’m old-fashioned. If I choose to go indie, I’m doing it with my eyes wide open and I know there is no money upfront. It is up to me to do my best to write the best book I can and then to market it. I would feel like I was selling snake oil to do a kickstarter for it at this point in my career — well, that plus my ego would take a serious hit if the campaign didn’t meet its goal. Shrug.
You’re welcome. Glad my elaborations made at least a little sense and that they were helpful.
Since I’ve just finally gotten my late husband Michael’s two stories up (announced it on my blog, announced it via Twitter, announced at FB, and now we’ll see — I am going to write a guest blog for a friend and he gets ten times the traffic I do so maybe that’ll help), and of course money is always a concern, I actually have to admit I did wonder if something like Kickstarter could help me free up the time so I could do some research and write a third story in Michael’s “Adventures of Joey Maverick” series (I have a backbone, drawn from his novel, but I’m adding adventures and I have to come up with them myself — Michael has a few in there, but not many).
Then I shook myself into sense.
I’m not well-known enough for Kickstarter to help, I’m afraid. And all the caveats you’ve given would apply to me also — it’s hard enough to bank on yourself when you’re looking long-term, but if you throw a short-term business strategy into the mix, that siphons both time and energy away from you and maybe even keeps you from writing what you’d planned on in the first place (because time and energy are finite). So a short-term strategy like Kickstarter could actually _harm_ you in some ways even if it works . . . that said, if those very few people I respect and admire do a Kickstarter, I’ll try to support ’em, and hope it works better for them than it has for certain others.
That you mention Miley Cyrus brings out another point. Trust me: she is the butt of far worse derision WITHIN the music business than fans or the general public could ever dream of. This will inevitably have a negative effect on her future career path. While we all work for whoever will pay us, those with the option to do so (and they are more important to the success of a venture than you may realize) will pass on a tour or a record project and she’ll have to settled for second or third best or the bottom of the barrel. Which will mean that she doesn’t get priority treatment among vendors, which will lead to little glitches that add up to major goat screws and diminish the value of her brand. This will not only hurt her, but it will splash over onto her dad. People will rally to Billy Ray, probably, but it can’t help but hurt.
How does this apply to writers? Miley Cyrus is already a multi-millionaire. She could retire tomorrow, and — with prudence — live for the rest of her life on what she’s earned so far. (Yes, the assumption of prudence is problematic, as imprudence attracts vultures. See above about being able to hire the best.) Can you, as a writer, say the same? Of course not.
There’s a saying in the theater: be kind to those you meet on the way up; you’ll meet them again on the way down. It’s true in every endeavor. And blowing a Kickstarter campaign is apiece of dirty ABC gum that’ll stick to your shoe for a LONG time to come. Think it might be easy to hire editors and artists after that?
M
Your point is well taken, Mark.
I’m a musician, too, though as a classical and jazz musician most of what Miley Cyrus does is so far out of what I’d _ever_ do that it’s hard to fathom.
That being said, I agree with you — I agree in every particular.
If you remember Maggie Hogarth, of “Spots the Space Marine” fame, she runs a lot of Kickstarter campaigns for her books, including, interestingly enough, one about how to properly run a Kickstarter campaign.
She is one of those who it does work for — and I’m not taking anything away from them. But there are many more who try it and don’t come close to meeting their goals. Whether it is because they simply didn’t put the campaign together right or they don’t have enough supporters or what, I don’t know. What I do know is that it is a kick in the pants when it doesn’t meet the goal and there are probably any number of books that aren’t written as a result. Books that might make much more than the author was asking for on kickstarter.
I just saw this blog post after I wrote virtually the same thing. I’m a little kinder in my assessment of Mr. Schmidt.
Yesterday, I said I didn’t think there was a villain. Now I think there is a villain and his name is Murphy–as in Murphy’s Law.
I had a long talk with Mr. Schmidt yesterday and I think he is a man of good faith who is a bit overwhelmed because he’s doing some things he’s never done before and Murphy is chewing his ass.
That said, I echo the need for a Kickstarter campaign to be run with a strong focus on maintaining a professional branding through a disciplined communication strategy. If you follow my little blog, you can read a lot of what Amanda said here (We agree, she must be right!), but in my words.
Good thoughts, Steve. I think you showed you the communication problem was a result of being so flip that the people he wrote to assumed there was no substantive content in his messages. True, perhaps the recipients should have read them all the way through anyway, but even in business you want to make things easy on the reader.
Laura, I’m not going to comment on any particular person or project. However, you have noted something that can’t be stressed enough. If you are running a Kickstarter campaign, you don’t send flip emails to your supporters. You conduct yourself professionally. After all, they have invested in your project.
Steve,
To start with, it’s pretty obvious when you read Amanda’s post that she had no intention of vilifying anyone – she wanted to point out things that people considering running campaigns should think about and used unnamed examples both to show what she meant, AND to make the point without slamming those who had made mistakes.
Then you come tromping through and blow the whole thing to bits by naming names and then trying to excuse the person you think is concerned. Good faith, fine. Overwhelmed, fine. It’s still bad manners and bad business to blame those who ask about undelivered goods for their lack of support. Just as it’s bad manners to name someone you think a post is about without checking first.
You owe Amanda an apology, and preferably a retraction of your comment.
Steve, first of all, you are making assumptions about who I was referring to. I was very careful not to name names — and I did it for a reason. I am not going to debate whether or not the person you named is a victim of Murphy or his own practices. For one, I’m not going to confirm or deny if this person is one of those I’m referring to. What I will do is suggest that next time, before assuming you know who one of us is referring to and then naming them, you contact us for confirmation.
That said, I agree that any Kickstarter campaign must be conducted in a professional manner.
As someone who saw, and in passing replied to the comments yesterday, I will ding-a-ling in here. (I’m not big enough to chime.) It’s real easy to hist unexpected snags, and get _way_ behind. You can also find yourself jammed up by circumstances before you start. I stated the planning for my indogogo campaign in October. Sigh. It took almost 8 weeks to navigate the IRS inspired Credit Union rules to re-instate my business checking account. Originally, it was to run for 3 weeks, not 2, but Christmas is fast approaching. with the shipping hassles that causes. Obama Care is fast sinking, along with it the chance to make fun (and money) . It’s also a case of. “Either it’s good to fly, or not. Better to find out quickly.” I also chose an option that more should. If it doesn’t raise enough (even if only $1 short), no money changes hands.
I’d also liked to have set the high end perk lower, but PM shipping is $5 each. It’s why they get a CoA as one of the first 25. I tried to think of the contributors at every step. You get either a genuine, no prize collectible, or a notification. Sort of a, “Would I buy into this?” Too many have grandiose ideas, and little idea of what is involved. A lot of what I’ve seen is a “sort of good idea,” but not really a great one.
Basically, if _I_ invested in a KS/IGG campaign, the book would be at _least_ halfway written. It should also have a known name, or be involved with it. Finally, as pointed out, a reasonable time to run and see production. For me, $5 represents *10%* of what Medicaid lets me keep every month from my SSDI check. (Actually about 25% of what I can “freely” spend.) IOW, real money, to me. Too often, I get the impression that isn’t how campaign operators see tings. They see $10, $15, etc. as pocket change, to fling away.
As an “investor” I figure, at this point, that I’m investing more in a trial run to figure out how the New World Order (Sorry, Progressives, not the one you intended and had wet dreams about) is going to work. And not just in writing, but movies and music.
I personally don’t think Kickstarter type funding is going to work, not the way it is now. Too time intensive, too many costs in “prizes.” But I’ve kicked in for several projects that I’d like to see get off the ground. And then I forget about them. And occasionally receive a surprise.
As a writer? Wouldn’t touch it with a ten meter pole. But then, I’m in a good financial position, with no worries about how to pay the bills. The time and effort going into a kickstarter seems like it would eat into writing time, while increasing pressure on me to meet deadlines or produce the treats promised to the investors.
Pam, I’ve got no problem with folks backing a kickstarter campaign as long as they know what they are getting into and what their ROI is going to be. My issue comes from folks not treating their Kickstarters as businesses, or at least as part of their business. Add in the concerns you’ve highlighted — concerns I share — and I am more than leery of doing one. As a writer, I don’t want to spend my time administering a kickstarter campaign, worrying if it is going to meet its goal and then trying not to let it kill the writing if it doesn’t. I’d rather be writing and putting the best work out there that I can. Maybe that’s short-sighted of me, but at this stage in my career, it is the approach I’m going to take.
We’re all trying to figure out how this new publishing works. We’re pretty solid on getting the stuff out there. Now the main problems I see are (1) Marketing, AKA, how to find the readers that will like your stuff and let them know it’s available and (2) How to keep the writers housed, fed and busy writing more stuff.
Both Kickstarters and Subscription type stuff, like Sarah is doing, seem to be both time sinks and to have the potential of being a source of guilt and stress for the writer if they fall behind.
But one size doesn’t fit all, and it may work very well for some people, or there may be ways to make it work. And we’ll only find out by trying it.