I started the Paper Mage Kickstarter back on April 18th. The Kickstarter finished twenty-one days later, on May 9th. I’m going to talk about lessons learned and the things I’d do the same, as well as different.
My initial goal for the Kickstarter was $500. We figured we’d get that pretty easily, and we did. It took a bit over twenty-four hours to fund.
I knew going in that this was going to be a “small” Kickstarter. While Paper Mage is a fabulous book, it’s a bit of a niche. Though I would have loved a five-figure campaign, realistically, I didn’t expect it.
My expectation was $1500. Officially, the Kickstarter made $1800, unofficially over $2000, and that thrilled me. (More about unofficial vs. official numbers later.)
I guess lesson number one was to set realistic expectations. Which I did. Still had fantasies of huge numbers. I didn’t allow myself to actually hope for those, though.
I funded earlier than twenty-four hours, as someone bought one of the “dragon skin” editions right at the start. However, that person backed out a few hours later. I’m glad I didn’t announce that I’d funded as soon as I had.
So this was something that I hadn’t expected—that my numbers would go up, then down, then back up, then down again. It was really a roller coaster. (My husband’s Kickstarter had a small amount of that, but very little.) Next time, I will know this is a possibility, and so will plan emotionally for it.
I got a few messages via Kickstarter about people willing to “help” me run my campaign. I reported all of those as spam. Some of them went and found my website and contacted me via the contact page there or on Knotted Road Press. I will expect this next time.
I did not get a “Projects We Love” button from Kickstarter. This meant they didn’t do any of the advertising for me. I know that for other people, Kickstarter brings about fifty percent of their backers. For this project, my friends supported me. About ninety percent of my backers were people known to either my husband or myself.
The next campaign I’m running is for a more popular type of book, so I’m hoping that it’ll fund faster and I will get the “Projects We Love” button.
I made up some beautiful ads to run on Facebook, etc. Those helped. I would do that again.
My add-ons were all books that were already published, in the same “genre” as it were, all Asian-influenced fiction. I sold a lot more of those than I anticipated. I will continue to have related add-on books.
While the Kickstarter didn’t necessarily take that much time in terms of the day-to-day running of things, it didtake up a lot of focus and emotional space. Maybe because it was my first one? I don’t know. I do know to plan more for that next time.
Official vs. unofficial—I had an individual reach out to me who let me know that they’d originally ordered one of the Dragon Skin versions of the book, and they were going to have to back out of their pledge. Their car had just died, and they couldn’t afford the Kickstarter.
Fair enough. I totally understood that.
However, they asked if I could send them a PayPal invoice on the first of the next month. They’d pay it, and then could I send them a Dragon Skin version anyway? Along with the other books they’d ordered?
Sure! I could do that. This is why I have the official vs. unofficial amount that I made from the Kickstarter.
I am almost finished with fulfillment, about six weeks later. I waited to fulfill ebooks until Kickstarter paid me, even though everyone’s credit cards cleared immediately. I’m not sure what I’ll do next time—if I’ll send out the backer surveys earlier or not.
More people ordered paper books than I’d expected, both paperbacks and hardbacks. They were kind of cool, so I’m happy about that.
The Dragon Skin versions of the books ended up being much more expensive than I’d originally estimated, so I lost money on those. Plus, the artists who made them wanted me to buy five copies, and I only sold three of them. So that is where the majority of the money went.
In the end, I figure I made only $500 on the Kickstarter. It was a learning experience. Next time, I’ll do a lot better. And if I offer such a fancy reward, I’ll make sure to get all the costs straightened out first.
I’m already planning my next Kickstarter, and am spending more time studying the platform, gathering information for my back brain so that my next campaign will be better.
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