How authors are generating revenue before launch day, and how you can too.
From Charlie Hoehn
On April 22, Jayson Gaignard opened a Kickstarter campaign for his book, Community Made. His goal was to raise $35,000.
He achieved it within the first hour.
By the time the campaign ended, he’d raised $211,000 and sold more than 20,000 copies.
“He must have had a big following.”
Not really. His social media audience across all platforms was about 10,000 followers. He didn’t need a big list, because he had a strong network.
So how did he do it? In this issue, I’ll break it down for you.
I advised Jayson through the making and marketing of his book. And while his results are extraordinary, his campaign shows what’s possible with a strong network and the right offers. In fact, I believe Kickstarter is one of the best ways for any author to launch a book.
And it’s not just me. Bestselling nonfiction authors like Eric Ries, Seth Godin, Kevin Kelly, and Cory Doctorow have all used the platform to launch their books. And it’s easy to see why.
A typical book journey goes like this:
A Kickstarter pre-sale allows you to flip that equation:
With Kickstarter, you get paid to test whether people want your book. You get clear evidence of demand before you publish it.
That revenue can cover the cost of producing and launching your book, and it can turn a profit before the book is even out.
Your book sits on the bottom rung, and the things you already sell fill the rungs above it. When I look at big book campaigns, about half the money comes from tiers between $20 and $75. It’s a good practice to keep the ladder short, because every extra tier is something you’ll have to fulfill later.
The upper rungs are where it gets interesting for a founder or an expert. Keynotes, workshops and coaching can sit right next to the book on the same page. One of our authors put keynotes and VIP days at the top of his ladder. I’ll walk you through his campaign below.
Offer 50, 100, or 150 copies for a team, a client base or a community. Jayson pushed hardest on a five-book bundle that he sold at a loss, on the logic that a reader keeps one copy and gives the other four away. He was optimizing for how many people would read the book, and the campaign reflected it.
Jayson didn’t run ads. What carried his campaign was a network of about 800 people he’d invested in over the years, asked one at a time, including a few who had raised a hand 18 months earlier. He’d also been sharing his progress almost daily for more than a year, so by the time he asked, people had watched him earn it.
Kickstarter is all or nothing, which is why the opening hours matter so much. Hitting your goal early locks in every pledge that follows, and by Kickstarter’s own numbers, 85% of publishing projects that pass 25 backers get funded.
Nearly every campaign I’ve seen has the same shape: a burst at launch, a long flat middle, and a surge at the end. My own campaign for Play for a Living looked exactly like that. Jayson’s did too. After he doubled his goal in the first day, it went quiet. Instead of panicking, he named a bigger goal in a newsletter he titled “The Goal I’ve Been Afraid to Say Out Loud,” put his energy into the final days, and got the surge.
Mike Brown is one of our authors. He’s a founder and a former F/A-18 pilot, and he ran a Kickstarter for his book, Be Rich Now, from August 18 to September 17. He cleared his $20,000 goal in the first few hours, and a few days in he was at $40,398 from 83 backers, more than double what he’d set out to raise. Kickstarter featured it as a “Projects We Love.”
The book anchored the bottom of his ladder, and his existing offers filled every rung above it: a $20 digital edition, bulk boxes of 50 to 150 copies, a membership, and at the top, a keynote or VIP day at $6,000 or $10,000. Four backers chose those top two tiers, worth $32,000 between them, roughly half of what he raised.
That ladder is why Mike’s average backer pledged $297, and Jayson’s pledged $385. The average pledge across Kickstarter publishing is $79. Compare that to the $15 a typical book buyer will spend on Amazon. With Kickstarter, these authors could offer readers more than a book, and their readers happily paid for it.
Like Jayson, Mike announced a bigger goal and pushed hard through the final hour. Three days in, with his goal already doubled, he posted in public: “We’re going for $100,000. Even typing that number feels hard.” And with less than an hour left, he was $700 away from $60,000. It closed at $65,406 from 220 backers, 327% of his goal.
Of course, results like theirs are not a guarantee. They both ran strong campaigns, and your results depend on your book’s positioning, your goals, your offers, the size and engagement of your network, and a healthy dose of luck. What they show is that the people who already trust you will often pay well before launch day, if you give them something they want to back.
This summer, my co-founder Miles started working with Kickstarter’s Head of Publishing. It’s since grown into a partnership. Our authors who are planning a campaign, or just considering one, now get guidance and support from Kickstarter’s publishing team along the way.
A Kickstarter pre-sale campaign is now an add-on to our Publish program. We build the campaign, the reward tiers and the launch plan with you, alongside the book, so they all come from the same table of contents and the same reader.
Every one of Jayson’s and Mike’s backers said yes to an idea before publication day.
If you’d like to launch your book on Kickstarter, my co-founder Miles would love to walk you through how it could work for you: the tiers, the timing, and how the campaign fits with the rest of your launch.
And if you know someone with a book in them, feel free to send this along.
Talk to Miles about KickstarterCopyright ©
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