Kickstarter for Authors 📖 Tips & Tricks for Crowdfunding Your Novel Campaign | Shipping | Marketing

Hello and welcome back! ❤️ Today we're discussing Kickstarter for authors. We're talking about what Kickstarter and other crowfunding sites are, tips and tricks for running your campaign (what to do and not to do, pricing project levels, the project we love category, backerkit, and more), as well as a bit of marketing and shipping. If you have questions, I'd love to hear them in the comments, and if we get enough I may do a q&a video. Enjoy the video! 😊
Check out the Kickstarter!
www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
Chapters:
00:00 | Intro
01:43 | What the Heck is Kickstarter Anyway?
03:32 | 12 Tips & Tricks for Running Your Campaign
18:14 | Shipping is Terrifying, Please Help
21:16 | How to Price Kickstarter Levels
23:32 | Outro
24:16 | Bloopers
🏔 Under the Earth, Over the Sky
Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B0B665Q5KR
Audible: www.audible.com/pd/Under-the-...
Elsewhere: books2read.com/u/3RLRRn
Goodreads: / under-the-earth-over-t...
Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
🌙 Read In Dying Starlight!
Amazon: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B...
Website: indyingstarlight.com/
RoyalRoad: www.royalroad.com/fiction/489...
🌲 All the Woods She Watches Over: Stories & Poems
Amazon: amzn.to/3ey9ayY
Goodreads page: bit.ly/2NAqnMh
Promo images: imgur.com/a/xdp1FVB
Newsletter: eepurl.com/gDBKKL
Don't forget to LIKE & SUBSCRIBE. I'd love to hear from you in the COMMENTS. Ask questions, say hello!
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TIKTOK: / emilymccosh
INSTAGRAM: / emily_mccosh
AUTHOR NEWSLETTER: subscribepage.io/xXgbqF
WRITING WEBSITE: www.oceansinthesky.com/
DESIGN WEBSITE: www.emilymccoshdesigns.com/
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No Copyright Music:
Kevin MacLeod - "Carpe Diem"
l u v t e a (acoustic revisit) - autumn keys

[@mikelee581]

Thanks Emily! Not an author but looking to kickstart my artwork but have no idea where to start and overall just overwhelmed by well, everything. Just became homeless and I've been working around trying to build a business model around my art. Thanks for the straight forward and simple info! Wish me luck!

[@kate_dee]

Just read, I wish you all the best and total success in what you want to achieve. Are you on Insta? Share your @

[@heathermattern]

This was so helpful!! I’m so excited. Thank you!!

[@EmilyMcCosh]

Thank you!!

[@sharonjanethague7181]

Great! Very interesting.Thank you!

[@EmilyMcCosh]

Thank you! :D

[@sheeva3.0]

Thanks for sharing queen!

[@JadeJuniiper]

Dude… this information was so useful and well laid out. THANK YOU.

[@EmilyMcCosh]

Thank you, I'm so glad!!

[@RebeccaKSampson]

Really helpful! Thank you Emily!

[@EmilyMcCosh]

Thank you!!

[@C.O.C_SQUAD]

This is one of the best Kickstarter advice videos I've seen. Thank you!

[@EmilyMcCosh]

Thank you!!

[@Iamjayreace]

Thank you so much. This was so helpful and I can’t wait to start mine. Best of luck on all your next ones

[@EmilyMcCosh]

Thank you!!

[@gfunk425]

Really great video Emily! Thinking about creating a highlevel onepage runbook on the process.

[@EmilyMcCosh]

Thanks!

[@SeriouslySirius1066]

I’ve been struggling to promote my campaign. I’m working on my first book and I started my campaign to help pay for things. But recently my financial situation has been getting worse, I desperately need support!

[@bryanthewriter]

Thank you for this excellent breakdown. I am just looking into doing my first kickstarter campaign and you gave some great advice.

[@EmilyMcCosh]

Thank you, glad I could help! :D

[@judyprescottmarshall4713]

Fabulous! Great advice, thank you. Judy Prescott Marshall, Author.

[@khdur]

I didn't realize it was out. Very excited for you and looking forward to ordering, reading (re-reading), and referring. 😃

[@EmilyMcCosh]

Thank you, hope you love it! :D

[@khdur]

@@EmilyMcCosh I'm sure I will...and I'll write a review. I've been missing your channel and so glad I scanned my subscriptions today. Thanks Emily!

[@oracleofaltoona]

New to Kickstarter. This is the best video I’ve seen yet to give an overview for someone like me who is new to the subject. i’m actually taking notes. Thank you so much for your information.😊 editing this to add a question: when you talk about charging for shipping after the fact, who do you charge? The person who has donated? Then they’re going to get another charge? I don’t think anybody would appreciate that. How does that work?

[@EmilyMcCosh]

Thank you, I'm so glad it's helpful!! To your shipping question: yes, you're charging the backer shipping the same as someone on Amazon or anywhere else online would be charged shipping. Some people charge it directly through Kickstarter, some through Backerkit, and some just make the levels more expensive to cover the shipping. I find Backerkit is the most accurate because you can charge shipping by country. Either way, everyone does charge shipping. 😊 On my campaign (and I see a lot of others do this as well) I have a section where I explain that shipping will be charged later and remind people that the more books they buy, the more expensive shipping will be because it goes up by weight. Shipping is just kind of an unfortunate thing you have to deal with, I don't like charging it and backers don't like paying it, but if you don't charge for it somewhere, you'll not only lose most of your profit trying to pay for it, you might lose money out of pocket. It feels like a big scary thing, but Backerkit makes it very easy, and most people who back Kickstarters are very used to it. As long as you're up front and remind people that your going to charge after, I've never gotten any complaints. And if someone is really upset about shipping, you can offer to refind them instead, but that's a very rare occasion. Sorry that was long winded, but I know shipping is the scariest part of the process, so I wanted to be thorough. ❤

[@oracleofaltoona]

@@EmilyMcCosh Thank you so much for your comprehensive info. Yes, I can see that if you inform people up front that will go a long way toward making your backers/donors feel ok with that . 😊

[@EmilyMcCosh]

@@oracleofaltoona Yes! :D

[@JoeyPaulOnline]

Really liked this, never done kick-starter but liked hearing the ins and outs for it!

[@EmilyMcCosh]

Thank you!! ❤

[@JoshuaDunlopConceptArtist]

Thanks for this video Emily. I'm planning a kickstarter for my art book in the UK and the VAT is confusing the heck outta me. My plan was to just warn people they would be paying extra in their respective countries but I've read that that can put people off. I'm just one guy, not a business or anything so trying to figure out VAT is blowing my mind :(

[@EmilyMcCosh]

Hi! I've done that with both my previous campaigns (and this current one as well) and I havne't gotten a complaint. As long as you're upfront about it, you should be fine. Many international backers are accustomed to those fines and many returning Kickstarter backers will expect it. Also, Backerkit makes international shipping very easy, they have easy forms you fill out for VAT that are automatically generated, so they're very helpful!

[@JoshuaDunlopConceptArtist]

@@EmilyMcCosh I'm not sure Backerkit works great in the UK? Seems very US focused but I'll look into it. So just to clarify (sorry haha), you didn't take the VAT at any point, you just sent the book and they were contacted by their countries postal service that they need to pay the fees before their book got delivered? Was there a time limit on something like that, like, if they forget or something, did you get any books returned to you and you had to send them out again? As simple as that option is, I can see things going wrong :/ (Thank you for all the advice by the way it means a lot!)

[@EmilyMcCosh]

@@JoshuaDunlopConceptArtist Yes, that's what I did! I shockingly didn't get any returns, but what I've seen other people do is make a note in their kickstarter saying that if you don't pick up your package and it gets returned, you're responsible for paying to get it re-shipped.

[@JoshuaDunlopConceptArtist]

@@EmilyMcCosh Thats great thank you, you have been super helpful!

[@1QueenMovie]

Thank you for giving your tips and advice. I've been thinking about using kickstarter for my book series but doing research etc. When it comes to backkit, how do you add it to your kickstarter? Do you manually activate it when it's time? Thank you

[@EmilyMcCosh]

Hi! When you sign up for Backerkit, usually after the campaign has launched or is over, it lets you integrate with Kickstarter and imports a lot of the information. You also have to manually add in some stuff, but it's fairly easy. Backerkit has a lot of video tutorials if you need!

[@AR-mu4zq]

It would take some time once the campaign is done to then order your print on demand fullfillment. How much time did it take to get those orders to your home at which point you shipped them directly? Thank you for answering and wow thats alot of work!

[@EmilyMcCosh]

Hmmmm, it's hard to remember. But I know it took a few weeks for the shipment to get to me, and that was after I got the proofs!

[@ewes824]

Hi Emily, do authors need to have a large following to start a kickstarter? Do you mind sharing what % of your backers where your dedicated fans

[@EmilyMcCosh]

I'm not sure I had any dedicated fans when I launched my first! I had a few hundred followers on youtube and a few thousand on tiktok which isn't much on that app, I just continued to market it there as the campaign was going!

[@jennysoapdish4502]

Do you recommend Kickstarter or Indiegogo for comics with ADULT CONTENT?

[@EmilyMcCosh]

I would imagine so. I've seen lots of NSFW comics on Kickstarter, you can search the site and find out!

[@parmanasanov9301]

Hello! May I apply to Kickstarter to translate my book into English?

[@EmilyMcCosh]

Kickstarter is more like a storefront, you have to offer rewards, so as long as you're doing that, you may be able to run a campaign for a book translation. I'd recommend searching Kickstarter to see what other people have done!