Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

Why So Many??

Got That Question the Other Day…

Why have I done so many Kickstarters? Done 44 of them, working right now on building #45.

My honest answer. I like to get my books and Kris’s books and our projects to readers. That simple. And here in 2024, that is the first step in telling readers what is available.

Just as with any kind of promotion, Kickstarters take time to build up followers, but first question I always ask someone who is complaining about book sales is have they done a Kickstarter? Answer is almost always no. Fear.  Too busy. Too much work. All the reasons for the answer “no.”

And when someone complains about only making $300 to $500 on a campaign, I ask them if that was $500 in sales and readers they would have gotten anywhere else before the book was even published. And also how many campaigns have they done?

Kickstarter now has two or three full-time people in the publishing area to help writers and publishers. And the publishing category has the largest Kickstarter ever done. We just finished a beautiful campaign last week with stunning art and fun stuff in it for the Holiday Spectacular.

And over the years for various reasons, we have done some clunkers. And done some experiments that were great and others that failed. That is the fun of indie publishing. Freedom to win and to fail and try again.

And when you hear of a friend or young author trying a campaign, give it a look and back it if the book or project is something you might like. It does not take many people to really make a project come alive for a writer.

GIVE THE GIFT…

Here today in the Learning Section of this blog, I’m announcing something really fun in workshops on Teachable. We are calling it “Give the Gift of Learning.”

It is stunningly simple. If you buy any workshop or class or subscription on WMG Teachable, we will give a second one of your choice at an equal or lesser value to anyone you pick. And we will deliver it to them at the time of your choosing, including Christmas Day, with a note from you and directions on how to get the class or workshop and a code to get in.

Note: This includes all Lifetime Subscriptions, including Lifetime Everything Subscription. It includes EVERYTHING on WMG Teachable.

If you are a Lifetime Everything Subscription, you can buy a workshop or class and we will send out two gifts from you to writers you pick.

HERE IS HOW IT WORKS… 

Simply go to WMG Teachable  and buy any class or workshop or lecture or Pop-Up you would like to take yourself and then you can give one of equal or lesser value to a friend.

We will contact you the next day to ask who you would like The Gift of Learning to go to and which class, when you would like it delivered, and what would you like to say on a gift note.

How is that for easy holiday shopping?

And it starts right now. Questions, write me directly.

FUN STUFF…

A really fun picture from a few years ago of Kris going past me right before the finish line of a fun run at Sunset Park here in Las Vegas. That look of satisfaction on her face is priceless.

On Thanksgiving morning, very early, we are headed out to a park on the outskirts of town to do another fun charity run. I will be walking because the course on this one is very rough and one smashed-up shoulder in a lifetime is more than enough for me, thank you very much.

Then it looks like we are coming home and I am cooking Thanksgiving dinner as I have done every year since I was 23. Yikes that is 51 years. And Kris will be doing her famous pies and we will have fun as we always do.

So expect pictures of all that craziness. And if you haven’t seen the pictures of our last “run” on Kris’s Facebook page, take a look at the picture of me crossing the finish line with a cup of hot chocolate in my hand. Now that’s the way to support a charity.

4 Comments

  • James Palmer

    Kickstarter is an absolute game-changer and a major part of my writing and publishing business going forward. My last campaign raised $4,102. Any writer not doing Kickstarters at this point is leaving money on the table. I’m trying to adjust my production schedule to culminate in quarterly Kickstarter campaigns.

  • Michael W Lucas

    Ditto on the Kickstarter. I thought they were silly, but tried one with a disposable book. It worked. I did another.

    I Kickstarted six figures this year, overwhelmingly from new readers.

    Do a very simple video: thirty seconds of saying who you are and what you do. Give away a couple backlist titles or short stories as stretch goals. Write the project story in the same voice as your book.

  • Brad D. Sibbersen

    Yup, Four Kickstarters in and I’m hooked. The last one didn’t fund (in large part due to our promotion cycle being interuptted by TWO hurricanes in a row), but I still got a couple of people added to the mailing list and lots of folks now know the book is coming, sooner or later, so that’s still a win. So even a loss = a win. You just can’t beat that.

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