The one area that authors seem to freeze over is marketing. It’s not a natural behavior. If done well it involves putting self last, not first. Even before direct involvement in marketing your book occurs, there are other options. This year I met Kickstarter, which provides opportunities for the public to find your project and participate in funding it. I had never heard about it until my publisher, Connie Taylor at Fathom Publishing, asked if I’d want to do one. It looked complex, labor intensive. Yet the idea was fascinating. Why would anyone go there in the first place, and once there, why would anyone participate in funding a project? Yet, people do go there. In large numbers.
I don’t freeze over marketing. I actually love talking to people about my books. But then I was lucky enough decades ago to have been sent to Xerox’s Professional Selling Skills course. That has been a treat for more than just selling, so I didn’t walk into the marketing arena with no clue how to interest someone in my books.
The partial answer as to why people would go to this site just to look around is that the projects provide rewards for funding, frequently different rewards for different levels of funding. Some rewards are really great or unique. Of course, there’s the idea of philanthropy. And then, people have individual reasons which make sense to them. A lot of projects I see draw me in as intriguing.
Connie took the lead, for she’d funded projects and knew the site, but she’d never done one. I was a totally ignorant raw recruit. Our collaboration came up with our Kickstarter page, and it was published today. It’ll run for 30 days. It was fun! Imagine showing someone how an illustration in your book is made – or – how an enamel pin is made. It was not horribly complex and labor intensive. Each of us added our strengths to the mix, enjoying the effort. It reaches out to people our marketing wouldn’t ever touch, and it runs 24/7 for 30 days. It can run longer, but we want that finished up when the book is launched, and the book’s just about ready to launch. When I found the fossil dinosaur walking, my enthusiasm for the initial video grew by adding the surprise, fun factor. I realized the project could be fun, and it was.
The Kickstarter page is used for numbers of projects, only one of which is to help get books out there. Authors might find this an exciting funding source, if they haven’t already discovered it. I have no clue how our approach will do, but we’re about to find out. To take a peek at ours look below:
To see the video on Kickstarter click here.
