← The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
Kickstarter For Authors With Oriana Leckert
00:56:38
How can you use Kickstarter to help bring your creative vision into reality? What are some of the biggest mistakes authors make? What are some tips to ensure your campaign is a success? Oriana Leckert shares her expertise. In the intro,
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- [00:01]
Joanna Penn
Welcome to the Creative Pen Podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, craft and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots more@thecreativepenn.com and that's Pen with a double N. And here's the show. Hello creatives. I'm Johanna Penn and this is episode number 796 of the podcast and it is actually Monday the 24th of February 2025 as I record this just before it goes out, which is the latest I think I've ever recorded it as I have been ill More about that in the personal section in today's show. I'm talking about Kickstarter for Authors with Orianna Leckert who is the Director of Publishing at Kickstarter. So she knows what she's talk so how can you use Kickstarter to help bring your creative vision into reality? What are some of the biggest mistakes authors make? What are some tips to ensure your campaign is a success? Oriana shares her expertise coming up in the Interview section in writing and publishing things well, it is finally happening. AI narrated audiobooks from 11 Labs will now be accepted on Spotify through findawayvoices.com now this is exciting as 11 Labs have great voices and many authors have not been able to produce audiobooks before because of the cost. So this will make a real difference. Plus this means more accessible books for those who can't read print or ebook, plus more accessible books for people who speak different languages where the audiobook ecosystem is not so developed as the English language. So there are many reasons more audio is important to many of us. So why does this particular thing matter? Because AI knows narration has obviously now been around for a few years. This is not a new thing. Well, making high quality AI narrated audiobooks doesn't matter if you can't sell them or distribute them. Now indie authors have been using ElevenLabs for a while and could sell the files direct so on their Shopify stores or payhip or whatever or also put them on YouTube or sell them on Kobo or Google Play Audio but the distribution was limited to those platforms. You could load Google autonaration files to Spotify, but the quality wasn't as good as Elevenlabs and the not as varied voices. Now you can put your AI narrated audiobooks through ElevenLabs onto Spotify, get subscription revenue or a la carte sales and the files will also be available on other platforms that accept those and this will definitely put pressure on Audible to expand as well. Audible's own AI narration program is still invite only us only still in beta. Not sure what it's been doing for like a year, but not something I've been able to try. You can make the files on 11 labs and then upload them on Findaway Voices. You have to do this particular LPF file and it will then distribute them. There's a tutorial on my Patreon at the Creative Pen and I also have an affiliate link for ElevenLabs. So if you'd like to support the show at no extra cost to you and you want to try it, go to thecreativepen.com elevenlabs that is the word Eleven Labs. You can also listen to a short story I did because I did a bit of testing for them with a male narrator and my own cloned voice for the author's note. So if you look for a Midwinter Sacrifice by J.F. penn on Spotify, I'll link to it in the show Notes. That's a Midwinter Sacrifice by J.F. penn. And there are two versions. One is the version I originally narrated, so human me narrated and the other one is a Mal AI voice with other voices for the characters. It is my first multi voice production. It's very small, it's about 20 minutes of the story and then I come in, my AI cloned voice comes in to do the author's note and love to know what you think of my voice clone. It is an audiobook clone, so it's cloned from my audiobook narration, which of course is not the same as my podcast voice. So people have said oh, it doesn't sound like you're podcasting. And I'm like yeah, but podcasting is different to audiobook narration. If you listen to me narrate audiobooks, it doesn't sound like this with audiobook narration. It's just, you know, a little different. So anyway, I think this will probably be the tipping point for AI narrated audio. It is a double edged sword. Of course I am a human narrator and I obviously want to still do my own narration. I think we need do need to support humans, but I also know how much audio is not even available in audio because of the expense. So it is going to be cheaper and easier to make, but there will be a lot more of it. So yes, I think that will change the way audiobook revenue is. As ever, there are pros and cons of every technological shift on other publishing things. Bookvault have introduced box sets and slip cases which they have been talking about for a while but is now available now. The term box set can be confusing since indie authors including me have been using the term for digital bundles in one file for a long time, but we're actually talking about a physical product here. There is a blog post, I'll link to it in the show notes. That's at BookVault app. They say box sets are designed to house multiple books in a custom printed, high quality box. Whether you are creating a series bundle, a special edition collection or a limited release, box sets add a professional polished presentation to your books. A slip case is a protective sleeve for a single book designed to enhance its look while providing durability. This is ideal for special editions, high end releases or anniversary prints, ensuring your book stands out as a premium product. Both options are fully customizable, allowing you to match your design, branding and style preferences. Add a box set the same way you would upload a title to bookvault through the portal. So I know lots of people want this for Kickstarters and direct sales, so check that out at bookvault app. I also wanted to point you to Becca Syme who has some great new episodes on her Quitcast, which is on YouTube and also on the audio podcast feeds. Wherever you're listening to this, the theme is on four pillars of a sustainable author career and includes managing your attention, your finances, your health and more. And she's giving lots of tips. I'm going to pick a few from the finances one. The first one is understand what phase you're in and this is so important in many different ways in many parts of our life. But certainly if you want to run any kind of business because finances when you start out as an author you don't make a profit from day one. You need to invest in certain things and obviously some businesses take years to make a profit. Now we are super lucky as we don't need much to run our businesses and the costs are pretty low. We need a laptop and an Internet connection that is for sure. You cannot just do this with a paper and pencil anymore, but the rest is certainly negotiable. Although I would still argue for professional editing, book cover design and an email list. Definitely both of all of which I pay for. But if you have one book, an email list of a hundred people or no email list at all, and no experience with marketing and no desire to do any marketing, how can you expect to make a profit? However, if you are a decade in, you've got lots of books, a big email list and years of marketing experience then you should be making a profit. And if you're not, it's time to evaluate the business. Are you overspending on things that don't bring you a return on investment? Which brings up another evaluate for value to your business. If you have multiple subscriptions and who doesn't at this point? Do you need them all? One of my big tips here is only ever subscribe for a month at a time. Don't fall for the cheaper annual plans unless you know you are definitely going to keep using that tool. There are so many subscriptions I try for a few months and then I let go. Also increase your financial security. Consider part time work to take the strain off your book income and have other writing related income that is not book sales. So Kevin J. Anderson a few episodes ago has been writing for like four decades or something and called this writing adjacent income, which I like. This is my business too and that includes my Patreon, the corporate sponsors for this podcast. And of course I also invest outside of the industry.
- [08:56]
Orianna Leckert
So yes, lots of tips there.
- [08:58]
Joanna Penn
And Becca also has episodes on managing your attention and your health. And as ever, Becca is very wise and a great coach. She's been on the show several times and those episodes are on her quitcast, available wherever you're listening to this. So in personal news, I was on the End of Life University podcast this week talking about how to write non fiction books with Karen Wyatt who will also be back on this show soon. While we discuss some difficult subjects around death and dying, the main focus of the show is on tips for how to write your non fiction book, including the different kinds of non fiction books, identifying your reader, overcoming imposter syndrome, editing and more. So check out that at End of Life University podcast wherever you're listening to this and actually on how to write nonfiction which is out everywhere now. If you have found the book useful, a review would be super useful either on Amazon or Goodreads in particular since at the moment because I do so many direct sales, one of the downsides of direct sales is that you now need to get reviews on the other stores. So yes, if you have enjoyed how to write non fiction that would be much appreciated. So a week ago I was in Berlin at the film market. It did turn out to be a short trip as I got sick, one of the many types of flu going around right now. Now I think I must have actually got sick in the arrivals hall because the we were in the arrivals hall for longer than the plane flight and there was a delay for many Hours due to various reasons. I got arrived there on the Friday night late, was in the fair on the Saturday and had meetings and stuff. And then Sunday morning I woke up and I was sick and I was like, I need to get home before this gets worse. So I headed home early. But it was enough to be at the film market for like a day and a half to get a sense of things. And it's always valuable to see these things. Like London Book Fair, the Berlin film market is for those in the industry to do deals. Now London Book Fair now has a kind of, I guess the sub fair for authors. And there, there is a lot of stuff for authors at London Book Fair. But the Berlin film market does not have any kind of sub fair for screenwriters. And though there were some there, I did meet some people. But it's mostly to sell films or books into other markets. So if you've made a film, you go to Berlin and you have meetings and you try and get it into distribution into other part parts of the world. And that was what was so interesting to me, that the distribution for film is just not like it is for books in terms of it is not. I mean, you can obviously put things onto Vimeo or YouTube, but you're not necessarily going to make a ton of revenue. So I think it was very interesting to learn about the business of film. I learned the short version is extremely hard, it's very expensive and it takes a lot to get things moving. Most projects don't seem to get made. Many of them don't make much money. And in fact, I can't work out how many people make money in the film industry. Personally, I heard the words deferred payment and shares in the production company, which to my ears mean you won't get paid. Or you might get paid, but it will take years and you'll have to work for free until then. And so after the conversations I had and my experience in the market itself, I know that I don't want to be involved in development or production, at least at this point under those terms. Now I'm really enjoying writing scripts though. So I'm almost finished the Neo Viking supernatural thriller I'm currently adapting and I will see if I can get an option on that. I've also started the adaptation of Death Valley, which isn't even out yet. And I'm enjoying doing that process and I can see how it's going to improve my writing around dialogue and story beats. And I plan to option the scripts if I can, but that is it. I Want to option them and then wave goodbye. It's very common for producers to bring in other writers anyway. And so I will let it go. The script go safe in the knowledge I own and control the underlying ip, the book. And this seems to be the biggest bugbear for screenwriters, and I've spoken to quite a few about this. They sell their screenplays, they never get made. They lose that idea. But for us as authors, we have that idea already written. And as an indie author, I own and control my rights. The screenplay is a different intellectual property assets. It's an adaptation of the original. And if I can do that too, then that's very cool. So I'm so grateful for our business model and the fact that we love books and the book is the first thing we do, and then the adaptation is a separate thing. I'm sure there are people listening who write a script first and then adapt a script to a novel. I don't think I would ever be able to do that. Certainly not now. So I'm really glad I went to Berlin, even though I got sick. If you saw the pictures on Instagram, fpv PEN author, you'll see that it was snowing. It was very beautiful in Berlin. I did manage to have a little walk. The fair is quite central, so I had a little walk up to the Brandenburg Gate and around there. So, yeah, I learned some valuable lessons about what side of the industry I want to remain on. And it is so important to know what you want and what you don't want in terms of your author business and your life, of course, but only your author business is related to this show. So then I got back and I was in bed and resting a lot. And, yeah, some kind of fluid thing. You know how that goes. By Saturday, I recovered. Mostly I was still. I knew I was still on the edge of it, but I recovered and I wasn't sneezing or coughing, so I felt like it was fine to go. And I did a half day author fair at the Bath library with about 20 other authors. And it was wonderful in so many ways. I met lots of listeners and patrons. Thank you for coming. Thank you for buying my books. And I signed lots of books. And thank you for the gift, Abby, which was lovely. I also got to chat with author friends and others I hadn't met before. I went on a local podcast, which was kind of random. Now, if you've listened to the episode with Mark Leslie Lefebvre a few months ago on Tips for Selling in Person, I did not have a banner. I did not have a card payment system, so I wasn't fully prepared. I did take cash, but I did have books, I had business cards, I did have a tablecloth. So I and I did make an effort. And there are some pictures again on Instagram @jfpenauthor if you want to have a look. So was it worth it? Yes. I was really happy to support the library and I donated some books as well. And here in the UK we get these sort of micro payments through the ALCs, through these sort of public lending schemes where we get a small amount if someone borrows a book from the library, which is cool. So I would definitely do it again next year if they if they run it again. And it did remind me. And a lot of the people who came said they love doing in person stuff and I thought, okay, I should do more of this. But it did take a lot out of me and I didn't stop talking to people for about four or five hours. So it was good. But it was also exhausting. So I spent yesterday in bed having a bit of a relapse. And of course this is the trade off between pushing the comfort zone, potentially getting ill. And I know that's a lot more serious for some people than it is for me. But getting ill is never a great option. But if we never go anywhere, maybe we never get ill, but also we never find the opportunities that may come to us. And I definitely have pushed my comfort zone in the last couple of weeks. I've learned a lot. I may have pushed it a little too far, but I am still at the point of wanting to keep pushing. So my question for you today, I guess is when is it worth it to push your comfort zone? How are you weighing that up in your mind? So thanks for your emails and comments and photos this week on YouTube. Dararites said on Marissa's interview, I love the optimism in this episode. Reading the Lunar Chronicles inspired me to write sci fi fusion novels. Going to investigate selling direct Fantastic ogicalinsanity also on YouTube said just found your podcast. It's fantastic. I'm a newbie writer and just eating it up. Welcome. And it always makes me smile when people find the podcast newly now since it's been going since 2009 and in fact somebody on Saturday said they're currently going through the backlist and I'm like part of me is quite embarrassed about the backlist because obviously I was a very different person back when I started the show in 2009. And if you listen backwards you're kind of going backwards in my timeline, which is, which is kind of strange. But yes, welcome whenever you join the show. C.J. edmonds on X sent a photo. I think it's from the Philippines. Sunday morning the podcast keeping me company on my morning walk jog, enjoying the episode with Kevin J. Anderson and Andy sent pictures listening in New Hampshire my walking roots while listening to the show. It's the coldest winter in 10 years with plenty of snow and ice and sent some beautiful snowy scenes. So please leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes at the creative pen.com or on the YouTube channel or message me on X at the Creative Pen and it was interesting. This week Stephen King came back to X, which is good. He's always been an active twee. Email me, send me pictures of where you're listening. JoannaTheCreativePenn.com I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation. This episode is sponsored by my patrons@patreon.com TheCreativePen thanks to the 17 new patrons who've joined this week and thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. If you join the community, you get access to all my backlist videos and audio covering topics on writing, craft and author business, as well as tutorials and demos on AI tools and my Patreon and only Q and A solo episodes. The latest is coming this week. And yes, this week I shared a post on using OpenAI's deep research function. And then the week before I did the 11 Labs tutorial on how to do an audiobook. The Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. You get access to everything, all the backlist content, Q&As, office hours, everything. So if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon.com P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com TheCreativePenn Right, let's get into the interview.
- [19:37]
Orianna Leckert
Orianna Leckert is the head of publishing at Kickstarter, as well as an author, freelance writer, editor and consultant.
- [19:45]
Joanna Penn
So welcome to the show.
- [19:46]
Orianna Leckert
Orianna Jill, I'm so excited to be here talking with you. Thank you so much for having me.
- [19:50]
Oh yeah, it's great to have you on the show. So first up, just in case, what is Kickstarter for anyone who doesn't know, and what is your role there and how did you become involved in the publishing side of things, Absolutely.
- [20:03]
So Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform. We are unique in the crowdfunding landscape for a few reasons. We are only for creative projects. So you can't use Kickstarter for medical bills, investment funding, charitable donations. Every project has to create something new to share with the world. Kickstarter is also a public benefit corporation, which is a sort of legal and business charter that turns us basically into a mission driven for profit organization. So our mission is to bring creative projects to life. That's really everything we do comes back to bringing more creativity into the world through that structure. We are also quite a progressive company. We do 5% after tax profit donations every year to organizations fighting systemic inequality and doing music and arts education. We are very transparent about our tax contributions. The salary difference between our CEO and the median staff salary. Yeah. So we do all sorts of things that make us what I believe is like a really ethical place to be and a force for hopefully good in the world. My role is head of publishing. So I've been a Kickstarter six years, which is the longest I've been in any company. Actually, I came here to grow our journalism category at the very end of 2018. And I have done journalism, I've done comics, I've done publishing. It sort of unexpected to me is the best job I've ever had, which is slightly corny, but worth saying. I can't believe I get to do this work all the time. My background is about half and half digital media and traditional publishing. So I've spent most of my career fully focused on books and the written word in one way or another. I generally describe my job here as one part literary industry expert, one part crowdfunding consultant, and one part life coach and one part cheerleader. So those are the various roles I get to play for my creators. And I also get to be out in the world all the time doing wonderful things like this. Just kind of talking about Kickstarter and helping people get a better understanding of what it's for, how you can use it. The benefit for authors and creative people of all stripes.
- [22:07]
Oh, that's great. And you are a cheerleader. I love your energy. You bring such a great energy.
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Joanna Penn
Thank.
- [22:13]
Orianna Leckert
And yeah, I do feel like Kickstarter obviously is a company. It does have that very creative feel. So I really appreciate that. But I've also met you a couple of times in Vegas over the last few years and so I thought we'd start there. Like, what have you seen in terms of the changes in the author community over the last few years and what are the types of campaigns that authors do? Obviously, we're not all Brandon Sanderson.
- [22:37]
Yeah, no, that's a great question. It's been. Been pretty exciting. So I was hired by Margo Atwell, who held this role also for five or six years, and I really see a pretty strong through line from her work to mine. The amount of change in perception from authors, publishers, illustrators toward Kickstarter, the shift has been absolutely massive. I mean, certainly when Margot started and even when I started, there was a lot of sort of bewilderment, hedging toward, you know, distrust. And people thought Kickstarter was just for, like, desperate people who couldn't get a book deal through the traditional systems. And it really has. The change has been so dramatic of people understanding that Kickstarter can be transformative for an author's career and that it can work for traditional publishing, indie publishing, hybrid publishing, all kinds of authors. There's really. So, I mean, obviously I'm in the bag for Kickstarter, but there are so many ways that it can be tremendously helpful. Kickstarter is really about collapsing the boundaries between a writer and their readers, a publisher and their fan base, any creative person and their audience. And there's so many benefits to doing that. You get to really thrill your backers with new and exciting rewards. You get to turn what can be a sort of not boring, but like just a standard book release into a moment. You get to build your brand, your profile, get press. You get to test out ambitious projects. You get to understand, you know, so much more about your audience and what they want and how you can give it to them. So, yeah, going to shows like Author Nation, formerly 20Books, was a real revelation for me. Margot's work was mostly concentrated on the traditional publishing industry and sort of getting to know the people who are really driving forward indie publishing and self publishing and owning their own author careers. And it's been really marvelous getting to make a lot of inroads into that world and seeing the great success that people can have on our platform and outside of it.
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You mentioned there that you can thrill backers with new and exciting rewards, but I feel like many people listening might not even know what kind of rewards they would do, because the word reward, it's quite a different word if people haven't been involved with Kickstarter. So for. For an author, what are the kind of rewards that people are doing?
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I love that question because to me, the rewards are really, like, at the heart of the Kickstarter proposition. And what makes this kind of fundraising so interesting and kind of thrilling? Basically, Kickstarter, your, your process is you're saying you're inviting people on a creative journey. You're saying, I'm gonna make this cool thing, I want your support, and in exchange you're gonna get stuff, you're gonna get to be part of my process. So obviously your main reward is going to be your book or your series or if you're a publishing company, your season, whatever it is, that's your main tier. And then you're gonna build everything else out above and below that. And then a lot of people think the rewards means swag, no merch, which I don't. You know, it's fine. But merch can really be. It adds a lot to your production costs. It's causing you to like learn how to produce all kinds of things that maybe you've never done before. And so that's not the only way to do it. If you're going to do some merch, I think it's nice to come up with some, some custom items that feel really related to the work that you're doing. If you've got a romance novel with a pivotal scene on the beach, maybe you'd make some candles that smell like the ocean, maybe you do some kind of handkerchief that's printed with the pattern of the dress that your heroine is wearing. But you can really think beyond merch into digital rewards, experiential rewards. There's a lot of parts of the writing process that can be sort of like pulled out and packing, packaged as rewards. Things like notes from the field, outtakes, deleted scenes. I've had people write bloopers, you know, as if it were like a comedy movie, like added new scenes or novellas, other pieces from different works that you've done, certainly your backlist and other books that you've written, those can all be included. We've seen people do tours of the writer's studio, things like that. Also think about what skills you have in addition to your writing. Perhaps, perhaps you are excellent at marketing or social media or poetry. You can offer webinars on those sorts of things, other kinds of ways that people can experience the sort of creative practice that you have. And then you can get into like high end, exclusive, one off, crazy rewards. One whole section of rewards I love is naming rights. We've seen all kinds of. We'll name the dragon after your dog, we'll name the illness after your mother in law, we'll name the hero after your son, there's a litRPG novelist named Matt Dinnemann, who. He does. He did this really well. He writes these sort of, like, big cast. You know, there's dungeons, and you're in an intergalactic reality TV show with hundreds of characters. And so in his last campaign, for $666, he will kill you off in his next book. And for $777, he'd let you live. He'll write a whole scene around you personally and that sort of thing. Yeah, so those are just some. I mean, you can also do book release parties, you can do book clubs. If you're writing children's books, you can do coloring pages or supplemental material for teachers or other educators. The sky is really the limit, and it is based on your creativity and the things that both you can make and that your audience wants. So this is another opportunity. Talk to them, ask them, if I'm gonna do a piece of swag. Would you rather have an enamel pin or a makeup bag? You know, if I'm going to do alternate covers, would you like the blue cover or the red cover? See what your people are interested in and then figure out whether it's possible for you to deliver it to them.
- [28:27]
Wow. So many ideas there. And I feel like this is part of the game, is that if you. If someone's listening and they're like, oh, that sounds great, well, you need to get on Kickstarter and start backing things and understanding how it works.
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Joanna Penn
Right.
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Orianna Leckert
Because it's quite different. People think, oh, it's just like an Amazon or whatever. It's just not.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. And that's the perfect. My number one piece of advice for anyone who's even a little bit Kickstarter curious. Get on the site and back some projects, even just for a buck or two. Follow the creators out in the world. Watch what people are doing. I often say this, but I am an expert in Kickstarter because I stare at Kickstarter all day long. And you too can stare at Kickstarter all day long. You can follow everybody. You can look at what people have done and what's worked and what hasn't. Find all the best tricks, steal them for your own imitation being the highest form of flattery and all that. It is absolutely the best way to get good at Kickstarter. Just like, you know, immerse yourself in this, like, strange and lovely world and see how everybody else is doing it and do it better.
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And I mean, I now buy a lot of just ebooks. I mean, I buy A lot of beautiful print with foil and all this. But I also just buy ebooks and so. And they're kind of a similar price as you might get on some of the other platforms. So people can do that. I think you mentioned the book being the main offering and people might think, well, that's the paperback. But you can do ebook, you can do audiobook, you can do bundles, you can do series, as you said. So there's so many options. So obviously things have changed over the last few years, but have you got any numbers on, I guess, how big the Kickstarter industry is now with publishing or anything you can share around that?
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Yeah, I would love to tell you. So first I'll tell you Kickstarter overall, by the numbers in our. Since our inception, there have been 273,000 projects funded. Eight and a half billion with a b billion dollars pledged from more than 24 million backers. In publishing specifically, we've had 69,000 projects launched, 3.2 million unique backers, and over $380 million pledged to campaigns. I have lots of other stats, but a few things I'll share. The publishing category has grown year over year, every year since 2017 in terms of number of projects launched, number of projects successful, and the overall percent of success rate there has never been a dip since, for, you know, since, what did I say? 2017. So for over a decade. Another stat that I really love about the publishing category. If you look at campaigns that have at least 25 backers, the overall success rate is 84%. I think that's really telling because 25 backers, that's like a little bit more than your mom, your best friend, the folks who are essentially obligated to support anything that you do. So if you can get a little bit beyond that sort of inner circle, your chances of succeeding on the platform are tremendously high. Another thing that I wanted to call out, I just got some new numbers around this. The average backing amount per backer across the whole category has nearly doubled since 2020. So we used to see an average backing around 20, I'm sorry, around $40. And it's currently at $72 per backer. I think this is clearly around the trend of special and deluxe editions, but it's a great indication that the backer behavior on Kickstarter is just very different than sort of your general book buying public. People don't come here looking for 99 cent ebook books. You know, the lowest bargain basement prices. Folks are really willing to pay more because they understand that this is a different kind. It's not exactly a purchase. It really is supporting bringing a strange and wonderful new thing into the world that wouldn't exist before. People are also much less, much more forgiving about timeline. If you buy something most online booksellers, you're expecting to have it in your hands within a couple of days. People wait months and sometimes years to get their Kickstarter rewards and they don't mind if the back. If the creator is clear and transparent. You're also doing the work of demystifying the publishing process. Why does it take so long? Where are books printed? How long does it take them to ship via freight over the ocean? You know, what do all these things really look like? So it's really interesting, just sort of figuring out what your backers want and will bear versus the general book buying public out in the world.
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Yeah, absolutely. And that's how why we have fewer backers than we might sell total books on other platforms. But as you said, they do spend more money and we can do higher quality and more interesting products. Obviously there you mentioned that not every campaign actually funds. So what are some of the top mistakes you see that mean the pain doesn't fund or there are other issues?
- [33:16]
Yeah, totally. I mean the biggest mistake I think authors make, or any creator is overestimating their abilities to reach their crowd. I think making sure that your ambition matches your reach is the number one most important thing to like come close to guaranteeing that you will be successful. If you are an emerging writer and you're still building your audience and you don't have that many followers or subscribers out in the world, you should not try to fund, you know, a multi volume leather bound omnibus figure. Do a real honest assessment of who's in your crowd, how to find them, what percentage of them are likely to support what you're doing, and then find a project that feels realistic based on those numbers. That's really the biggest thing sort of conceptually as far as like tips for a project page. Again, back campaigns look at what other people are doing. But a project page can be either as simple or as complicated as you want to make. You know, you definitely want obviously to talk about the book, what is in it, what you're, you know, do a trope card if you want. We're seeing those all over the site. But just what kind of book it is. And like specs also page count, trim size, cover design. Obviously if you're doing a special edition, exactly what sorts of bells and whistles with a prototype, if you can but then you can be really expansive from there. What, what are your inspirations? Who are your collaborators? What brought you to this work? Work? What are some of the things that make you excited about your writing practice, your timeline, your budget, what made you choose these rewards and how you're going to produce them? All those sorts of things will make, it will make backers feel both more trusting that you will do the things that you're promising and just more excited to be part of your journey.
- [35:02]
So just to be clear then what you said at the beginning, so somebody, they're a new writer, they want, and I've seen several authors fail this way. They want to do some gorgeous book and they put a level of $25,000 is what they want, but they don't necessarily have an email list or anything. So that to me, and when I saw this particular person I'm thinking of, I saw that and I was like, there's no way that's going to fund.
- [35:26]
Right.
- [35:27]
And so what is, what is the problem with people? That people are kind of expecting Kickstarter to bring people. So maybe just talk about what's the split between what Kickstarter does with discovery and then what the author has to bring.
- [35:42]
Yeah, absolutely. So we track backer behavior obviously all across the site and by and category, by category. In your creator dashboard, if you run a campaign, you'll see a breakdown of what percentage of backers are coming through your efforts and who are coming through the Kickstarter ecosystem. In publishing, an average is about 30% are coming through Kickstarter and that can be like 20 to maybe 40, depending on how much exposure your project winds up getting. So that's not nothing. Being on Kickstarter will help you grow your audience, but it's definitely not everything you really do need to bring your people first. Our algorithm works on attention. So any project that's getting clicks, getting backings, getting comments, our algorithm says, oh, people want to look at this, we will expose it to more and more people. And that means raising it up in search results, slotting it into various of the macros and carousels around the site. Our recommendation engine powers recommended projects on the top of campaigns, at the bottom of emails. We are doing a lot to make sure that projects are being surfaced to folks who want to see them. We actually are doing some significant backer focused work this year on improving our search results, improving our recommendation engine, really working to make sure that people are finding the projects that they are going to be excited by.
- [37:04]
So I mean, and this is something I Think is quite different is it is very visual. This, the story page, the sales page and the. There's a main visual, there's kind of two fields, the header field and then a very small description field and then the image. The. That's what's really surfaced around Kickstarter, isn't it? So are any tips for the image and those text boxes for SEO purposes?
- [37:29]
Yeah, totally. So SEO is. It is important, but it is not as crucial. We can always tell when people are coming to us from like ku because rather than the title of the book, their subject, their project subject says reverse harem lesbians on Mars with an enemies to lover subplot. You know, you don't, you don't have to do that on Kickstarter. It's much more, you know, keywords are important, but they're not. Yeah, it's not the same. It's much more about what is this project, who is it for. So I would of course absolutely maximize your title and your subtitle to get as much information as possible. And yeah, exactly as you said. I mean imagine somebody looking at your project on their phone. They're going to see the title subtitle, the project image, maybe one sentence. That's also what they're gonna see in a tweet, in a search result, in a newsletter thumbnail. So those elements are really, really important and you want with just those four items to sort of bring everybody in and get them excited to click through. For the project image, we recommend like one full bleed image. Maybe it's your cover something, your cover image or like one gorgeous illustration from the book or if you've got a series, maybe a stack of books. We don't recommend sort of like larding up that image with a whole lot of text. Remember it's going to show up next to your title, the title of your project. So if the title of your project is the title of your book and the title of your book is also written on the book cover, you don't also need a text bubble that says the book title on top of that project image. Sometimes people try to cram a whole lot of like very salesy text onto that image. It not only like makes the image less, it makes it pop less, it makes it less interesting. It also is very difficult to read when that shows up thumbnail sized in on a search page or a social post. So concentrate on making like a bright, exciting image that isn't too overloaded with many tiny elements.
- [39:25]
And then the video. I wanted to ask about this because from On Kickstarter it said you really should do a video. So why is that? And any tips on that video?
- [39:36]
Yeah, totally. We definitely do see a preference for videos. It's you know, again probably the tiktokization and the pivot to video all around the Internet. Kickstarters on the Internet. It's a visual medium. People like videos these days. That said, if the video is the main stumbling block keeping you off the platform, I am here to tell you you don't have to do one. Plenty of projects fund extremely well without having a video. So if that's the calculation that you're making, just have beautiful imagery and you'll be fine. That said, if you are going to do a video it needs to be short, bright and compelling. Especially on the publishing side. We see about 50% of potential backers stop watching after one minute and everybody else is gone after the second minute. So you don't need to undertake some massive Hollywood production style situation that's going to cost you tons of time and money. Much better to do just kind of like a direct to camera. It is nice to show your face if you feel comfortable doing so. Just a teaser. Talk a little bit about who you are, what you're doing. Ask for people's. Just ask. Ask for people's support and say that you hope they click in and read through the whole rest of your story.
- [40:50]
Joanna Penn
Right.
- [40:50]
Orianna Leckert
So, and this is a tough one because I've done different kinds of videos is now coming up for my fifth campaign and for the fiction I did do one which is like a book trailer and then so it goes straight into the sort of thriller book trailer and then I put on my face afterwards and is sort of telling them about the book. On my non fiction ones I've really just done a sort of, as you said, a face to camera. So is there any sort of data on what people prefer for fiction? Is a book trailer better than a. A direct to camera or vice versa?
- [41:23]
Yeah, I don't. That's not the kind of data that we do or possibly even could collect. I think it's more a question of knowing your audience, knowing what they want and what is going to fit the best. I mean I think that's really smart that you've done it slightly differently for your fiction versus nonfiction. Like whatever you think is going to be the best representation of this particular work. Work. That's what you should go with.
- [41:49]
Yeah, I guess I think about it from my perspective as a backer with fiction.
- [41:55]
Joanna Penn
I.
- [41:56]
Orianna Leckert
And it's terrible to say but it's true. I often don't care so much about the author. I want the story. Like I've bought a ton of fiction off Kickstarter without knowing the author. Whereas I feel like the non fiction I've bought, I've actually known the author. So I'm more interested in the author. So that's just I guess my personal behavior.
- [42:16]
Sure, but your personal behavior is probably fairly telling about a broader book buying population. So I think that, that. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.
- [42:25]
But it's good to know. I mean for people listening. Look, there's no structure of it and in fact the very first video I did, I went to Russell Nolte's sort of best selling page and I, I deconstructed his video. I literally like wrote it down and then I turned that into my followed his script with my stuff.
- [42:45]
That's a great way to do it. Yeah.
- [42:46]
And I think that's find someone who's successful and model them. I think that's always a good trick.
- [42:52]
Yeah, absolutely.
- [42:54]
Okay, so let's just talk about some of the other aspects. So the pre launch page, this is something that seems to be very important. So talk about that.
- [43:04]
Yeah, absolutely. It's a new feature. We've released it. Gosh, what is time? Last year or the year before. But it has really changed the way that people are doing their the kind of period before they launch. So a pre launch page, it's a cover page. It lives at the same URL where your campaign will ultimately go. It's simplified and it is designed to generate followers. So anybody who follows the pre launch page is going to get a system email from Kickstarter as soon as you launch. We see a very high conversion over the life of the project from pre launch followers to project backers, sometimes 40 or 50% and most of them tend to do it right away. So the work that you do to promote that pre launch page and get your follower count up is going to pay off very handsomely once you launch. It really helps you have a strong first day, which is excellent for morale, excellent for messaging, good for the overall percentage chance of success on the project. So as I said, this is still new. Ish. We don't have like a huge amount of data about it, but I recommend a pre launch period of at least two weeks. We've seen some people do it for weeks, months even in a few cases over a year. I don't necessarily think that's the best idea you sort of want. I think in the best case that pre Launch period is sort of a crescendo into the burst of launch. And if you urge someone to get excited and follow this page, which they do and then six months later they get an email that the campaign is live. Now I think you've really diluted the excitement that they had when they first came on board. You should do. Everyone should do what works for them and their timeline and their project. But yeah, I do definitely don't skip that as a step. Spend some time promoting that pre launch page, getting up your follower count. It will really, really, really help once you go live.
- [44:51]
And for people listening, my pre launch page is at jfpen.com forward/death valley. And depending on when people are listening it might well be live or it might be in the future. But so when I did my first campaign I obviously you don't know when you first start all the things you kind of have to do because you there's obviously KYC know your customer that Kickstarter has to done so to do. So if people are going to set up their pre launch page, how long will it take and what do they need to set up so that Kickstarter knows they can be approved?
- [45:27]
Yeah, so there's two, two different approvals. The KYC stuff is done by Stripe, our payment processor. I would give yourself lots of extra time for these approvals. It usually only takes a day or two. Sometimes you get an automatic approval but don't leave that to the very end. Make sure you, you know your bank details, your id, all of that information up and sent over to Stripe well before. Before you need to. Well before it comes to crunch time. As far as the Kickstarter approval process, that too can be automatic or it can take up to a few days. We do want especially for first time authors or first time creators, the trust and safety team who reviews the projects wants to see pretty much a final draft when they're approving it. And you can't put up your pre launch page until the project is approved. Approved for serial creators in good standing. We are making some allowances where people can get that pre launch page up before the approval process. But especially when you're starting out on the platform, it's good practice to like have your campaign more or less finalized so that you know the, the reviewers can see everything that you'll be doing and then you can get that pre launch page up at that point.
- [46:37]
Yeah, because when you put up the rewards and things you have to have costed this out and you have to say like how much people need to pledge and you need to know things like your shipping details. So let's get a bit more into those finances. Earlier you mentioned that adding merch can add a lot of money and a lot of cost to a campaign. And of course, if you don't know how much it's going to cost, even just to print your book, say with foil or, or sprayed edges or whatever, you can't cost it out either. So what are some of the issues that people find with, with finances around Kickstarter?
- [47:11]
Yeah, I cannot stress enough the importance of doing a full, real detailed budget. That doesn't mean sort of vaguely guessing how much you think it might cost to print a book. Really actually get samples, figure out all of your processes, budget not just for print production, but for bubble, bubble wrap and tape, for pens and stickers, for all of the things that you are going to be producing in your rewards and also budget contingency plans. Think about all the things that might go wrong. Make sure you're doing a really, really detailed job of understanding all of your costs. It's good that you mentioned Russell before. I have a. There's a publishing creator tips page that's kickstarter.com creators publishing. There's a whole lot of resources there for all kinds of different projects and different elements of the, the crowdfunding process. But one piece is a budgeting article by Russell. It's got a worksheet in it and details all of these things that we're talking about. So I absolutely recommend using that as a guide when you're setting out your budget. One thing about it that I love is that he also says include a little bit of money to do a nice thing for yourself. For him, he gets a tattoo of one of his characters after every successful campaign. So maybe for you, that's getting a manicure or a massage or a nice dinner or a new book, but do do something sweet for yourself that is, you know, that's a nice way to give yourself a reward at the end of like, what can be a pretty intense process.
- [48:41]
Yes, it is intense. But it's funny because I, I was scared about it before I pressed that button on the first, the first time. But I feel like what I love about the Kickstarter thing is that it's a real launch period. I feel like one of the most tiring things for authors is the cost constant need to do marketing. Whereas with Kickstarter campaign you can be like, okay, I'm gonna really push hard for this couple of weeks or a few weeks before that. Push hard, do all my marketing and then I can go into fulfillment and I can ease off a bit. So I feel like this, it's more surge marketing, isn't it?
- [49:17]
Yeah, I think that's an excellent way to describe it for sure. And that's definitely the Kickstarter proposition. You know, look, I will be screaming from the rooftops about this project for 30 days and then I will stop talking about it.
- [49:30]
Joanna Penn
Yeah, I've not.
- [49:31]
Orianna Leckert
And you can't have it. There won't be a thing anymore.
- [49:34]
Exactly, exactly.
- [49:36]
Joanna Penn
Yeah.
- [49:36]
Orianna Leckert
Well then on that, I guess once we have finished the campaign closes and Kickstarter collects the money and we get the money in a couple of weeks time, but then we also have to fulfill the stuff which is, you know, all the shipping and all of that. And one thing that I've seen people be confused about is around taxes. So any clarification on who pays the tax?
- [49:57]
So I am actually not allowed to give tax advice as I am absolutely not an accountant. I would say you should certainly talk to your accountant about what you're doing on Kickstarter and how you should report that and what that's all going to mean. This is a reasonable point to note that as we are recording this on February 13th yesterday, Kickstarter announced a whole new bunch of new features that we have been working on for a long time and we are in the process of rolling out, including a lot of post campaign tools that we've never had before. We're doing an internal pledge management system that is something that people have been asking us for, for probably over a decade and there are many elements to that. But one thing that we are going to be doing in the future is we're going to be helping everybody with tax and V VAT collection. So that's something that's coming soon and we're going to do our best to help demystify a massively complicated process.
- [50:55]
It is. Well then I'll say from my perspective, I know what taxes I have to pay and I make sure I pay them after I get the money from Kickstarter. So as far as I'm concerned, paying tax is my responsibility as, as the creator. Well, what else then is coming? Or things that perhaps authors aren't using enough yet?
- [51:16]
Yeah, well, so last year we released late pledges, which means as like it says on the tin, once the campaign is closed, you can still collect additional backings. There's some caveats with that. We don't want to undermine that sort of now or never, all or nothing. Do or die situation. So our recommendations for late pledges, they're most effective in the sort of like two to seven days after the campaign has closed. The final 48 hours of a campaign are like really strong. You know, that's when all of that FOMO really kicks in. So a lot of marketing happens, a lot of outreach, a lot of, you know, just like traffic. So inevitably, no matter how hard you have been pushing this project, the day after your campaign closes, three people are going to email you and say, well, I didn't know you had a live campaign. So late pledges are really for them to like still be able to get on board even though they missed all of the main part of the activity. We also recommend you do not have all of your rewards available in late pledges and those that you do cost more. So again, you want to make sure that all of that talk you've been doing during the campaign of like, this is your only chance to get this book at this price, at this specificity has not been made into a lie by late pledges. And then also with late pledges they don't get to stay up forever. At some point you do say, now I am going to press so I'm going to turn them off. And so that's, that's the sort of, that's how late pledges are designed to work. Some other really cool features that we've just announced and again, as I said, we announced this yesterday so I don't have a ton more information. Although I should tell you where to go to find it. I mean we've got pop ups and things all over the site about it. Let me see it. Well, it's, it's a slightly cumbersome URL. Updates.kickstarter.com Kickstarters 2025 product roadmap with some hyphens. I don't know if you have show notes.
- [53:13]
I'll put a link in the show notes.
- [53:14]
Yeah, excellent. That would be great. That's where we lay the sort of overview of all of the stuff that we're working on this year. Some things that I will just call out. We are working, we are in beta currently for a payment plan. It's called Pledge over Time that allows backers for rewards above a certain dollar amount. I think it's $125 to make their pledge in four payments rather than all at once. We are working on secret rewards which this is also still in beta. You can. Creators can get a direct link to a reward that's not listed in the campaign and send that to specific groups of backers. But yeah, so we're definitely, we have a lot more features planned for this year. We're trying to make things that people have been asking for, which also means if there's a feature that you want Kickstarter to have that we currently don't write into our support team and tell them a lot of the things that we have developed over the years have come directly from so many people asking for it that we realized we just had to do it. So yeah, please tell us what you want and maybe it'll come to life.
- [54:22]
Brilliant. So where can people find Kickstarter for publishing and any other help online?
- [54:28]
Yeah, kickstarter.com publishing is where all of the publishing projects are. I mentioned that Creator Tips page, kickstarter.com Creators Publishing. We are all over the socials. We are everywhere that you can find us. Oh, another thing we also just rolled out is a whole new learning lab curriculum which is a video series of every element of your Kickstarter project. It is probably geared a bit more toward like larger sort of design and tech and gadget and games creators, but I'm sure that there are really, really relevant tips for publishers and publishing folks in there as well. We are trying to give as much help as possible. We want everybody to succeed. Of course, the rising tide lifts all boats, which is foundational to the Kickstarter ethos.
- [55:13]
Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Arianna. That was great.
- [55:19]
Joanna Penn
So I hope you found this episode interesting. If you're considering Kickstarter or if you want to level up your next campaign, you can check out my next launch@jfpen.com Death Valley which will redirect to my Kickstarter pre launch page for now and then to the book on launch. Let me know what you think. Please leave a comment on the podcast show notes@thecreativepenn.com or on the YouTube channel. Comment on X the Creative Pen or email me joannathecreativepen.com and send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or churchyard. Next week I'm talking about writing action adventure and travelling for book research with Luke Richardson. In the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found it helpful. You can find the backlist episodes and show notes@thecreativepen.com podcast and you can get your free author blueprint@thecreativepen.com blueprint. If you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and x at the Creative Pen or on Instagram and Facebook. Fpenauthor. Happy writing, and I'll see you next time.