Disclaimer: Finish That Novel! does not have a Kickstarter campaign. For now.
The past few years have seen a revolution in independent production, and it’s no wonder: crowd funding makes sense. People hear about a product they like, and they can chip in to help make it a reality. Inventors and designers have experienced a huge wave of success, and indie authors are catching on. What could crowd funding mean for you and your novel?
First off, this new method of publishing might be just what you need. It can easily take years to get accepted by a publishing house, with a lot of waiting and a lot of rejections before anything good happens. Self publishing, on the other hand, is still looked down on by much of the literary community. If you want to know that people really do like your writing, crowd funding them is probably the best way to find out. It’s also a fantastic way to engage with potential readers. People crowd fund because they want to take part in something they believe will pay off in the long run, something of personal importance. They want to be the first in on it and to feel like they have a special part to play, and this way you can give them that satisfaction while at the same time making a name for yourself as an author.
PubSlush specializes in crowd funding novels.
Unfortunately, new benefits also mean new challenges. You need to be able to defend your novel if you want to successfully crowd-fund it. You need to be able to talk other people into paying their own money so that you can do a better job publishing it. You also need to understand the inner workings of getting a book published so that you can establish a solid hierarchy of goals depending on how much success you have in your crowd funding. Not everyone is a salesman, and if you want any success in selling a book that isn’t out yet, you probably want to be.
Overall, many writers see crowd funding as a promising alternative to both self publishing and traditional publishing. In his personal blog, motivational speaker and crowd funding consultant Jason Nash says that in the past two years, Kickstarter.com has helped authors raise anywhere from $350 to $250,000 to help publish their books. And you don’t even have to go with a giant like Kickstarter. Smaller companies like PubSlush specialize in crowd funding books. What would you do with an extra few hundred dollars toward your book?