Guest Post | Crowdfunding...

Let me tell you a secret: When I went freelance over ten years ago, I thought it would leave me with more time to write.

OK, now that you’ve stopped laughing… Don’t worry, I can wait… So, yes, the one thing that didn’t happen when I went freelance was the sudden proliferation of works of fiction by yours truly. Whilst, technically, I have written more, it has been reports, blog posts and the occasional newspaper or magazine feature. Sadly, I doubt any agent is going have their heart set alight by 33,000 words on the use of social media in the charitable sector.

But the law of unintended consequences is always at work and a surprising side effect of freelance life has been a growing love of deadlines. Without someone peering over my shoulder, doing their best Bart Simpson - “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” - my poor mind finds itself distracted, enfeebled by the endless stream of emails, blog posts, lolcats and Tweets.

Enter Kickstarter, a crowd-funding site that puts supporters and creators together to enable a wide variety of creative projects, from musicians recording albums to software developers coding websites to — and I think you’ll agree that this is where it gets interesting — authors writing books. The site is simple: You add info about your project, set a financial goal and offer rewards. You only receive the money if you hit your target within the deadline you have set. Easy peasy!

One key aspect of your Kickstarter project is the set of rewards you offer to supporters. I spent quite a bit of time looking through successful projects, trying to figure out if there was some special sauce that attracted lots of backers. I saw huge variation in types of reward and the contribution levels required to earn them, but two things stood out:

Firstly, most projects had several low cost rewards and at least one that was insanely expensive. There’s good psychology behind that: an expensive option makes the others look more affordable. Secondly, the most attractive rewards were ones that felt meaningful or individualised. “Get a book of stickers!” was not as interesting as “I will send you a post card with a handwritten note of thanks.” The former is lacklustre and unimaginative, the latter personal and warm, even though the cost of both is probably the same.

My inspiration was Robin Sloan whose project, Robin writes a book (and you get a copy), wound up with 570 backers raising $13,942. Robin was, at the time, what you might call an ‘early career aspiring author’ who had published just one short story on his blog. If Robin can do it, I thought to myself, so can I. (Although only because I have an American husband: Kickstarter uses Amazon Payments which requires the project owner to have an American bank account. Supporters can live anywhere. Non-Americans could use ChipIn, Pledgie or IndieGoGo instead.)

It’s probably a good thing I didn’t do a more direct comparison between my situation and Robin’s before I decided to plunge into Kickstarter’s deep end. Instead I focused on getting my page written, my video recorded and edited — Kickstarter say that projects with video earn more than projects without — and my supporter rewards finalised. Then, nervously, I hit publish.

One thing that no FAQ could have prepared me for was the emotional response to publishing my project: A febrile mix of excitement, delight and abject terror. Suddenly, this wasn’t just about finishing up a short story and shoving it on the web somewhere, it was about meeting people’s expectations. And not just Mr Random Web User’s expectations, but those of real people who were promising me real money. Furthermore, because the subject of my story is Argleton, a phantom town that hit the news last autumn, many people already have already concocted a story about it in their heads with which mine has to compete.

‘Abject terror’ is starting to feel like an understatement.

Thankfully, Kickstarter isn’t all fear and loathing in north London. Every time someone promises to support me, I feel emboldened. Every pledge is a vote of confidence. Whether from a friend or a stranger, every supporter becomes an integral part of this project. I feel not indebted to them, but enabled by them. The flip side is that when there’s a lull in contributions I worry about not reaching my goal, not because it would disappoint me but because it would disappoint my backers.

Why use Kickstarter, rather than take the traditional route to publication? One reason is to build a connection with readers that goes beyond the traditional author/reader relationship. Supporters know that without their help this story simply won’t be told. They are a key part of the process, not simply passive consumers of the end product.

Another reason is related to my love of stationery. My project marries storytelling with book binding and there’s kit I need that I can’t afford to buy. This project, if it succeeds, will let me buy a ream cutter which will both reduce the time it takes to make a book and save my wrists from RSI.

Finally, I’m doing this just to see if I can. In many ways, that’s the most important reason, because if I can do it, so can other people.

Argleton is currently 58% funded. It has 30 days to go. And I’ll admit that I’m running out of friends to nag. This is where my comparison with Robin starts to worry me. Robin has 213,527 followers on Twitter and an immensely successful blog with a huge audience. I have, er, 3299 followers on Twitter and a… let’s call it a ‘niche audience’ blog.

I probably should have started nurturing a community of people interested in my writing before now, perhaps on a mailing list. I should probably also have published a few short stories to the web, rather than relying on eight years of blog writing to convince people that I’m capable. But sometimes it feels better to just jump in and cross your fingers. I suspect — hope — that I’m on the cusp, with a network just big enough for me to scrape through by the skin of my teeth.

So questions remain: Is crowdfunding a viable way for fledgeling authors to support themselves? How well-known do you need to be in order to be successful? Does funding your writing project make a reader more likely to buy your books or fund another? And can success on Kickstarter lead to a more traditional authorial career or is it enough on its own? I don't know, but I intend to stick with it and find out.

(Thanks to Suw for visiting Un:Bound and you can visit her at her blog Chocolate & Vodka - HR)