Building Your Kickstarter Campaign

In July 2023, I used the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform to raise over $17,000 in pre-orders to finance the printing of my book, Maggie the Military Rat. It was a huge undertaking, and I did a ton of research beforehand to prepare. In this blog post series, I’d like to share what I learned along the way. In Part 1, I shared 5 things you should ask yourself before running a Kickstarter. In Part 2, I talked about my best tips for promoting your Kickstarter campaign. Part 3, I am discussing how to build your Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign.

You have asked yourself the hard questions, decided to run a Kickstarter campaign, and have started promoting it early. But now, you actually have to build the thing! This can often feel daunting, but it can also be really fun. Here are my best tips:

Share Your Story

As with anything else related to promoting your project, let the authentic you shine through and share YOUR story. If you are genuinely excited about your project, it will go far in getting backers excited as well. 

Include a Video

A lot of people are tempted to skip the video, because they don’t like to be in front of a camera or because they feel like they have to spend money on a fancy videographer to do an adequate job. I would encourage you to do a video – no need to hire a professional! People want to have a personal connection to YOU, and a video is a great way to achieve that. I suggest buying a tripod and filming it yourself. I used iMovie to splice mine together, and I was very pleased with the result. It wasn’t fancy but it worked!

Be Strategic with Your Rewards Tiers

When a supporter backs a Kickstarter project, they select a “reward tier” to get rewarded for their monetary contribution. As the creator, you get to decide what those reward tiers consist of. My advice on rewards tiers is don’t go overboard doing extra stuff. I had multiple people suggest that I include a stuffed animal Maggie as a reward tier, but the logistics of shipping a plush with each order–not to mention having one designed and made in time—were just too much. My main consideration in selecting rewards tiers was things that would be easy to ship - flat items being key! So I stuck with bookmarks, stickers, and some fancy book plates. I also had postcards as a reward tier, which was a nice tie-in to the book. Remember, more than anything people want to support you and your project, not the “fluff.” I am a strong believer in this.

Include Graphics in Your Campaign

Never underestimate the power of graphics to pull your campaign together. You can ask your illustrator or book designer for help – I was lucky enough that both of mine helped me. But also, you can design things on Canva as well - it’s pretty easy to use, and there’s a free version as well!

Plan to Promote Your Campaign

Once you launch your campaign, the work isn’t over! You will have to post and promote daily during your Kickstarter to keep the momentum going. I suggest you make a calendar with daily ideas that you can use throughout your campaign. You can even ask ChatGPT to come up with ideas for you!

One last “bonus” tip: don’t make the mistake I did and refer to your crowdfunding campaign as a “pre-order” in the campaign text - Kickstarter will reject it! This wasn’t a big deal in the end, but it was stressful and added extra work when I was planning my campaign. 

I hope this has been a helpful Kickstarter series. I want to leave with one parting thought, which helped me whenever I felt (and still feel) overwhelmed in my book publication journey: “Don't compare your beginning to someone else's middle, or your middle to someone else's end. Don't compare the start of your second quarter of life to someone else's third quarter.”

I wish you the best of luck in your publishing and crowdfunding journey - I am rooting for you!