5 Things to Ask Yourself Before Running a Kickstarter Campaign

Photo © Amy Huang Photography

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 am discussing the initial considerations you should take before you even embark on a crowdfunding campaign.

If you are considering a crowdfunding effort in order to finance your children’s book project, I recommend you begin by considering the following things:

Money: How much do you actually need?

Think about how much money you realistically need to get your project off the ground. Make sure you are factoring in shipping costs as well, since you will be on the hook for getting the physical books to your backers. But, be mindful that crowdfunding platforms (specifically Kickstarter) can be all-or-nothing, so it’s better to aim lower and exceed your goal than to aim too high and not make it. My Kickstarter goal was $10,000, and I ended up exceeding it, but I was very torn on how much to aim for and considered going as low as $7,500 (knowing I needed closer to $10,000 to print my books). By going over, I was able to fund the printing of my books AND cover the costs of the illustrations, which I had originally planned to pay for myself. 

Time: How much do you actually have?

Running a Kickstarter is like a full-time job, so you need to be realistic about your ability to commit to it not only for the duration of the campaign, but also for a few weeks leading up to it while you prepare. Be realistic about your commitments and abilities. I knew had a 10-day trip planned at the end of June, so I planned my Kickstarter launch for mid-July so that I would have a couple weeks beforehand to dedicate to preparing.

Platform: Which one should you use: Kickstarter, or something else?

I can only speak to Kickstarter since that is the platform I used, but I know there are others such as Indiegogo. Educate yourself on the options and pick what works best for you!

Reach: Do you have a strong social media presence? A niche topic with a supportive community? Something else?

This is a big one. Think about your current reach: who will show up to back your project? Do you have a large online presence (or a small but mighty group of followers)? Perhaps you have a niche topic with strong community support? I started building my online presence at least 6 months before my Kickstarter, and had about 375 Instagram followers and maybe 200 Facebook followers when I launched. This isn’t a huge number but I had been sharing about my book for months and I think many of my followers were engaged and looking forward to supporting my book. Plus, I think books for military kids is a niche topic that has strong community support. 

Logistics: How will you keep yourself organized?

This is another big consideration. I recommend organizing yourself both digitally and on paper. I like to keep a Google Doc checklist off all the things I need to do for the campaign and check it off as I go. That way, anything that comes up in my brain gets filed away on my list. Another thing I always recommend to authors is to keep a dedicated project notebook. Anything related to that project goes in the notebook. I like to use a nice hardback Moleskine that feels fancy to use. Whenever I get down about the speed of my progress, I can always look back through the notebook and see how far I have come. 

In the next post, I will share my tips for actually running a Kickstarter campaign. Stay tuned!