Considering Crowdfunding? 12 Tips to Know and Consider

Me (Lee Wind) in my makeshift podcast recording corner. I'm not crowdfunding to publish the book -- it was traditionally published -- the crowdfunding is to raise money to buy and donate hundreds of paperback copies of my YA novel to empower LGBTQIA2+ and Allied Teens.

You can listen to the full podcast episode (32 min) here: https://bit.ly/CrowdfundingForAuthorsTips

I'm in the middle of my second crowdfunding campaign, and I've learned some things that I hope can help other authors (and it should work for illustrators and translators, too.)

My first crowdfunding campaign was in 2018 for Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill, a book that I author published, meaning when the campaign was successful I hired a team of people to help me put out the best quality YA novel possible. It was my debut, it worked, and the book went on to win some awards, had thousands of readers who loved it, got on a couple of banned and challenged lists, and overall launched my author career. 

My second YA novel, A Different Kind of Brave, was traditionally published (in paperback and as an ebook) in March of 2024, by Duet Books/Interlude Press, an imprint of Chicago Review Press. And I pitched the publisher on the idea of crowdfunding to raise enough funds to donate 350 (or more) paperback copies of the novel to LGBTQIA2+ teens while offering backers a special collector's edition hardcover of the novel. They said yes, so I launched my second crowdfunding campaign on June 20, 2024 and it will end 30 days later on July 20, 2024 at 6:50am Pacific: ⁠bit.ly/BRAVEkickstarter⁠

The podcast shares 12 tips, and I'll share the first here:

Tip #1: Don't make it about you. 

By making my campaign about the community coming together to empower LGBTQIA2+ teens, talking about the project is easy for me, because the focus is not about helping me as much as it is helping them. So I don't have that uncomfortable self-promotion feeling when I'm talking about the kickstarter campaign, because the goal is to empower the teens I wrote the book for, and the way that happens is the crowdfunding to raise money to buy copies of the book to donate.

There are 11 more tips in the podcast...  I hope you'll find it both helpful and empowering!

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

P.S. If you'd rather listen via YouTube, here's that link.