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.

Barnes & Noble's Future, and the ecosystem of Publishing

This New Republic article by Alex Shephard, "Pulp Friction: If Barnes & Noble goes out of business, it will be a disaster for book lovers," is a fascinating perspective.

In particular, the idea that

"The irony of the age of cultural abundance is that it still relies on old filters and distribution channels to highlight significant works."

is worth considering.

And, as the article explains, if B&N is the old financial support for risk-taking in publishing, what might be the newer supports?

Will it be the old model of chain bookstores placing huge initial orders, or will it be something else? 

Will it be crowd funding, along the lines of the recent success of "Good Night Stories For Rebel Girls?"

What do you think?

The Strange Case Of The Writer Who Wanted To Make A Living

So in January 2015, YA Author Stacey Jay got slammed with blowback for a Kickstarter campaign to write and independently publish the sequel to her traditionally-published "Princess of Thorns."

The frenzy of mean comments and internet nastiness was seemingly due to her asking, in that Kickstarter, for money to live on while she wrote the book. And not "Lives of the Rich & Famous" money, either. Just, as she put it,

I asked for 10k to fund a Kickstarter for the sequel for Princess of Thorns and EVERYONE who contributed would have been given a copy of the book (from the $10 donation level on up). 7k of that would have covered my living expenses while writing the book. After taxes and promotional expenses I planned to take out of that budget, I would have been making about 11.00 an hour to write and edit the novel.

A lot has said about this online, with a number of writers rising to Stacey's defense, but the controversy itself raises the issue of privilege in the arts and the corrosive romantic mythology of the 'starving artist.' It also reveals a strong undercurrent issue: the financial ability to be able to take the time to hone your craft and write and publish is not separate from why we lack a strong showing of minority voices in books for children and teens.

YA Author Marni Bates wrote a good piece on this, where she compared Stacey Jay's Kickstarter to the Veronica Mars movie Kickstarter. She also quoted Virginia Woolf,

 “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

Twitter blew up about it, too, and one posting has really stuck with me since. YA Author Malinda Lo, whose novels (including Ash and the Adaptation series) feature lesbian and bi teens, wrote on twitter (@malindalo):

"I have to admit, people. I have a patron. She is my wife. It hasn't always been that way but in the last couple of years? Yep."
1/7/15 9:09 AM

and

"If I didn't have a patron I'd be writing books about straight people by now. I kid you not."
1/7/15 9:17 AM

I'd like to share just one more tweet, this one from Amy Boggs (@notjustanyboggs):

"We will lose a lot of worthwhile and *important* voices if only the rich can publish well."
1/7/15 9:19 AM

Crowd-funders, like Kickstarter, could be a grass-roots, market-based way to increase the diversity of children's and teen literature. It could be an end to this terrible idea that writers shouldn't make a living writing, an end to the presumption that if it's your creative project, you should work for free while you pay everyone else.

But sadly, not this time. Stacey has pulled her Kickstarter campaign, and has even withdrawn from being on social media for now.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee