Crowdfunding has to be among the more tantalizing concepts authors encounter, especially when author-service expenses are high. The idea of a standing, waiting readership of backers is pretty dreamy. Even when authors hear other writers talk about the rigors of fulfilling pledge premiums, lots of folks continue to spin this wheel and see what happens.
More encouragement came recently when Kickstarter announced that “general publishing” campaigns at its site had surpassed $100 million. A couple notable campaign examples: there’s the Finnish writer Linda Liukas, whose coding-for-kids book, Hello Ruby: Adventures in Coding, shot right past her requested $10,000 take to raise $380,747; and there’s Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, who asked for $135,000 for his next book project and netted $588,903.
But it’s wise to remember that most publishing campaigns at Kickstarter don’t fare so well. Most don’t even fund. Kickstarter data indicates that general publishing has produced 9,695 successfully funded projects so far—and 23,017 unsuccessful projects. It’s a better than two-to-one chance, in other words, that a campaign in publishing will fail at Kickstarter. Most of the unsuccessful projects have funded only to levels between 1 and 20 percent of their ask, too, meaning that they basically never got off the ground.
And of the successful projects, how rare are the cases of runaway backing like in the examples of Ries and Liukas? Very rare. Kickstarter sees only sixty of its successful publishing projects since 2009 bringing in between $100,000 and $999,999. None has pulled down $1 million or more. (A $1 million+ campaign has happened six times in film projects and an enviable seventy times in gaming projects.)
Bottom line: Crowdfunding, at least through Kickstarter, remains tricky, difficult, but alluring. Calvin Reid at Publishers Weekly notes that projects with some diversity elements that might struggle in traditional pitches can sometimes get a leg up with a loyal following at Kickstarter. But Liukas says she worked on Hello Ruby for four years before running the Kickstarter campaign. Not easy. Still, we find it interesting that only music, film, and video are ahead of publishing in the number of successfully funded projects, beating categories including gaming, fashion, and technology. If you’ve got the right crowd, the funding might really be there.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
