How to Use a Crowdfunding Campaign to Sell Your Book!

Welcome to the Best Seller Secrets Podcast, where experts and entrepreneurs come to learn how to write and launch a bestselling book and then use it to make an income and an impact. I’m your host, Rob Kosberg, and today we’re going to talk about how to use crowdfunding to actually raise money for your book, perhaps before it is even done. Not long ago, I had a client come to me and she wanted to use our services to help her launch her book, get media and PR, et cetera. But she didn’t have the funds. And so what she said she was going to do was use Kickstarter to do a crowdfunding campaign and raise money for her book project. Now, I’d heard that before, in fact, many times before, but she actually did it. In fact, in a period of about six months,she raised over $52,000 for her book, which was a cookbook and a book that we launched a bestseller and used to really grow her media presence, get her on radio, TV,et cetera. So how did she do it when so many others failed? Well, I want to give you several steps for fundraising and using crowdfunding to actually get the funds for your book, or perhaps even to sell your book and your programs outside of the normal channels. So number one,I want you to think big picture when it comes to crowdfunding a Kickstarter. A lot of people just think, well,I want to sell my book, I want to get my book out there. But thinking Big Picture is about giving many different options to your potential backers on a crowdfunding site. So, for example, Mia’s book was a cookbook focused on healthy eating,but she offered many different options. She offered a digital version for $5, a menu plan, a detox bundle. She offered limited edition copies. She even offered a $10,000 offer that two people actually took advantage of where she would do a private dinner for them anywhere in the world. And as I said, two people $20,000was raised just from that very exclusive offer. So you don’t need thousands of people buying your$5 digital book when you think Big picture. And instead you think, well, what could I offer that at a very, very high level? A few people would be interested in that’s, number one. Number two, start early and launch fast.Statistically, campaigns that get30% or more of their funding in the first week are far more likely to succeed. And massive momentum is created in that very early beginning. So you need people and backers in place before your campaign ever goes live. So what do you do? Well, in the beginning, you want to focus on friends, family,sphere of influence, your current clients,past clients, those that are willing to support you right out of the gate so that you can get the momentum going. In other words, think in terms of an inner circle and creating an inner circle of people that are interested in being your supporters and your backers and will even share your campaign for you as well. That’s number two. Number three, tell a great story and have beautiful design. Now, this is something I talk about all the time when it comes to writing a bestseller and when it comes to getting the attention of your ideal clients. Facts tell, but stories sell. Story is where the context is, whether that’s in a chapter or whether that’s in a crowdfunding campaign. Mia did an awesome job of telling her story. In the beginning,she was 85 pounds overweight. She talks about avoiding the vegetable aisle and how she learned to cook amazing meals that were healthy for herself and for her children. And it changed her life. So she was able to show context.This wasn’t just an ordinary cookbook. It was a cookbook of meals that had changed her life and changed her family. That transformed her from being 85 pounds overweight to being in the best shape of her life. So not only that, but statistically, campaigns with video raise as much as four times more than campaigns without video. And Mia did a beautiful job on video telling her story. It wasn’t just text and photos, although the text and the photo told the story. And she had beautiful graphics and images that captured her family and captured many of the actual pages of her cookbook that was to come. So you want to tell a great story, but you want it to be beautiful as well and use video and fantastic design. Step number four, and really important, you are the marketing department. Okay? At this point, you’ve gone out to your sphere of influence, your friends, your family,your current clients, and past clients. You’ve got great momentum. But now you need to work hard to get the word out to those that do not know you. Now, obviously, social media is powerful and necessary. There’s lots of great ways to reach people that have never heard of you for free. But you need to do that by leveraging your strengths. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, if you’re a great writer, then you should have a blog. And you should be writing both long form content, social media posts on Facebook and Twitter, et cetera, but also on a blog that attracts visitors. This is something that Mia did very, very successfully. If, on the other hand,you’re good on video, then create long form video content. You can strip out the audio and make that a podcast. You can then take that video and you can cut it into 30 and62nd shorts and reels for all the socials. You can craft one video, much like I’m doing right now, that can go up on YouTube, but it can also be on Spotify, it can be on Apple podcasts, it can be cut up for YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels,Facebook Shorts as well. So this is a way that you can take one piece of content and you can build your following on all the various socials by repurposing it. Remember to tell your story and give updates daily,even or at least several times a week so that people can follow along with your progress. Last but not least, look, success always leaves clues.When Mia did this, I actually recorded a hour and a half mini course with her that broke down step by step exactly how she did this. But you can also look up on YouTube and see how other people have run their successful crowdfunding campaigns to raise money for other projects that they’re doing.If you’re interested in actually getting Mia’s 90minutes training on how step by step she created her Kickstarter campaign, well, it’s something that we offer within our publishpromoteprofit.com book. So I offer my book for free. Just pay a small shipping charge@publishpromoteprofit.com and you’ll see an opportunity to get Mia’s Kickstarter campaign as well.