If you’ve read this blog at all over the last few months, or you follow me on social media, you probably know that I’m in the midst of a crowdfunding campaign for my debut novel, with the publisher Unbound.
I’ve been spending a lot of time recently contacting friends, family and former colleagues, waving my book under their noses and asking for support. I’ve been tweeting and sharing links on Facebook and writing blog posts about my book and about crowdfunding. Last week, I even went to my first event as an author.
While crowdfunding has been massively exciting and a real learning curve, it’s also been an emotional rollercoaster.
My campaign is approaching the half way mark, but it’s taken some real hard work to get to this point.
Over the last few months, I’ve spent a lot of time online chatting to other Unbound authors and following their campaigns, for tips, general moral support or excitement at the prospect of reading a fantastic new book.
And while crowdfunding has some real highs – basically every time you get a pledge, especially an unexpected one – it has some lows too.
Staying motivated
While some people are fortunate enough to fund their books in a few weeks, days or even hours, for many people it can take months. I’m almost four months in to my campaign.
That’s a long time to be on the self-promotion treadmill.
If you’re going to be successful, you need to be promoting your campaign regularly, coming up with new content and reaching out to your contacts. If I haven’t done anything to push my book for a few days, I can see the difference.
But it’s tough keeping the same momentum over a long period and after a while, you begin to run out of ideas and people to speak to. Your campaign can feel overwhelming and you wonder where that next pledge is going to come from.
Thoughts of giving up can creep in.
Finding new supporters
Unless you already have an audience, or you have a large social media following, it can be challenging to persuade people who don’t know you to pledge to your campaign. It’s possible of course, but it’s much easier to convert friends and family.
I’ve had several people I don’t know buy a copy of my book and it’s an incredibly intoxicating feeling, knowing that they’re making a purchase based on the description of your book rather than a sense of obligation because of an existing relationship.
Comparison is the thief of joy
While it can be really useful to follow other campaigns, at times, it can be tough too.
You want to support everyone else, but it’s hard not to be envious when some people seem to reach their goals with ease, while you fight for each and every pledge.
But every campaign is different. People are striving for different targets and they have different backgrounds and networks. Of course the person with 100,000 Twitter followers will do better than the person with 100. The established author with half a dozen books to their name will probably fund more quickly than the newbie.
It can be tempting to obsess over that though, when everyone else seems to be racing towards their targets while you’re stuck in the same spot for days and weeks at a time.
Managing your expectations
It’s a tough lesson, but not all your friends or family will care about your campaign. Why should they? They’ve got their own lives to worry about.
Relatives will ignore your messages, friends will promise faithfully to pledge but never get round to it and people in the office will glaze over when you mention your book for the twentieth time that week.
I struggle not to check my campaign page a dozen times a day and feel disappointed when it hasn’t seen any new pledges. I’d love to see my campaign moving along, jumping up 10 or 20% each time I visit the page, but that’s a big ask for a new author.
So I have to celebrate the small milestones.
Some days, sending out a tweet or contacting one friend about the book is enough to feel like progress.
Crowdfunding is a spectacular, challenging, terrifying way to bring your novel into the world. The fear of failure is constant, but the sense of achievement is huge too.
It’s tough some days, some weeks, but I’m learning so much about publishing and about myself as a writer. I’m learning that I can put myself out there and promote my work in a brazen way. Sometimes I need to work up the courage to send a message or email a new contact, but I’ve managed way more than I ever thought possible.
But there’s still a lot of work to do before the book becomes a real, live thing.
So I’m off to send out a few more messages and hope Facebook doesn’t block me for spamming!
If you’d like to find out more about my campaign, this is the link for you.