Earlier this year, I did a 21-day campaign on Kickstarter for my upcoming novel, Sparks in Iceland. This was my first time ever running a Kickstarter, and the book itself wasn't the ideal fit for Kickstarter. The best-performing books on Kickstarter tend to be fantasy novels with smut. My book was neither one of those things. Instead, Sparks in Iceland is a contemporary closed-door romance. But just because it wasn't the ideal book for Kickstarter, it didn't mean it was doomed to fail. By the end of my Kickstarter, I ended up raising $4,094, which I feel like is pretty good considering it was my first Kickstarter, and that the genre also wasn't the typical ones you see making thousands of dollars on Kickstarter. But I didn't walk away with $4,000 in my pocket. I still had to print the books and ship the books. Today, I'm breaking down the full costs of my Kickstarter and how much money I actually made at the end of the day.
Watch my Kickstarter playlist:
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0:00 – Intro
2:35 – Rewards/the books that were printed
5:18 – Breaking down costs for the Kickstarter
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Mandi Lynn published her first novel when she was seventeen. The author of multiple books, Mandi spends her days continuing to write and creating YouTube videos to help other writers achieve their dreams of seeing their books published. Mandi is the owner of Stone Ridge Books, a company that works to help authors bring their books to life through cover design and digital book marketing. She is also the creator of The Book Launch Planner, a planner designed to help authors publish and market their books. When she’s not creating, you can find Mandi exploring her backyard or getting lost in the woods.
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Title:
How Much Money Did My Book's Kickstarter Make? Self-Publishing Costs
Search terms: Kickstarter for authors, how much money did my kickstarter make, how much money did I make self publishing my book
I would love to know what you would differently for Kickstarter. I’m looking to do Kickstarter for my debut novel. This video was extremely informative. Thank you ❤❤❤️ I got your deluxe annotated book and I’m excited to start reading it. My mom is also looking forward to reading it as well. ❤
Ditto here. Debut novel on kickstarter:)
This video is so helpful for fellow indie authors. Thank you for sharing your experience! I always love how honest and down-to-earth you are. Looking forward to your video about what you would do differently.
I’ve been thinking of running a kickstarter and I’m super interested in what you would do differently!
Hey! Thanks for the video, it’s pretty eye-opening. I would be interested in both the follow-ups you mentioned (costs of the book production itself, and what you’d do different next time). From the outside, it looks like way too much time and effort for 600 bucks. Besides the money, do you think running the Kickstarter was valuable to you in other ways? Was it good advertising, did it impact your sales outside the campaign? Do you think you’ll do another one in the future?
To give a short answer, I don’t think your first Kickstarter will ever be worth it financially. There’s so much you as an author, have to learn that is specific to what works for you. That said, I do think Kickstarter helps you reach a new audience. Now if this were my second and I had such a small profit, I’d probably be done with Kickstarter. But since this is my first campaign, I think just breaking even is considered a victory. There’s so much that you have to calculate to make sure you don’t end at a loss.
I can’t wait to hear more details about everything that went into the project. Including the editing phases!
I’ve shared most of my editing process in other videos, but in the costs video, I’ll be sharing exactly when/what editors I hired.
Would love videos on both the “what I’d do differently” and “costs of editors/illutrators/etc” for this book!
Coming soon!
Thank you so much for this video!
I have wondered about the process of doing a Kickstarter, and this was sobering. You did not account for the time spent setting up, managing the Kickstarter, and then fulfilling it — you and your time are a valuable resource. I would love to hear about the lessons you’ve learned and what you would do differently.
I personally really enjoy fulfilling orders, so that was fun for me! However, the planning that goes into the campaign, creating the page, and marketing during the campaign is extremely time intensive.
@@MandiLynnWrites Was this your first kickstarter? Because I feel like you even making any profit the first time is incredible. Each time you will get better, your process more refined. Like all the time setting up probably involved a lot of thinking that once you do it a second time, will come far more naturally to you. Can’t wait for that video on what you’d do differently. I’ll 100% support your next kickstarter if you choose to do another one. I looooooooooove the hardcover with all the little glam-adds on. It looked stunning! Too bad there isn’t a US-based company as so much money was spent on shipping.
I would like to see both of the videos- what you would do differently and the costs to produce the books as well- Thank you!
Maybe this is also a separate video, but as a new author with little to no fan base, how many of your backers were already reading/watching your works? Idk if you know, if it shows you. I’m just wondering if you need a readership to be successful.
Oh, this is such a great question! Is it too late to survey your kickstarter patrons? That would be really awesome to know. Again, because many of us writers want to follow your foosteps and start our own authortube, but its hard to figure out where the payoff is. Things like more kickstarter backers would definitely be a huge plus on why to start an authortube channel.
Thank you for this video. Very interesting. I would also be interested in the costs for illustrating and editing. For example, where you found them, how you chose them (I think you mentioned Instagram was one source). I have one nonfiction book published, but I am working on a fiction book with my husband.
The illustrator I found off of Instagram once ended up being a scam. I’ve had the best luck with illustrators on UpWork and through word of mouth.
This was so interesting!! Curious…. If you take the # of books sold and priced them what you will be charging on your website (each type of book w/ a different price), how much money would you make without the Kickstarter? Do you know if you did better with Kickstarter vs. doing it the way you typically have done it in the past? Thanks, Mandi! I love my book. ❤❤❤❤❤❤
For a true cost you should probably include the materials you had on hand, plus your time. On that basis it’s obvs a loss.
However I assume you got people on your mailing list and will also get follow up sales, so that would also need to be added to the credit side. Can you track that?
It’s hard to track things I already had on hand because stuff that was paid for months or sometimes even years ago. As far as follow-up sales, we’ll have to wait and see! The book itself isn’t out yet, but I think it will be hard to track for sure if it came from the Kickstarter.
I would love to see a video on how much it costed to get finished. 🙂
Yeah I would love to see the other videos. Especially because holy crap that is a lot of work for what seems to be very little payoff for the effort.
Would love love LOVE to hear how you would do things differently! Also interested in the cost to produce the book itself.
I think I saw a YouTube say that they somehow added in the cover art. I don’t think the book editor was in the mix… but she had the cover art as one of the goals, if I remember correctly. I’m curious what you would do differently, maybe to manage those extra costs.
Thank you for all the comments and questions! I’m taking note of them for the follow-up Kickstarter videos, so keep the questions coming and I’ll try to get to as many as possible in a video!
Do you have a video on how to do annotated books?
I’ve done 2 Kickstarters and never managed to pay myself back for editing or cover design either.
Please pleaes please do a video about what you would have done differently 🙂