A little help

It’s amazing how much goes in to self-publishing. After the long, exhausting act of writing the book comes the long, exhausting process of getting the book to readers. There’s formatting and design and more formatting and websites and connections and, yes, more formatting. There’s long hours and dead ends and costs at every turn.

The expense is something I hadn’t really anticipated.  I live paycheck-to-paycheck, so any costs would cut into my grocery money. I didn’t want to shoulder the expense of sharing my story, after having shouldered everything involved in writing it. I needed a little help.

I got it through a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter, an online funding platform for creative projects. Within a few hours of signing up, I had a page of my own that described my project, listed options for contributions, and offered small “rewards” for pledges, which included a thank you in my book and the chance to weigh in on cover designs. Then, I simply shared it on Facebook and let Kickstarter list it on their site.

The campaign ran for just over a month, and it exceeded my modest goal through contributions from my friends and family, as well as strangers who had come across my project and believed in what I was doing. More about my Kickstarter funding is featured here

I received my funding, minus a reasonable administrative fee, soon after my campaign ended, and I used the money to do what I said I would do: create a website and pay to have my Word document converted into e-files that I could share for free. Fast, simple, and successful. I now had the money to step forward.

 But what I took away from my Kickstarter campaign was more than funding. Everything I was about to do was new and frightening: share my personal story with strangers, seek reviews from critics, open myself up for criticism. I believed in my work and was willing to take the risk, and now with the support of my Kickstarter backers, I felt like others believed in me too. In addition to funding, I had raised a vote of confidence, a show of support that I really needed before stepping into the intimidating, unknown world of self-publishing. It was something to hang on to as I stepped forward, and for that I’m grateful.