Creative Book Promotion Ideas Courtesy of a Failed Kickstarter

crazy marketing ideas for authors hat-591973_960_720Happy Tuesday! The strange journey known as Kickstarter is now over, and I still have so much to share. You can read the previous articles in my Kickstarter adventure series here. This part will cover advertising, advice, and avoidances. Trust me, you’ll want to read this even if your plan is to never run a Kickstarter.

Advertising:

I hope to see this change over the years, but for now there is nowhere that truly supports a book Kickstarter. Video games, gadgets, films, even comic books have Facebook groups, special advertising websites, Twitter accounts, and all the things we tend to utilize outside of Kickstarter for promoting our books. Novelists have none of that. The websites you normally post your free/discounted books on? Most of them ask for an ASIN number, which you don’t have because your project hasn’t been published yet. Because of the strangeness of the terrain, I found myself performing guerilla advertising. Is that a real term? Don’t know, but it defines this madness fairly well. Continue reading “Creative Book Promotion Ideas Courtesy of a Failed Kickstarter”

Setting up Your Book’s Kickstarter Campaign

kickstarter logoHere we are, once again! The other day, I covered some of the basics about Kickstarter. By now you should have figured out what you’re campaigning, how much it’s going to cost you, what Kickstarter amount you’ll need to reach your actual goal, what rewards you’re going to have, and how much all of this is going to cost you on the back end in fees, shipping, packaging, and production. Congratulations! You’ve made it this far, but the fun isn’t over yet. There are still a couple things you need, or should at least consider, before you make your Kickstarter campaign. So that I have something to give you as a reference, this is my Kickstarter that is currently running. Later I’ll have screenshots of the before process, but I wanted to give you the finished result to gauge by.

The Video Introduction

Do you need to do this step? Well, as Kickstarter puts it, Continue reading “Setting up Your Book’s Kickstarter Campaign”

Kickstarter to the Heart and Crowdfunding’s to Blame

kickstarter logoKickstarter is a crowdfunding site where one puts up a project, in my case a horror novel, sets a goal, chooses rewards for the backers of the project, and designs the look of the campaign page through a series of easy to figure out, fill in the blank, sections. That’s the easy part. The hard part is the frantic madness that is screaming across the internet landscape, “HEY, LOOK AT ME, I NEED YOUR MONEY AND I PROMISE TO GIVE YOU THINGS!”

Why Crowdfunding? Continue reading “Kickstarter to the Heart and Crowdfunding’s to Blame”

LynneQuisition: Tugboat Yards

It seems like every couple of days, we hear about a new venture aimed at helping authors strut their stuff. One new kid on the block is Tugboat Yards. Lydia Laurenson, who does publisher development for the venture, agreed to take a seat in the comfy chair (all together now: “Not the comfy chair!”) and answer a few questions.

First, Lydia, where did the tugboat thing come from? Continue reading “LynneQuisition: Tugboat Yards”