Kickstarter for PreOrders
Reach a new audience, earn from preorders, and jump start your launch
Kickstarter projects are a great way to launch your book, but it takes careful planning! Here’s the lowdown on using during the pre-launch of your book.
First, what is Kickstarter? It’s one of the many crowdfunding platforms that allows you to crowd-source sales for your book. It is NOT a charity-ask like GoFundMe, which asks for donations to a certain cause, a person in crisis, or special projects.
Instead, Kickstarter is about launching a product, in our case, a book. At the end of the project, backers receive something. It’s usually a hardcover, paperback, or ebook. Merch, bling, and extras are optional. For swag and/or merch, you may wish to include a stuffed animal, bookmarks, card decks, toys, and so on. Bling! Oh, my! If you publish YA fantasy, you likely know about the bling options: foil covers, spray painted edges, ribbon bookmarks, and more. But the basics of Kickstarter is that you get something.
Why would someone go to Kickstarter to get the book instead of a retailer platform like Amazon?
New, Never Seen Before. First, Kickstarter only allows NEW projects. So it must be a new book. People get around that by doing omnibus editions, which means they combine several books into one edition, an omnibus. Still—the omnibus IS a new book, a new project. Can you sell a book that combines Books 1, 2, and 3 of a series? Yes! That’s a great Kickstarter project.
Timely. Kickstarters should run before a book is available on the retail platforms, which means the backers get it early. For my PUBLISH project, books should ship in late October, so you’ll receive it at least eight weeks before it publishes elsewhere. Readers like to get books early!
Bling and Stuff. Depending on the genre, your expertise in bling and stuff, and your individual book, you may offer readers a special edition and swag or merch. Maybe your book is perfect for a stuffed animal and you can source it at a reasonable price to include it. (This is hinting at a big concern: budget. More later on budget.) Or, if you have that YA fantasy that begs for foil, sprayed edges, and more—you’ll be offering a special edition. The more you can make the book and project special, without breaking the budget, the more appeal you have on Kickstarter. Fantasy lovers collect special editions by watching offers on Kickstarter! My PUBLISH project will be plain vanilla, only paperback or ebooks, with no hardcovers. Because it’s a how-to book, that’s appropriate.
Support the author. People love authors! And they love supporting authors with a financial investment—especially since they will get a book from their beloved author. Many project are funded by fans who return to the author’s work again and again.
Timing of Your Kickstarter
A Kickstarter means you must think about the timing of everything! Most important, backers should receive your book early, usually a minimum of a month early, but up to 5-6 months. It means you must build in a long lead time for the publication of your book.
Here’s my schedule:
Set up Kickstarter during June to August 2025.
Kickstarter runs September 15 to October 6. Projects can run 10 days or up to a couple months. Most people, though, run one for a month or even just three weeks like I am doing. During this time, I’ll be doing constant promotions, so I don’t like long Kickstarters. As an introvert, I can DO this, but a shorter time is more comfortable.
October 6 to October 31. I’ll finalize details and order books from the POD company, Lulu, which is the backend of my Shopify store.
Early November. Backers should receive the books.
January 6, 2026. Publish will launch on all retailers.
For those who are adding bling to a hardcover, they must either order offset print books or work with a POD company such as BookVault, who offers bling options. That means you must build in time to review proof copies and for books to ship. Bookvault is a UK company, so that adds shipping time, and pricing uncertainty these days because of shifting tariffs.
Budget for Your Kickstarter
Budgeting is crucial to the success of a Kickstarter project. I’ve heard of people whose projects funds, but they end up in debt. The Kickstarter platform takes a percentage, credit card companies take a percentage, and then you must price your books, swag, and merch correctly.
You set a goal, that is, how much funds do you want raise? You MUST raise the goal you set, or you get nothing. Kickstarter is an ALL OR NOTHING platform, so keep this in mind as you plan your budget.
If you decide to use a POD print option, then it’s standard to ask for only $500 as your goal for the project, knowing that you may far outstrip that goal. Funding fast in the first day gives a project a boost unlike any other. So, ask for the least possible. With a POD printed paperback, $20 is considered about right. The best way to know how much to charge is to look at your costs, then study other projects similar to yours to see what the market will bear.
If you decide to offset print, you’ll likely ask for more since you have to pay the printer. But—do you need to ask for the entire amount of print costs? Or can you combine that with stock to sell elsewhere? A lower ask is always easier to achieve!
You must also decide how to handle shipping costs. You can include it in the price of the book. Or another option is to charge a certain amount for the book, and then add shipping costs later. With tariff uncertainties, you’ll want to stay on top of this expense.
Adding dolls, boys, plush animals, bookmarks, or other swag or merch also means you must keep costs under control. Adding such objects means YOU must probably ship, instead of a POD drop-shipping method. You’ll have to purchase shipping supplies (boxes, tape, etc), and then take the items to the post office to ship.
Think carefully about budget: costs of books, swag, merch, shipping supplies. Make sure you will be profitable! Then, set a goal and go for it!
Setting Up a Kickstarter
I advise that you start setting up a Kickstarter project several months early, and take those months to study other projects. Back a few projects to see how the process goes after the project ends. In other words, become a student of the platform.
I can’t explain everything in a blog post like this! Instead, I recommend you look at Anthea Sharp’s book, Kickstarter for Authors, 2025 edition. She recently ran a Kickstarter for it here (of course!), but it will be on retailer platforms soon. She also runs a Facebook group dedicated to authors’ Kickstarter projects. Those are the best resources for learning the ins and outs of the Kickstarter platform—and there are many. As always, most people in the FB group are writing for adults, and we have to translate. But it’s still helpful, and sometimes you will see a children’s book project.
Marketing and Making the Kickstarter Project a Success
You MUST market your Kickstarter project. Sorry, but you must.
The platform allows you to set up a project preview page where people can sign up to be notified when the project goes live.
PUBLISH by Darcy Pattison - Project Preview Page. Sign up to be notified when the project goes live!
Experts suggest that you set up the project early enough that the Preview Page is up for a month before the project launches. If you have 50 people signed up to be notified when it goes live, your project is more likely to succeed. It’s a sort of text of your marketing. (Have you signed up for mine? Look under the black NOTIFY ME ON LAUNCH button on the right to see how many have signed up to be notified.)
Beyond that, you should plan ahead for publicity. Here are some of the things I’m doing.
September 13-16, 2025. Co-teaching Picture Book Authors and Illustrators: A Working Retreat, Highlights Foundation.
TBD. Blog article on the Lulu website.
September 15, 2025 Podcast interview on Joanna Penn’s Creative Penn Podcast for Authors.
September 19, 2025 Podcast interview with Kirsten Larson’s Nonfiction KidLit Craft Conversations Podcast.
TBD. Podcast interview with Sharon Skinner’s Coaching KidLit Podcast.
TBD. Podcast interview with Mark Leslie LeFevre’s Stark Reflections Podcast.
September 27, 2025. Virtual Master Class, Self-Publishing Picture Books and Middle Grade Books with author and publisher Darcy Pattison with Write2Ignite.com
Swapping with Laurel Decher and others to cross-promote their Kickstarters while they promote mine. Look for groups dedicated to swapping promos on Facebook, Author Nation, and other social media platforms.
Can you see why I’m only doing a three-week project? So many promos!
Study the Kickstarter Platform
I simply cannot explain everything about the Kickstarter platform, it’s too complex. But I can recommend it! This is my fourth Kickstarter project and each one before has funded. Projects are archived so you can see my previous ones. Or look at this stunning Kickstarter project that earned and astounding result: 185,341 backers pledged $41,754,153 to help bring this project to life. Yes. That is $41 million!
With only a $500 goal, I expect mine to fund quickly, but I hope it will go much farther. (We ALL hope that for our projects, don’t we!)
Regardless of the project’s monetary success, this has made me talk about the book early and often. When it launches in January, I expect there will be early reviews and good sales.
If you want to do a Kickstarter project, study the platform. Back other projects similar to yours and start to get a feel for pricing, what extras are offered, and the length of successful campaigns. Read Anthea’s book, Kickstarter for Authors, 2025. Then try a small project to get a feel for how the platform works. Expand from there.
I started using Kickstarter when someone said, “Kickstarter is my favorite social media platform.”
Really? A social media platform? Yes! You can build a following on Kickstarter just as you do on any social media platform. They will follow you from project to project. And the interesting thing is that they will only buy from you on Kickstarter. The backers are loyal to the platform and, yes, they will buy from Amazon, but you really WANT them to follow you on the Kickstarter platform. You can build an audience there while you build a separate but related audience on other platforms.
Kickstarter is work! It’s stressful for us introvert authors. But it can give your book a true kick start in the world. Try it!
Got questions? I’ll try to answer them! If you’ve done a project, drop a link in the comments so we can study yours!
And one last time! (Gotta get to 50 before I launch! Please help by sending others to the page, too!)
Can't wait for this to launch!