I'm writing a book about creating, running, and fulfilling a great Kickstarter campaign. I've been involved with 4 successful ones myself. What info do you want to see?

I've run or been directly involved with four successful Kickstarter campaigns for various projects, and have advised other people on their campaigns. It was suggested to me that I should put my experiences and advice into a book, which I'm now working on. I've seen a number of people in r/entrepreneur running or considering running their own project - for those who want to learn more, what sort of information would you like to see in such a book?

So far, I'm including (or plan to include):

• Pros and cons of crowdfunding vs. self-funding
• When you should and shouldn't run a Kickstarter
• Building a fan base and leveraging it for initial momentum
• Projects ideal for crowdfunding
• Picking a funding level
• Picking rewards and dealing with fulfillment
• Managing expenses and scope
• Writing and organizing compelling descriptions / backstory
• General copywriting
• Creating a great video
• Managing and promoting the campaign
• Communicating with backers
• Following through with your project + distribution

[–]frogger21 2 points 6 hours ago

I would want a pretty good intro into what it is from the beginning. I think I know what Kickstarter is, and have some idea how one is done, but may have some wrong preconceptions.

Also, maybe preparing for success. It seems that fulfillment would be a huge task if you didn't know what you were doing.

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[–]zirconst[S] 1 point 5 hours ago

Absolutely, I hear you. I'll use the first few chapters to really make the concept of crowdfunding clear (along with definitions etc) and give concrete examples of how a campaign on Kickstarter might play out, before going into super detail on any one area.

    

[–]miparasito 1 point 3 hours ago

One other thought -- I've heard of people launching a kickstarter campaign purely for the buzz. Would it be worth the trouble in that instance?

    

[–]zirconst[S] 1 point 1 hour ago

I wouldn't JUST do it for buzz. You need a legitimate reason to do one and a legitimate purpose for the funds. Potential backers will be very wary otherwise!

    

[–]Lil_Miss_Scribble 1 point 6 hours ago

I'm very interested in running a Kickstarter project. The things I'd like to know are :-

How to prepare - how far in advance should I be generating interest

Checklist of 'must-haves'

What Kickstarter looks like 'on the other side' e.g what info do they provide you with to send out your rewards, is it just a badly formatted spreadsheet?

Pros/Cons between Setting everything in stone vs letting the community/feedback shape the project.

Finding manufacturers, reward suppliers, efficient shipping

After Kickstarter, how to redirect the flow of traffic & keep promoting elsewhere after the project has ended.

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[–]zirconst[S] 2 points 5 hours ago

Awesome, thank you for this feedback. I hadn't thought about including some of these things - such as redirecting traffic - so I'll make sure to include it. Also, the idea of some 'no-brainer' checklist resources makes a lot of sense. I know it's easy to get overwhelmed with info and sometimes you need a big picture look at things before getting into detail.

    

[–]Lil_Miss_Scribble 1 point 5 hours ago

No problem! I look forward to reading the book. I think it's important to treat 'getting funded' as the high point on a bell curve. It feels like so often the media tout the project as the be-all and end-all of launching a business when in reality there's this huge build up in preparation before hand needed to reach that peak, the high point is reaching the funding and then the tail off (that can be dramatic) where more work is needed to sustain interest & continued sales. It'll be great to have a well rounded account out there.

Good luck!

    

[–]man-up 1 point 5 hours ago

I'd buy this.

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[–]mm55 1 point 4 hours ago

In addition of expenses, a table showing potential costs as well as how to scale properly with stretch goals.

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[–]miparasito 1 point 3 hours ago

I want to read this book immediately. I sell a proven item that could be so much better if I had the cash to produce in higher quantities. I'm nervous about asking for money and want people to get value for their support -- so levels and rewards are a challenge. And honestly the video portion freaks me out. For no rational reason, but still. I'd love something to help me move forward with a little more knowledge and confidence!

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[–]zirconst[S] 1 point 1 hour ago

I think this will help you. In the preface I point out that I can't guarantee success - no one can - but there are a TON of things you can do to increase your chances. it's not so scary :)

    

[–]testmypatience 1 point 2 hours ago

I want you to go look at all the current kickstarter books on amazon and go through all of the 1 star and lower comments and find what people were bitching about and wanted to see. Then add those things.

Marketing it and how to get the info together and what prizes to use is a huge thing. Definitely cover shit like taxes, how hard it is to do behind the scenes, interacting with people, video resources, etc. Show us what you didn't know when you were going through it. Teach us everything you know man. Everything. Make it hard as fuck to fail.

Want to make it kick a lot of ass? Go through kickstarted and look at ALL of their categories and show how to succeed with all categories. They will all be different in some ways but some ways will be general.

We want the general and the specific and the hard to find.

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[–]zirconst[S] 1 point 1 hour ago

Good idea. I've looked at some reviews already (will look at more) and it seems like what a lot of people don't like is how many books are essentially just tutorials on how to use Kickstarter.com. That's not exactly helpful. You want info on how to run a successful crowdfunding campaign, which is very different than a technical manual.

    

[–]testmypatience 1 point 38 minutes ago

You want info on how to run a successful crowdfunding campaign, which is very different than a technical manual.

This is what most people I feel are looking for but keep getting disappointed. Why the hell would I want to know how to run a website only without the rest of the campaign info? That would just be dumb.

    

[–]CPTherptyderp 1 point 2 hours ago

I'm thinking about launching a campaign. The thing I suck at most is marketing / driving traffic to the project. I'd like to see the rest of that list, too, though