Today is a big day. I’ve just finished shooting and editing my Kickstarter project video and have uploaded it to the page that I have created for my Arabian Dreams Kickstarter.
The aim of this diary is to make notes and share my experience of running a Kickstarter with my readers. It took me a couple of months to get all the information down and all the tabs populated, so I definitely recommend starting ahead of time.
There are lots of things to think about. Artwork, headings, pledge titles, reward tiers, add-ons, shipping costs, descriptions, etc. There are people out there who can help you with it, but I don’t have that kind of money yet.
The video was the hardest thing, just simply because of the time it takes to script, shoot, get all the B-Roll together and then edit it into something presentable. Luckily, my YouTube experience has held me in good stead. I spent quite a bit of time watching other kickstarter project videos to get an idea of what to include.
This is the formula I went with:
- Hook – something to pull the listener in with, a single sentence.
- Who am I and why am I doing this
- What is the Gap that my kickstarter fills
- What is the status of my books right now
- What will the money help me do
- Timeline – where am I now and what’s next
- Finish with a call to action
The cover artist is my daughter and she’s put together some fantastic covers that I have already shared here. I used Gemini to do some mock-ups of what the books might look like with her cover art on them. Not the final product, but a good approximation I hope.
The next most difficult thing was deciding what to put as the rewards and more importantly, what to charge. I know some kickstarters inflate the costs, but I wanted to keep it as close as possible to retail. The ebooks should retail at around £4.99 in the UK, which is the standard rate these days. The paperbacks would retail at £9.99. Hardbacks are much more expensive, and this one is going to be special, with sprayed edges and other nice touches, so I’ve priced it competitively at £27.
There is also a Founding Reader tier that includes most of the add-ons but really represents a clear desire to support me as a writer and an investment in getting the series done. Books 1 and 2, Alauddin and Ali Baba are collected together in the Hardback version titled Arabian Dreams Vol. 1. I’ve started writing Sinbad, as you may be aware, and that will be essentially Volume 2 due to it shaping up to be a bit of a monster. I have a plan for Volume 3, but I’m not ready to share that with the world just yet.
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