Learn how to crush your next campaign from an author who has raised over $250,000 on Kickstarter across 18 publishing projects.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
I honestly can't believe it. I'm so excited to fulfill this campaign and get stacked up for our next campaign in March 2023.
Here is a full list of all the major pieces of the campaign that go away for a long time today:
The six main books - Get Your Book Selling on Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play Books, Barnes and Noble, and Your Website (that last one is direct sales) are headed out. They are not currently at retailers and you can only get them through the campaign. The new iterations of them will go out to backers and previous purchasers when completed. They will be back at retailers in ebook and paperback at the earliest in the last few months of 2022, but probably into 2023.
Digital printables - The Go Wide Workbook and the Grow Wide Workbook are headed out the door! These two workbooks in print or digital printable answer a few questions I get asked often, which is how can I learn about all five retailers as they work together (Go Wide Workbook) and how can I market at all five retailers as they work together (Grow Wide Workbook). They'll be dropped to backers in March 2023 (not terribly far away) and then they will spend 3-6 months in exclusivity, so would launch to the public in late 2023.
The ad books - Get Your Book Selling with Bookbub, Advanced Amazon Ads, Advanced Facebook Ads are going away except for backers and previous direct sales purchasers. They will not be launched to the public until mid-2023.
Substack subscription + books launched through 2023 under the $75 tier and higher - if you like either of my Substack subscriptions (aggressivelywide.substack.com or productiveserialist.substack.com) then you get a paid subscription to one of them under this tier (the tier itself is worth more than that with all the stuff, so this is a bonus), and with it comes a digital copy of all my ebooks released in the next year (under Monica Leonelle—does not include my fiction, of course). There is one exception, which is the co-authored book with Russell Nohelty that is the center of our next Kickstarter campaign in March 2023. The value of the books under this is good, and I'm trying to be less precious with my Substacks so I can update them consistently (I usually want to write monster articles which just doesn't work for the platform), so I'm hoping to make the Substacks more valuable too, but there's currently no schedule for either.
The Go Wide, Grow Wide Incubator - These are at a discount at all four levels, plus you get all the extra reward stuff. If you backed the campaign in the first 48 hours, you are still eligible for the 2 bonus months I offered, even if you upgrade now (bonuses are by backer number + final pledge level). With all the bonuses, I believe you could get/could have gotten up to six months in the program for only $150, plus all the rest of the reward tiers, so check to see if you're eligible. We will not be launching this again until mid-2023 or later. You will be able to do month-to-month via Patreon starting in September 2022.
The Two Mentorships - These aren't coming back anytime soon, and I'm likely too busy to open my consulting calendar to the public before next spring.
The Weekly Workshops - These cover the Big 5 retailers (one per workshop) + one workshop on direct sales. These are still available if you are backed at the $150 level or above (you get all six regardless of when you backed). After that, they go to $97 individual and otherwise will be rolled into the Go Wide, Grow Wide Incubator under the appropriate month.
The Three Stretch Goal Books - Get Your Book Selling on Patreon, with Subscriptions and Memberships, and with IngramSpark and Indie Bookstores (should it be unlocked—18 backers to go to hit 350!) are ONLY going to be available through this campaign for a long time. They will go out to backers only in the first half of 2023 and then they will stay exclusive for 3-6 months in ebook and paperback. So, you may not be seeing them for a while (late 2023 or early 2024) and the next opportunity to get them, if any, is likely March 2023 in our next Kickstarter campaign (though we make no guarantees because we haven't built the campaign yet).
The Two Sets of Bonus Podcast Episodes - We unlocked one set that is about Amazon and Amazon Ads, and one set that is about Direct Sales. This is 30-40 episodes worth of extra content/training and we won't ever sell this or offer this again. Some of it may make it to our free podcast feed, but only as it is convenient for us or fits within our goals. No promises as to the if or when!
The Two Personal Trainings/Recordings - The first unlocks at $40k (which we are close to) and is about the full publishing system…What it really looks like and how all these platforms can work together. The second unlocks at $45k and is about the financials of it all. (Basically, I'll break down my financials and where all the money is coming from). I never plan to sell either of these recordings…More likely, they'll become bonuses to programs or rolled in to one of our programs.
In preparation for our March 2023 Kickstarter campaign on Direct Sales (the book at the center is called Get Your Book Selling Direct To Readers) we are offering a beta run of our upcoming Direct Sales Accelerator at a steep add-on discount, and only to people in one of our programs. These programs include the Kickstarter Accelerator and the Go Wide, Grow Wide Incubator. During the beta run, we'll be figuring out where people are at and building the program/course.
The only other opportunity to get in on this is through the Kickstarter Accelerator, but if you are not in that and don't want to be, then the Incubator is your best bet!
Once we have the program built, it'll be premium like the Kickstarter Accelerator is.
But the best reason is because in less than 12 hours, you won't be able to get most of this stuff, or the price goes up significantly, or you have to pay much more month-to-month.
Tomorrow, I will get a half-dozen emails asking/begging to be let into the campaign, and I will be able to do absolutely ZERO about it.
The campaign is scheduled to end this evening and Kickstarter is going to end it.
Please get your pledge sorted today before the campaign ends!
Our Go Wide, Grow Wide Kickstarter campaign ends tomorrow and did you know? In the stretch goals we unlocked two books! (With a third in the works if we get 32 more backers!)
These are books that are slated for 2023 and they are also books that people who are interested in Kickstarter have been asking us about for the last year. They are:
In truth, I couldn't think of a better companion pack of books for those who loved our last book, Get Your Book Selling on Kickstarter.
One of the most popular fan-based platforms besides Kickstarter is Patreon, and this book will talk about how you can test what is working for you on Kickstarter and move those offers to Patreon. I think Kickstarter and Patreon work so nicely together—one helping you engage your readers and turning them into fans, and one taking them much deeper into your fandom through an ongoing membership.
Beyond the Patreon platform is simply the subscriptions and memberships business model in general. People are interested for obvious reasons. One of the greatest challenges we see in our Kickstarter Accelerator group is people who have a successful Kickstarter campaign that boosts their confidence, who then lose their confidence again in the months that follow as the high of the campaign wears off.
Most authors benefit from a one-time success on Kickstarter, but what those same authors need is to receive the same level of financial success every month—without having to run a Kickstarter campaign every month. This is life changing for most authors, and why subscriptions and memberships are a key companion to selling direct through Kickstarter.
It doesn't happen overnight, but this book will be about how to market a subscription or membership on any platform, and will be focused on the psychological triggers that work!
The last book about IngramSpark and indie bookstores is going to be so fun! Once you are done with Kickstarter, it's really important to move your books to print-on-demand, dropshipping fulfillment, your own website (which can be done entirely through dropshipping if you don't want to hold inventory), and indie bookstores. This is how you start to build more consistent and (somewhat) passive income in publishing.
This book will cover several of those topics in greater detail than we have before. I've recently learned a ton of cool stuff about IngramSpark, and we have Donovan Scherer's expertise on indie bookstores (plus I'll probably interview a few other bookstore owners).
I think of Patreon and other subscriptions/memberships as the digital version of, "My Kickstarter is Done, Now What?" and IngramSpark and indie bookstores as the physical version.
I really hope this book gets unlocked, and it seems totally doable with 2 days left.
To get this pack, go to:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lovelightlioness/gowidegrowwide/
And back the project at $10 or more.
Normally, the ebooks in this series are $10 each, but you can get the two unlocked already for $10 total.
AND if we get 32 more backers, we will also unlock the third book on IngramSpark and indie bookstores, which will mean THREE books for $10.
A discount is nice, but beyond that, here's the bigger reason to act now: these books will NOT be on retailers for a long time. The only place you can get them is in this campaign, and that is ending in less than 48 hours.
And yes, none of them will come out until 2023, which seems like a long time away. But there are actually only 4.5 months left of 2022, so it's not! 2023 and these books will be here before you know it...For Kickstarter backers only!
As always, we will give these to Kickstarter backers first, and then there will be a long period of exclusivity before we sell them on retailers so we can honor the people who supported us first.
And then, we get to it when we get to it...For better or for worse. I've been so busy that our last book, Get Your Book Selling on Kickstarter, is still not out in paperback at retailers. It's been 10 months since the campaign and 6 months since the books shipped to backers. It takes us time. Both Russell and I probably seem busy but we are actually both moving a bit slower these days to prioritize our health and the people we are close to.
To get this pack, go to:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lovelightlioness/gowidegrowwide/
And back the project at $10 or more for the ebooks.
If you prefer, you will be able to buy the print books in BackerKit (and I'll put together a nice bundle for you to save on shipping costs).
Looking forward to seeing you behind the backer wall!
Sincerely,
Monica
Hi! We've added some new tiers to the campaign and unlocked several goals you might be interested in. We are helping authors publish wide whether they are primarily in print, ebook, or audiobook! We also have a few new tiers for newer authors who don't have a large back catalog.
The campaign is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lovelightlioness/gowidegrowwide/
What follows is the information on the new print, audiobook, KU author and new author tiers!
For all you comic creators, workbook and planner creators, and coloring book creators, as well as those who may be primarily KU authors but want to work on and increase their print book sales... (in the age of TikTok and special editions and book boxes...)
Russell also wrote an excellent post about why comic creators might find the campaign interesting as well! Not sure how many people know this, but we are planning on recording a special series for the Go Wide, Grow Wide Incubator about getting Russell's books and comic catalog selling much better on retailers. It should be really good, and well worth the cost of admission.
And of course, if we reach our stretch goal, you will also get our new book, Get Your Book Selling on Patreon, for free in digital as part of this bundle. So it's a *really* good deal if you like ebooks.
Back the campaign here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lovelightlioness/gowidegrowwide/
And if you like print books... (well, no surprise there really 🙂) you can get all the print books in the Build Your Own Bundle tier also.
Someone asked me what they should get if they like the new print bundle but backed the last campaign—I would get the following four books and save a bit of money:
You likely already have the other two books, Get Your Book Selling on Kickstarter and Get Your Book Selling at Events and Signings. This can save you a few bucks and you can put your unique bundle together through the add-ons!
Back the campaign here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lovelightlioness/gowidegrowwide/
Most authors don't even realize this, or haven't thought of this much—but did you know that audiobooks are sold at all five of the Big 5 retailers (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play Books, and Apple Books)?
And because the algorithms for ebook and audiobook are largely the same at each retailer... you can ALSO optimize your audiobooks for all those retailers and see huge gains in visibility of your audiobooks (and ebooks if you have them up there) in the stores as a result?
In addition to retailers, selling audiobooks on your website and on fiction apps is becoming increasingly popular. That's why we created the wide audiobooks author bundle!
Back the campaign here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lovelightlioness/gowidegrowwide/
We also have a special stretch goal for authors who who like audiobooks! We are tackling the audiobook for our most popular main book in the campaign, Get Your Book Selling on Amazon!
Our campaign is primarily about publishing, but we did not forget about authors who haven't published yet
Back the campaign here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lovelightlioness/gowidegrowwide/
When you back the campaign this week, you (along with all previous backers) will also get this week's backer perk, which is about the most popular retailer, Amazon!
This workshop will show you everything you need to know about the retailer that holds about 85% of English-language ebook markets worldwide.
Additionally, we haven't announced this yet: but there will be a secret menu item during the campaign! It's going to be a good one for both new authors and authors who enjoy and regularly participate in NaNoWriMo. You'll be able to add it on to a current pledge tier or access it through the Build Your Own Bundle tier in the backend. If you think you might want this one, back the campaign at at least $1 to get the bonuses, and I'll be sharing more about it later this week and into next week.
Back the campaign here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lovelightlioness/gowidegrowwide/
And we decided to do a bonus related to Kickstarter! We are going to add a special episode to our podcast about what we did differently from our first campaign to this one. It's going to be huge (and I've got a ton of notes to share) if you are looking to optimize your Kickstarter campaigns and make more money (and profit) with each one.
You do not have to back the campaign for this one, as it will be public, but everyone who does back for $1 will get the link + recording of the episode for posterity.
Thanks so much for your support in the campaign, and I'll be announcing the secret menu items soon! Stay tuned.
Sincerely,
Monica (and Russell)
Back the campaign here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lovelightlioness/gowidegrowwide/