How To Kickstarter Pt. 3

Content is key. Yes the video is important, and the prizes are too, but what you put on your Kickstarter in both the original page content and in your updates is potentially the most important. Not everyone is going to watch your video, but they might skim the page. Not everything you put on the page is going to be read but people might look over your project updates. The content you put up has to showcase your project and the reasons why other people should get excited and get on board!

With our Kickstarter we began with something catchy:

Whit Clayborne accidentally dates a soul eater and unwittingly falls for a vampire - and it's only his first week demon hunting...

This single sentence tells you about the project and hopefully draws you in with interest. Saying something like "I wrote a book and you might like it." won't get you very many backers. Think of something eye catching, something different, what makes your project unique and interesting? 

Since we are promoting a novel, we used our content to explore a couple of different things.

We discussed the book in a section called “book summary.” While we didn’t describe the book in its entirety, we did try to list things that would interest potential backers.

We also talked about “us” (my co-author and I) because people want to connect with the individuals who made the product. The video can be used to do this as well, but we explored our background and our interest a little further in the written content.

We discussed the prizes and shared some graphics related to this topic. 

We also shared our stretch goals (if you make more than your initial goal amount what else will you be doing with backer’s funds?) and I tried to make these related to what we are doing but also interesting so people would be excited about reaching them.

Lastly, I shared where people could keep in touch with us and our future projects. Your connection with potential backers doesn’t end with Kickstarter. Let people connect with you across the Web and maybe they’ll buy future books/CDs/artwork – whatever you’re working on.

My first update was a video, my second was a link to the first chapter of the book, and my third were the cute bitstip comics I shared in a previous post on here. These were all employed to hopefully get new people interested in the project and to keep backers interested in what’s to come. 

Don’t use updates to tell people what you had for breakfast. These shouldn’t be a nuisance and should only be used to thank backers and to get backers excited. By making updates open to the public you can potentially hook new people but if you have content you only want your backers to see then make sure the update is not public. 

Ultimately, keep your content appealing both with the text you use and the variety of media available to you to promote your project.

Want to see our content in action? Check out our Kickstarter at:
 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2121709675/the-beginning-of-whit-a-laugh-out-loud-urban-fanta

Creating Content for an Author Facebook Page

Sorry to all of you who are tired of hearing from me how to publicize yourself and your work as an author through social media. For those of you interested in this topic, I've got another tidbit for you.

While I've seen a lot of authors approach their FB pages in different ways, one thing that makes any FB page "successful" (i.e. gets more traffic/more likes) is viral content. Viral implies that it is shared across the web (or FB) reaching more people than just a single share by your page. Content can be anything that applies to your brand (i.e. you as an author, your book, your interests).

Take into consideration what types of things are often shared on FB.

Quotes are pretty common among FB content and FB shares. Here are two quotes I added to images and shared on my FB page. Notice how they apply to my brand (fantasy author).

I also created this one with my own text because it applies to my brand (fantasy books and strong female characters).

Lastly, I created this to help promote the series in particular. I have more of these cat photos/text to share on the page. I chose cats because they are popular and they are featured in our book.

So consider what your brand is and what content you can make to add to your page and get people to share. Also note that when it's time to promote your book asking family and friends to share any posts about your book is helpful. Don't ask them to share every post you make (unless you want to be annoying) but getting them to share your posts about your actual novel will get more eyes on that post and more potential sales.