Jenny Nordbak is one half of the Bonkers Romance team that has raised over $1.9 million with publishing projects on Kickstarter and Backerkit. She’s a member of the Kickstarter Community Advisory Council (a panel of experts that Kickstarter relies on for feedback), an admin of the Kickstarter for Authors Facebook group, and was named one of Kickstarter’s 15 Women Creators to Watch in 2024. She’s offered advice about the Kickstarter process to numerous authors with campaigns of all sizes including Penny Reid, Juliette Cross, and CD Reiss!
Have you been thinking about running a Kickstarter but don’t know where to start? Maybe you’ve already got one in the works, but you want to make sure you’re set up to succeed. Or maybe you’ve already run a Kickstarter but want to level up with your next project. I’m excited to guide you on your Kickstarter journey! I firmly believe that Kickstarter can be used as a tool for authors at any point in their career in any genre.
There is a ton of really good advice online about building a Kickstarter project, but it can be completely overwhelming and time-consuming to sift through. Every campaign is so different that it’s difficult to know what advice applies to you or how to adapt to fit your specific circumstances. If you’re looking for one-on-one guidance from a Kickstarter expert, I offer one-hour Zoom consultations on any combination of topics from below. By assessing your platform, genre, and goals for your Kickstarter, I can tailor my advice to meet your specific needs.
A Non-Exhaustive List of How I Can Help You
Fundamentals of How a Kickstarter Works
- What you can include.
- How the timeline works and how to plan out your own timeline.
- The ins and outs of the backer and creator experience.
- The specific benefits of a Kickstarter for authors and readers.
- How and where to incorporate it into your career strategy.
- How long you should run your campaign for.
- What time to launch and end.
Brainstorming What You Could Offer in a Kickstarter
You have to bring something new to life with your project, which is why special editions are so common, but there are many other options and many ways to incorporate backlist, frontlist, launching a brand new series, bonus content, artwork, custom swag, playlists, audiobooks, immersive experiences for your readers…the possibilities are endless and exciting!
The flipside of brainstorming what to offer would be pitfalls to watch for and ways to make sure you don’t set yourself up for unnecessary complication or expense when it comes to fulfillment and shipping. We’ve made many mistakes. Please let me help you to avoid making the same ones!
Tier Strategy
- How many tiers to have.
- What to include.
- How to bracket all price points.
- How to streamline the backer experience.
- What to do with add-ons.When it might make sense to limit quantities
Prelaunch Strategy
- Why prelaunch matters for campaigns.
- How long yours should be.
- When to put up your prelaunch page.
- How a prelaunch page works.
- Best practices for what you should put on your banner and text.
- What to reveal during prelaunch.
- Prelaunch promo strategies (especially nontraditional ones!).
- How to assess follower counts.
- How to quantify what your follower count means for your funding goal.
- Average conversion rates of prelaunch followers.
Fffectively Work With Vendors Locally and Overseas
- Ordering custom items from Alibaba, pitfalls to watch for.
Pricing and Stretch Goals
- How to price your tiers and add-ons.
- Costs you may not realize you need to account for.
- How to calculate your profit margins.
- How you should determine the goals and when to publish them.
- Why you probably don’t need stretch goals, but when they’re useful.
Fulfillment
- How to work with a fulfillment partner if it doesn’t make sense to pack all of the orders yourself.
- How to streamline fulfillment.
- Survey best practices.
- Best ways to deliver ebooks or digital content.
Post Campaign
- What a third party “campaign manager” (Like PledgeManager, Pledge Box, Backerkit, etc) does.
- Evaluating whether it makes sense for you to use one or whether you can run your surveys through Kickstarter.
- Late Pledges through Kickstarter vs. a third party campaign manager.
- Best practices for backer communication.
- Errored Pledges and what to do when people’s payments don’t process.
- Setting up your Spotlight page on Kickstarter.
Shipping
- Drop shipping vs. shipping yourself vs. shipping through a fulfillment partner.
- Best practices for shipping materials.
- How to charge shipping in your project.
- Tips for international shipping.
- Specialty shipping methods like media mail and simple export.
Rates
1 Hour Zoom consultation $149
2 Hour Zoom consultation $199
Things That Are Not My Forte
I’m not an expert on ads. I’m happy to talk through our experiences using ads and working with Jellop on a past campaign, but it will mostly be centered around why I don’t think ads are a good idea for most publishing Kickstarter campaigns. I’m not an expert on how to successfully run ads for publishing Kickstarters.
I’m not a tax advisor or a substitute for a tax advisor. I can tell you how taxes work for our specific business structure, which will give you an idea of what to research or ask your advisor, but I don’t know the intricacies of crowdfunding tax rules for every US state, country, or business entity. Crowdfunding is still so new that most tax experts I’ve spoken to don’t actually know either, so it can be tricky to sort through.
One of my absolute favorite things is starting a call with an author who’s overwhelmed and intimidated by the Kickstarter platform and making sure they feel confident and energized by the time we’re finished. I want to demystify the process for you and give you the confidence to take big swings!
Jenny Nordbak 