Why I'm Kickstarting my new book

If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know how vocal I’ve been lately about becoming what I beret-wearingly call an “artisan author.”

I wrote a pretty epic post about it here on The Author Stack, published last week on my own Substack about wanting to “make beautiful books,” and (spoiler!) have another one scheduled for next week about my realization that authoring has stopped being a waystation on my path toward making movies (which I always sort of thought) and has instead been my ultimate destination all along.

Mostly, it’s a shift of mindset. The people on my reader email list seem to like what I have in mind, but as of now, this whole thing hasn’t shown up anywhere but in my attitude. I’ve gussied up a few of my backlist books so far (here’s an email I sent about the first of them) but it’s slow work.

Where the rubber really meets the road will be with my new books. That’s where I’ll get to put my fancy-pants money where my mouth is. Each time I release something new, I’ll have to ask myself: Should I just compile it, slap a good-enough cover on it, publish an ebook version and maybe a quickie paperback into Amazon, and call it a day? Or will I instead break the mold that I used to use and instead find a way to do something really special?

For my first new book since having my realization (Gore Point), I chose the latter … and I created a Kickstarter for it, which is currently in pre-launch here, to make that “something special” happen.

If you’d like to know why, keep reading. (Or, if you’ve already decided that authors who launch on Kickstarter are money-grubbing jerks or beggars, do both of us a favor and don’t bother.)

The abridged story of Gore Point

Gore Point — the first in a demon-fighters trilogy that my writing partner Sean Platt and I think of as “Backdraft with a portal to Hell” — actually has a story behind the story. It’s long and boring, though, and although I could tell it to you, I’d then have to kill you.

Parts are confidential. Most of it is just uninteresting. The short version is that although Gore Point once had a sexy cover and what I’m told were metric crap-tons of pre-orders, all of that ended and it fell neatly into my lap without fanfare — and, more relevant to this abridged tale, without a cover I’d be allowed to use. The old cover was someone else’s IP, and they decided they’d rather keep it. (I guess they wanted to save it for the next book they published about demons and Hell-portals called “Gore Point.”)

This was unpleasant. I was overjoyed to have Gore Point and its two sequels back under my control before the public even saw them, but I’d been spoiled by a decade of working with my old partners at Sterling & Stone. I’d forgotten that most authors have to run businesses with their books, not just create something out of thin air and then sell it with no accompanying expenses.

Suddenly, I needed a new cover before I’d be able to launch the book (three new covers if I wanted to launch the series), and that was a problem because I’m not exactly swimming in cash right now. I’m starting over with this book-publishing thing: with a big backlist, yes, but without income yet to go with it. I’ve been doing everything on a shoestring these last few months, trying my best to do good business while my new business was growing.

But of course, my new mindset meant I couldn’t “shoestring budget” my covers. I’m wearing a beret now, remember? I didn’t want to just put any cover on the first books I’m launching by myself in ten years. I already had a designer in mind, and he’s my dream designer: someone I’ve been wanting to work with for years. If I asked myself, “Who would I work with if I was serious about creating beautiful books?” this was that guy.

The problem is, he’s expensive. So many of the highest quality creators are if they know their worth.

(I’d like to pause at this point and say that YES, I understand that price does not equal quality and that I could probably have found someone talented who cost a lot less. After twelve years in this business, however, I have not found that person. And by the way, while we’re pausing, I’d also like to address the other thing some of you are thinking, which is, “Who cares about the cover? It’s the story that matters.” While that’s true in concept, it is not true in practice. People REALLY DO judge books by their covers despite the fact that someone wrote a whole cliche about how you’re not supposed to do that. But ultimately none of that stuff matters because this was MY decision, and I knew that if I changed my cover plans, that wouldn’t be me being “sensibly frugal.” Instead, it would be me changing paths specifically to save money: the opposite of what I told myself I’d do, what with my artisan beret and all.)

(Now that I’ve said that, I’d like to pause a second time to point out that I don’t actually wear a beret. After joking about it a few times, I’m paranoid you’ll think I do, and that maybe I have a big walrus mustache to go with it, and that’s not a good look on me. Who am I, Jamie Hyneman? (Google it, people.))

So yes, “a way to get the project the funding it deserved, starting with the cost of a fancy cover” is where the idea to Kickstart Gore Point began. That was the idea and the impetus, but I wouldn’t have chosen Kickstarter for that reason only.

Like I said in this post’s tagline, it’s not about the money. It’s about playing a bigger and better game.

The correspondingly abridged story of Fat Vampire

I’ve mentioned before that I am — and have been since long before Gore Point’s prodigal return — planning to do a big Kickstarter for a 10(ish)-year anniversary special edition of my popular Fat Vampire series: the series that became the SyFy TV show Reginald the Vampire.

The series has a big cult following and lots of love, so I thought it would be cool to do a limited-edition hardback set with bonus material, illustrations, and all sorts of bells and whistles, plus corresponding paperbacks for those who like more bendy reading material and ebooks for those who like screens but not shipping costs. What’s more, creating a Kickstarter would give me an excuse to create all sorts of extras to go with the books, and to offer things I never normally offer — the kinds of cool, one-time bonuses that backers would hopefully love.

And if you’re thinking, “Hey jerkoff — NO, you didn’t tell us about your Fat Vampire Kickstarter plans,” then okay; I’m telling you about it right now.

The special Fat Vampire edition was my first project in terms of making a beautiful book, even though I haven’t finished it yet. Check out these non-finalized proof copies I’ve been showing everyone who will look in my direction:

The special Fat Vampire editions felt like an obvious project to Kickstart. The series has done very well and I keep running into people who already have a copy on their physical bookshelf, so there’s demand for a special version. It’s got a TV show. It’s been ten years (ish) since I wrote it, and anniversaries are times that readers want stuff like this.

The photo above shows a lot of the project’s scope so far. I wanted hardbacks, though I’d offer paperbacks, ebooks, and audiobooks as well. Hardbacks are the pinnacle of my vision for “beautiful books,” assuming they’re done well. Each of them is between 400 and 500 pages (Volume 1 is the first three books and Volume 2 is the last three), and each would be printed with a dust jacket AND with printing on the book’s cover itself beneath the jacket. I couldn’t do a foil-stamped design (only standard-font lettering), but my designer and I had plans to fake the look of silver foil on the actual case-wrap by using clever shadows and stuff.

My son, who’s in art and loves the look and feel of a good book, was very interested in all of this. So we took a trip to our local Barnes & Noble for inspiration. That’s where I noticed a lot of things that I’d never noticed before about how “truly pro” books tend to look. Here are some examples of books we found:

This book is bound in leather. I wasn’t into leather per se (something about my story being where animal organs used to be felt weird), but faux-leather is super sexy. See how the letters are raised and have shine to them?

Here’s the back of the same book. This sort of design-on-the-case wrap is similar to what I had in mind for Fat Vampire, though this one was leather and textured and shinier than what I’d be able to do:

And that was cool, but it was also more old-timey than my ideal. The below sort of thing was more common in the store, and present on a lot more books than I ever remember noticing before:

That right there is flat-out amazing. The snake is textured, raised, and treated with what printing folks call “spot varnish,” which means it’s shinier than the areas around it. The letters are also raised and spot-varnished.

The last photo above shows the dust jacket, whereas the Holmes book has its work done right on the leather. All the books I liked best had a FEEL to them as well. Plenty were flat, but the coolest ones all had raised surfaces, often spot-varnished.

At first, I thought, I wish I could do that. But then I thought, Am I sure I can’t?

Enter the print run

Traditional books are able to do special things because they’re printed through traditional print houses, who have relationships with traditional offset printers or own their own equipment. They can infinitely customize because they print tens of thousands or more copies of a book at a time. People like me, as indies, typically need to stick with print-on-demand because it’s the only feasible way to offer print books without taking out a second mortgage to pay for an offset print run, then taking out a third mortgage to build a warehouse and hire a large-scale fulfillment service to handle the volume.

If you’re able to do a print run, you can get your books cheaper per unit, but you have to pay for all the units at once — and it has to be a lot of units to get any savings. Some print houses will do very small runs, but the books are really expensive that way. With printing, you save with volume.

If I could do a print run, though, I could offer all sorts of things that print-on-demand isn’t able to do. Like spot varnish. Like embossing. Like different weights of paper, different cover materials … all sorts of cool stuff.

Independent authors usually can’t do that sort of thing, though some big players do. I wanted to play that bigger game, providing even better books. But how?

The answer was easy: Do some research, then do a print run. Russell and Lily Wong have a great and comprehensive post about it here, in fact.

The only way to justify that sort of thing, though, would be if I knew I could sell at least a hundred copies (ideally more) to keep per-unit costs down. I could only do it if I had a way to be sure I had those orders in hand before committing to a print run.

If only there was a way to sell first, then use the proceeds to pay and ship in a short period of time so I wouldn’t need to hold much inventory. If only there was a way to gauge interest in advance … and be able to back out of the deal if there wasn’t enough interest to justify it all.

Maybe you see where I’m going with this.

It’s all about the experience.

You know how sometimes a paradigm shift just hits you? You’re just sitting around on a quiet Saturday and some paradigm shift comes along and slaps you in the face. It’s just like the Spanish Inquisition: Nobody expects it.

(For you young people, go Google “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition” so you can understand the last paragraph. You’re already Googling “Jamie Hyneman” anyway, so might as well.)

I’d been thinking mostly about myself with this artisan author thing: I wanted to create beautiful books, so that’s what I was going to do. The readers who wanted beautiful books could come along with me whenever I took the beautiful road, but all readers could come along when I took the ordinary path: publishing ebooks and physical books in all the normal ways, which I should be perfectly clear that I will 100% still do.

(I guess I should repeat that: I’ll still always offer my books as normal ebooks, and I’ll always publish them in all the places that people like to buy books. This whole printing thing is additional, and only for readers who truly want it.)

But in reality, it wasn’t about my own artsy desires. It was actually about the experience of my readers. In being an “artisan,” all I was really doing from the reader’s perspective was offering a different — and, for some people, superior — experience.

It made sense. It was, in fact, beyond obvious. Reading is ALL ABOUT the experience. Why read a book, if not to experience a reality different than your own? Why go on a story’s adventure if not to feel a rush, a romance, or horrors that are best experienced vicariously?

We all read to have an experience. My shift was simply about changing the nature of the experience that I, as an author, was offering.

For some readers, there’d be no change. Gore Point will be available in simple ebook format a few months later, same as any ebook on Amazon or Kobo or Apple or B&N. For readers who prefer buying and reading that way, their experience of my books will remain limited to the story itself.

But in addition (not instead), I want to offer a tactile, real-things experience as well to readers who crave it. For some readers — and I’m one of them — there’s nothing like the feel of a real book in my hands. Some books feel better than others, and that’s also an experience I want. Some books look better on my coffee table or bookshelf too … and that, too, is an experience I want.

Some readers are collectors. I know several myself. For those readers, their bookshelf is an extension of their identity. If you’re not that kind of reader, maybe that makes no sense to you. It doesn’t have to. It makes sense to them.

There are readers out there for whom a book isn’t only about the words inside it. For some, it’s akin to comfort: a tangible anchor in a world that so often feels out of control. For others, it’s a point of pride. For some, it’s art that you set out for visitors to see, just like a painting on a wall.

To be perfectly clear, I may not be able to do all the stuff on my dream list above my first time out, even with a Kickstarter, but at least now there’s a path forward. If I want to deliver better and better experiences, at least now I can see the way to reach them in the future.

And, it’s about being part of something.

There’s one last reason I’m embracing Kickstarter to launch my books before releasing them months later in the usual ways:

When you join a Kickstarter, you become part of something.

Sean and I learned that lesson when we launched our Kickstarter for a “writing performance” project called Fiction Unboxed in 2014.

I actually offer the book that we wrote about that experience (called, originally enough, Fiction Unboxed) to everyone who subscribes to my Substack. Get your free copy of the Fiction Unboxed book here if you aren’t already subscribed.

Before offering Fiction Unboxed as my subscription bonus, I decided to read it again. That was an experience in itself, because it took me back to the heady days of the campaign, now a decade in the past. Back then, the idea of “Kickstarting a book” was a lot more rare (and more frowned-upon) than it is now. Before folks like Brandon Sanderson started annihilating the charts, we actually held the top spot of Kickstarter’s Fiction category leaderboard for a few years.

What struck me was recalling how all of the backers of Fiction Unboxed (just shy of a thousand of them) acted as if this was their campaign instead of just ours. They kept calling out totals in social media as if it was a point of their own pride. They kept saying, “We only need X more backers to get to $X!” and “We’re almost to our next stretch goal!” When the campaign ended, it’s like everyone threw virtual confetti, shouting to the world, “WE DID IT!”

WE. Because it belonged to all of us. Because it united all of us. It was true that if the campaign wasn’t successful that Fiction Unboxed wouldn’t happen, and it was true that everyone got more stuff when we hit stretch goals, but Sean and I had naively gone in thinking this was our project — just the two of ours. How silly. Everyone was in it together.

That’s what separates a Kickstarter from just “a way to fund creative projects.” In practice, people join campaigns to be part of something with other people — something that’s about more than just themselves.

Our world has become more and more alienated. People feel alone now more than ever, in part because social media is a farce of connection that ends up substituting for the real thing. Why visit friends when you can press the button Facebook gives you to offer them a happy birthday?

That’s not authentic connection. Maybe that’s why a place like Kickstarter increasingly is.

Maybe Kickstarter is where we’re able to find something we believe in — a movement, a change, a difference-maker of some kind — and join together with others like us to make it a reality.

Hey, wait. I have a movement to stand behind …

Oh, snap. I keep forgetting about that: I AM backing a movement these days.

I write blog posts and I talk to people, but that just feels like me doing my everyday thing. Truth is, though, that the stuff I’m saying really is a movement. I’ve even written manifestos about it here and here as guest posts on The Author Stack, and they must have struck a chord because both were phenomenally popular.

I really do care about the “artisan author” idea for those creators who are into it. I really do think that this is a change — or perhaps an addition or augment — that our industry badly needs right now. I really am concerned about the author just starting out or who’s been struggling for years, looking at the deluge of cheap, fast-produced books out there and wondering if they should even bother writing, because the market is way too crowded and it seems like there’s no hope.

Those things really do matter to me.

You shouldn’t do a Kickstarter “just to raise funds.” You can do it that way, but it’s not exactly maximizing your efforts. The best reason to do one, in my humble opinion, is if your campaign stands for something larger than just the project itself.

I realize how self-aggrandizing this sounds, but in my case it’s true for better or for worse: Yes, Gore Point is just a silly horror novel about a firefighter-like battalion of institutional demon-fighters, but I’m Kickstarting it because I want to give my readers the best experience possible, no matter which experience they choose.

The reason I’m launching this way versus an easier way, in essence, is because this way also takes a stand for the artisan author. It says that this is what I believe in, in terms of reading, writing, and the quality and importance of stories and the printed word … and it also says that if you believe the same things, then here’s a way to join me.

My silly little book becomes our stand. This is how we establish whether “the artisan author way” is something the world wants to see more of.

I haven’t decided yet when I’ll push the Launch button on the Gore Point Kickstarter, but I do know it’ll be soon: weeks, not months. There’s a lot of great information out there on maximizing a campaign, but this first time I’m choosing to ignore the advice that says to plan, wait, and build momentum in advance. It’s more important to me that we see if my readers want it or not, so I’m setting the funding goal low. It will either go or it won’t. I don’t want to skew the results by putting my maximal marketing skills to work on this one.

If you’re a horror reader (or a general Johnny B. Truant reader) and want to watch the campaign, check it out here and click where it says “Notify Me On Launch.”

(And if you want to follow the Fat Vampire Kickstarter that I’m launching later this year, sign up here.)

Either this funny little experiment of mine will succeed or it won’t. Either way, I’ll have my answer.

What do you think?

• Do you think Kickstarter is the future (or present) of publishing?

• Have you launched a campaign? How is it going/did it go?

• Do you have one in prelaunch?

Let us know in the comments.

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