Summary

I ran my first Kickstarter campaign 30 Apr-21 May in 2014 to raise funds to print a book of my erotica.

This was the first time I've marketed anything. I decided to document my experience. My campaign was successfully funded.

• prepare campaign page on Prefundia
• cultivate followers on Twitter
• contact people I know
• contact people I don't know
• blog about my Kickstarter experience
• get book and story reviews

Plan on Prefundia

I planned my campaign page on Prefundia. Knowing that my campaign was under the public gaze focussed me. My campaign text went through MANY iterations before it felt right.

If someone likes a project they see on Prefundia, they can sign up to be notified when the campaign is launched.

I posted the Prefundia page to Facebook to get feedback and to introduce my project to my contacts.

Ask people for a £1 pledge

In the week before the launch of my campaign, I contacted most of my friends, family and acquaintances for support.

I contacted everyone with a personal message using the medium I usually used to communicate with them.

I asked for a £1 pledge only, explaining that a campaign that had backers would look popular and attract more attention.

• Facebook (125 people)
• LinkedIn (98)
• Twitter (85)
• e-mail (23)

I included a link to my Prefundia page. I created a step-by-step guide to making a pledge for those who had never used Kickstarter before.

I kept a note of people who expressed an interest or who said they weren't interested. I also kept a note of who retweeted me.

I also posted campaign-related photos on Instagram during my campaign (I have a lot of toy photography followers).

Twitter

I personalised tweets to people I knew in the salutation so that they would know they were getting a personal message.

I cultivated followers - people who might be interested in my book - on Twitter on my second account. These were sex writers and reviewers, and sex toy bloggers.

I found them by searching for certain words (erotica, porn) and followed them. After a few days, I unfollowed anyone who hadn't followed back using ManageFlitter. I had read about this technique in one of the crowdfunding posts I'd read.

I tweeted 309 people who followed me but that with whom I had had no prior contact. @SexInWords was one of these followers. He tweeted about my campaign for the three weeks it ran.

Launch day

After launching the campaign on Kickstarter I contacted everyone I'd contacted before who had expressed an interest in the campaign or who hadn't replied.

I gave them a link to my campaign page, again asking for a £1 pledge. For my Twitter contacts, I made a page on my blog with my my request for support and a link to the how-to guide.

Thank everyone

I acknowledged every reply in the medium I'd contacted people. I also profusely thanked anyone who expressed an interest in my project or who said they would back my campaign.

A week into the campaign, I contacted those people who said they would pledge but who hadn't yet.

Contacting bloggers

I researched and contacted about 50 related bloggers (erotica, sex shop, masturbation or feminist porn) and contacted them by Twitter or e-mail.

I found this very hard - contacting people out of the blue. My message must not have been compelling because my activities only resulted in two retweets and no backers.

Reviewers

Two of the people following me on Twitter had blogs - one to review erotica and other to review sex toys and books. I asked both for a review. They both did it at short notice while the campaign was running.

The reviews provided me with material I could post in an update and, later, in my back cover text.

Editors

During the campaign, I was contacted by two people - one via Twitter and one via a Kickstarter blog post - offering to edit my book.

I eventually had four potential editors. I chose two editors based on their work on my shortest short story after the campaign was funded.

Promotion services

New to marketing, I tried different paid promotion services.

Fiverr.com - I paid for tweets by sex-related accounts with thousands of followers. I wrote the tweet to include a bitly link to my Prefundia page. Bitly gives some useful stats. I got some retweets and link views but no backers this way.

I also used Fiverr to get a review of my stories and to write headlines. The headlines were especially good value for money and resulted in "Smart erotica with women and men as sexual collaborators." I used the reviews and headlines in my campaign page.

Backercamp - (originally gofounder.com) I paid $9.99+ for tweets during my campaign. I sent them a graphic to use and headlines. They sent out some well-composed tweets.

Kicktraq - for the last 4 days of my campaign, I paid for a banner ad on Kicktraq.

They also linked to the book review on Christina Harding's review blog. I don't think I got any backers with either of these.

CoPromote - with the several hundred followers I'd cultivated on Twitter, I used that account to get tweets send by other people using CoPromote. I found out about this service via WordPress.

It's a system where people send out tweets for each other. You get credits for each tweet you share by other people. You can then use these credits to ask for your own tweets to be promoted by other people.

The stats for one of my CoPromote campaigns is below.

The CoPromote campaign was seen by a lot of Twitter accounts but it's likely that many of these weren't real people. I checked the followers of some of the people who shared my tweets and saw that they were automated accounts.

What was effective?

Contacting people I know was the most effective. This is part of the advice I read in crowdfunding campaigns. I found it hard to ask people for help. However, it was made easier by only asking for £1.

Even though I only asked for £1 pledge, many of my contacts pledged more and asked for the book in rewards. Three of my contacts felt so strongly about the principle of my book that they backed at the £125 level (rename a character). A backer I didn't know also pledged at this level. He had found out about the campaign when one of my contacts posted about the project on Facebook. This was a source of other backers I didn't know.

Number of pledges by discovery method

The percentage of pledges by how people heard about the campaign.

Facebook message - 42%
Twitter – prior engagement - 16%
via contact’s FB wall post - 11%
via Kickstarter - 10%
e-mailed - 8%
LinkedIn - 5%
unknown - 5%
via my blog post - 1%
via Instagram - 1%
via retweet - 1%
Twitter – no prior engagement - 0%

Success rate by promotion activity

e-mailed - 30.4%
Facebook message - 29.6%
Twitter – prior engagement - 16%
LinkedIn - 4%
via Instagram - 0%
Twitter – no prior engagement - 0%

Percentage funding by promotion activity

LinkedIn - 38%
e-mailed - 18%
via my blog post - 16%
via Instagram - 12%
via Kickstarter - 9%
via contact’s FB wall post - 4%
via retweet - 2%
Facebook message - 2%
unknown - 2%
Twitter – no prior engagement - 0.3%
Twitter – prior engagement - 0.1%

For comparison

Via Kickstarter

Some people backed my campaign after finding out about in on Kickstarter:

• browsing
• Newly Listed campaigns
• what a friend has backed
• London campaigns
• Fiction campaigns
• I backed their campaign

After the campaign

After a campaign has ended the campaign page can't be edited. I prepared the changes in advance by copying over the text to a word processor, recording changes.

An hour before the campaign ended, I changed the Kickstarter page to its permanent post-campaign version. I referred to the document I had prepared, using the Show Changes feature so that I could make the same edits to the campaign page itself.

I created a replacement graphic to use when the campaign had reached its funding goal. This appears at the top of my campaign page. This main campaign image is also used as the campaign thumbnail in Kickstarter search results.

I added a new linked "click here" graphic at the top of the campaign page. I'd seen what Commodity Goods had done on their ended campaign page. I saved their image to a scrapbook and made a similar image near the end my campaign.

This image clicks through to a page on my web site which is a Launchrock form. It will later be an order form for the book.

Launchrock

I created a Launchrock sign-up form.

Launchrock is a service for people who are about to launch their site or product. It creates a widget to embed on a customised sign-up form your own web site.

Launchrock provides some stats on page views and maintains the list of people who sign up.

I've had a few sign-ups through Launchrock. It's definitely worth doing again.

What I will do different next time

I won't contact followers I don't know on LinkedIn and Twitter. It is very time-consuming with zero success.

I will use Thunderclap (to promote my tweets).

I will get reviews before the campaign launches.

I will figure out how to approach relevant bloggers.

Promotion timeline

6 Feb	Facebook	any suggestions of campaign rewards for a book of erotica?	Comments
28 Feb	Facebook Twitter	waiting for approval for my Prefundia page	Likes &  Comments
1 Mar	Facebook	link to a live Kickstarter for an erotica book - I attempted to start a discussion of erotica vs. porn.
3 Mar	Prefundia pre-campaign page is approved and goes live
3 Mar	Facebook Twitter	any feedback on my Prefundia page?	Likes
6 Mar	Twitter	5 tweets documenting preparing my campaign #pkick
7 Mar	Twitter	Kickstarter has been approved my campaign after one day #pkick
8 Mar	Twitter	started researching blogs to approach to promote my book #pkick	Favourites
9 Mar	Twitter	how not to do a Kickstarter campaign - link #pkick	Favourites & Retweets
11 Mar	Twitter	beginning to record my stories for my campaign video #pkick	Favourites
11 Mar	Twitter	sad having to create images of text - image #pkick	Favourites
12 Mar	Twitter	I made my first ever video, a campaign video #pkick
12 Mar	Facebook	I made my first ever video, a campaign video	Likes
12 Mar	Twitter	I love the first and last 10 secs of my campaign video #pkick
17 Mar	Twitter	contacting guys who sent me feedback on my erotica 20 years ago #pkick
25 Mar	Twitter	asking @TristanTaomino whether her show would like to use a story in voices
27 Mar	Twitter	struggling to write my campaign page, I wrote about my feminist porn
27 Mar	Facebook	My feminist porn blog post	Likes
27 Mar	Twitter	followup to @emilydubberly of Cliterati
28 Mar	Twitter	my feminist porn essay got me two Prefundia followers
28 Mar	Facebook	improvements - before & after pre-campaign page
1 Apr	Facebook	170 views that day to my Prefundia page
2 Apr	Twitter	4 CoPromoters tweet links to my blog post about feminist porn	Retweets
2 Apr	Facebook	headlines from ralphie2 on fiverr.com - any faves?	Likes & Comments
2 Apr	Twitter	I ask @EllenPage for a retweet
3 Apr	Twitter	two paid tweets by someone from fiverr.com with LGBT followers	Favourites
6 Apr	Twitter	"My feminist porn," an essay by @paolability exploring the use of written erotica as a tool - link	Favourites
8 Apr	Twitter	1 CoPromoted tweet to my feminist porn blog post
Apr	Twitter	excited in the run-up to my first crowdfunding campaign, to publish erotica
26 Apr	Facebook	would you only want to pledge £1 if you could do it anonymously?	Likes & Comments
26-27 Apr	Twitter	I ask 190 of @paolability's followers to back my campaign at £1 when my it launches - Prefundia bitly link	Favourites & Retweets
27 Apr	Twitter	I ask 64 of @PootDibou's followers to back my campaign at £1 when my it launches - Prefundia bitly link	Favourites & Retweets
27 Apr	Twitter	I tweet @SexInWords a retweetable tweet with link to my feminist porn post	Favourites & Retweet
27 Apr	Facebook	I've contacted loads of Twitter followers, with some success	Likes
27 Apr	Facebook	What I have learned so far blog post	Likes & Comments
29 Apr	Facebook	Why Kickstarter? blog post	Likes & Comments
29 Apr	Twitter	I tweet @CrowdCrux a link to my pre-campaign blog post
29 Apr	Twitter	link to blog post about why I chose Kickstarter over Indiegogo
30 Apr	Kickstarter campaign launches @ 5pm BST
30 Apr	Facebook	link to the fingers & tongues live Kickstarter page	Likes & Shares Comments
30 Apr	Twitter	I follow-up with 25 contacts, new followers and anyone else who expressed an interest previously + 12 Kickstarter accounts - campaign link	Favourites & Retweets
1 May	Twitter	link to blog post about choosing Kickstarter to @crowdfundbacker
2 May	Facebook	do you have any feedback on these new pledge levels?	Comments
2 May	Twitter	I follow-up with 47 @PootDibou followers and 2 Kickstarter accounts - campaign link	Favourites & Retweets
2 May	Tumblr Instagram Twitter		Likes & Comments
2 May	Tumblr Instagram		Likes & Comments
2 May	Kickstarter	campaign update #1 - 35% funded within 24hrs	Likes
2 May	Facebook	link to campaign update #1	Likes & Shares
3 May	Tumblr Instagram Twitter		Likes
3 May	Kickstarter	campaign update #2 - on book design	Likes
4 May	Facebook	link to campaign update #2	Likes & Shares
4 Apr	Twitter	I engage with 2 people who recently tweeted fingers and tongues
6 May	Tumblr Instagram		Likes
7 May	Facebook	link to Kickstarter campaign page	Likes & Shares
7 May	Facebook	"My mum asked me what my book was about..."	Likes & Comments
7 May	Kickstarter	campaign update #3 - 57% funded at end of week 1
7 May	Facebook	link to campaign update #3	Likes & Comments
8 May	Tumblr Instagram		Likes
9 May	Facebook	link to BBC news story in feminist porn	Likes
9 May	Facebook	link to a college essay on feminist porn
9 May	Facebook	link to my guide to Indiegogo - for people who want to back anonymously	Likes
9 May	Facebook	about the next backer being #69	Likes
10 May	Facebook	about a radical feminist I met when discussing feminist porn on Twitter	Likes
11 May	Facebook	link to my Kickstarter campaign page	Likes
11 May	Facebook	link to my Storify about feminist porn	Likes
13 May	Facebook	mentioned my campaign in a status update	Likes
13 May	Kickstarter	campaign update #4 - 70% at the end of two weeks	Likes
14 May	Facebook	link to Kickstarter campaign page
16 May	Facebook	the money raised so far can cover reward fulfilment	Likes & Comments
16 May	Facebook	asking for suggestions of wording for Kicktraq banner	Comments
17 May	Facebook	link to my Kickstarter page
18 May	Kickstarter	campaign update #5 - 91% funded
18 May	Facebook	link to campaign update #5	Likes
19 May	Facebook	link to Kickstarter campaign page	Likes, Shares & Comments
19 May	Kickstarter	campaign update #7 - book review
19 May	Facebook	link to campaign update #7	Likes & Shares
20 May	Kickstarter	campaign update #8 - £29 to go, 24hrs left
20 May	Facebook	link to article about a successful Kickstarter
20 May	Facebook	link to Kicktraq sponsors page where I had an ad	Likes
20 May	Facebook	The usability of erotica blog post	Shares & Comments
21 May	Facebook	asking for feedback on my Launchrock page
21 May	Facebook	link to second review
21 May	Kickstarter	campaign update #9 - funded, with 21 hours to go	Likes & Comments
21 May	Kickstarter	campaign update #10 - second review
21 May	Kickstarter campaign ends @ 5pm BST
21 May	Kickstarter	campaign update #11 - success!	Likes
21 May	Facebook	successful campaign - thank you!	Likes & Comments