FULL BLEED: THERE WAS NOTHING TO FEAR AND THERE WAS NO DOUBT
- 2 minutes ago
- 6 min read
So, don’t know if you’ve heard. Maybe you haven’t. But I’m running a crowdfunding campaign for my latest book over on Kickstarter. It’s true. Not a dream. Not an imaginary story and won’t be written away in the next generation of for-hire writers coming onboard and making everything grim and gritty and ready for prestige presentation over ten episode seasons with all the fun sucked out. I know. Curveball.
Additionally, the book funded. In the first day. In fact, it funded even when I doubled the funding goal over the last couple books I’d run through Kickstarter. So that’s huge, right? The last book I crowdfunded, Fake Believe, just got over the $2000 mark in a full month. My Gifts Are Hungry sprinted to something like almost $1300 in the first day and some. Friday and the weekend, really. Also, huge.
Only things have stopped there. Which tells me a couple of things. The folks who are backing the book made the jump on close to the first exposure to the campaign going live, whether that was me talking about it on Bluesky (or, lol, Upscrolled, which I have, but the community there isn’t really a community, not yet) or if it was being informed by Kickstarter’s automated messages or the like. So, lots of return customers. That’s great. Amazing. Though, to be fair, Bluesky accounts for maybe a third or a quarter of active backers, at least via Bluesky links. That’s probably three-quarters coming in as return customers.
This tells me that there isn’t really an audience past the one previously established. At least not yet. Of course, last time around, I had folks taking advantage of the catch-up tiers, either in print or digital books, where they could get all three from the series at once, not just the new one. Can’t dip into that well twice. Doesn’t work. So as of now, I’ve got 48 backers on the book. Solid, though, again, it peaked then plateaued pretty fast (save your Minute Man jokes, please).
And to be honest, I don’t know what to do about that. How to expand the readership or get the word out to folks who might be interested but simply don’t know about the books yet. I know. That’s the real trick these days. And don’t tell me “Just go on social media, man,” because I’m already there. I’m just not on Twitter or Meta platforms or, uh, what else is there now? And, quite frankly, there’s no reason to be on those. They suppress links, they choke your feed with AI slop, they have their hand out to get you to actually have a chance at reaching people who have specifically followed you to get news from you. So yeah, that’s not valuable to me. The only entity that it’s valuable to really is Meta or Twitter.
I’d argue the same with Google ads. If you’re not just running an adblocker, that is. Even if you aren’t, you’re tuning out all these ads that are so carefully crafted and optimized to get to your eyeballs, past your deflector screens.
Oh, right. I could be on TikTok.
No, thank you. TikTok’s primary product is TikTok. But then so is posting on any social media. It’s really there to be good or get clicks on that particular platform. The selling of books is secondary. And, well, that’s what I’m here for. I know. Gross commerce. And, well, I wrote the books to be read, so of course I’d like to get more readers. But I’m not posting stuff for free in the hopes of hooking people. I tried that with Strangeways. Twice. It did not work. Mostly because there’s so much stuff out there that more free stuff is not what people want or need. Unless it’s fanfic and I don’t write that. You want to, go nuts.
Reaching people who might be interested and receptive? You gotta climb into new silos and that’s an exhausting process. Particularly when many of the silos have been formally or informally monetized (or are actively hostile to commercial messaging, which they’re well within their rights to be). So I’m not sure of the best way to square that particular circle, or is it vice the versa? I don’t know a way around that. Tried outreach to various podcasts/blogs and got not much reply, even months ahead of time. So, yeah, don’t know.
I have been mailed by let’s see, three or four different Kickstarter-promoting entities, all promising at least 116% funding if I utilize their services. Which is really funny as the last one was 400% funded and I’d hit somewhere around 100% when the second of these landed in my mailbox. Needless to say, I believe that they are scams. Just like the 8-10 pieces of mail I get a day promising exposure into various book clubs or making a video trailer for my books or to get listed in various best of the year collections of what have you. They’re all scams preying upon hungry writers who want an audience for their work and might even be desperate for that. Maybe they’re onto something. But my rule is if the promoter comes hat in hand to you, they’re probably not all that good at their job and might just be there to take your money and say “well, we cross-indexed all your metrics and optimized ad placements but you can’t make people convert if they don’t want the product” and I can do all that all by myself.
Please don’t tell me to cut videos unless it’s me reading something over footage of my cat Ziggy doing something cute and memeable. I’ve got a face for radio and why anyone would want it in front of them is utterly beyond me. I see videos from authors over on Upscrolled, no doubt repurposed from Insta or TikTok and all I can say is “Don’t you have any manner of self-respect? How can you sanction your own manner of tomfoolery?” Those videos are to make the author famous as an entertainer. Not to get people interested in the book. Maybe via some kind of parasocial relationship, books get sold. I’m not holding my breath.
Maybe I should start saying what I actually think about horror. Become controversial. Own the discourse.
As if.
All that stuff might help accounts accrue klout, those endless flamewars (yes, I’m old) and back and forths as people explore their own trauma in public. (Apologies to whichever of my Bluesky mutuals used that metaphor earlier today, I’ve forgotten but wow does it ever get right to the heart of the matter.) I’ve got lots of opinions on writing and genre and horror in particular but I’m not interested in a fake doctoral defense via an asymmetrical platform assault. No, thank you.
Maybe I could hope for my book getting sucked up by the algorithm and fed out to folks who really want it. That might have been a thing that actually happened a decade ago. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Amazon now hosts 3x the amount of indie releases in a year than it did before the introduction of ChatGPT. Is Amazon allowing this stuff to clog their pipes in the hopes that it generates more Kindle Unlimited page turns? Sure. Maybe they even get some ebook sales from people who don’t care if they read slop. All it does is make actual books harder to find (even with the “I am not an AI book” self-reporting they’ve got). All it does is devalue their own platform. It’s baffling and in a couple years they might do away with or, sure, what the fuck, just let it all die under an impossible weight. I might suggest that a ten dollar book placement fee would end that problem immediately, but it would also get me run out of town on a rail.
In summation: posts sell posts, videos sell videos, platforms sell klout. None of those are book sales. If you think so, you’re kidding yourself. What’s more likely to sell books are trusted readers talking about them, appearing in person at panels and being moderately entertaining (don’t underestimate this one), actual organic word of mouth. I’d say coverage in trusted outlets, but what does that even look like for brand new (after way too long) indie writers? Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve been looking at this for a long time and it’s never been quite so bad as it is now. Doesn’t help that publishers are pretty much throwing their hands in the air as well. How does romantasy happen without TikTok? Good question. But that’s a fad, not really book sales. Chasing a fad is just gonna get you tired.
In the meantime, I’ll keep getting the word out about My Gifts Are Hungry. How it’s about running away from home to a haunted house that’s been waiting for someone just like you for a long time. And it gets weirder from there.
I’m thankful for the faith put in me by the backers, and all the folks out there who’ve reposted me talking about the book. I’m still looking for more readers.
I mean, it’s great being able to write the book I want to write (and listening to editors talking about structures both fixable and not and laughing my head off as I do). But I’m doing so with the understanding that it’s not getting reviewed in any big or any outlet, really. It’s not getting talked up or promoted. It’s still very real.
Oh, right. That URL, should you have read this far and are still interested in checking the book out. I hope that you will. Kickstarter sales are basically the lifetime sales for these books.
Until next time.
