How I Reached My Book Funding Goal in Under 24 Hours

“How am I supposed to sell a book for $39? No one will buy it.”

That’s the most common concern I hear from first-time authors I work with at New Degree Press when they begin raising publishing funds for their books. $39 is the pre-order price we set for paperbacks before they are even released. It’s the price that covers editing, marketing, cover designing and author coaching in the hopes as authors work hard to refine their manuscripts and build their author communities. It’s the price for bringing the stories that authors have been working so hard to write into reality, from the intimate corners of the mind into the public eye.

And it’s true — $39 is a lot to pay for a book.

But it’s a price that also covers so much more.

Because here’s the secret to crowdfunding: Raising money for a goal or product or passion project is never only about the money — especially when it comes to something so personal as a book. It’s about sharing a part of yourself you’ve been dying to share for months, years, maybe even a lifetime. It’s about building a community of family, friends, and strangers who care both about your book topic and about you. It’s about trusting in your own voice, sharing it with others, and responding to what they’re saying back to you. It’s about telling the world:

“Hey, this is my brainchild, my baby, my blood, sweat, tears, joy and pride — and I want to share everything beautiful about it with you.”

Believe in Your Own Story

When I was preparing for my pre-launch campaign, I had a laundry list of questions I wanted answered about the process: How do I ask people to fund my book? What do I say? When should I follow up? How shameless can I be? At what point does persistence turn into annoyance?

In the end, my most important question was this: “Do I believe enough in my writing, in my story, in myself to make this dream a reality?” And the answer was yes. Fuck yes.

Because I was that crazy kid who started writing about writing in middle school. I was the weird person who recorded conversations at local coffee shops to get inspiration for dialogue. I was that high schooler who spent her free time submitting essays to writing competitions — and if the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Scholastic, and Carnegie Hall were willing to display my work behind their gilded walls — who was I to think I couldn’t do it myself?

If there’s any lesson to be learned here, it’s this: if there’s a moment in life where you’re allowed to feel proud about yourself, where you’re allowed to be shameless about your work, it’s now: when you’ve written your own goddamn book.

So instead of thinking about selling a book, think about sharing your story. You worked hard for this. You did it for you. And now, it’s a million and one cherries on top to be able to share it with others, too. Enjoy the sugar high.

You Don’t Need to Be an Influencer to Influence

If you ask any of my closest friends, they’ll tell you I’m a boomer. A technologically challenged, TikTok-fearing boomer (despite the fact that I’m only 23). And it’s true. I suck at responding to people, I don’t have (and probably never will) have a TikTok, and I surround myself with software engineer friends for IT support.

So how did someone like me — an average person, a twenty-one-year-old nobody — sell 435 copies of her book and raise over $17,000 in 30 days?

Here’s what I did for my campaign:

1. I made a list of 500+ people to reach out to before the campaign even began. This list included family, close friends, classmates, teachers, and just about anyone else I had texted, called, e-mailed, or come into contact with over the last few years, including anyone who had interacted with any of my recent book posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
2. When I launched my campaign on IndieGoGo, I made one post like this one across LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram explaining my journey, my reason for writing, and my “why” for publishing a book now.
3. In the first three days of the campaign, I DM’d 300+ people across these social media platforms, as well as through e-mail, text, and phone call, with personalized messages to 1) share a memory of us that popped up when I wa writing the book, 2) ask how they were doing, 3) share the news of my book and ask if they would be willing to support my journey, and 4) ask what I could do for them in return, regardless of their ability to give to the campaign.
4. After I reached my $5,000 goal in under 24 hours and my $8,000 goal in under 72 hours, I announced on Indiegogo, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram that future proceeds would go towards the Houston Food Bank and United Way’s Greater Houston COVID-19 Relief Fund. (As a privileged young adult who could afford to stay home and write a book during the height of the pandemic in the winter of 2020, I wanted to find a personal way to pay it forward).
5. I posted Instagram stories and sent personal messages to thank every individual who donated to or supported my campaign.
6. I followed up with those individuals who asked me to come back to them later, as well as those who wanted more information about my writing and my background.
7. I posted excerpts from my book on @theamyzinglife as a 2-week “countdown” until the campaign was over — mostly to share candidly what my collection of personal essays would entail, and to entice any essay collection lovers to give last-minute support.

Here’s what I didn’t do:

1. Post every day to tell people that there were “only XX days left to buy my book!” — This comes across as aggressive and adds nothing to the content of your work. (Instead of posting every day, try to engage every day, which means anything from chatting with an old friend over the phone, grabbing a meal with fellow writers, sharing a vulnerable story from your book, or posting a meme about the writing process.)
2. Copy and paste messages to people on my outreach list. — It’s obvious when you send an impersonal message to ask for a favor. It’s annoying to receive them, so don’t be the person who sends them. Take your time to craft each message and each request. If you’re going to ask for a favor, do it right. Build a relationship. Foster a friendship.
3. Ask people to give me money outright. — This can make you sound like a desperate car salesman. Instead, focus on the ideas of support and community building.
4. Get upset when people did not respond or said no. — This is entitlement in a nutshell. No one owes you anything!
5. Follow up more than twice with anyone. — If someone is “ghosting” you multiple times, take the hint (politely), thank them for their time, and move on!

The takeaway? Successful crowdfunding takes hard, personal, and sincere work. One direct message that starts a genuine conversation is more impactful than 20 public posts. Done right, the 30-day process can feel like a full-time job, not only because it requires time but also because it requires your whole heart and mind. That makes finding time all the more critical — and difficult — amidst full-time jobs, family routines, and other life commitments. Waking up an hour earlier on the weekdays or protecting Friday nights and Saturday mornings are just two examples of trade-offs you can make to commit to the process; whatever the case, making time for crowdfunding in an intentional, deliberate way is make-or-break.

Crowdfunding Is About Community

The reason we at NDP ask authors to crowdfund their publishing journey is to help them retain ownership of their work and, more importantly, help them build their author communities.

Audiences don’t appear out of nowhere. Communities aren’t built overnight. Authors who understand this start building their audiences well in advance of publishing their first books — and crowdfunding is just another powerful way to do that.

When you send a message to someone, you’re not asking them to give you something. You’re asking them to join you in building something.

Treat your book as the reason to start chatting again with that old friend you’ve been meaning to text but somehow haven’t yet, that teacher from middle school you’ve wanted to share life updates with, that manager who mentored you for years and even inspired some of your stories.

When you reach out, ask how they’re doing. Check in with their loved ones, kids, parents and pets. Learn about their passion projects before sharing your own.

Before you know it, you’ll be making a virtual or in-person date for coffee or dinner, and the book conversation is taking the backseat because you’re having a three-hour conversation with someone you never thought you’d cross paths with again.

“No” Is Never Really “No”

You’ve heard it in Sales 101 already: “Never take no for an answer.” This doesn’t mean to bother someone until you force them to cough up their money. Instead, it’s a request for you to find more creative ways to include people in your journey whether or not they can provide financial support.

In the end, there will be some people who simply cannot afford to offer up $39 for a book. And that’s perfectly okay.

It’s not a personal vendetta.
It’s not an intentional slight.
It’s not a lack of confidence in you.

It’s simply because people have their own lives. And with that comes their own shit to deal with — personal things that have nothing to do with you.

So before getting all upsetty spaghetty at them, take a deep breath and think about where you can go from here.

Because here’s secret #2 to crowdfunding: Money is not the only way people can help you reach your goal; they can also give you their time or energy.

People can give you time by helping with your outreach, writing early praise lines, or reading over some drafts you want unbiased input on. People can give you energy by sharing your book updates on their own social media, offering moral support and offers for coffee outings, and serving as informal accountability partners to get you across that finish line.

People who do any of these things — including giving their money to your cause — are going the extra mile for you. They’re people who believe in you. They’re people who voluntarily and proudly have become part of your author community, which is what makes the crowdfunding approach so powerful.

The lesson here? There are three pillars of giving when it comes to crowdfunding: money, time, and energy. Receiving all three would be ideal, but any one of these, once earned, is worth celebrating with gratitude.

Give Back When You Can

After reaching your publishing goal, it’s time to think about how you can give back, both to your supporters and to the community at large.

One of the most rewarding parts about publishing as an NDP author is that you own the rights to your funds and your royalties after covering your initial costs. What that means is, once you reach your crowdfunding goal, you get to decide what to do with the remaining funds. Some authors put it towards future marketing and speaking tours. Others use it to help pay back developmental editing costs. And still others donate the money to an important cause — to organizations that matter to them or are associated with their book topic.

The bottom line is that alignment is important. Thematic alignment, emotional alignment, professional and financial alignment — these will all empower you to tell your story better, and thus empower others to believe in you and your book.

When I raised my funds during the fall and winter months of 2020, it was the height of COVID-19. I was back home in Houston, holed up in my study room, day in and day out, writing my heart out and also realizing how lucky I was to be writing without worrying where my next meal was coming from.

After I raised enough funds for a paperback, hardcover, and audiobook version of Twenty-One Years Young: Essays within the first 3 days of my campaign, I dedicated the rest of my campaign to raising proceeds for the Houston Food Bank and United Way’s Greater Houston COVID-19 Relief Fund.

Transitioning my book’s pre-sale campaign towards one of community-driven philanthropy had several inspirational benefits. First, more pre-orders came in, even from strangers beyond my immediate circles. Second, some people who had already donated to my campaign contributed a second time for the impact they could have on local COVID-19 relief. And third, local media like Houston Chronicle and Bellaire Buzz picked up my story and shared it online and in the press, all of which helped me ultimately raise $3,000 for these two organizations.

Lessons Learned on My Fundraising Journey

If I could have done one thing differently about my pre-sale campaign, it would have been to prioritize my mental health and slow down. Sounds a bit cliché, but when you’re sending 100+ messages a day, planning 7 Instagram posts in advance, following up with friends and strangers alike via text, phone call, DM and FaceTime, things get…tiring. Even draining.

From the outside in, it seems like everything went perfectly in my campaign. $5,000 within 24 hours, $8,000 within 72 hours, and $17,228 by the end of 30 days, with 435 backers and 4 media outlets following along.

But — and I tell all the authors I work with now this same thing — I don’t know if all of that was worth it considering how burnt out I felt by the end of Week 1. It’s now been almost a year since my paperback came out, and with my hardcover and audiobook just recently released, it feels like ages ago when I was messaging hundreds of friends and strangers alike to share my lofty dreams of publishing with them.

Now that I am out of the weeds, I realize that crowdfunding success was not just about how much money I could raise above my goal, and even less so about how much I could raise compared to others. Of course, reaching my initial goal was important, but beyond that, it was about building my brand, my story, and my community.

Moving forward, my goal is to help authors find crowdfunding success from a financial but also personal standpoint. That could mean anything from reaching a certain number of backers, building a social media presence on a new platform, raising funds for a nonprofit of their choice or making a sibling, parent, or child proud.

All in all, crowdfunding is a difficult, complex endeavor with many possible end goals. The beautiful thing is that, whatever those objectives are, the author is poised to reap an abundant cornucopia of benefits. Money aside, the awareness, co-ownership, and early praise generated from a pre-sale campaign is powerful for long-term success. The community you build is also essential for credibility, accountability, and companionship. Most importantly, the tenacity and courage derived from embarking on a public journey like this is what will keep you going, not just until the book is published but for long after.

To anyone embarking on this journey soon, whether with NDP or with another publisher, happy crowdfunding, and remember — authors go only as far as their community is willing to take them.

To chat with me more about my crowdfunding journey, connect with me here.