Natalie Sisson crushes her fundraising goal and gets 574 preorders for her new book
Author case study: The Freedom Plan #book
Natalie Sisson is an Amazon #1 bestselling author of The Suitcase Entrepreneur, podcaster, speaker and adventurer who believes everybody has the right to choose freedom in business and adventure in life. She’s grown a loyal following who jumps at the opportunity to engage with whatever her next project is. Her latest book was exactly what they wanted.
The Freedom Plan started out as an idea. And then developed into a solution for entrepreneurs, and basically anyone who wants to earn more, work less and be free. It only took one conversation with Natalie to understand her vision for the idea, and that it spans in scope to consume everything she stands for. Not just a book title, but every project she’s built her business and life around.
Natalie focused her efforts on selling her online course to new clients, her Freedom retreat in Portugal, and inviting influencers to be guests on her podcast. Every one of these perks included a bunch of copies of her book. These bigger perks also brought her the most funds. Then she focused on her community, her email list. This boosted the number of copies well over her minimum goal. And the most satisfying result: her message is getting into more way hands than she imagined.
- Email subscribers: 25,000
- Podcast downloads: 20,000/mo.
- Social media following: 70,000+
- Result: 229% funded totaling $8,819 with 574 preorders.
“I received a fantastic response. My community and friends helped me crush the fundraising goal. And I got a lot of attention for my book.” — Natalie Sisson
Here’s what Natalie had to say:
Q: How would you sum up your experience in one sentence?
Working with the team at Publishizer was really fun and enjoyable and insightful. I say that because I think being able to use the book proposal template on the platform was an excellent and easy way to be guided and supported the entire way through the process.
Q: Why did you decide to crowdfund your book?
Because I crowdfunded my previous book on Kickstarter and it was really successful. I like crowdfunding because it’s a fantastic marketing tool and great way to reach out to a community who otherwise may not have known about it.
Q: Why was now the right time to start this book project?
I always try to do cool projects around my birthday, like an online course launch or a retreat, because people buy into it more. So those were my incentives to get this book campaign started and get it out there. It was a great lead generation magnet for The Freedom Plan program. No better time than the present.
Q: How did you plan to sell and publish your book before Publishizer?
I probably would have gone back to Kickstarter or directly to a publisher. I was really happy that Publishizer has a really nice intersection between crowdfunding and Tinder match-making with publishers.
Q: What results did you get from crowdfunding on Publishizer?
I received a fantastic response. So many people preordered and I crushed the fundraising goal. I got a lot of attention for my book. It’s great to be able to talk with interested publishers and show my own crowd the results. PLUS, it allowed me to get additional upfront funding before I finished the book.
Q: How did you reach your goal? Details.
Very much like I did with Kickstarter. It was through having well planned and interesting incentives to get people to pledge and preorder my book. I hit up my social media community, my email list and a couple key influencers to help spread the word.
And then also messaging people and keeping them up to date at all times. I created videos, appeared on podcasts and shared my message and my book in any way possible. I always followed through on my incentives and perks.
Q: How much time did this entire process take you?
Prepping the campaign took a few weeks. The ongoing promotion on a weekly basis was just a couple of hours. Then reaching my goal took less than 30 days.
Q: Did posting sample chapters or excerpts on Medium help?
I didn’t have a sample chapter during my campaign. I’m sure it would have helped.
Q: What was the most significant way you reached your goal?
Outreach to my existing community who were very responsive and were already supporters of my first book. I asked them to actively spread the word even if they couldn’t contribute directly to my campaign.
Q: What’s next for your book and for you?
I am working with an agent, which I’m very excited about. Editing copy and changing story direction before approaching Penguin Random House again, who were initially interested but wanted more.
Q: Are you happy with the amount of funds raised in your campaign? How do you plan to leverage those?
Yes. I will be smarter with the pledges next time and leverage them in a more specific way.
Q: Has your publishing goals changed since your successful crowdfunding campaign?
They have a little. I still want to go with a traditional publisher, but that’s for my next book. I have an agent working with me for that. For this book I’m self-publishing and want to be true to my word to have this out early in 2017 for all those that supported me.
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