Latest / The Daily Writer / Funding your Book with a Kickstarter Campaign | Lestie May Zachary

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Funding your Book with a Kickstarter Campaign | Lestie May Zachary · The Daily Writer

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hey friends, welcome back to the Profitable Writer Podcast.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you're new here, my name is Kent Sanders.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an author and ghostwriter, and this is the show that helps you grow your impact and income as a writer.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think we'd all have to agree that we live in a really incredible time because as an author, you have a wide variety of options for how to publish and fund your books.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're doing self-publishing, one of the most interesting ways to fund your books is by crowdsourcing them through Kickstarter.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you've ever wondered about how to use Kickstarter to fund your book launch, today is your lucky day.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited to have Lestie May Zachary as a guest.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: She's a Southwest USA native who loves to write about her family roots.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: She's also a veteran homeschool teacher of 16 years.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: When Lesty isn't writing or doting on her family, she and her husband enjoy the cabin life on Crown Lake in Horseshoe Bend, Arkansas.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to have Lestie as a guest today to talk about her new book called When Old School Meets New School, which is a really exciting new guide book from LMZ Publishing, which is her publishing company.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the book is perfect for children ages 11 through 14.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now I do have to admit that even though I wasn't the target audience for the book, I really loved it and was super impressed with how the book was put together.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I think anybody 11 and up is really, really going to enjoy the book, even though it's targeted to ages 11 through 14.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: When Old School Meets New School is full of fun and engaging activities that mix old-fashioned games and activities with modern technology, giving children the opportunity to learn and have fun in equal measure.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: With puzzles, stories, and tons of activities, the book helps children to bridge the gap between the traditional and the contemporary.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really, really cool approach that she's taken with this book.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And she went an interesting direction to publish the book because she funded the book through a Kickstarter and through a Kickstarter campaign that was really impressive.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I was thrilled to be one of her backers.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I was even more impressed that this was Lesti's very first time using Kickstarter.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: The campaign that she put together was a lot of fun.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the book itself, as I mentioned, is even more impressive.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you can really tell that she put her heart and soul into this project.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: In this conversation, we discussed her book production process, some of the various assets that she created for the book launch.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about why she used Kickstarter and her process for using it.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about details about her number of backers, her expenses, and other details and numbers.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about some of the biggest challenges and benefits of using Kickstarter, as well as her recommendations for authors who are considering using Kickstarter.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've never considered this unique way to fund your book launch, this conversation I think is going to give you some really cool insights that probably you haven't heard before.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can connect with Lesty through her website, which is LestyMayZachary.com.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's Zachary Z-A-C-H, R Y.com, LestyMayzachary.com.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, there will be a link to her site and to the book in the show notes.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you've got some pen and paper ready because you're going to take a lot of notes.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Here's my conversation with Lesty May Zachary.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Lesty, it's great to have you here on the podcast.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited about your book that has just come out.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've got uh the print copy in the mail.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I think you sent me two of them.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm just really impressed with what you've put together.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome to the show.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to talk about uh Kickstarter and all the all the things that goes along with it.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's an honor to be here.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Ken.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So let's maybe start out here.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you can share a brief summary of what this book is, because it's kind of it's a little bit hard to describe, but something really unique.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's called When Old School Meets New School.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Give us some background on why you decided to do this book and what this book actually is.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so this this book actually came about as a prayer.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: I had a lot of, I still have lots of ideas of things I want to write.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um I asked uh God what I should write about, and and he said, I want you to write about your dad.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so there we, you know, off to the races.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I just started writing uh basically memoir, just some stories that of things that dad taught me along the way, and um, and I just put that together in a in a book that I thought would be good for middle schoolers because they're kind of in that in-between age where they're no longer little kids, but they're not, you know, young adults.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's kind of that growing stage where they are making life decisions and uh you know what way they're gonna go.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought if they could have kind of a nice pathway, not every kid has that opportunity these days to have a good upbringing.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and I just thought if I could reach those kids with uh some of the lessons that I learned, um, that it might help them um to be more introspective and just um be a better friend, uh, be more compassionate, that type of thing.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so so I created from that, from those stories, uh activities that would be fun for the kids.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just stories, something that they could relate to, things that could help them along the way to um to kind of delve into those particular lessons that you know, after the story, there's a lesson, uh, seven lessons per story.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so you got a week's worth to delve into uh wisdom, honor, hospitality, uh, cultivation, um, generosity, humility, and authenticity.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: And in each one of those, it it breaks down components that really help you understand what all of that means.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, so it was just a it was a process, you know, of putting all those pieces together.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think until people see what this book actually is, it's really hard to visualize it because it there's a lot of activities, it's very colorful, it's really, really fun.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I found myself wanting to go through it just as an adult, you know, I've been a grown man for a long time, but it just there's something about the way that you have put this together and designed it that kind of brings out the kid and all of us.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Have you have you heard anybody else say some form of that comment?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, uh just yesterday I I was talking with a friend that said, uh, you know, I I understand what you're doing here, but I think this is actually good for the 20 to 30 year olds because they're raising kids during this time and it would be helpful for them, you know.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, I I've I've heard that several times.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you did a really fantastic job with it.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: I had a lot of fun.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: How long did it take you from the time that you knew you were going to do this project to actually have some sort of a finished draft?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I I I actually I don't want to say how long did it take you to write the first draft because I know that the illustrations and the the formatting that played a really massive role in this project.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not really accurate for me to ask the first to ask about a first draft because when you have something that is so illustration heavy and so design heavy, there really is kind of no such thing as a like a set first draft because there's a lot of back and forth with the designer and so forth.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: But okay, all that being said, I'm gonna totally backtrack on what I just said.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how long did it take you to get kind of a first version of this?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I started um my first story, which is the last story of the book, I began writing Father's Day 2021.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it took me until uh December of last year to to get it to the point where I'm like, okay, I'm ready for an editor um and ready to really, you know, get the cover art design and and all of that done.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah, so what was that two years, something like that?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: So you said you said Father's Day 21?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think so, yeah.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Until the end of life, so about a year and a half, something like that.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: A year and a half, okay.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 8:08
  unknown: Yeah.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't seem excessive to me though, because I mean, this is a really detailed book, and it's not like sitting down and just sort of writing, you know, 30,000 words of a book and then you kind of hand it over to a formatter and or an editor.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is something where I I imagine that there was a ton of back and forth with you with your designer, correct?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because everything has to, it's not like just massive blocks of text.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's all, you know, there's activities and there's just the way that it's put together is very intricate.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: So was that like a really almost like doing a whole nother draft where you're working with your designer to figure out how things look, what the illustration, what the vibe of the illustrations is, and so forth.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, not too much.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I actually did all of the activities.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: I I did all the lessons.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: I I kind of formatted it through Canva originally all on my own.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we went with a completely different cover because I I had a lot of trouble putting that together to have people understand the concept that I was trying to do with the daddy-daughter thing.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so we just kind of went a whole different route and um I drew um a picture of kind of what I had in mind with the uh with some elements that were in the book and uh in the stories, and put that picture together and then gave that to my graphic artist.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then from there, she went to town and started bringing me ideas.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: The interior, um, she also, and this is Healy um Shemtop with uh Magma Media that did this work.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um she took the inside and brought it more to life.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: She added the the element of the little VW Beetle um car and the airplane um in different places, you know, to kind of bring that to life.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um she she changed the font to make it more um flow, you know, so it would flow better.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um things like that.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: But everything else um I did myself through Canva.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well it looks fantastic.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: I would have never guessed this was a product of Canva.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was fun.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was a it was quite a learning curve in the beginning, but it, you know, I I find I kind of I guess have an eye for it because it's it doesn't, you know, I I know when it looks wrong, you know, or where it doesn't look appealing or something.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, so that was a lot of fun.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: I I really enjoyed that part of it.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, it's kind of like um Pinterest, you know, you see all these ideas and you're like, ah, I want to, I want to do that, you know, and Canva's good for for ideas like that.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dig into Kickstarter, which is kind of the this is the main topic of of this conversation, but I wanted to have some background to what the book is and why you wanted to write it and so forth.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, why a Kickstarter campaign?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not often that I run into people who want to do a Kickstarter for book projects.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: I know they exist, but I hadn't actually ever known somebody who'd wanted to do that.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: So why use Kickstarter and and why did you want to go that route?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so uh in January I began a 12 weeks to publish program with April Cox.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And we it was one of the the classes that we that we've done that we dived into.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um we had a speaker come on and and talk to us about how all that worked.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and her name is Stacy Bauer, uh Stacy C.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Bauer, and she's also an an author of um young adult or kids' books.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And she uh offered a a Kickstarter how-to series.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think we did it over a six-week period.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and I thought, you know, let's just go through it and let's see what it's all about.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Is this something I even want to do?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: And uh by the time I was done, I was like, I was gung-ho, and I and I I really wanted to do it because the the platform itself of Kickstarter, um in itself, you I mean you've got to do all of the work within the platform, but you have the platform with Kickstarter and you have um the ability to lay everything out in in blocks and text and stuff like that to make it easy to be able to promote your stuff.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: And uh though you'd be promoting yourself anyway, this is a a place where they can go and they can uh securely put their money down to invest in your in your idea.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: So um so there's there's advantages in in that regard.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And how difficult was it to set to set up the project on Kickstarter and think through the different reward levels, the different things people could get?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Then it seems like it would be a really time-consuming process.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um but it is the the whole process of the Kickstarter uh campaign can be very tiring.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um but again, uh the the images and things that you put in, you've probably already done some aspect of that leading up to that through your fonts, through your uh preparation of letting um your readers know what you're writing about.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so you've already got content.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um for me, I took some images of the book, I took some images of the uh rewards that I wanted to promote and uh to be specific to my Kickstarter campaign.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I just started creating little images within Canva to show people what they could get if they wanted to invest in the project.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you did a fantastic job.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was really impressed by what you put together and the different levels uh that people could buy into.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And um I was really excited to be able to support it and to also get the books in the mail.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: They came what I think a couple weeks ago, two, three weeks ago.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I opened it and my wife was like, What's that?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: That looks really cool.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Oh, and then I explained to you what it was.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a friend of mine, you know, who put together this really cool Kickstarter campaign.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just, I have to say, it's really so I get a lot of books in the mail from people, like on a weekly basis almost.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's friends, you know, people in my membership group or sometimes clients or whatever.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I get a lot of stuff in the mail, and it's always really fun to me to get books from people that I know in the mail, but they're really, really well done.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because I kind of feel like, oh, you know, even though I know somebody, I still go that there's still a part of me where I go, hey, I know that person.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: They have this really cool book, and like I know them.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's still a little bit of that stars in your eye kind of a thing.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever you get somebody's book.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So so yeah, well done.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh thank you.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: I thank you so much too, Ken.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: You were so supportive for me from the very beginning, you know, whenever I was um just reading your emails uh from the Daily Writer and just getting really good content and insight.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think that's really how our how our friendship started.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, I've just been really grateful for the support and uh the kind review that you gave on the book.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it was just a little something I could do.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you invested in the Kickstarter program itself, and so you got the book from that.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I also just wanted to give you a copy for you, you know, giveaway or to hang on to or whatever, just for uh for being that support for me.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I thank you for that.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um I wanted to ask about your process working with a local printer, which most authors who are self-publishing don't do.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: They typically go through Amazon or Ingram Spark or Draft of Digital, whatever.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I was really bummed out because I was going to work with Formax, the printer for your book.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: They're a St.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Louis printer.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um, they actually couldn't get the right type of paper for my 18 Words to Live by book.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that came out a year ago.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this is 2023.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was a son's birthday in April of 2022.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this was like during the worst of the pandemic shipping issues.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: They could not get the right kind of paper for the book and the weight and color that I really needed.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I decided not to go with them, which was heartbreaking because I'd been through all this setup work with my designer, Christy Griffith, who's amazing.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: She had put in all this work to even designing like the dust jacket.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna buy like a hundred hardback copies with super nice like gold foil stuff on it.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And they, but they just couldn't get the paper.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so I was kind of crushed a little bit because of that.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I was interested to see that you were working with Formax also.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I would love to hear what your experience working with a local printer was and the kind of steps that you had to go through in order to make that happen.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll say first that I probably drove uh Kristen crazy.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure they're used to it.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh right.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: I there were so many, um, so many details about um the the weight of the paper, how much it was gonna cost, all of the um the the fees, the taxes, everything that went into it.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I I didn't want my book to be so expensive that it was out of reach.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wanted a good quality.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: I knew that Amazon did not offer a coil bound, and so I I sought out somebody that would be able to do that.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Kristen from the very beginning said, okay, tell me about your book and um what is it gonna be used for?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna be writing in it?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Those types of things.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh she knew uh she's I think third generation uh with Formax uh family business, and um she knew what I needed.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: When we got to the final price of that, I'm like, ooh, that's you know, that's a lot of money.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of one of like knocks you over a little bit when you see the pricing on yeah, and and I did I just did 150 on my first run.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't a you know, you can buy one if you want, it's just gonna cost you a lot, but it's gonna cost you like$500 to buy one.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I just uh so we we narrowed it down.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: I talked to April Cox, my mentor there with the 12 weeks to publish.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, you know, go back and see what they can do for a lesser paper weight.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so we did, and we finally came to a weight that was good that you could still erase on, that it wouldn't um, you know, scribble through onto the next page or whatever you could color on it, it wouldn't bleed through.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so we just kind of did that back and forth there for a few months until we nailed it down.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then from the time I ordered it to the time I picked it up, I actually uh was coming back from Hannibal, uh, Missouri, from my daughter's to um uh back home.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so St.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Louis is my route.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I picked them up.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was there like 15 minutes before their closing and uh was able to pick up my own books, and that was a special treat.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: But um from the very beginning, they were very professional.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um they told me what to expect, they wrote it all out.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, so it was a really nice experience.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'd highly recommend them.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: So they let you go in and pick up your books.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah, I went into their office there.
• 19:22
  unknown: Yeah.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: When I was talking with them about doing my 18 words to live by book, uh, of course, again, this was kind of during the middle of the pandemic.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: So they were like adamant like you cannot come into the facility.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: We will not leave a box for you to come pick up, like you have to pay for shipping.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, but I live in St.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Peter's, I mean, literally, I can be there in 20 minutes.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, but but I and I totally get it because like if you make an exception for one person, then you gotta do for everybody.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get back to the conversation with Les T in just a moment, but I want to pause for a second to give a big thanks to today's sponsor, The Word Wizard.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you might have written a really great book, you might be Shakespeare or John Grishitmore, you may have the talent of Stephen King, but your book isn't ready for publication until it's been in the hands of a master editor.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's why my friend Karen Hunsinger, also known as The Word Wizard, is your perfect partner to help you craft the highest quality book possible.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a great editor doesn't just correct spelling and grammar, they also correct wordiness, shifts in tone and voice, they correct your overuse of particular words, and they also enhance transitions, clarency, and accuracy.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked with Karen a lot of times on different books, and she is your secret weapon for crafting an amazing book.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you do not want to put your book out into the world until it's been in the hands of a really good editor, and that is indeed my good friend Karen.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: You can check out her website at Karen Hunsinger.com, and there will be a link in the show notes.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: And she will actually give you a free sample edit of your book so you can see her awesomeness with your own two eyes.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure and check it out, Karen Hunsinger.com.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious about how how did the timing of the Kickstarter work with the timing of the printing and having to pay for the printing?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because that was really, correct me if I'm if I'm wrong, but that's the reason why you wanted to do a Kickstarter was so you would have the funds to then pay for the printing, correct?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's right.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I I needed to be able to uh coordinate with Kristen at Formax the uh the delivery date.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um the delivery date was gonna be longer than what I needed to be able to supply my uh backers with the book.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I like I said, I just happened to be coming through there and I just wound up picking them up rather than having them shipping it.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Save the shipping, the shipping's enormous.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was gonna be um about$220 to ship those books.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, you know, if I'm coming through, there's no sense in that.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, post COVID, we have a lot.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so that was a really nice experience.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a small little
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: office you wouldn't think hey they do huge printing there but um but yeah and she carried my books out for me and um you know in a dolly and gave me a hug so it was a very personal experience that's awesome that's really awesome yeah how many backers let's talk numbers a little bit just to give people some context how many backers did you end up having for your Kickstarter campaign?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: 50.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then did you find it difficult to get 50 people to uh to back you like not having because a Kickstarter campaign by definition is you're kind of investing in something that you don't that you can't see yet.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean you've got images there and you've got potential layouts or page spreads or whatever.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully they know you and they believe in you and what the what the project is.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: But how challenging was that to get to 50 backers and meet your goal so it was a it was nerve wracking I will not lie um that's the thing with Kickstarter pardon me you just don't know um you you base your your goal uh for me it was$4800 uh on how big your audience is if um if how long you've been promoting this and if you think you can really attain that um that that amount um so my thought was okay I have my Facebook friends and I have a lot of them you know kids I grew up with and stuff and uh my mom's friends and you know we have you know you have your network on Facebook right and I had started my author uh page but you know the algorithms are not great in the beginning to to get any real good traction there and so I I posted both on my personal and my author page and I just started everything that I posted I posted to LinkedIn I posted to um uh Instagram is it Instagram yeah Instagram um and Facebook and I just did it across the board every time I'd post something I also posted um the the hashtags that were appropriate that might have get some traction out there okay as far as um as far as that goes but um I haven't to do it again I would uh promote earlier um that's that's the key getting everybody on board early on and getting them excited about the product um is is really the thing so that would have been you know it would I was squeaking by in that last week to get it and I think I wound up um with$5,012 as my total uh backer amount and I had asked for$4,800.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I I came in just actually a little bit more yeah than than what I had asked for.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that was exciting but boy it's it's a nail biter.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: It really is because see the thing is it's an all or nothing campaign.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: You what you put into it um you either get it or you don't your backers either their cards are charged the day you make it or you know at the end of your campaign or it just goes away.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought gosh that's a lot of work to go through um if you if you don't win you know and so yeah it's super exciting it's super um uh edifying to to get to that point and say we did it you know we made it yeah so yeah so that helped with my first print run and yeah it was a good experience.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And what kind of fees does Kickstarter charge?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a percentage of your total thing or how does that work?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is so I had I made a note of that um they want uh 5% of your total uh funds raised uh but they also have processing fees they've got three percent plus um I think it's 20 cents yeah 20 cents on every back um backer um pledged and so for me my um my actual percentage rate off of what I off of my total was 9.1 percent so it's a decent chunk that they take yeah so they're basically charging you what a normal payment processor would charge plus five percent or something something yes that's right okay yeah that's right that doesn't I mean it it does it does sound like a lot but on the other hand I think well they've developed this whole platform that gives you the the ability to raise this money so five percent doesn't seem crazy to me but I'm sure if you're doing some kind of campaign that's like hundreds of thousands of dollars for something or whatever you know that's a that's a pretty large chunk of money even five percent of that so I I guess you just as somebody who's doing Kickstarter do you kind of just have to bake that into your planning and knowing that you're that you're gonna get le a little bit less than what you actually raise.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah absolutely or you can figure that into your budget and say okay well I know this is my bottom line I got to have this let me add 10% to that and say this is what I'm asking for.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you know you can set your budget at anything but again you have to know your audience you have to know you know kind of guesstimate how many backers you're gonna have in order to set that price.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: If I had set it for um and that's the thing with Kickstarter if you set it too low people will say you know maybe that product project isn't all that or whatever.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: You set it too high it's unattainable.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you know if and and then you really need a long time like a year or something to kind of promote something of that of that nature because you know Kickstarter does games and videos and books all kinds of projects and so it's not you know specific to books.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: But um yeah that that um that budget is very important in the beginning trying to trying to figure out how how much your uh your rewards are going to cost you got to build all that into it you got to go for the whole enchilada and say okay this is this is going to cost me$10,000 but how much do I realistically think that I can get that I can earn from this from my backers and so based on that and I started in I think it was March to really start promoting it.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: So from March to August is all I had to to really promote it and um and you got to really be pushing it every day something out there to to to grow that interest so yeah.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: So knowing what you know now would you do Kickstarter again for a similar type of project or would you maybe consider some other alternatives for funding it or just paying for the printing up front and then selling it on the back end or how would you do that?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah so at the time it was like giving birth you never want to do it again.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've I'll take your word for it I've never had that experience myself.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: Trust me but you know since then you know in retrospect um it did it did allow um like I said in the beginning the the the platform the uh the way for people you know I could have said okay everybody just send me your money and I'll send you a book but you know there's something to be said for the security of payments these days and um right for that it was definitely worth it.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll I won't say never say never um the next couple things that I have coming up I don't think I'm going to uh I don't think I'll do a Kickstarter for but if I do a series or something that is really gonna um cost me a lot up front then I probably would.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: No I also wanted to ask about and I I apologize I don't I feel like I'm getting the details of this a little bit wrong because I obviously didn't have enough sense to actually bring the stuff with me today to the office knowing that I was doing this conversation uh it's on my dining room table but um but all the materials that you sent so there were two books in there was if I remember right there was also was it a bookmark?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes also there was okay and this if I remember right it was um I can't think of the name of it what is it when you gosh my brain is not working today you you run something through like the heat uh it's like laminated so it was a laminated bookmark right yeah is that correct okay so I'm remembering that correctly yeah so I think it was Vesta print that I went through to to do the um the uh bookmarks that Healy had designed for me okay um but I wanted it to be something special that just not everybody was gonna get and so I did laminate him I did punch him and I put a um because the the book is is nostalgic it's multi-generational there's yes uh there's that aspect of it um I wanted it to have some some old school effect to it and so I did twine you know through the hole punch and I did a skeleton key uh so I just thought that was just a fun you know added perk um specific to the to the Kickstarter campaign.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um I also did a bookmark I'm sorry a bookmark a um a keychain like a backpack button that you could do which looks like a little mini book that was a lot of fun um let's see I can't remember oh I did um for some of the higher reward tiers I did um three bonus stories so I recorded um with my own voice I just did um those recordings of of other of other stories that that came along the way and um and that was a an added bonus for the upper tier there was uh a couple of PDFs I did of um that kind of went along with it one was uh knots and hitches which my uh my camping story talks about dad you know making knots and stuff in our in our camping uh camp trip and so I did a little PDF on on some various uh knots and hitches and then I did uh oh what was the other one oh it was uh it was trail mix again with the camping story both of those went along uh we you know mom always made some kind of fun things so I just went through and made a a little recipe um book basically of trail mix ideas and so that was a lot of fun too and so anyway yeah you just you kind of build around your book you build your your ideas that kind of help promote it and and make it more whole you know to for a a whole experience for your reader.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well you did a fantastic job creating and I wasn't on the like the high tier but I but I did get the bookmark and the I think the keychain in the mail which I just thought was a really really cool surprise.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you you so when you mailed all those out that's kind of a production right you got a got all these books sitting there you've got all the mailers and then did you go to the I know I'm getting kind of granular with this but as a person who mails out a lot of stuff did you take those to the post office or do you have a mail thing at home or how did that work?
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I'm I think I'll get a mail thing at home now but yeah I'd recommend it I do it super handy.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay great yeah um yes so I did I I went old school I I did the labels you probably remember your package it it just had a little uh label on it a handmade label like you were sending out a letter and um I took um half the books whenever I had half of the rewards received I I got those out and then I did a second wave a second run of of the next set whenever I got the rest of the rewards in and so yeah keeping track of all that lots of sticky notes books everywhere you know packages everywhere but yeah it was a it was a it was a fun experience um but yeah not one if it was something I was doing on a regular basis if I get a lot of um orders through my website uh where where I need to get those out on a regular basis then yeah I'll be I'll be definitely doing a mailer of of some sort label what I use is um because I send out a lot of books just as thank yous and um sometimes people purchase books and what whatnot so I have a postage meter just like a little it looks like a mini scale and I have an account at stamps.com uh which is super handy so every time that I mail something I put that person's address in there and it it just keeps it so it autofills whenever I need to mail them something again.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then you put in you know it has all the things you have to select like the weight of the package do you want a medium mail or a first class or second class or whatever.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then I also have a thermal printer uh it's a Dymo the brand is Dymo D Y M O is it 4XL or 2XL or something it's a little little thermal printer so it never requires ink and um gosh it it came with so many labels like I'll never run out of labels I don't think I don't remember how much the printer was but it wasn't crazy expensive but once you get all that stuff set up it's so handy because you just run it through and put the label on the pack and I keep packages at home like mailers from Amazon that I got I just buy those in bulk.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so once I have all that printer I just drive by the post office and drop it in the box or just put it in my own mailbox and it's it takes a bit to get it set up but it man it's so handy if you're gonna mail out stuff on a regular basis.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I'd love to have you tell me the um the brand name of that so I can look it up.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I'll I'll uh look that up and email it to you this happening while I'm thinking about it.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like every time I mention this to people um like so many people don't have that set up and I always want to go man you should really consider this because it's it sure saved me a lot of time.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah for sure you know and in two I only had 50 backers and I don't mean only I'm I'm blessed to have that many that that was a large number for me.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean there's there's some people get thousands of backers and and for that I would have been yeah let's get this you know kind of printer because uh that would have been a nightmare to try to keep all that straight.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: So part of it for me has to do with I feel like I have this glaring character flaw which is like I literally have no patience for waiting for anything.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure my my family gets so tired of being out with me somewhere and like it doesn't matter if it's traffic or waiting at the store I just I'm like I've got stuff to do.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to sit around and wait on somebody and the post offices you know if anybody listening if you're a post office employee my apologies but our local post offices really slow.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there's reasons for that that I don't even understand but I don't care.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like I don't want to stand in line so I just have to sit up at home and it it helps me avoid all that waiting which lowers my blood pressure which is a good thing.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah absolutely for sure yeah my experience you know it wasn't you know they used to be able to if they all were the same thing um you could just say okay it you know here it is and put the label on it and you know swoop them through they don't do that anymore you you have to do one by one regardless and for mine actually it was needed anyway because some had you know extra keychains or or whatever within their order and so there was going to be slight differences.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah each time I was in you know waiting in line for a good 30 minutes and I I said boy you know somebody comes in behind me please take them you know because that's they're gonna be waiting a long time they said no you were here in line and you know we'll take them as they come so I thought oh goodness I don't want to put it but it it you know we're from a small community so I didn't have yeah I didn't have that problem thankfully not that big of a deal no well this has been a blast uh Lesti thanks for taking the time to have this conversation um gosh you've given me a lot to think about for maybe future things I would use Kickstarter for and for anybody who's listening I think you've helped us to get a really good sense of whether Kickstarter is a good solution for certain things that we're doing or not.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it sounds like it was it was the gateway for you to get this project out the door and to get it into people's hands.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: So congrats on a really well designed well written project congrats for figuring out Kickstarter which I know is sort of a complex deal so uh it's great all around.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Let people know where they can find your book and where they can find out more about you as well if you would.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah thank you so much Kent um so my website is lesdimayzachary.com and that's L-E-S-T-I-E Lestiemayzachary.com uh you can get my quail bound on there right now um and it is$2399.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: I also have the black and white available available on Amazon um you just look up the the name of the book when old school meets new school and then uh pretty soon I'll be having the color out um you can find me on Instagram and Facebook under LMZ Publishing and on LinkedIn uh I think you can just pull it up by Lestie May Zachary on LinkedIn.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I think that's I think that's everywhere I am cool well I'll make sure your link is in the show notes so people can connect with you thank you again for taking some time to have this convo did I just say convo I have never the whole 10 years I've been doing podcasting I've never said convo I don't text it all day long.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I suddenly a hipster now?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have any idea.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh I know that's too funny anyway thanks for having this it's been an honor.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah there you go thank you Ken it's been it's been an honor I appreciate this has been funny well I want to thank Lusty for making time to be a guest on today's episode and I also hope that you took away as many insights from this episode as I did.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: I have actually never thought about using Kickstarter until I had this conversation with Lusty and now that's something I'm considering among my various options for publishing future books.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: So again many thanks to Lesti for being a guest and sharing her wisdom on today's episode and as always thank you for listening and I'll see you next time.