Crowdfunding may not be easy but it can pay off for you handsomely if you do it right.

Have a Plan in Place

Like a proper marketing plan. You must know exactly who you are targeting with your requests and when you are going to do it. You need to know exactly what channels you are using and how, and you need to know exactly how you are going to track who ordered and who didn’t. For those that didn’t, you need a follow-up plan in place.

Most of you will start with no idea of what you are doing. If you start right now, you will likely just email everyone you know, tell them about what you are doing and beg them to purchase your book. You won’t have a pitch and you will find it hard to explain what your book is all about – it won't take you long to come up with a much better plan, one that works.

Understand Exactly What Crowdfunding is

People will ask you and you will need to be able to explain what it is. If you can’t, people are not likely to take the step to buy your book. You need to explain that it is highly unlikely that they will get a copy of your book sent to them the minute the campaign is over. Be clear that it will take time, that the funding is really the very start of the process, not the end.

Be Prepared for Ups and Downs

You are always going to get those who say that they will definitely pre-order your book, that they are really looking forward to it. But then they don’t. You can remind them as much as you want and they will give you promise after promise but the order still never materializes. This isn’t only disappointing, it is frustrating too. It will happen to you when you start a crowdfunding campaign so make sure you are prepared for it.

There is a brighter side to this, though. You will get plenty of ups if you do it right. The people you least expect to order are the ones that will. You may end up coming into contact with people you have haven’t seen in years, get chatting and find that they order straight away.

There will be a lot of frustration and a lot of sleepless nights but once you have a crowdfunding campaign under your belt, you will realize that it’s an experience you wouldn’t trade for the world. It is exciting, it will help you to learn and to be more flexible. It will make you think hard about your audience, about how to build relationships with them. And it will make you realize just what it takes to pitch a book and market it.

You might not learn these lessons any other way and the experience alone is worth trying. It may be for you, it may not. Only you can make that decision, no one else.