Learning

I had planned to launch my campaign today. Unfortunately for me, I hadn’t read everything when I thought I had. For instance, “Backers are more willing to contribute at the start of the week.” ~IndieGoGo soft launch page. I guess I will have to wait until Monday. I could launch it now, and I probably should. However, today is Friday. Most people are thinking about the weekend.

Also, I discovered that my prelaunch wasn’t making anything since there wasn’t a way to purchase the book. I discovered that I had misread the launch instructions.

I knew when I went into this that my campaign would have hiccups. I always tell my kids, “It isn’t a failure if you learned something.” This campaign is a huge learning experience for me, and I am grateful.

Since this is my first book, I expected there to be mistakes. Sometimes, those are our best teachers. Mistakes can also be the most humbling. In my day job, I come across people who want to give up just because they are frustrated with the things they have missed or gotten wrong. I won’t be one of them.

I am a fighter, and I know what I want. I can dream of the most successful campaign imaginable. I can also expect that won’t happen until my third or fourth book. One thing I have learned already is that YA fantasy authors don’t do very well during their first launch. Backers see these campaigns like they do bargain deals at a department store. It’s not so much a fundraiser as it is a presale campaign. I like that way better.

I’m not the kind of person who likes handouts. I want to earn my place and work hard for my success. I kind of wish these campaigns were called “pre-sale campaigns” instead of fundraising campaigns. It changes the mindset of the owner of the campaign.

The best campaign I saw for my genre did just that. He treated his IndieGoGo campaign as a pre-sale instead of a fundraiser. There wasn’t any “help me raise this much money.” What he did instead was, “If you back this much, I will give you…” it sounded more assertive and like a sales pitch. He has done very well with his campaign.  He was also an established author who had more to give his backers.

I don’t have much more than one book and a T-shirt. I love t-shirts, so it made sense to me to make that one of my perks. I’m working with a friend of mine to get them printed, and they will be awesome. That, too, was a learning experience. I will go into that in another blog post.

 I have been nervous all through the marketing stage for my book. I don’t think I’m alone in this. I’m sure other people have been nervous about this kind of thing. I hope the next books get easier. I will definitely be wiser next time.

I hope you have had experiences you have learned from, and I hope they were successes. If they weren’t, remember that failure only happens when you give up. Giving up is easy, but you don’t get anything out of it. Until next time, my friends.