Kickstarting Your Book

Kickstarting your book...are you mad? 

The short answer is yes… but then again I’ve been writing my children’s fantasy novel, Emmie Forrester & The Edge Atlas, for over ten years now. What could possibly be madder than that?!

My writing journey has recently led me to the crowdfunding site, Kickstarter, after being challenged in a recent self-publishing writer’s room with the London Writer’s Salon. After a few years unsuccessfully pitching to agents here and there, I was losing steam and, frankly, the joy of creation that used to come so easily when I jumped into Emmie’s world. I was feeling fed up, hopeless and frustrated. However, one morning I happened to discover Troubador; a self-publishing company that handles all the niggly, technical parts of the self-publishing process that had been overwhelming me so much.

I so craved the forward action they promised that, despite having no money to fund the process, I began to research the company in more depth. Perhaps I could find a publishing partner that wasn’t so traditionally gatekept and tight-lipped? If only I had the funds for it! Perhaps, just perhaps, I’d be brave enough to reach out to friends and family to help?

It was at this point that my esteemed writing colleagues gave me the talking-to I needed (and deserved). Why only ask your friends and family? Why limit yourself? You’ve pitched your story well. You believe in it. Don’t rob your future readers of being able to support you and see this story in the world too.

Enter their suggestion: Kickstarter.

Now, the Kickstarter platform doesn’t come without its risks. They take a high cut (10% all in when you account for Stripe fees) and you don’t see a PENNY if you don’t raise your full goal. Then there’s the marketing, shipping, branding and storytelling that goes with it all to make it a success…

But do you know what? This all sounded very business-like to me. And, in the absence of traditional industry folk telling me I could make a business out of this thing that I love, I thought - heck, why don’t I just pretend I’m a business and see how taking myself seriously pans out. Plus, they have their own community to tap into… Could this be the leap I needed to take to, quite literally, kickstart my business of world-building?

However, I’ve worked in business long enough to understand that any good one needs a backbone. A 'why'. A vision. In the process of unpicking mine, I was reminded that it was never merely about the writing book. It was the message behind it.

My ‘why’ is perfectly summarised by a recent study by Miles Richardson at the University of Derby. He found that people’s connection to nature has declined by more than 60% since 1800… and that the UK ranks bottom in Europe for nature connectedness. It predicts an impending “extinction of experience”...

This mirrors my own observations over the last decade. Emmie Forrester & The Edge Atlas was born from a deep concern I had for myself throughout my twenties. I, like many people around me, had become increasingly dependent on digital devices. Delegating our attention, and our memories, to our tech. My attention then turned to the children around me… how, with such powerful industries commoditising their every move, movement and memory, did children stand a chance to forge their own path? To make sense of the world on their terms? It was this murky dread that fueled me. The dread of what might happen if we become so disconnected from our own lived experience of the world we call home, that we stop fighting to protect it.

I ask you this: if 16 year olds do get the vote, how can we possibly expect them to champion policies that protect our natural world when they have no access to touch, feel and play in it as they grow up?

This is what inspired me to make memory the source of magical power in the wonderful world of Emmie Forrester & The Edge Atlas. It is why I have such conviction to see it out in the world inspiring children (and their grown-ups) to honour, celebrate and be inspired by their lived experiences, not the ones they see on screens.

And Kickstarter is helping me get there.

It has provided me with the tools I needed to take myself seriously. To back myself. To finally communicate WHY I wrote this book, not simply the storyline. I’m so happy to say that, with some hard graft in my existing networks, a bit of Canva magic and some painful moments overcoming my camera-shyness on social media, I’ve already achieved over 80% of my goal in less than a week… and it’s still creeping up!

I was about to write, ‘I can’t quite believe it,’ but then again that’s not quite true. Because, as it turns out, if you believe in yourself and change your mindset from hobbyist author, to being in the legitimate business of writing, others have a habit of believing you too. In forcing myself to behave like a business, to think about strategy, honouring my community pledges and being authentic to my wider vision, I’ve found the catalyst I needed to make this thing, my precious book, a reality. Finally.

And if I surpass my goal… what’s next?

Well, wouldn’t it be great if the idea of memory as magic transcended the book into workshops, creative resources… or even my dream of memory playgrounds that brought the magic of nature into urban environments(!). A suite of resources and experiences that made children WANT to put down their screens, rather than being told they had to. Sign me up!

So, if any of my work sounds of interest, I’d love your support. Every little really does help!:

Learn more about, and support, my Kickstarter project. 

If you’re curious about Kickstarter, here are a few resources that helped me build the confidence and get started:

• Kickstarter For Authors With Oriana Leckert. Oriana is the platform’s Head of Publishing and gives some gems (and home truths here):
• How to set the right funding goal
• How to create an expert Kickstarter budget
• Canva: It’s an amazing graphic and branding tool that has lots of cool templates to make your work stand out and look coherent. I used it to create all my pledge badges. If you can’t afford it, make a detailed plan of what you need and then get the free trial and blitz all the assets at once so you can make the most of the premium.

E.C. Skipper is a nature-loving, cross-disciplinary writer, creator and facilitator who has had a deep-rooted fascination with the human imagination. Based in Somerset, UK with her fiancé Paul, sausage dog Mimi and tabby cat Ruby, she runs workshops to help people collaborate across boundaries alongside global institutions such as the UKRI and NASA where she works to help develop novel research ideas and approaches to address the world’s most pressing challenges. When she's not running a workshop, she's tending to her garden and allotment or painting pictures of the birds around her house.