I’d been hearing for close to a year how indie authors were having success with Kickstarter to launch their new books into the world, so I thought I’d try it myself. Just as an experiment, mind; not with any great expectations that I’d have runaway success myself. I was curious about Kickstarter as a tool for creating excitement around a launch, the way you might get if Penguin Random House picked you up and decided to make sure you hit the NYT bestseller list. (Dream on, dreamer.)
Casting around for ideas, I came back to my own homiletical crisis over Transfiguration and thought, OK, I’ll solve the preaching problem for me, which may be a preaching problem for others, and with a real-life deadline coming up—namely the fact that Transfiguration Sunday falls on February 11 in 2024—that creates the pressure I need to write the book as well as the logical campaign timeline for Kickstarter. It was about that simple.
Well, this casual experiment caught me off guard, twice!
The first was in the writing of the book itself. Let me confess here: I came up with the title before I even knew the contents. I just liked the sound of it… Seven Ways of Looking at the Transfiguration. I figured I could easily fill up seven ways, and that would cover seven years of preaching.
But instead of limiting the work, it ended up expanding in more directions than I ever imagined possible. Honestly, even after seven ways and 120 pages, I left stuff out! (Already thinking about what to do with it…)
More importantly still, writing this book has actually changed how I think. It opened up a new vista into understanding who Christ is and what he does. And I had no idea whatsoever that would happen, going into it.
So that was the first and sublime surprise. The second was much more mundane—but heck, I live on the mundum (earth!) so that’s good by me, too. That second surprise was the runaway success of this Kickstarter!
I initially set my funding goal as $750. Then I chickened out and dropped it to $500, because I wanted to be sure I funded and wasn’t at all certain I could clear $750. The truth is that I needed $1500 to cover my production expenses (yep, even indie authors need to sink some venture capital into their products—and that does not include my time writing, not at all!). But I didn’t dare hope I’d reach that minimum to recoup my expenses.
In reality… I blasted past the funding goal of $500 and almost reached the actual needed goal of $1500 within the first 12 hours! And it just soared on upwards from there. By the time the campaign closed two weeks later, I had 151 backers who pledged over $6200. That’s not all profit—besides the $1500 production expenses, I still have to pay for the hardcovers, shipping, Kickstarter fees, and credit card fees. But there will be something leftover for my time writing, and that may well be a first! Woo-hoo!
I realize now I should include one more surprise… how much fun this was! It’s been great to have an excuse to connect with readers and fans directly. Lots of the backers wrote to me personally with enthusiasm for the book, which was wonderful. I also had fun preparing a few bonus items to thank them—liturgical resources for Transfiguration, plus a cookbooklet called “Seven Recipes for Celebrating the Transfiguration.” An all-around rewarding experience!
The Kickstarter is over, so you can’t back it now. But fear not! The book will be published in the usual channels over the summer of 2024. I’ll publish ebook and audiobook direct from Thornbush Press starting in July, and then paperback on all platforms on August 6. You’ll shortly be able to preorder the paperback on Amazon.