The Successful Crowdfunding Campaign for a Coloring Book
This blog post is part of the Super Cool Scientists FAQ Series, where we answer some of the most common questions about the project.
Once people learn that we published the first Super Cool Scientists book thanks to a Kickstarter campaign, we get asked:
How do you run a successful crowdfunding campaign?
Running that first crowdfunding campaign was one of my favorite parts of this project. The process was challenging and rewarding—things I had been searching for in a new creative venture. It not only helped me raise the funds to pay for an amazing illustrator—shout out to Yvonne Page—it also allowed me to build a community of supporters through social media.
It wasn’t easy, though.
Part of what I wanted to do with this book was create a community. So, I used the crowdfunding campaign to also build social media around the project. I created Facebook and Twitter* accounts to cross-promote the campaign.
In the planning stage, time was spent on three main tasks:
Coming up with fun goodies to give away as rewards with each tier of contribution
Budgeting what all those rewards would cost, estimating a reasonable yet accurate funding goal, and
Strategizing how to get the word out about the campaign.
As the launch date approached, I connected with the featured scientists in the book to be guests on their podcasts or have other science communicators in my network include the project (and crowdfunding campaign) in their online articles. The social media followings started to ramp up as more people joined our community to hear updates on book creation and the self-publishing process.
Watching the contributions come in was fascinating and humbling. Of course, a bunch of them were from friends and family, but there were also folks from around the country—around the world even—who were supporting this project.
People in other countries thought my scientist coloring book idea was so good that they wanted to put their own money behind getting it published. That kind of validation felt amazing, especially after managing the imposter syndrome that came with making the book a reality.
The campaign reached its goal and ended with 204 contributors, many of whom I had connected with via those new social media channels. That last crowdfunding supporter actually took us over the finish line and claimed my favorite contributor reward—a chance to choose one of the featured scientists in the book!
Secretly, I never thought anyone would contribute at that highest tier. But on the day the project reached its crowdfunding goal, I was so glad I had included that fun incentive.
So, how do you run a successful crowdfunding campaign? For the Super Cool Scientists project, success came from building and connecting with a community who also believed that representation matters in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. If people believe in something, they’ll be more likely to share and support.
I don’t have the words to truly thank those original contributors and supporters. Thank you all for helping make these books a reality.
*Super Cool Scientists no longer has a Twitter account, but you can still find us on Facebook.