I’m hoping to start my next Kickstarter for the third 12 for ’12 trilogy (a trio of thrillers set in the largest gaming convention in this hemisphere) sometime next week. This schedule is relentless, but I knew that going into it. Despite that, I’m having fun riding the wave so far.
I’m thinking about altering the structure of the Kickstarter a bit this time around. Rather than try to fund one book for $3,000 and set the others as stretch goals, I’m considering setting the goal as $10,000 for all three books. This comes with its own set of risks and benefits.
The reason I went with the original structure is that it’s great to be able to step forward and say, “Hey, we hit our goal right away! Here are some stretch goals to go even farther!” The trouble comes in the way I set up the reward structure to go with that. If you went in for a trilogy right away, you risked the stretch goals not being reached and then feeling like a fool for paying so much for one or two books rather than all three.
I never want a backer to feel like they made the wrong decision by choosing a higher level. Setting the whole trilogy as a goal means that no one has to worry about that. You know that if the drive succeeds, you’ll get all three books – and if it doesn’t, you’re not out a thing. That seems fairer, right? Of course, it means a higher risk of not getting funded at all, but if that happens, at least it’s a clean break.
That raises another question, though, which is whether or not I should restructure the reward levels to eliminate the single-book levels. I’m inclined to leave them in place, but I can see the allure of streamlining the structure down to just three or four regular levels, plus the premium ones.
I’m looking for feedback on this one. What do you think?
