Crowdfunding as an indie author

By Judy Liu

Self-publishing is hard.

But it’s also an opportunity to have fun.

I’d published my debut with a hybrid publisher, published my second out-of-pocket on my own, and now came the third one — a new book in a new installment. With my hybrid publisher about four years ago, there was a lot of handholding which I was grateful for because I had no idea what I was doing then, bumbling about. The hybrid publisher had introduced the concept of crowdfunding to help with the expenses. It was the first time I’d heard of it, and I remember wondering, “Why would anyone want to commit to buying something I’ve written that doesn’t even exist yet?”

If it weren’t for the publisher pushing me at the time, I probably wouldn’t have done it. Writing is very personal in a way, and it’s nerve-wracking to think about trying to sell a book (that was not fully finished, mind you!) to people you know and strangers! I did it anyway, with my publisher’s guidance, and I was shocked at the response I received from my community: Childhood friends. College friends from one shared class. Dance teammates. Middle school friends. High school classmates. Work colleagues at my new job. Mentors from previous jobs. My parents’ friends (I call them aunties and uncles).

I hadn’t known so many people would be interested, and seeing that, I think it shifted something fundamentally in my mind. I get nervous trying to take up space because I assume people wouldn’t care, but I realized after seeing that first fundraiser hit the goal that if I hadn’t tried and announced my book into the ether, people wouldn’t get the chance to care or not because they simply wouldn’t know about it. And I think you may be surprised at the response you may get. It had greatly warmed my heart at the time.

Crowdfunding as an indie author

With that mindset shift, I was open to trying to run my own fundraiser this time for Synthers & Beasts. I considered crowdfunding for this book because I was investing more significantly into commissioning art for the cover and multiple pieces of art within the book (I’d never put art into my previous publications). I also thought it was a great way to allow people to preorder the books from me and have it before it’s officially published.

Photo by @whatmansireads

I would say there are three important tenets of crowdfunding:

1. Preparation

2. Transparency

3. Consistency

For me, running my own campaign allowed me to put my own voice into it and gave me control over the timing. When to start setting up the page, when to start a pre-launch campaign if I wanted, when to fully launch, how long to run the campaign for, and when deadlines should be. For example, I was initially going to run my campaign in February 2026, but I was suddenly hit with a spur of inspiration and motivation, and last-minute decided to launch it in Nov/Dec 2025 – it was easy for me to pivot that timeline because… well… it’s just me running it! Crowdfunding is like training for a sprint, preparing all the graphics and the page beforehand for a one-month campaign.

Once my manuscript was mostly polished, and the cover was finalized, it was time for me to start making the graphics. It was tedious, but I had a lot of fun. If you’re considering crowdfunding, I recommend scouring the successful campaigns on the platform of your choosing to see what worked for them. After looking through several, I found the ones with consistent graphics did best. I started drawing backgrounds on Procreate and opened my free version of Canva to make banner graphics to stand in as pretty headers on the campaign page, a graphic with the book cover and tropes to help readers get a better idea of what the book entailed in a snapshot, and the myriad of graphics for each of the different reward levels and what they included (e.g., paperback, hardcover, stickers, art prints, etc.).

After the graphics were done, it was time to write the page’s contents. For the descriptions, my goal was to make it as concise and transparent as possible. I know we all have limited time in our days and shortening attention spans, so I wanted a page that would capture people’s attention with graphics and keep them by having clear and concise explanations (with good headers for navigation) so that it wouldn’t require extensive scrolling.

As for the fundraiser goal, I did some mental calculations on what the editing, art, and mailing would cost. Frankly, it came out quite high because I was commissioning multiple artists, and I decided not to set my goal at that number. Some people do, and that works! For me, maybe it’s still that little part of me that wonders if enough people would be interested so I lowballed, but the number I landed on would have been an immense help to my wallet, allowing me to produce a gorgeous, great quality book — and I was happy with that.

I listed all the reward tiers, conducted gut checks with a few friends on if the rewards seemed reasonable, set the timing (I had it set to about 21 days – most people online said that campaigns that last about a month or less had the most success), and launched.

The next steps

Just launching your fundraiser on the platform isn’t enough, though. How would people know about it if you don’t talk about it? So, I posted about it on every platform I was on, digitally screaming at the top of my lungs like those newspaper boys in those old movies, “Hey, fresh off the press! New book coming, and it’s going to be beautiful!” I posted on my Instagram, Threads, personal Facebook account that is more a time capsule than a social media account, and LinkedIn. If you have a newsletter, even better – announce it there, too!

In addition to a launch post, posting updates and graphics on percentage toward the goal was helpful for me too throughout that month. It kept me apprised of how close I was, and also helped remind people about the campaign. Be consistent about the posting!

The support I received from my community was so positive and overwhelming. We hit 50% funded within 5 days of launch, got selected by Kickstarter as a “Project We Love”, hit 77% funded within a week, and got fully funded with five days to spare, enabling us to hit a stretch goal with 108% funded by the end of the campaign.

Now, as I wrap up packing all the orders, it’s been incredibly fun making each order special with a custom designed box that I created, art prints that aren’t widely available, filling the boxes with dried herbs and flowers, running to the print shop to print vellum overlays for the books, packing tea concoctions, and writing handwritten notes. It was a lot of coordinating timelines on when art would be finished, how long the manuscript files would take to approve, how long printing and shipping would take, when the custom stickers would come in, and when the custom mailers and boxes would come in. I kept track of everything manually in a notebook, listing out all the pieces I needed to fulfill the various reward tiers and when it needed to be done.

It’s logistics, but once all that is done, the packing has been therapeutic. How fun is it to pack your book for someone, include a note and some fun things — knowing in a few days, it’ll be in their hands, waiting for them to crack open the pages and smell the dried flowers?

Out in the ether

I’m so grateful to everyone who supported my fundraiser and preordered, and it’s been such an experience making my graphics from scratch, commissioning art, procuring all the moving pieces, and packing the books to mail off. Would I do it again? I’m not sure honestly. Although it’s been fun, it’s also a lot of work on top of my day job. But I hope that if you were on the fence about crowdfunding your book or just curious about it, that this provided some modicum of insight. It may seem daunting, but it’s very doable. Whatever you decide, whether it’s to fundraise or not, set a higher fundraising goal or lower, offer certain rewards, or even find someone to help you manage the fundraiser — do your research and do what feels right to you for your book! There’s no wrong way as long as you’re prepared, transparent, and consistent.