If you’re an author looking for funding and community support to help you write and publish the book you’ve dreamt of, crowdfunding is one way you can do so. If you do it well, crowdfunding can help you raise the money you need through a ‘crowd’ who believe in your book and want to see you succeed.
In this article, we’ve compiled 10 top crowdfunding sites for you to check out. Most of them use a rewards-based approach where you as the project creator would give creative rewards (e.g. copies of your books, VIP tickets to your book launch, or mentioning funders in your book) in return for pledges made to fund your work. The bigger the pledge, the larger the reward you would typically offer. Read on to find out who these crowdfunding sites are.
1. Crowdfunder
Crowdfunder is the UK’s leading crowdfunding site, which can help an individual, a business or social enterprise, a school, charity or community group to raise funds for a project. Projects can be creative, so this would include book and publishing initiatives. With Crowdfunder, you have the option to choose ‘All or nothing’, which involves you raising all the money you need. If you don’t raise the full amount, the money pledged will go back to your supporters. Alternatively, there is the ‘Keep what you raise’ approach where you keep all the funds raised.
Crowdfunder’s fees are 5% of the total amount raised plus VAT. There are additional fees for PayPal pledges (1.9% +20p per pledge, which the backer pays) and for GoCardless and Stripe pledges, which the project creator would pay. For GoCardless, the charge is 0.5% on all the amount raised with this provider and 2.4% + 20p per pledge through Stripe. Phil Geraghty is the Managing Director of Crowdfunder.
Twitter Handle: @crowdfunderuk
2. FundRazr
Launched in 2010 by CEO Daryl Hatton, FundRazr is an international crowdfunding site that operates from Vancouver in Canada. It is open to a variety of different projects including creative ones. Individuals, communities and groups, charities and not for profit companies, religious organizations, small businesses, political groups and animal rescue organizations can use FundRazr. It is a donations and rewards-based platform, and can be used in any country with the ability to send and receive payments through PayPal (not only in Canada). With FundRazr, you keep all the money you raise, and pay a 5% commission fee and an additional fee of 2.9% + 30c per transaction for payment processing.
Twitter Handle: @FundRazr
3. Indiegogo
Founded in 2008 by Danae Ringelmann, Eric Schell and Slava Rubin, after these three individuals experienced difficulties in raising funds for separate projects, Indiegogo is a crowdfunding platform than enables authors and writers to tap into a truly global community. The platform operates across 224 countries and keeps a 5% commission on a successful campaign. Indiegogo is a crowdfunding site open to individuals who are raising funds, to businesses and also voluntary and charitable organizations. Projects that can be pitched on the platform can be across all types of sectors. Among many others, these include writing, video, theatre, music, technology healthcare, film, food, education, and small business. Indiegogo uses mainly a rewards-based and donations-based model.
Twitter Handle: @Indiegogo
4. Kickstarter
With just under $2 Billion pledged by supporters since its inception in 2009, Kickstarter is easily the largest crowdfunding platform for creative projects, and this of course includes books and everything related to them! Kickstarter was founded by Yancey Strickler, Charles Adler and Perry Chen and has a strong workforce made up on 119 individuals, who are based in Brooklyn. Based upon a rewards-based approach, Kickstarter takes a 5% fee if you’re project is successfully funded with a further 3% – 5% charge for payment processing fees. With Kickstarter, you can set your projects funding goal and a deadline. If the ‘crowd’ like what you’re doing, they can pledge cash to support you to go ahead. If you reach your goal, you’re backers are charged, and if you don’t reach your goal, nothing happens.
Twitter Handle: @kickstarter
5. Pozible
Founded by Rick Cen and Alan Crabble in 2010, Pozible is an Australia based crowdfunding site that specializes in creative projects. In order to use Pozible, you need to have a funding goal and a time limit, which can be between 1 and 60 days. Pozible uses an ‘all or nothing’ approach, so if you reach your funding target, you get the funds and if not, no money is exchanged. If you’re project is successful and the amount you’ve raised is up to $100,000, Pozible takes a 5% service fee, and a 4% fee for any raised amount, which is more than $100,000. There are also additional merchant account fees per transaction, which are in the region of 2.4% + 30c – 3.4% + 30c depending on which country you’re in.
Twitter Handle: @Pozible
6. Pubslush
Founded by Hellen and Amanda Barbara, who happen to be mother and daughter, Pubslush is a crowdfunding platform dedicated to authors, publishers and literary projects. Authors can use Pubslush to not only raise funds to help them write and publish a book, but also to create pre-order campaigns 1-2 months before a book is launched. Pubslush is also relevant to publishers, as they can use the site to create their own bespoke pages to raise money, take pre-orders and create marketing campaigns. If you’re successful with reaching your funding goal, Pubslush takes a 4% commission plus a 3.5% fee for third party payment processing.
The platform also has a charitable arm in the form of The Pubslush Foundation, which is dedicated to providing books and learning resources to disadvantaged children. Authors and other users of Pubslush have the opportunity to donate a part of the funds raised to the foundation.
Twitter Handle: @pubslush
7. Publishizer
Founded by Vincent Guy, Publishizer is an innovative crowdfunding site, which connects authors with literary agents. With this platform, you submit a book proposal, and then generate traffic to your campaign page in order to a build a readership who can pre-order your book. At the end of the campaign, you can send your proposal to Publishizer’s database of hundreds of literary agents. If you use Publishizer, you can keep all the funds raised, with Publishizer charging a 5% campaign fee. You would also need to factor in Stripe fees, which are 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
Twitter Handle: @publishizer
8. RocketHub
RocketHub is a New York based crowdfunding platform that offers creative individuals an opportunity to raise funds for their endeavours. There is no upfront cost to use RocketHub, and for every successful campaign, RocketHub takes a commission of 4% with an additional 4% credit card fee. If you don’t reach your funding goal, RocketHub’s commission is 5% plus a 4% credit card fee. There is also an additional benefit of setting a campaign on RocketHub – the possibility of funding and added online exposure from the A&E television network, with whom RocketHub has a partnership.
Twitter Handle: @RocketHub
9. Unbound
John Mitchenson, Dan Kieran and Justin Pollard founded Unbound in 2010, which operates out of London. Unbound is a niche-based crowdfunding platform focusing exclusively on authors and readers. If you want to use this platform, the general process will involve pitching an idea for a book. Readers, if they like your book, can make a pledge. If enough readers like your book, it will then go into the publishing process. For every book published, Unbound keeps 50% of the profits with the other half going to the author.
Twitter Handle: @unbounders
10. Wishberry
Founded by Priyanka Agarwal and Anshulika Dubey in 2012, Wishberry is a Mumbai based crowdfunding platform. Designed especially for creative and innovative projects, which among many others, include publishing, film and video, music, product design, fashion, comics and food, Wishberry uses an ‘all or nothing’ model where if you reach your funding target you get paid, and if not, the project ends. If you want to crowdfund with Wishberry, there is upfront fee of Rs. 2500 plus taxes that are to be paid upon the approval of your project. Wishberry also takes a 7% commission fee plus a 3% charge for online payment processing. An additional 14% service tax is also applied on Wishberry’s fee.
Twitter Handle: @Wishberry_in
Image credit: Steve Bowbrick on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/hv1.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Hiten Vyas is the Founder and Managing Editor of eBooks India. He is also a prolific eBook writer with over 25 titles to his name.[/author_info] [/author]