Welcome to book marketing mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters.

Every week can introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books.

Well, today, I've got something very special I've got 2 special guests, Victoria Bennett and Charlemaine Hammond.

This dynamic duo Run the crowdfunding hub to help authors raise their dreams and bring their book projects to life through crowdfunding.

So let me introduce each 1 separately.

Susan Friedmann                                                                           01:10

So Victoria Bennett is a seasoned marketer with 25 plus years of experience Wicking with top brands like Ariel and Pampers.

She's passionate about crowdfunding and launched the Crowdfunding Hub in 2019 to provide education and tools.

Victoria is a sought after speaker and recently received the Queen Elizabeth II  Jubilee Medal for her support of startups and community.

And by the way, listeners, that is some prestigious medal.

Victoria.         

Congratulations.

Charmaine Hammond, CSP, has been in the speaking industry for more than 25 years and is an 11-time best-selling author and appears as a frequent guest on media and podcasts.

Sharing her unmatched speaking sponsorship and entrepreneurial experiences with business owners, nonprofits, authors, and speakers looking to expand their reach and their impact of their projects.

She's the executive producer of the award-winning film back home again.

Susan Friedmann                                                                           02:03

Well, it's a pleasure to have both of you on the show Victoria for the first time and Charmaine Welcome back to the show because we had you.

I can't even remember if maybe a year or so ago.

You were a guest here, so welcome to the 2 of you.

Victoria Bennett                                                                             02:04

Thank you, and great to be here.

 Susan Friedmann 

So crowdfunding.

I have been looking forward to this interview because This is something that I've been fascinated by the whole idea of crowdfunding.

And now that you have put together a program, crowdfunding for authors that just is like, explodes my mind because I'm so excited about that.

Let's start at the beginning.

And first of all, what is crowdfunding?

I think that's the most important thing and how it works specifically for authors.

I know we're going to have a tag team as to who answers questions, how, so who's gonna take the lead.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   03:13

Crowd funding in its modern-day terms is raising funds from a large group or crowd of people who eat give a small amount of money.

So it's really activating your community so that they can help you achieve that amount of funding that you require.

In the modern days, typically, that requires some sort of online platform.

Susan Friedmann                                                                           03:38

Excellent.

Yeah.

And there are a lot of different platforms out there I know, and I'm sure we'll come back to which ones are specifically good for authors because I know things like Kickstarter is good for innovative products.

But I never even thought of it as potentially something for authors.

And what are the benefits of crowdfunding?     

Let's talk about that.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   04:26

The key here raising your funds, but there are so many benefits above and beyond that.

Just to give people an idea of the sort of the numbers that we're talking about.

You know, in 2021, there were 3724 publishing campaigns in 2021.

That if that gives you an idea of sort of how many there are out there, and most of those would be what we call a rewards crowdfunding campaign where people back the campaign and in return, they get a reward, and that could start with something as simple as the book.

Itself, but when we talk about what are those additional benefits you might have in your campaign something like, for example, if your book is a business and Charmaine's the expert at that.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   05:09

But what you may end up doing is you might have if you purchase or if you back this campaign, at this level, then I will get on a call with you.

We'll do a Zoom call, and you can actually perhaps if you're a consultant, you can offer an hour of consulting time.

You can also use it to sell your business.

The other thing that you can do is to set your brand up because you're getting awareness So if you are looking to either position yourself or and we've got somebody at the moment reposition yourself, this is something you can do because you're getting into the the public market, and you're telling people your expertise, your great writing capabilities.

So that could be a second benefit.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   05:45

Thirdly, if you have different formats.

So going back to sort of more of the sort of nonfiction style, You might be going, should I have a planner, or should I have a workbook to go with this?

You could put those down as perks and you see which 1 people follow, and then you can actually follow on with that so that way you're using it for market research.

But you're building a community, you're building a crowd of people who have a relationship with you directly.

And how often do authors get that?

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   06:04

Usually, you're going through it.

Amazon, you're going through a bookstore.

You don't get that direct feedback.

That's probably the biggest thing you're getting is you're getting that relationship that you can nurture and use, whether for your next book or for your business.

But you can also use it for market research.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   06:12

You can also use it for direct sales, and so thereby making more money, there's no middleman taking their little cup.

1 of the

Victoria Bennett                                                                             07:03

things I'll add to that too is that so many authors write books that are not related to what they do in their business.

And I'm a great example of that.

I speak and train corporately on topic like conflict resolution and collaboration and resilience, yet I have this book that I wrote about my dog and a children's series about my dog.

And so When I became published, I had to build my author brand and my audience that I had for my corporate work might not have been interested in my book.

And so 1 of the benefits of a crowd fund when Victoria was talking about you're building your community, you're building your crowd, is this allows you to build a crowd that's specific to your book versus a crowd that might be specific to your coaching services or you're consulting or you're speaking.

Victoria Bennett                                                                             07:39

And I think that's really such a big opportunity for people, especially when they're booked maybe different than what they do sort of in their business.

And I would say the other piece of crowdfunding that I love is just the energy and buzz around pre selling your book.

And so many authors, they get so close to the done line, the finish line, and then they run out of steam energy or funds, and this allows people to complete their book and launch it in that professional way that they dream about launching it.

Now what about an author who

Susan Friedmann                                                                           07:53

already has a book?

It's been out there maybe for a few years and hasn't done particularly well.

And they really need that injection of money to do some marketing to sort of kick start it.

Victoria Bennett                                                                             08:20

Yeah.

That's a great question, Susan.

And I get excited you can hear it in my voice that couple things that can happen.

Sometimes what authors will do is, in a perks campaign, as Victoria was talking about, if they're generating revenue for a new book, they might have their existing book become part of the perk.

So for example, when you pledge at x number of dollars, not only do you get my new book that's coming out, we're gonna send you my current book.

Victoria Bennett                                                                             09:00

So it's reviving the book that an author currently has.

Then there's the other strategy which is amazing.

Is where authors might want to not be working on a new book.

They wanna as you said, kick start or bring some life back into that current book, and maybe they're raising funds to have the book available in other languages, or maybe they wanna turn it into an audiobook.

Or perhaps do a speaking and book tour or a book and blog tour, maybe they wanna be able to actually if they have a book that might be relevant to charities, they might wanna have a campaign where the crowd fund helps them get bulk copies of the book.

Victoria Bennett                                                                             09:22

Into different schools or charities or organizations.

And sometimes the authors who have an existing book are wanting to create wraparound products or services.

So for example, they've got the book, maybe an e pub and print, but now they wanna create a video training series.

Or a workbook or a journal to complement that book?

Susan Friedmann                                                                           09:48

I could go down many different avenues with all of this.

But I like to get basic because you know, and that is how do we get started.

Here I am.

I'm an author and I decide that I need some funding to help me, yes, get the book published, and a cover designed and then, of course, the marketing aspect of it.

But where would I begin?

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   10:15

Well, the first thing I would say is plan.

Charlemagne, you know this so well.

But we see campaigns for fabulous books, but the person has perhaps put something together over a weekend launches it, and then they get nothing crickets.

1 of the things about crowdfunding is is this a bit of, as we say, gamification?

Your success breeds success.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   10:47

Planning is absolutely key.

We recommend 90 days before you want to launch, to really prepare.

And then running your campaign, if you're in Europe, it's usually about 30 days, and North America typically is 45 days.

When you start at the very beginning, what you're looking at is you're trying to identify who your target backer is, And what's in it for them?

With a target backers, that's typically your target reader.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   11:47

And 1 of the things that we found you know, running our crowdfunding for authors campaign is actually it's been really impactful doing that because people have gone, I thought I was writing this book for this person, but actually I'm writing it for this person, and this is how I want them to feel at the end of it.

We actually had an author on our last cohort who went back and rewrote their book based on that thinking, so Once this is beneficial for your crowdfunding campaign, whilst this is beneficial for raising capital, raising cash, to launch a book or to prepare your book, It's also useful for your book.

There's lots of benefits here, but what we look at is we look at who is your target backer, your target audience, what's in it for them, we look at what your budget is, so really costing out how much it's going to take to get to where you want to get to.

So for some people, they use it to develop their book.

For some people, they use it to launch their book.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   12:09

And as we've heard, for some people, it's to relaunch or reinvigorate their book.

How much do you need?

And, you know, that can be things like the printing production, etcetera, editing?

But then you also have the marketing.

There's marketing for your crowdfunding campaign, which is typically about 10 percent of what you want to raise, That's the ballpark figure to work with.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   12:50

But you put that full budget together, and then that's going to be sort of the amount you're looking to raise, and to your very first question or actually second question, you also think about what are those other benefits?

If like you have a podcast, if you were doing a crowdfunding, you might want to get more people signed up for your podcast So those could be the official sort of additional non financial goals.

So everything you're doing when you're preparing your crowdfunding campaign is to help you not just raise the funds but also help you to get more people signed up for your podcast.

Susan Friedmann                                                                           13:03

What about the actual money side of it?

I mean, what are we looking at?

Are we looking at a few thousand dollars?

Are we looking at into the 5 figures, 6 figures.

How much can we even think about raising?

Victoria Bennett                                                                             13:33

I think we can both respond to this 1, Victoria, you have so much experience in many crowd fund sectors.

I know we have a author we're working with right now that is getting close to 20000 on our crowd Fund.

And I have colleagues and clients who have raised who their goal was 5000.

I've seen a lot of campaigns for authors sort of Victoria at that 7500 to 10000, it's sort of like they have this final push to get the book out.

Victoria Bennett                                                                             13:56

But for authors that are, I would say, writing the book or have a very big vision for their books, so multiple formats, maybe more than 1 language, doing a tour, some launch events.

I would say that we see a lot of them between 10 and 20000 dollars is the amount in Victoria.

I'd love to hear your thoughts as well.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   14:08

Yeah.

1 thing is, you know, if you Google crowdfunded books, you'll see these ones which are in the millions.

Mhmm.

And I just want you know, yes.

That is possible, but it is incredibly rare.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   14:39

And typically, they are working with an agency, and they will be spending upwards of 300000 half a million to achieve that.

So I don't want people to go in going, oh, you know, The other side is I always like to get driven by what you need the funds for.

So having sort of, like, the minimum that you need to actually launch the book, and then you might have extensions such as your book tour.

But I agree with you.

I mean, if you look at sort of the likes of, say, Indiegogo they're saying around about that.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   15:00

So 10 k is what they're expecting.

But, you know, you also have to sort of put into let's be realistic for if you're doing something like this on your own and not planning, Sorry.

Because that's my 1 takeaway -- Mhmm.

-- and not planning.

There is quite a high failure rate in this.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   15:21

So if you let's just say you just put something up on a weekend and build it and they will come.

Well, I was telling you now they don't typically come.

And so over half of those campaigns will fail.

But if you're looking at around that's, as I say, 10 k, this is a a brilliant mechanism.

If you want to raise more, you absolutely can.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   15:45

Just requires a bit more planning, requires, you know, a bit more funding because you've got to do the promotion.

You know, when you're looking at those sort of higher levels, you may want to use a professional agency to help you.

But then if you were launching a book and you wanted it to be on Oprah Winfries, Reeds, or whatever, you may went well, end up, you know, wanting to use a a third party to help you achieve that anyway.

Susan Friedmann                                                                           15:59

Yeah.

And you talk about the planning as being a mistake.

I mean, I love talking about mistakes.

So other than the lack of planning, what are some of the other mistakes that you see authors make?

How

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   16:02

long have we got on this You

Susan Friedmann                                                                           16:05

could write a book just on that subject.

I'm

Victoria Bennett                                                                             16:13

sure.

Yeah.

I mean, there's a long list.

Some of the top mistakes Victoria has talked but not having a plan.

That's number 1.

Victoria Bennett                                                                             16:43

Some of the other mistakes that people make is that they're not clear on their goals.

So they know they want to do a crowd fund to raise revenue, but they're not really clear on their objectives.

What they hope to accomplish And the other, I would say, the big mistake is that people look at their target audience as being everyone.

Everyone will love this book everyone can benefit, and it's really hard to market to everyone.

We need to market a crowd fund to a specific group of people.

Victoria Bennett                                                                             16:49

Your exact readers.

Those are some of the mistakes.

I see Victoria, you see many as well.

Oh,

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   17:00

yes.

That's absolutely key.

I mean, the niche.

Yes.

Anyone and everyone might change your book, but if you try and speak to everybody, then you're not going to speak to anybody.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   17:32

The biggest challenge at that point is if you're writing, you know, a fiction book, you know, and perhaps you have a little paragraph or an example in there so people can see your style of writing and really get hooked in.

But if it's not targeted to them, they're gonna read it and go meh, you'll end up spending money, you know, time, and wasting it going after people that will never back your campaign.

But if it's really well targeted, people are gonna read it and go, wow.

I just want to get this book.

Oh, I love this author.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   17:44

You know, I'd love to do this and so they get really excited and so they want to back your campaign.

So completely agree on that sort of the niching.

In terms of the backing, I would like to go down that avenue.

Susan Friedmann                                                                           17:53

You want people to back you.

Now how do you get people involved?

That they are going to, you know, help you raise the funds.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   18:29

Typically, a third of the funds come from people you know, a third of the funds come from people they know and a third of the funds come from your additional activity.

Now I will tell you in our previous cohort, we have somebody who said, nobody is going to back my campaign.

I have nobody in my crowd.

But what, you know, we always believe is just reach out and tell them because everybody who's an author that I've ever met is passionate about what they're writing about.

And if you share that passion with your network and tell them what's coming down the pipeline, let them choose.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   18:38

If you didn't do that and you have a really successful campaign, people are going to be really upset that they weren't asked.

Why didn't you ask me I would have done

Victoria Bennett                                                                             18:39

that?

And

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   19:37

then what we recommend is actually giving those people the tools to share that could be with their networks via, you know, social media, via emails, just chatting about it.

Hey, my friend's writing a book about x.

Oh, that's cool, making sure that people have that ability to share from that first third to the second third.

And a lot of that is all around the trust, and this is 1 of the things I think super cool with with crowdfunding is it's a 1 to many, so you as an individual are speaking to many people who could back your campaign.

But on the other side, the many get to hear from you, and how often do they get to do that to get that personal relationship, you know, if you're sending an email out to a hundred people, a thousand people, That still feels like a personal interaction, but it's only taking you the time to write 1 email that then gets personalized out to everybody.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   20:04

It's a way of reaching out to that audience in a very cost effective time effective way but making that personal relationship.

That's what will get people excited.

And then people are like, oh, this person's really cool or I love the way they write, or the information they share is really important.

When the campaign comes up, they want to back you because they're committed to you and they're committed to your

Susan Friedmann                                                                           20:05

book.

You

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   20:45

know, I think that's where the 2 thirds of your funds are going to come from.

Now some people think, oh, if I put it on Kickstarter or Indigo, everybody's going to see it and they're gonna want the book, and it will sort of sell out the builders and they will come.

It doesn't happen.

The highest percentage you can expect from those platforms is 10 to 15 percent, and that's only if you are selected by the platform and they promote it, and they only do that if you trigger the algorithm?

And the algorithm is that you achieve over 10 percent on your first day.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   21:22

The data actually says you should be looking to achieve over 11 percent on day 1 and a third in the first week to have campaign success.

If you get picked by the algorithm, you may get 15 percent of your total raise from the platform.

But it's 1 05:15 percent, so it is not build it and they will come.

And just to talk to that final third, what is that final third?

Well, It could be generating really good content on social media if you feel comfortable to do so, and there are many ways to do it for those people who are it'll freaked out by social media.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   21:53

It could be putting content out there through some other channels, so medium, linkedin, if, you know, if it's more of a sort of nonfiction.

You may want to do a press release.

You may want to do there's all this other activity.

You may want to get onto your local radio station or your local TV station or a write up in a local newspaper, those are sort of activities that can really raise profile of you as an author And then at the end, we happen to sneak in the fact that you're doing a crowdfunding campaign.

Susan Friedmann                                                                           22:07

Nice.

So you talk about the 2 big e's, the Kickstarter and ID Gogo.

Are there some smaller platforms that our listeners need to know about that would be better fit for authors?

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   22:26

You should mention that.

So I mean, it's a duopoly at the moment.

It's Kickstart Indigo Go go go on the rewards crowd funding campaign.

Sometimes when people go we don't know what a crowd fund is.

If you say Kickstarter or Indigo, it's a good way for people to twig, you know, what are they talking about?

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   22:50

I'll just sort of put it out there.

We have seen recently.

Somebody put it on a go fund me which is more of a donations because of a it's more of a sort of cover medical bills or tragedies, etcetera.

So Go Fundly doesn't seem a very good fit for me.

I mean, Indigo Go and Kickstarter have been around for years, and they do a lot of things right.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   23:11

But there are other ones that are coming through.

I mean, we've worked with another 1 called crowdfunder.

Mhmm.

And there's a missing r, e before the r, so crowd fund, and then the letter r.

Their platform has raised over a quarter of a billion dollars from over a hundred countries.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   23:36

1 of the reasons we mentioned them is because they handle the shipping separately from shipping included in, and I just think that makes it easier.

So going back to who that target audience is, if your target audience is just North America, you might want to do a a New York Kickstarter Indigo.

You just want to do a a blanket shipping fee.

So it's gonna be 10 dollars.

Make sure it always covers your picking, packing, and shipping.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   23:57

You might just say, alright, my book's 25 dollars.

I'm gonna have 10 dollars on for shipping and everything, so that's 35, so that's what your amount you're going to show.

But if somebody from your reporters, what am I gonna do?

And it just makes it either you limit your audience or You don't wanna be left where your costs are fully covered?

Definitely don't want to do that.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   24:17

This is supposed to be a way of making money, not losing money.

That's 1 of the reasons we like about crowd funding is it does it separately.

So if somebody from Europe wants to get your book or any of your perks, then they're charged for separately.

So you're not having to sort of calculate everything out.

It just makes life so much easier.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   24:37

So that's I mean, there are other benefits as well.

1 of the great things that rewards crowdfunding campaigns is they're pretty broad geographically.

So it's not like with some of the other crowdfunding types where you have to go to a local platform.

You can go for a platform that really works for you.

Excellent.

Susan Friedmann                                                                           25:05

Well, I know that our listener's gonna want to find out more about your services because you guys are the experts in this helping authors get money to make their dreams come true because often especially when it comes to marketing, so much money is put into producing the book.

And then when it comes to marketing, there's nothing left.

So tell us how our audience can find out more about you.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   25:39

We run In fact, we've just kicked off with her second week of our crowdfunding for author's cohort.

So Charmaine and I tag team on a course and we're bringing a cohort of people together that over 12 weeks, we will plan prepare so get it done.

Session.

At the end of it, you are ready to launch your campaign or if you haven't already, and we really sort of help you and support you, but also you're in a cohort, so there's other authors in there.

We found it a really supportive environment.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   25:45

I'll let Charlemagne speak a bit more to that, and then I'll come back with something else we also have.

Victoria Bennett                                                                             26:35

I'm just gonna to a great way to find the crowdfunding hub on socials and website is exactly that, the crowdfunding hub dot com.

The other piece that I'll mention as well is that sometimes authors are looking to bring sponsors in to help them with their projects related to their book and Victoria and I in the program actually talk about how do we bring sponsorship into this crowdfunding campaign and I get really excited about that.

So we really encourage people to follow the crowdfunding hub on social media because Tory and her team are constantly giving out tips and strategies and they review different campaigns, and that's a great way to learn.

And of course, people can also find me on raiseadream dot com or through Victoria's, the crowdfunding hub.

Susan Friedmann                                                                           26:53

Excellent.

I'm sure you're going to get inquiries because this is a subject we've not touched on at all.

I think we've mentioned it.

Occasionally, but the fact that you guys are specializing in it is so cool, like, hats off to you because it's

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   27:29

well needed for this 1 thing I was just gonna mention, Susan, though, is if people are sort of a bit on the fence, like, is this right?

For me, some people sort of like to get lots of information beforehand.

If you join the crowdfunding hubs community, the hub, there's actually a a free program in there that walks you through what is crowdfunding, what the benefits of crowdfunding are, and really sort of the outline of the nice day plan.

And it just helps people go yes, this is right for me or or no, this isn't.

And so you're just offering that as a, you know, a freebie out to anybody listening.

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   28:06

If you're not sure, And the 1 thing about it, if you're in the hub, it's a community, all the authors who've been through our cohort are in there.

We have anybody who's running a crowd fund of any type is in there.

So it's a big community and and it's a sort of a safe space for people to say, I'm thinking of running this, what do you think?

And my team is also in there, so we can help you make that decision whether crowdfunding is right for you, which I think is a really important 1 because, you know, it's not quick, you know, it needs a bit of effort to deliver behind it.

So It gives you a chance just to make sure that it is the right thing for you.

Susan Friedmann                                                                           28:10

Excellent.

And they can find that video on the website.

Correct?

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   28:36

If you go to the Crowdfunding Hub to join the hub, which is our community, and we give you 7 days free.

And then after that, it's $9.99 a month.

So it's it's not gonna break the bank if you decide to stay, but we wanted to give everybody the chance you should be able to get everything you need in that first 7 days.

And then if it's not right for you, you cancel before, you know, you have to pay a penny.

So it's a safe way of finding out if it's

Susan Friedmann                                                                           28:53

right for you.

Excellent.

Well, thank you.

And as you know, we always like to end the program with a golden nugget.

So I know you've given us already so many Victoria, Charlemagne, what do you want to leave our audience with?

Charmaine Hammond                                                                   29:38

Oh, there's so many things.

If I narrow it down to 1, I would say, get started.

Because as Victoria said crowdfunding is a process, it's a journey and we need planning, If it's something that you're looking at for your book, go and check out other campaigns, see what's going on in the sector, sign up to go be a member of the crowdfunding hub and get those resources Victoria talked about because every day that you don't get started, is a day away from being able to launch your campaign.

And I always believe that as an author, you put your heart and soul into that book.

And the world likely really needs your message right now and it deserves you putting your running shoes on and getting started.

Susan Friedmann                                                                           29:45

Excellent.

Thank you.

And Victoria?

Anything else to add?

I know planning is top of your list.

Victoria Bennett                                                                             30:07

Yeah.

But I'm gonna build on what Charmaine said is, you know, just Google, Google book crowdfunding campaigns, see what you like, see what you don't like, Perhaps back a campaign, see what the process is like.

Yeah, it's really helpful just to get a feel for everything.

And, you know, absolutely what Charmaine said, get it done.

Susan Friedmann                                                                           30:39

Lovely.

Thank you.

You've been fantastic.

I know there's going to be a lot of interest, so I really appreciate you both being here.

And listeners If your book isn't selling the way you want it or expect it to, let's jump on a quick call together to brainstorm way to ramp up those sales because you've invested a whole lot of time, money, and energy, and it's time you got the return you were hoping for, so go to BrainstormWithSusan.com to schedule your free call.

Susan Friedmann                                                                           30:39

And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books.

Until next week here is wishing you much book and author marketing, success.

Click here for more information on crowding opportunities