Give Me Money!

I was running some numbers yesterday. I need to raise money in order to pay for the edits on Red Skies. Without these edits, I'm not comfortable sending the next book in the Lady Raven series out into the world.

Unfortunately, my current book sales aren't coming close to covering what I need, and I don't have enough disposable income to shell out the amount I need.

I looked into Kickstarter, since it seems to be the hot thing for many authors, musicians, and game developers. But if I've done the math right, in order to account for possible stretch goals and reward levels that would include hard copies of books, I would have to raise over three times the amount I expect to need, per book. Given that the very people I'd be turning to to back the Kickstarter are the same people I'd be turning to to buy my books in the first place, I don't see the logic in this. While hitting stretch goals would mean that backers could get all three books for about €10, that is very unlikely.

See, in order to make sure that backers weren't getting screwed over, paying above the odds post-release, I would need almost 2,000 people to back a Kickstarter that would result in being able to release just Red Skies. To say nothing of the third and fourth books in the series.

But, if 2,000 people bought any one of my books, I would earn enough to cover the editing costs for Red Skies, easy. And it would have the added benefit of increasing my ranking on Amazon and free up a lot of organisational time that I can put to writing more books.

So folks, if you've read any of my books and want to read more, particularly if you want to see the Lady Raven series continue, buy more of my books! Hire me as an editor or tell your writer friends about my services. Buy my books as gifts. Tell people how much you enjoy them. Leave reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and blogs. If you're a published author, and you're willing to be quoted on my site, on Amazon, or on my cover copy, tell me what you've thought. Anything at all will help.

A question to get some discussion going: What encourages you to pick up a book? Knowing the author? Amazon reviews? Good marketing?