largest kickstarter ever, by double, 4 books by sci-fi/fantasy author

[masraum]

Wow, this is pretty interesting and impressive.

This sci-fi / fantasy author is running a kick starter, and it's almost double the previous largest kick starter, by double (and seems on track to make the double mark).
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dragonsteel/surprise-four-secret-novels-by-brandon-sanderson

Previous double 20,338,000
Current amount (ends today) 40,082,000

He beat the previous record in 3 days. He was looking for $1,000,000. He's now at 40x that amount. As the amount has gone up, he's been adding stuff to the pot.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/4/22960365/brandon-sanderson-fantasy-novels-kickstarter-cosmere
An excerpt from the link above.

Prolific fantasy author Brandon Sanderson has just broken the Kickstarter record for the most successful crowdfunded project of all time, cracking the $20,338,986 milestone set by the Pebble Time all the way back in 2015.

Sanderson’s achievement isn’t just notable for the sheer amount of money raised but for the speed. The project — for four new novels that the author wrote in secret over the course of the pandemic — was announced on Tuesday, March 1st and broke the record by early Friday morning, March 4th.

The project’s original goal was to raise $1,000,000 in 30 days; Sanderson hit that number in around 35 minutes, according to The New York Times. The campaign currently exceeds 82,000 backers and still has 27 days to raise additional contributions. The Pebble Time ended its record-setting campaign with contributions from 78,471 backers.

As with any Kickstarter — and especially high-profile projects with huge numbers of backers and scale — there’s always a risk that the products won’t materialize or that the company won’t follow through (like infamous crowdfunding disaster The Coolest Cooler, now the third most funded Kickstarter campaign). That said, Sanderson’s project feels a little less risky than most, given that the author has already written all four of the novels, in addition to the fact that books are a relatively solved problem in terms of mass production.

Sanderson’s company, Dragonsteel Entertainment, has successfully run a Kickstarter before — a $6.7 million project for leatherbound editions of The Way of Kings that ended with almost 30,000 backers, so the company does have some experience handling fulfillment for large projects like this.

[masraum]

hahaha, seems poop and earrings is more interesting to this crowd.

[id10t]

Originally Posted by masraum

hahaha, seems poop and earrings is more interesting to this crowd.

Sorry, was busy reading Pratchett on my lunch break

[masraum]

Originally Posted by id10t

Sorry, was busy reading Pratchett on my lunch break

Nice.

This kickstarted has more than doubled the previous top earner. It's been pulling in close to $200k/hour for the past couple/few hours. Prior to this, it was bringing in less than half that. They are about to top $41million.

[Gogar]

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Gogar

Yep, according to a quick google search, it's considered income unless you manage to come up with deductions. THis guy has done one before that was something like 6 or 7 million, so I think he gets it.

He's done some interesting stuff because of the success of this most recent kickstarter.

On March 25, Sanderson posted a video to his YouTube channel to let fans watch in real time as he and his team at Dragonsteel Books went through and backed every single publishing project on Kickstarter. It’s an amazing way of giving back, and just one more example of why so many people love this dude.

“Today, we are gonna do something awesome,” Sanderson announced to introduce the video. “The Kickstarter has been successful beyond my wildest dreams. So I got my team together and I said, ‘what can we do to give back a little to this community that has supported us so well?’ So we are going to back every single Kickstarter in the publishing category.”

He then proceeded to make good on that declaration. Over the course of the half-hour video, he and his crew at Dragonsteel parsed through all the publishing project currently listed on Kickstarter, and backed every single one (unless it was NSFW). They even came across a few that spoofed Sanderson’s Kickstarter announcement video, where he punked fans by making it seem like he might be taking a break from writing before dropping five manuscripts onto his desk. And yes, he backed those too.

The range of projects backed ran from a home teaching aid book for Kindergarten-aged children, picture books, adult fantasy books, and even some books written by kids. There were a handful of projects which Sanderson even decided to give extra to in order to push them over their funding limit and ensure that they get made.

By the time the dust settled on Dragonsteel’s Kickstarter-backing extravaganza, they had backed 316 projects. As Sanderson said, this was a pretty amazing way to give back to the community.

My wife has been following this. Apparently, he's done some other stuff too, that I can't remember. For instance, I guess he sometimes hires folks for a project, but then their position is short term. But he's apparently made some positions "permanent" as a result of the results of this kickstarter.

[red-beard]

All of the book production costs will be against this "income".

Seems like too much money for the books, unless this guy is something special

[Gogar]

Originally Posted by red-beard

All of the book production costs will be against this "income".

Seems like too much money for the books, unless this guy is something special

Well from the stats it looks like he's going to have to print about 350,000 hardcovers a year!

How much does it cost to print a "premium hardcover"?

[masraum]

Originally Posted by red-beard

All of the book production costs will be against this "income".

Seems like too much money for the books, unless this guy is something special

THey aren't just regular books, and there's extra stuff.

All four books are being offered in three formats, depending on the tier you choose to pledge: a digital ebook (available for download the month the book is released), a digital audiobook (available for download the month the book is released), and an unsigned premium hardcover book. Note: While regular hardcover and paperback editions with a traditional publisher are possible sometime in the future, after this campaign is fulfilled the premium version of this book might not be available again.

These premium hardcover books are collectible above your standard hardcover. Each one will be roughly 400 pages long, about the same depth and height as our leatherbound books (about 6-5/16" x 9-1/2"), printed on FSC-certified off-white acid-free paper, and bound in a FSC-certified environmentally friendly colored soft-touch paper material. The cover material is beautiful, giving the look and feel of real leather while, according to the manufacturer, "complying with our strict ecologically sound production methods." The material will then be foiled with the final cover illustrations. Each book will feature 1-4 color interior illustrations throughout along with designed endpapers and chapter headers, all commissioned specifically for this project. Each shipment also includes a themed sticker and a cool, sparkly bookmark.

Thank You Gifts!

We have chosen to give our backers "thank you gifts" for the support rather than include stretch goals, and Brandon has revealed these gifts on each of the past four livestreams. See below for the descriptions and links to these reveals.

1) Dual-color printing inside each premium hardcover, similar to our leatherbounds. See the reveal here: https://youtu.be/MQD2JKr3ljo?t=821

2) Epic bookmark inside the first secret project box for physical reward backers, and Dragonsteel will be covering all customs and taxes for our international backers. See both reveals here: https://youtu.be/KBKBd-peagE?t=250

3) Digital art package for ALL backers that will include the Kickstarter cover image by Howard Lyon, as well as the covers of all four books. See the reveal here: https://youtu.be/F_DfnDkblNQ?t=243

4) A Cosmere character collectible pin set! One pin will be in each of the twelve boxes. See the reveal here: https://youtu.be/pPj6VRnl3og?t=45

Swag Boxes

Beyond these epic books in physical and digital formats, we are also offering a monthly swag box for the eight months you will not be receiving a new book. Themed swag boxes will be shipped to you each month and will contain at least three items: one featured item and two supporting items. Some boxes may include a clothing item such as a t-shirt. In your BackerKit survey (see below for explanation of BackerKit) you will be asked your shirt size. This shirt size cannot be changed once your survey is completed.

Brandon has revealed a small number of these swag items each week on the livestreams. If you are interested in these sneak peeks, they are listed below!

Sanderfan Box: A writing notebook that includes writing prompts from Brandon's own list of ideas. See the reveal here: https://youtu.be/MQD2JKr3ljo?t=6160

Hoid Box: A sheet of embossed stickers in the style of book awards with Hoid's face and the message "Contains 100% pure nonsense." See the reveal here: https://youtu.be/KBKBd-peagE?t=2570

Cytoverse Box: A deck of Taynix-themed "Go Fish" cards that can be used as a regular playing card deck. See the reveal here: https://youtu.be/KBKBd-peagE?t=2570

Warbreaker Box: A Nightblood letter opener. See the reveal here: https://youtu.be/pPj6VRnl3og?t=317

[masraum]

and done

185328 backers pledged $41,752,493.24 to help bring this project to life.

[red-beard]

How much does kickstarter get out of this?

[masraum]

Apparently, this guy is prolific. This is a spoof video that some guy did about him.

[red-beard]

That is an average of $225 per person

[Gogar]

Originally Posted by red-beard

How much does kickstarter get out of this?

between 5 and 8% depending on their arrangement with the CC vendors

[masraum]

Originally Posted by red-beard

How much does kickstarter get out of this?

https://help.kickstarter.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005028634-What-are-the-fees-

f a project is successfully funded, Kickstarter collects a 5% fee from the funds collected for creators. Stripe, our payments processor, will also collect a payment processing fee (roughly 3-5%). The complete fee breakdowns are available here.

If a project does not reach its funding goal, no fees are collected.

We established this fee in 2009 and have set an industry standard for creator-friendly funding.

We use this model because we believe in paying artists as much as possible. We’re a tool for going around traditional gatekeepers like agents, dealers, distributors, fiscal sponsors, record labels, and publishers, and we accordingly take a much lower cut than they do.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by masraum

Apparently, this guy is prolific.

I'm reading a series by Jerry Boyd. He released the first book in June of 2019. He has released 22 more since. That is 23 books in 33 months.

I'm reading a couple of other authors who are not quite as quick, but release a book about every 3 months. When most books are distributed by Amazon on Kindle, they can be released as this quickly.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by red-beard

I'm reading a series by Jerry Boyd. He released the first book in June of 2019. He has released 22 more since. That is 23 books in 33 months.

I'm reading a couple of other authors who are not quite as quick, but release a book about every 3 months. When most books are distributed by Amazon on Kindle, they can be released as this quickly.

that's a lot of books

[A930Rocket]

I’ve never heard of the guy.

So, everybody who donated, gets a free book? The author keeps all of the money , minus commission and printing expenses?

[masraum]

Originally Posted by A930Rocket

I’ve never heard of the guy.

So, everybody who donated, gets a free book? The author keeps all of the money , minus commission and printing expenses?

THere were donations from $40 and up, and you could donate more if desired.

Everyone that donated gets at least 4 books in at least one format.

$40 got you 4 eBooks
$60 got you 4 books in eBook and audio format
$160 got you 4 premium hardbacks and one of the other formats
etc...
Up to $500 getting you 4 books in all 3 formats plus 8 boxes of swag that relates to the books. So for this you receive something every month for a year.

plus he donated to 316 other kickstarters that all related to publishing.

When he's done this in the past, the folks that work in the warehouse get short term work, but this is so big that he's planning for them to have an entire year's worth of work.

[PorscheGAL]

I just finished one of his books on audio and it was hard to stop listening when I got to my destination. I will be downloading more audio books. Most of his audio books are 15+ hours of listening. That said: Sanderson is one of the most successful fantasy writers to date. Henry Cavill (Superman, The Witcher) has said on numerous occasions that Sanderson is his favorite author.