2020 was a terrible year for crowdfunding. Not only did everyone become too preoccupied with the pandemic to worry about books, but also, every author possessing a half-finished novel decided to finish it during the lockdown, which meant Kickstarter was inundated with book campaigns.
At the same time, though, 2020 became a year of people everywhere needing inspirational books. Therefore, Sunshine went ahead and launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the trilogy she had been writing for 18-years.
Two-days after launching her campaign, Sunshine’s hometown caught fire! Most potential contributors she knew were either housing evacuees or fleeing from their homes, while the fire’s evacuation boundary advanced to within a mile of her house.
One week later, Sunshine happened to meet a neighbor who turned out to be a successful science-fiction author. Hoping to pick his brain for ideas, she told him she had launched a Kickstarter campaign. Since her local friends could no longer contribute, she was trying to find a corporate sponsor, except most companies she spoke with claimed to be losing money, due to pandemic.
The neighbor inquired, ” How much money are you trying to raise?”
“Fourteen-thousand dollars,” she answered. “because it’s a trilogy that will contain color photos.”
“Are you taking your books around to show people?” he asked.
“I can’t because they’re not finished yet,” she admitted.
The neighbor threw back his head and laughed, “You’re trying to sell people unfinished books? That’s not going to work!”
Sunshine stared at him, struggling not to choke on the thick brown smoke obscuring his face. “But I’ve been writing these books for eighteen years!” she cried. “And I don’t have enough money to print them by myself.”
Quit wasting your time!” he chuckled. “It only takes a couple months to write a book. Just finish-up quickly. Google how to write a good book proposal and submit your proposal to a professional publisher. Be professional and you’ll get a good result.”
“But…but…” Objections poured through Sunshine’s head. Her books were unusual. What would a mainstream publisher do to them? She had approached a few publishing houses nearly twenty years ago and been told she was too young to have her memoir taken seriously. Well, that objection was no longer valid, but she still wanted to self-publish, if at all possible.
“If you just want to print a few copies to hand around, you can do that for way cheaper than twenty-dollars a book,” her neighbor insisted. “But don’t even bother. Just write a good proposal and be professional.”
Well, after going home, Sunshine looked up her neighbor’s books online and decided his audience was completely different. So bully for him and never mind. She was not ready to give up self-publishing yet.
A few weeks later, thanks to many generous sponsors, Sunshine succeeded in raising enough money to print the first edition of Racing the Clouds.
She hired 48-Hour Books to handle the printing and she could not have been happier with the company’s customer service and quality of their printing.
Books 2 and 3 are still being edited, so check back for more updates about Sunshine’s race to publish this unusual trilogy.
Racing the Clouds Classic Adventure Novel 