The Author Revolution® Podcast

Beyond the Basics with Oriana Leckert: Transforming Your Kickstarter from Good to Magnetic

• Carissa Andrews • Season 1 • Episode 272

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Ever wondered what truly makes a Kickstarter campaign magnetic instead of merely functional? This episode pulls back the curtain on the art of author crowdfunding with someone who's witnessed thousands of campaigns from behind the scenes.

Oriana Leckert, Head of Publishing at Kickstarter, joins us to share insights that go far beyond the typical campaign advice. As she reveals, her role encompasses far more than just technical guidance – she's part publishing expert, part crowdfunding consultant, part life coach, and part cheerleader. This unique perspective allows her to spot the subtle differences between campaigns that simply meet goals and those that transform author careers by building genuine community.

We explore the most overlooked opportunities in author campaigns, from creatively engaging backers to designing rewards that deeply connect to your book's world. You'll discover why some authors set funding goals too low out of fear (and the potential consequences), how to strategically reveal stretch goals to maintain momentum, and why Kickstarter's algorithm rewards early engagement. Oriana also shares stunning examples of imaginative rewards that created unforgettable backer experiences, from custom yarn for knitting-themed novels to scented candles based on romance protagonists.

Whether you're contemplating your first campaign or looking to elevate your next one, this conversation will reshape how you think about crowdfunding as a cornerstone of your author career. Kickstarter isn't just a funding platform – it's a powerful community-building tool that can transform not just how your books are published, but how you connect with readers for years to come.

Are you an author at a crossroads, feeling stuck & unfulfilled in your author career? Do you know deep down it's time for a change, but you’re unsure of the next step?

The High Vibe Author is the only transformational membership designed specifically for authors like you—those who are ready to break free from limitations & step into the abundant life they deserve. Click here to learn more.

Indie publishing wasn’t built for neurodivergent minds—so let’s change that. Inside Author Revolution on Substack, I share exclusive insights on writing, publishing, and manifestation for ND authors. Plus, explore my neurospicy romcoms & urban fantasy worlds. Want to go deeper? Get access to Manifest Differently: The Deep End, my private podcast. Follow now: 👉 authorrevolution.org/substack

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Go forth and start your author revolution!

Carissa Andrew:

Welcome to the Author Revolution Podcast. I'm Carissa Andrews, author and your host here to help indie authors like you master mindset, harness manifestation and embrace cutting-edge innovation to elevate your career. Let's dive in.

Carissa Andrews:

Well, hi there, guys, and welcome back to the author revolution podcast. Okay, today I'm welcoming a very special guest, someone who has been instrumental in shaping the world of author crowdfunding. Ariana leckert is the head of publishing at kickstarter, and she's been a guiding light for so many of us who are bringing our creative visions to life outside of those traditional models. She's not just about ticking the campaign boxes, though. She deeply understands what it feels like to build something magnetic, something that truly resonates with our community. And, as many of you know by this point, by the time you're listening to this podcast episode, I recently wrapped up my own Kickstarter campaign for Write your Reality, and I can say firsthand that Kickstarter is an art form all on its own. So today we're going to go beyond the basics and tap into Oriana's incredible insight about what makes campaigns not just good but transformational. So, oriana, welcome to the Author Revolution podcast.

Oriana Leckert:

Goodness gracious, what an incredible intro. I'm so happy to be here and just like a true delight to get to talk to you.

Carissa Andrews:

I know, right, I can't believe you haven't been here before. I was looking at things and I'm like how did I not bring her onto the show before? Like what, that makes no sense. Oh, the best time now. I agree, I agree. Well, I'm definitely thrilled to have you here, and at this point, I think a lot of us authors know who you are, especially if we've gone to you, know different conferences, or if we're thinking about Kickstarter. I know I've talked to a lot of different authors who are on here and they've brought you up too, obviously. So I'm curious, then, to go beyond the basics and I want to know what is your role that you play at Kickstarter that most authors wouldn't expect? Like? Are there any hidden work behind the scenes that are just surprising?

Oriana Leckert:

I think my job continues to surprise me every day. The version of this question that I often get is like what's a typical day in your world? And I'm like I still don't know. I've been doing this job for six years. I still don't know what a typical day is, what to expect.

Oriana Leckert:

I mean, in all the ways I'm so tremendously lucky to have this job. I can hardly believe it. You know I get really broad leeway to decide what my job is, literally on a like day to day, week to week, event to event, campaign to campaign basis. So what would surprise people? I mean, you know I have often joked that there are like four parts of my job, right, like publishing industry expert, crowdfunding consultant, life coach and cheerleader. That's like tremendously surprising. If you know me as a human, you would probably guess that in an emotional way I play a cheerleader in all things. And you know the life coach my sister is actually an accountant and she said to me early on in her career you know I thought I was doing this job because I like numbers, not because I like therapy. It's like shocking how much emotion you know goes into, especially around money, especially around community, all of that. So I don't know.

Oriana Leckert:

I mean, I'm not trying to hedge. I think you know it is something maybe people aren't as aware of. Is that like I also? Like, I am the head of publishing, which is a fancy title. I'm also the entire publishing department at Kickstarter. Yeah, I mean, we also got a head of comics, um. So, like it is divided, I used to run comics also and they decided that I was doing, you know, between like two and ten people's jobs, so they split that up. But you know, now you just do five, that's fine yeah, well, exactly exactly.

Oriana Leckert:

Um, you know.

Oriana Leckert:

So a not insignificant amount of my job involves explaining the publishing industry to tech people, just also sort of like various ways of like liaising, like taking the knowledge that like I know and I'm gathering all the time and like bringing it in, of like here's what people in my world think and how that would impact. You know, I get to talk to our engineers who are like building all these new features and I get to say, like when you're fulfilling a book campaign, that's really different than when you're fulfilling a gadget and like here are needs that my people might have that you wouldn't have thought of. We've had, like you know, a long running issue around pen names, which is not 100% unique to publishing but like pretty close, you know, and so like having to. You know, I get to talk to the trust and safety team who are making, who are balancing legal requirements for the company with sort of like what our creators needs look like in the real world.

Oriana Leckert:

So yeah, I think that part of my job, you know I also I get to talk to everybody at the company, really Like I get to talk to the marketing team about like which projects I think would make sense for different newsletters. I get to talk to the executive team about like how my category functions and how Kickstarter is sort of like thought of and understood within the book world. So I don't know, are you surprised by any of that? Would you count that surprising?

Carissa Andrews:

I think the thing that surprised me the most was in the beginning, where you said life coach. I'm like tell me more about that, Like how did that happen?

Oriana Leckert:

Well, I think, in the same way, you know, like a Kickstarter, running a campaign, you know it can be a sort of like down and dirty, quick and easy, like let's just toss this out and raise a couple grand. But, like, I do get to talk to a lot of people who, like, there are various points in their career and we got to have like deep conversations about, like, does this make sense for you right now? What are the ramifications, you know, for you as an author, for you as a human, for you maybe as a parent or a pet owner? Like, how are you going to fulfill it and what's that going to look like for your life and like you know? So all of those things, I mean I don't know that I'm truly coaching people on like the whole of their lives, but the way that a campaign can fit in, you know that's not true for everybody, but definitely for some people.

Carissa Andrews:

Wow. So do they reach out to you then, Like how do they get in touch with you for that? Stuff, because for me I'm like this was fun, just to like build myself and then like getting to talk to you now is like just a special bonus. You know, yeah, I am very accessible.

Oriana Leckert:

I have a weird name. I'm extremely online and like, if you find me, I will talk to you. This is not, I must say, something that necessarily my bosses love, that I will like get really in the weeds with kind of anyone who asks. I also, I suppose, have to be. You know, I have to be protective of my own time. I do have like some ways in which I got to be like. You know what? Like at this stage, I just can't. I have to be protective of my own time. I do have like some ways in which I got to be like. You know what, like at this stage, I just can't. I can't give you more yet. Like we have to wait until this or that. Here's some tips, here's some advice, here's some educational materials. Like come back to me later.

Oriana Leckert:

Or, you know, if people like will find me to be like I'm having this like technical support issue with my suitcase campaign, that's just so far outside of what I'm paid to do, like I just really can't be there for you on that one. But yeah, you know that's that's good. And also, like I'm in the world, as you know, like I'm at conferences, I'm at gatherings, I'm at all kinds of so. Like it isn't even necessarily that someone comes to me and is like I need to know whether this is a thing that I should do right now. Like we joke, my team is called the outreach team and like we're sort of always working, never working. Like I cannot help but be at a dinner party and like start talking about like well, you know, if you actually turned that IP into a tarot deck, like a campaign could really help you. That.

Carissa Andrews:

IP into a tarot deck like a campaign could really help you All of those things yeah. I can so see that happening. I think I do that myself where it's like. You must have high ideation in your CliftonStrengths too. Have you ever done those?

Oriana Leckert:

Somebody else just talked to me about CliftonStrengths, I think, also on a podcast I haven't. I don't know, but I think it's the same thing.

Carissa Andrews:

I think that you should look, because I bet you high ideation is up there, because it's up there for me too, and I'd be like, oh, we'd be springing back and forth with ideas left and right. It'd be so cool.

Oriana Leckert:

I think I took exactly one step, which was I Googled it, I clicked on a quiz, I did half of it and then it was like, ready to give us the clifton strengths.

Carissa Andrews:

Like if you get the, what is that book called strengths finder or path strengths finder? Uh 2.0. You get like a free test in the back of the book. Oh, cool to be able to, to do it, but it's super fascinating so it's been worthwhile for me.

Oriana Leckert:

I like it a lot I did that finally with enneagram. People talked to me about enneagrams for so long that I finally bought a book, right. I had been so skeptical until I read the description of type two and I was like, okay, all right, like that's a bit too close, like did you write this?

Carissa Andrews:

I feel very called out right now. Where did your love for publishing come into play, like, how did that all come together?

Oriana Leckert:

Golly, it's been the only most consistent thing in my life since I was young. I mean, I suppose when I was 15 or 16, I thought I was going to be the next Bernadette Peters. I was like, obviously a big singer, like in high school, a little bit into college, but like, once, the sort of once, that dream diminished. I think I books have always been the thing I've loved most in the world. You know, it's been the most consistent thing in my life. Uh, I think you know my, my. There's a photo of me somewhere my senior year of college. I'm holding a fan of purple envelopes in which our resume is printed on like I don't remember glittery ink on blue paper that I was sending for like job applications to like FSG and like new directions to be like senior editor. I was like obviously me at 21, I will be hired at the most prestigious publishing company.

Oriana Leckert:

Yeah, none of that played out exactly, but my whole career has been in and around the publishing industry. I have sort of a parallel career as an arts and culture journalist, which happened by accident and like has fed my soul in many ways that I never expected. But yeah, you know, this is just what I've always done. And again, like I never thought I was going to be working at Kickstarter, this was much of my career. I never thought I was going to be doing what I was doing next, but in so many unexpected ways. This job is just such a synthesis of like, all the things I like and all the things that I am not always aware that I'm good at. So Isn't that amazing am?

Carissa Andrews:

not always aware that I'm good at. So I don't know, isn't that amazing? I love how that comes together. It's like when we don't try to force a certain career or a certain path, the right ones do really kind of come to us because, like, how would you like Kickstarter? I remember the first time I did a Kickstarter campaign was like 2013, like way back in the day when I was launching my first book and I didn't know what I was doing and the first one failed. And then I realized what I did wrong with the first one and like immediately just relaunched and it was fine. But it's like I wouldn't even looking back then, I would not have anticipated the transition and how it's changed and evolved over the years, and like, so it makes total sense to me, like how you would come into this place with all of your gifts and all the insights and all the things that you have and just be able to rock it. It just makes total sense to me.

Oriana Leckert:

Well, thank you so much, and I suppose I should call out my former boss who hired me, who is someone I had known professionally for a long time. She was the head of publishing for five or six years and I think her name is Margot Atwell. In fact, depending on when this comes out, she's got a live campaign right now. She's being published with the Feminist Press an anthology called Absolute Pleasure, which is authors, queer authors writing about the Rocky Horror Picture Show on the occasion of its 50th anniversary and how it impacted them, and all of this. Anyway, I think that she is singularly responsible for, like so much of the way that Kickstarter and publishing have interacted over the years, so I I very much consider that I'm like continuing her work, um that she laid all the groundwork for me to be able to succeed in the way that I have in this role.

Carissa Andrews:

That is so awesome. I love that. So when is that campaign running? Do you know? By chance? Great question.

Oriana Leckert:

It just launched this week. I'm pulling it up right now.

Carissa Andrews:

Uh, it closes on May 22nd okay, yeah, so the the podcast comes out the day before, so perfect. So if you are listening to this podcast, go go go check it out.

Oriana Leckert:

Yeah, I mean what it's. You know it's so boring to say a url, but it's kickstartercom slash projects, slash margot m-a-r-g-o-t. Slash absolute dash pleasure. Back her campaign now, yeah, that that sounds so awesome.

Carissa Andrews:

I'm definitely going to check that out and well, obviously I get to do it now because it's open already. So good, oh, my gosh, okay. So obviously you've seen so many campaigns come across your desk. When you feel that there's a this is a special one gut instinct about a campaign, what are some of the less obvious signals that you pick up on?

Oriana Leckert:

Yeah, I mean, it was so kind of you to send me these questions in advance, and so I read them and I was like, wow, these are so much different than the questions I usually get. I could either deeply prepare or wing it, and so I chose the latter. So I didn't really. I mean, I kind of thought it would be more authentic to just like answer you on the spot. I mean, so let me let me re-say it Some of the lesser known elements of a campaign that I think is really special.

Oriana Leckert:

I would say one thing I noticed that not everybody does is whether a person has backed campaigns. This is not like a consistent signal. Sometimes you've got a separate account that you've been backing from, or like maybe you know like it doesn't always matter and I don't know who else notices it that you've been backing from or like maybe you know like it doesn't always matter and I don't know who else notices it. But I think that tells a couple of things. It demonstrates that you understand the power of community, that, like this is not a, you know, necessarily just a well that you go to, to like take water, but that you're also like putting your money and your time back into it. It also shows me that you have looked at and probably studied or, at least on a subconscious level, gotten a sense of the way other people do this. You know, I mean plenty of people can run a Kickstarter in a vacuum and, like you know, lots of people can do great that way. But, having seen what other people do, I mean this is a line and I say it all the time but like, like I'm an expert in Kickstarter because I stare at Kickstarter all day long and you can stare at Kickstarter all day long and you can find what other people are doing projects like yours, different from yours.

Oriana Leckert:

Like I was just in a talk last night and somebody brought up one of our big games campaigns throw throw burrito and a way that they did gosh, can I remember? Um, something like it? A I don't remember all the details, but it was like if you wrap yourself up in a blanket like a burrito and post it on Instagram, something happened. Like, if a hundred people do that, everybody gets an enamel pin. I don't know. But like, well, that's a crazy idea. Like that's a way I never would have thought of structuring. You know, like this kind of like social proof and like kind of in a hidden way, getting people to spread the word for you, you know anyway, I mean I don't need to go too long on this but like also like the creative rewards are another thing that like really, really really thrill me, like that is that's my most favorite thing to see. Like not necessarily complicated swag, or even I love the special editions, but like even the wild, you know, a velvet cover and like a stained glass window in the slipcase.

Oriana Leckert:

Whatever I more get excited about, like the stuff that only you could do. That only makes sense for your audience. An example I always get about this is like Penny Reed has um, two very well-known romance novelist. Uh, she did a campaign for a series called Knitting in the City and she's got a buddy who owns a yarn store and they made a custom color of yarn that was only available during the campaign. Beautiful, wonderful. I love that. I love Willow Winters, also a romance novelist, an erotic romance novelist.

Oriana Leckert:

In her early campaigns she made scene boxes where she wrote out the sex scenes like a film script and included in the box like the toys and the accessories that are used, so you could act out the scenes from your favorite books at home on your own. Like these are the things. Oh, I just heard another one recently. Someone doing, I think Kat Singleton doing a why Choose romance, had candles that were scented after each of the suitors. Come on, come on, that's so cool and like I think that matters, because you're not writing an erotic romance novel, you don't have, you know, a heroine who knits, but there's something like that in your work that you could pull out and make into a fun reward. That's going to be exciting for you, thrilling for your backers, maybe deepen your bonds with, like other people in your creative community. Like I love that. I love that stuff so much.

Carissa Andrews:

That is so cool. Yeah, for like Write your Reality, I was trying to go much more into like the quantum manifestation, helping people understand that, but I'm in the process of like mapping out my steamy rom-com, one that I'm going to be doing in July, and so for me it's like learning about all the different tools and things that you can create that are just yours. That's been so much fun because then it's like it like, like you just said, it's tied to what your IP actually is, but it sparks it in a new way. That's just so visceral that you're like you know, this was all just in my head and now there's like this thing, not just a book, but like a thing that's physical, that's tied to that thing.

Oriana Leckert:

It's wild, or even virtual. I mean something as simple as like here are 20 tracks that I love to listen to while I write, or a book soundtrack, or like here are five other authors whose work inspired me so much that I've made a nice pretty pdf of like the recommendations that I have for them, or naming rights. We see this all the time We'll name the dragon after your dog. We'll name the villain after your mother-in-law, we'll name the hero after your son. I've seen also if you have like very fancy friends. You know this woman, emily Flake, made a residency upstate for like female identifying comic writers and so she's like a New Yorker cartoonist. She does have fancy friends. I know one of them was like Josh Gondelman will call your mom on her birthday to wish her a happy birthday. Like it doesn't. It doesn't have to be a lot of money, it doesn't even have to be a lot of time. It just has to be special and meaningful to you and the people who are supporting you that is so good.

Carissa Andrews:

I love that. It kind in a sense touches on the question that I was going to ask you next where it's. Like you know a lot of authors, we get hyper-focused on those pricing tiers and like the deliverables and what's going to happen there. But from what your experience, what's the biggest missed opportunity that you see when it comes to activating a backer's emotional investment?

Oriana Leckert:

Just interacting with the backers directly. It is wild to me. Like this is. I think one of the big things about Kickstarter is that we're really we help collapse the like divisions between creator and their supporters. And like this doesn't have to be tell all your backers to wrap themselves in a burrito and make an Instagram post about it. Like it can be as simple as like. Before the campaign even starts talking to them, I'm working out what things, what swag I'm going to do.

Oriana Leckert:

One nice piece of swag for this campaign. Would you rather see a personalized notebook or a tote bag with art by this gorgeous creator? Just ask them. Even if you always wanted to make that notebook and that was always your intention, the act of asking them is going to make them feel included. You can also say or C, tell me something else that I haven't thought of. Maybe enough people tell you to do a thing you hadn't even considered yet that turns out to be easy and fun and cool, and you can interact with the backers before the campaign, during the campaign, after the campaign, like all kinds of ways. So I think how do we interact with them before the campaign? Because I don't Through whatever avenues are already available to you through your, I guess.

Carissa Andrews:

I should say your supporters. They are your yeah okay, I was like you can do that in the campaign. It's like, okay, don't don't bring me out there, because I was like did I miss it?

Oriana Leckert:

What could you do? You know I bet on your, on your prelaunch page now that we've expanded those, you could probably like have a quiz there that says you know, uh, at me on Instagram or like DM me and choose a, b or C on this quiz. You know, like there's probably ways you couldn't do it through the platform, you can't message people yet, but I suppose you kind of could though, like if you've already run a campaign and it's, it's in a similar genre, you could comment or ask those people who have already done it 100% yeah that would make sense

Carissa Andrews:

too Interesting. That's so good. There's so many different ways, like I've been right now with the campaign for Write. Your Reality is technically still going, but I've been interacting and just dropping like little updates and thank you, you actually gave me the advice to hold back on all the stretch goals and just plunk them in one at a time. That was perfect. That was so good, and so I've been doing that. It's just, it's so interesting. But authors I don't know what it is about authors on platforms they're so like. They're just like you. Do you boo you?

Oriana Leckert:

ask a question, they hardly respond to you. Well, there's I mean, I'm sure you probably know there's like an incredible Facebook group. This is not Kickstarter official, but it's called Kickstarter for Authors. It's run by Anthea Sharp and Thorne Coyle it is. I dip into it a couple of times a week just to see what people are talking about. They run an incredible, incredible community. There's like over 7,000 authors who are just asking each other all day long where'd you get your sprayed edges? What are you thinking about tariffs? Will you review my campaign and give me some critical feedback? Like incredible, incredible community. I I'm really just so dazzled by what they have over there.

Carissa Andrews:

That's where I got like the whole checklist.

Oriana Leckert:

I was looking for it, I'm like it's on my desk. Yep, yep.

Carissa Andrews:

So good. Uh, I personally am not on Facebook anymore.

Oriana Leckert:

I have issues with that platform, but I do the literal, only reason I go to Facebook is to check in on that group. I'm this. There is internal conversation about making custom discords for Kickstarter and, like I, I don't know I don't know actually who runs discord and whether I would rather support them, but I worry, I would like. I would love it if that existed somewhere that wasn't Facebook, but I can only imagine like the difficulty and the barriers to entry of like transitioning a community of that size to another platform. So I understand that they're there for now and that's where I find them and I just hope that someday it becomes somewhere else that's a little less compromised.

Carissa Andrews:

Right, yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you right on that. I haven't even though the campaign's running I haven't been back on there. I probably should. I haven't been on Facebook since like January, so I'm like, nope, just can't do it, I get it I respect that choice.

Carissa Andrews:

Yeah, it's been an interesting awakening with that one, that's for sure. I mean, I kind of felt the vibes of that coming for a while, but it was. It was very clear come this earlier this year. Okay, so if you could wave a magic wand and change how authors use Kickstarter, what new creative norms would you love to see?

Oriana Leckert:

I don't know. I mean, I kind of feel like maybe it doesn't say that great of stuff about me, but like I just want to see what people do. I don't necessarily like, that's where I'm. Just I'm so surprised by the creativity that authors bring to it. I don't know the one idea that I continue to wish we.

Oriana Leckert:

I think that there would be a way to do this technically that kickstarter would have to help with. But like I want to see somebody like build a book tour via kickstarter, like the way that I would love I've suggested this internally before to have like, uh, kind of like conditional rewards, of like. If 10 people back at this tier, then you get it. But in the absence of that, what I would like to see someone do is like a tier that's like $500. That's Columbus, ohio, and if you get 10 friends each of whom to give you money and you put in the $500, I'm coming to your town and you could like map yourself a tour in that way, I think that would be really, really lovely, but yeah, I mean, I don't know that there's.

Oriana Leckert:

This is like a kind of a sideways answer to the question. I love that special editions are like the biggest thing and the like majority of the category right now, but I don't want that to have such an oversized impact that people start to think that you can't use Kickstarter for just a regular book or something different. It has to be, you know, the fanciest, most expensive special edition possible. So I mean, I wouldn't, I don't want to change it. I don't want any fewer specials. I just also want people to remember there's plenty of other stuff that you can do here.

Oriana Leckert:

I guess one magic wand that I literally am trying to wave. I think this is okay to talk about. I would like for Kickstarter to be a reporting entity to Sarkana, who runs BookScan, so that books sold on Kickstarter can be counted toward sales figures in the trade. I'm working on that. I have been working on that for multiple years. It is so much more complicated than you could imagine, but that's the magic wand that I'm holding and one day I will wave it and it will work, that's super interesting.

Carissa Andrews:

I wonder why is it so complicated?

Oriana Leckert:

We could spend most of the rest of our time on this. I'm trying to think of what's the shortest way to say it. Part of the problem is that Kickstarter are not sales in a traditional way. The way that most people fulfill it looks to the retailer. It looks to BookScan, like bulk buys which are, like, not counted toward bestseller lists. I mean, typically you are buying 100 or 500 or a thousand copies of your book to send it out to individual people, so the burden falls on us to demonstrate to them why. No, no, this is not, you know, somebody just like trying to juice the numbers by buying a thousand copies of their own book.

Oriana Leckert:

There are individual sales, and so that would mean internally, we would need to have signals of like you know how many of the? I mean, I think you've seen we've shifted over the last year or so from tier based rewards to skew based rewards, so you can actually now identify in a campaign literally the number of books running through it, whereas before not every reward had a book in it and some tiers had multiple. But you know, like everything was just a lot more fuzzy, so that's part of it. Anyway, yeah, like a lot of stuff needs to happen within our tools that would be able to collect the data properly. And then we'd have to educate authors on, like, what they're doing and why.

Oriana Leckert:

You know, do you have an ISB? So like yeah, there's all of that stuff. I guess I'll say by the time this comes out, we'll have like made a lot of noise about this. We're rolling out a whole suite of post-campaign tools. We're rolling out our own native pledge management system in early May. I think that that puts us a significant stride closer to being able to get this done because of the way, the type of data we'll be collecting, the way we'll be collecting it once we have those systems in place.

Carissa Andrews:

Oh, that makes sense. Okay, that's really cool, interesting. I can't wait to learn more. My campaign ends in the middle of May, so I'm like we're going to be playing around with some of these new tools.

Oriana Leckert:

I might have an email for you, yeah.

Carissa Andrews:

I would love to see. I would love to see. Okay, so are there any early patterns or creative experiments that you're seeing that could quietly transform how authors approach crowdfunding over the next few years? Anything that's kind of like trending that you're like I didn't see this building.

Oriana Leckert:

No, I mean, I feel like the specials reallys really did like, if we had been talking a year or two years ago, that would have been the thing I mean. In fact, when I was working under Margo, she was pitching that idea. We pitched that idea to a lot of people and it didn't quite. It didn't catch on enough that it became a groundswell. Um, what's the next thing? Like that, I mean, I've been looking a lot at like lit rpg. I think that there's a big growth area there.

Oriana Leckert:

I think, especially on kickstarter, like those books are already like a way to gamify the idea of reading and writing and like kickstarter can be gamified. Our games created. Our games community is massive. Like that could help some crossovers from like the ravenous games backers into the publishing landscape. I'm also seeing a lot of sort of like IP crossover in a similar vein.

Oriana Leckert:

Like you know, a tabletop board game based on a fantasy novel or an RPG, or like Holly Black did a card game, sherilyn Kenyon did a tarot deck, like stuff like that. That's like reappropriating stuff that is already yours, that you already have, in a new format for a new audience that you can also. Often, like you know, we'll raise so much money on this deck, which has excellent margins, that can also fund, you know, a deluxe audiobook version or like the recovering of, like the series, you know, like other things like that. So I think yeah, I'm not sure if that's gonna what's the question? Quietly transform how authors approach crowdfunding. I don't know. Those are some things I'm thinking about. Is that close enough to answering your question?

Carissa Andrews:

definitely, definitely. It's very interesting to me just to see how, how authors are using it. Like I obviously, before I got started, went through a lot of the non-fiction campaigns just to make sure, like, okay, how are they kind of laying things out, like, what kind of tiers are they using? Just because it's been, it's been a hot minute, since I've used Kickstarter personally other than backing other campaigns, and so for me it was just kind of like just taking a look at, like how are they doing? And I'm like, ooh, that's kind of a cool way to add this and then layer that and and just like for me, this first time is kind of throwing everything out there and seeing what sticks, like, what are people actually wanting in this situation?

Oriana Leckert:

And I think you know, most of many of my examples tend to be from fiction, but I think like there are versions of this for nonfiction, for example, workbooks. I think Kickstarter is going to become more and more like a really strong place for workbooks, because much of the rest of the book selling internet is decreasing them. I think Amazon will no longer stock them because they're like low content or something like that. So you know, if you're already writing a nonfiction book with any amount of like, you know self-help or like exercises, or how to making a companion workbook, making companion courses, you know again, just like reformatting the content you already got into a slightly different version that would either that would get people to like double their support or appeal to a different audience that wants to learn in a different kind of way.

Carissa Andrews:

Oh sure, you could even like. You just spark some ideas in me where I'm like, oh, I could do. I could do something like that with my own stuff. Come back with another Kickstarter for the workbooks I got with that. How cool is that.

Carissa Andrew:

Absolutely, that's awesome. I love it.

Carissa Andrews:

So are there any mistakes that you see happening, not necessarily from ignorance, but from fear, Like are they holding back or playing small, Like what do you see there when it comes to authors?

Oriana Leckert:

Yeah, I mean I do. I also think I sit from a somewhat lofty space, like it's easy for me to pass judgment on whether someone is afraid. I mean, there's a sort of a long standing debate within the community of, like how to set your funding goal. You know that's obviously a huge and crucial question. There's a big current of folks who set their funding goal, especially for their first or second campaign, at $500, which is out of fear and I get it. I understand you want to make sure that you fund that's like the most important thing, but it worries me. I mean, kickstarter was designed as all or nothing funding so that you could do an honest accounting of what you needed and not come to the end and have to do a project without enough money to really make it. Like, if you ask for $500, I mean, if you're doing like a simple print on demand paperback release, maybe $500 is fine. But if you're doing a complicated you know special edition, if you have lots of rewards, all this other stuff, like if you come to the end and you have made a lot less than your budget requires, you're kind of in a bad spot. You know it puts you worse off than you were and, like you know, I mean a sort of counterexample here.

Oriana Leckert:

I was actually hired at Kickstarter to grow our journalism category, and so one of the early campaigns I worked on was like a big. It was a number of a number of writers who had like big bloggers and big sort of like gawker in that community. They were launching a new collaboratively owned media outlet, right, and they I can't remember now, I think they came with like a you know, like a $90,000 goal and I was like, look, I could not believe more strongly in what you guys are doing, but that's really high for a journalism campaign on Kickstarter. Like are doing, but that that's really high for a journalism campaign on Kickstarter. Like, are we really comfortable with that? And the founder she said you know, I want, when people land on this page, for them to immediately see the ambition of what we're doing.

Oriana Leckert:

Like, I don't want to trim my sails, I don't want to, like you know, I want everyone to know this is what journalism costs, this is what it means to like start an endeavor like this, and I want that to be clear from the start. And she funded, they made it. So you know, as I just just to, like you know, walk myself back a little bit. I don't want to encourage people to raise their goals so high that they fail and then they blame me about it. I'm not trying to do that, I just I think that's sort of the biggest thing that people are scared. They're so scared of not funding that they're not necessarily considering the ramifications of funding too low.

Carissa Andrews:

What are the ramifications? Because for me, when I did this particular one, I said at 500, but it was a recommendation on Anthea's book. If you haven't done a Kickstarter for a while to set it there, I'm like that's fine. It wasn't out of fear, but it was definitely out of like I don't know where to start. So we're going to start somewhere. Why not Right?

Oriana Leckert:

So yeah, well, and I don't like being against Anthea. I think Anthea is brilliant and wonderful and I, just, like I said, you know, depending on what it is that you're making and what your fixed costs actually are, if, if you end the campaign with like less money than you need, but now you've made all these promises about trim size and bells and whistles and reward types and things like that, you're just maybe you're fine to fund it. You know to cover the rest by yourself, but maybe you're going to wind up trying to cut corners, trying to, like you know, produce an inferior product. Like disappoint yourself, disappoint your backers, like all of those are worse outcomes, I think, than if you aim too high, didn't get there and then, exactly as you did, we're like well, I learned a lot of lessons. I'm going to change the way I'm doing things and try again and like hope to get where I need to be at that point.

Carissa Andrews:

Yeah, yeah. Well, for me it was really easy. Like I have a lot of digital stuff in the background, so I knew that my funding would be fine at 500. Like that's not a big deal. I knew that would be no issue there whatsoever. But my paperback books in the campaign are just normal, like I'm not, I'm not trying to go special edition yet, I'm just trying to get them out. This is a new edition for the first book and so it's like second books coming out. We'll see how it goes. And it's just been kind of fun to play around with the concept again because I've seen you speak so many times and then I've seen a lot of the panels and you know other authors who are who have been doing it. I'm like you know what I feel, like now's the time to give it a try and just kind of play with it. So for me it was definitely a let's just play with it and see what happens and see if I need to adjust, like going forward. So this gives a lot of insight.

Oriana Leckert:

Thank you. Yeah Well, and it sounds like you made the perfect choice for you. So again, I'm not out here trying to get people to question their convictions.

Carissa Andrews:

Yeah, for sure. I think it's just really interesting. I like it. I like being able to hear the take on it from what you're seeing and what a lot of other authors are doing, and it just helps a lot to be able to know. You know where do you fall. Where do you fall on that spectrum? It's really neat, Okay, so in the publishing world we're often told that we have to build an audience first. Do you think Kickstarter can flip that dynamic, Like build an audience through the campaign instead of the other way around?

Oriana Leckert:

I think some of that is possible. I think if you were running a tabletop board game campaign, you can come in with virtually no existing audience and there are such rabid supporters desperate to back every single game that launches. You might be able to create an audience from almost nothing. I would say that's not true. Right now, in the publishing category, what we see is that an average publishing campaign is getting about 30% of their backings from the Kickstarter ecosystem. As you know, we track that in your dashboard so you can see the work that you're doing versus the work that is like our value prop, like what we are bringing to you. So I usually you know 30% that's not nothing. That's pretty excellent to grow your audience by 30%, but it is definitely not everything. Like if you have I. I mean it also depends what it is that you're trying to do. If you have a very modest campaign with low goals, you could kind of come here from nothing.

Oriana Leckert:

But tech startup works best in publishing by having an amplifying effect like we. Our algorithm works on attention. You need you know if it sees that a lot of people are clicking, backing, commenting, following, etc. That's a signal that like oh, people like this, let's show it to if it sees that a lot of people are clicking, backing, commenting, following, et cetera. That's a signal that like oh, people like this, let's show it to more and more people. If you don't have that early signal, if you can't bring anybody on board, it's not so likely that you'll get the visibility to like completely fund from, just you know, native Kickstarter backers.

Carissa Andrews:

That makes total sense. It's kind of like you know native Kickstarter backers. That makes total sense. It's kind of like you know when you go to TikTok and if you don't get any people watching or liking your commenting in the first like whatever five, ten minutes, it's very likely that that video is not going to go very far because you don't have the kind of traction to get it moving. So that makes total sense. That's interesting. Okay. So what's something surprising that can catch Kickstarter's eye, something that authors wouldn't necessarily realize mattered?

Oriana Leckert:

Yeah, I mean Kickstarter's eye. I suppose there's that's not exactly a monolithic thing, I don't. I don't think authors don't realize that it matters, but I think your project image is really important. You know it's. I I would say in the six years from when I got here to now, people know this lesson much more clearly. I remember when I was interviewing for the job I mean again, I was looking at journalism projects but I was like what are these people doing? None of this is appealing at all. I would not back that up.

Oriana Leckert:

But yeah, I think you know a good piece of advice is like look at your campaign on your phone. All you're going to see is the title, subtitle, project image, maybe like one sentence from your campaign story. And I think you want to know that with just those elements you've like really enticed people. You know that like your project image is like bright and colorful. It's not overlaid with like so much text that when it's little is going to be hard to read. You've got like some interesting keywords in your like main elements, maybe a little, you know, a teaser, as you're like opening paragraphs, because that's all you're going to get from a lot of people. It's, in fact, more than you'll get.

Oriana Leckert:

Many people will just see the project image, scroll by on a search page or, you know, on a social platform or something like that. So, like, just really really make sure that those elements working together are going to like grab people and draw them right in and that doesn't mean to do too much with your project image. That's the other thing that I see with, like, the project image will have, you know, the cover image, a mock-up of like a book, a paperback, a hardcover and a tablet, also the tagline, like you know, written across it, like so and like a you know it's all. So not much that's confusing. That will have the opposite effect, I think, like a beautiful photo, like the image on your cover, like your book mock-up, sitting in an interesting with a border, like I don't know things, like I mean as ever look at what other people are doing and figure out what your version of that is.

Oriana Leckert:

You know, you can scroll a search page and just see, like well, which are the ones that jump out to me. What can I replicate about that? For my work?

Carissa Andrews:

That makes total sense. Okay, so this is a complete side note question, because what you said just kind of made me think of something when you're talking about SEO and making sure that you know the words and the language and stuff, so not necessarily the image is enticing and makes sense. I know for me I used ChatGPT to be able to try to like hone in really onto, like what are the words that are going to matter most for my campaign? And I know that you guys have an AI. Oh gosh, what's the thing called the AI thing?

Oriana Leckert:

I know that you guys have an AI. Oh gosh, what's the thing called the?

Carissa Andrews:

AI thing. Yeah, the disclosure at the bottom, and I know that from my experience it's not an issue to use AI, you just need to disclose it right. I had a friend who I think she did some AI images and her campaign got like shut down and then she because she just hadn't checked the box- she didn't realize that her images is on the campaign, and so for me, I'm like that's so cool that you don't number one.

Carissa Andrews:

You don't mind that we're using AI to be able to help us to write better copy, because I think a lot of authors were good at telling stories or were good at doing that sort of thing, not so great at being copywriters, yeah. So what is your personal take on that whole thing? Should authors be paying more attention? Do they make sure they click that button? What has to happen there?

Oriana Leckert:

Yeah, I mean, I actually I will politely decline from sharing my personal opinions about AI. I don't think that helps anybody. I will say I do feel good about Kickstarter's policy because to me, it's one of radical transparency. Like I, I think what matters Kickstarter is about connecting you with your supporters, and so if your use of AI is enhancing your product in a way that is going to make your supporters really happy and they're going to be delighted to back it because of or despite that, I think that's wonderful, like we are in the business of supporting creativity in all of its forms, so I do really like that. I mean, I yeah, I said I was going to refrain I have concerns, you know, about the sort of like we are to me, the sort of like fundamental sin of AI, which is like that it's built largely on stolen creative work.

Oriana Leckert:

I don't think we can fix that now. You know like that happened, and so that's that's what gives me varying degrees of pause depending on which systems, in which ways, people are using it. But again, this is not about me, this is about you and your audience, and so, yes, I think everyone should use that disclosure, both so as not to run afoul of like Kickstarter's rules, but also so that nobody is surprised, you know. You know you don't want your backers to think you're doing things one way and then find out that it's another way and feel tricked or, you know, misled. So, yeah, I think absolutely. And you know, if you're using AI, be proud of it, exactly as you just were. I think there's nothing wrong with that. Nobody should be doing it like furtively or strangely. Talk about what you're doing, why you're doing it, how it has helped you, and let your supporters be on board with that.

Carissa Andrews:

Yeah, I totally agree, and I think it's really, it's really important that you do pay attention to that too. So, like, if you're whether it's your images, or whether you're using it for, you know, marketing texts or whatever it's not you're not going to get penalized for it. It's just just a disclosure and that's all it is. It's so good.

Oriana Leckert:

It would be more. You would get more penalized if you didn't disclose it and then people found out later and felt like you had not been truthful with them.

Carissa Andrews:

Yeah, I totally agree with that. Okay, so what energetic shifts have you noticed in campaigns that either lose momentum or come roaring back even stronger?

Oriana Leckert:

Yeah, I think this question is broadly about the sort of like plateau period in the middle which happens to everyone. Even Brandon Sanderson had some periods where it was a little slower. He was only earning a couple million dollars a day, right, yeah. So what do I have to say about that? I mean, I think people should plan for it, be aware that that's going to happen and like that's okay, it's not your fault, but really think about what you can do during that time to keep the momentum going.

Oriana Leckert:

We touched briefly on the idea of stretch goals. This is a common mistake. I see that people lay out all their stretch goals right on the page. I can see if you're like really excited about those things. You just want everyone to know, but I think you rob yourself of the opportunity of reviewing them, announcing them, talking about why and getting people excited. That's a great thing to do during that plateau period. You know telling people, hey, remember this. Like guess what? We've gotten to this point? We're going to do this other thing, help us get there, or send them quizzes like we talked about. Would you like us to do this or that? You know? Blah, blah, blah. That is not to say, by the way, you should not thoroughly budget for and understand all the stretch goals you're offering before you launch. You must do that, but you don't need to tell everybody everything when you first start.

Oriana Leckert:

I'm trying to think of some other tactics I've seen. One cute thing that I used to see more in journalism is like if you have someone with deep pockets who is going to happy to invest $1,000 or $5,000 in your campaign, you can sort of rig up a little DIY matching campaign in the midst of your campaign. You can say, for the next three days, an angel investor will be matching all donations up to $1,000 or $5,000 or whatever to give people that like real good feeling of like your money is counting double at this moment. I think that's a cute thing. You know, the middle period is a great time to go on somebody's wonderful podcast or like get you know on an Instagram live or a TikTok feature or review something like that, which are also, you know, ways to galvanize other audiences and kind of bring them to your work.

Oriana Leckert:

So I don't know I'm not sure if I'm still answering this question in the way that you asked it, but make a lot. You know, think hard about what you can do, um, to kind of keep the enthusiasm going, counteract that bit of a slump or, you know, to come roaring back in your final week, uh, when the sort of now or nothing, now or never, all or nothing, do or die really kicks in and you can like marshal your efforts there do you see like a, an organic surge at the end from kickstarter's perspective, like people who have been watching for a while and then they're finally like, oh crap, it's time.

Oriana Leckert:

Totally, yeah, people. Also, all of your followers, will get a Kickstarter email 48 hours before the campaign ends, and I believe that people who have been following since the pre-launch phase will get another reminder email at the eight hour mark before you close. And also, you know you're, exactly as you said, at the eight hour mark before you close. And also you know, exactly as you said, like your marketing ramps up, your outreach gets more high. Key, this is it. This is your last chance. Yep, yeah, that does tend to drive backings, for sure.

Carissa Andrews:

Yeah, for sure. I like that a lot. Okay, where are we at with time, because I have a special thing I'd love to do with you, but I don't want to keep you too long, are you cool? Like we could do it rapid fire? I have this thing, like a quick little segment that I would love to throw some fictional Kickstarter setups and, just like you, give like a really quick description of, like, what you would want to do to improve it, if you're, if you're, I love it, I love it.

Oriana Leckert:

That sounds so fun, okay cool.

Carissa Andrews:

Okay, so the first one. You see a memoir author running their first Kickstarter. They're offering one-on-one coaching calls as the reward.

Oriana Leckert:

What should they do to improve that? I mean, I kind of love that, but also you can sort of like fragment it. You could do group sessions, you could do sort of like. You know other kinds of like interactive elements. Wait, so what'd you say? It was a memoirist In this example. What's the memoir sort of about?

Carissa Andrews:

You don't get that information. It's just a memoir author running their first Kickstarter.

Oriana Leckert:

Yeah, I mean if that fits with the theme of the memoir. I mean, if it's a memoir like you know how I cleaned up my hot mess of a life, then people on like you know recovery or like things like that, I think that totally makes sense. If it's a memoir of like you know learning to cook better, I mean, I don't know, that could anyway, yes, great. I think that's fine. I think one-on-one coaching sessions are great, provided that you have a skill set that people might want to be coached and buy. Yeah.

Carissa Andrews:

Yeah, okay, okay. So how about this one? An author launching their first book in a fantasy series is announcing six ambitious stretch goals before the campaign, even before the funds are hitting their baseline. Perhaps this was based off of me.

Oriana Leckert:

You know, yeah, I mean I would, as we've discussed, certainly I would keep those, hold those back. I think also, especially for a first time creator, it can just confuse people about like well, how much money do you need to like do this whole thing? Also, it might shake people's trust if you know you like are new at this and you're like an emerging writer and you don't have a strong audience yet. Like if you're coming here for $50,000 and you know I click on your campaign and you have six backers, that doesn't make me feel like super great. That like you're there and that you know and also kind of like do you understand what kind of time and effort it's going to take to like really make this stuff you know. So, yeah, I would say all of that. Those are not excellent signals, Not again to say that it can't be done. I think Brandon Sanderson's first campaign weighs $10 million. Sherilyn Kenyon raised a million bucks her first time here. Cassie Clare $10 million. Sherilyn Kenyon raised a million bucks her first time here. Cassie Clare similarly.

Carissa Andrews:

But you know we can't all be Brandon or Cassie or Sherilyn. Yeah, they could have built-in audiences there that are fairly large. Okay, real quick question on those stretch goals, though that just reminded me. When you announce the stretch goals, do you recommend having them lower on the page, like as you're building the page, or should they go up at the top when the campaign is running? Lower on the page, like as you're building the?

Oriana Leckert:

the page or should they go up at the top when the campaign is running? That's not something we could a b test, to be honest. So I don't have like a strong uh, I don't think. I think I would say, yeah, I don't have a strong preference. If you do decide to put them at the top when the campaign is ending, I'd move it back down again because, remember, people will keep landing on that page forever and if the first thing they see is about stretch goals, that might be like too inside baseball for them to really understand what's happening here. But I certainly see the wisdom of putting it at the top while the campaign is running. That makes sense.

Carissa Andrews:

That makes sense. Okay, last one, An indie author with a gorgeous campaign visuals, well-written descriptions, professional video, all that stuff but has almost no backer interaction or community building during the campaign itself.

Oriana Leckert:

What should they do to get that going? Yeah, interact, talk to your backers. I'm always shocked when I see, especially like fairly campaigns that are going fairly well that have no backer updates, like why would you not take advantage of that line to your biggest fans? That's crazy, yeah. So I mean, what would I tell them? Do the thing? Yeah, designed to help you interact with your audience, interact with them. Why would you relinquish that incredible, amazing opportunity?

Carissa Andrews:

So good. Or like to reach out, like you said, to other people's campaign, or not.

Oriana Leckert:

Well, I guess other people's campaigns too.

Carissa Andrews:

Yeah, for sure. Um, I reached out to Russell Nolte. I think he has a campaign that's running right now.

Oriana Leckert:

That's very similar to mine. I love his how to thrive as an artist. Yes, I totally back that.

Carissa Andrews:

That was so good let me see if he hasn't responded to me though I did it through the kickstarter like platform, and he has not responded um, so two things.

Oriana Leckert:

You can email me and I will. I'll send it to him and be like buddy. What? What are we doing here? I'm, yeah, I've known russell for a while. I would love that, but I'll also say just to the listeners this campaign is live through june 8th, so it will still be up when you are listening to this. Probably, how to thrive as a writer in a capitalist dystopia this is russell. Something like his 45th campaign. That's crazy. Yeah, he's. I'm a huge fan of that I am too so good.

Carissa Andrews:

I saw that because it was obviously being recommended with mine too. I was like what is this? I need this book nice. Oh yeah, I'm a backer, absolutely me too okay, two more questions and then we'll wrap up here today. So if you could, could talk to an author that's standing at the starting line. Maybe they're terrified, but they're ready. What would you say, not just to coach them, but to recode the relationship with visibility and asking for support through?

Oriana Leckert:

Kickstarter. See, you know that I'm a life coach. You've phrased this question in a way to, like, exemplify.

Carissa Andrews:

I must have, I must have?

Oriana Leckert:

Okay, well, so first of all, I do tell, especially first-time authors if you are equal parts thrilled and terrified when you press that launch button, you are probably doing it right. I'm not here to say you could not have any fear around this. It is very healthy and natural to have it, know this already. But, like when I certainly when I started here, there is like a persistent belief that Kickstarter is akin to like charity, which that's like no shade, to GoFundMe and like other platforms that are designed in that way. But like you're not begging for money.

Oriana Leckert:

When you run a Kickstarter campaign, the reframe that I've been preaching forever is you're inviting people to join you on a creative journey. You're taking this crazy journey and you're saying, like, let's do this together. Hey, you know what we need more of in life? Community collaboration, rising tides, lifting all the boats. Like you're going to get rewarded along the way for being an early adopter of like my creative heart and helping me to like make this thing together. I love that as a concept and if you can communicate that, you know, if you can believe that in your own heart and communicate it to your supporters, how are they not going to be so excited to get on board?

Carissa Andrews:

I love that. I think that it's such a huge reframe because it's so different from what the indie author like main setup and the way that everything has been run for so long in that dystopian capitalistic society. It's been trained like. It's been training us for a very long time now, since I mean it's not super long because indie authorship is only what? 15-ish years old, but still it's like we're sitting at this point where it's like we want that collaboration, we want the community, and I love that. This is like how we get to shift not only our relationship to our readers, but like our relationship to receiving for the cool thing that we just created. Totally, I love that it's so good.

Carissa Andrews:

Okay, ariana. Where can listeners go to find out more about you and about Kickstarter for authors?

Oriana Leckert:

at Oriana B-K-L-Y-N on, I think, all the platforms, but I'm a lot less responsive on them than I used to be, just like protecting my own creative hearts. You know, kickstarter has a ton of resources for creators. We actually just rolled out a whole new creator resource hub, kickstartercom slash creators. Tons of like education and worksheets. There's also a publishing creator tips page. I'm just going to get you that link Kickstarter dot com slash creators slash publishing. That's got many videos of my face doing talks much like this one.

Oriana Leckert:

Also like articles there's there's a budgeting article written by Russell Nolte, who we just talked about. There's an article by Dana Clare, who inkfluence about the allure of special editions and why you might do one here. There's stuff about planning your audience, about building your mailing list, um, all sorts of things like that. So and you know we've already talked about I mean, obviously you should be listening to podcasts like this one. You should be, uh, on the oh I, I shifted. I'm no longer answering where to find me, I'm just more answering how to find resources on Kickstarter yeah, it's both, it's all good join that Facebook group.

Oriana Leckert:

Find a discord community, find a reddit thread like talk to other people.

Carissa Andrews:

Um, yeah, yeah, I think that's go to conferences and say hi, oh, for sure, if you ever see me in the wild, please come say hi.

Oriana Leckert:

I've had people email me and be like we were both at the same thing last week, but I didn't want to bother Bother. It is both my job and my pleasure. You can tell I like to talk to people. It feeds my soul, so please help me.

Carissa Andrews:

Help you I can say from experience. She always has a line out the door wanting to say hi to her.

Oriana Leckert:

So definitely take advantage.

Carissa Andrews:

It's so good. Well, Oriana, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate your time and your energy and enthusiasm. It's so much fun to talk to you.

Oriana Leckert:

This has been such an absolute delight.

Carissa Andrews:

I really appreciate you having me over. I want to extend a huge thank you to Oriana Lickert for joining me today. Her insights into Kickstarter's ecosystem, especially for authors and creators like us, are so valuable and, honestly, this conversation really couldn't have come at a more aligned time. As you may know, I recently wrapped up the Kickstarter campaign for Write your Reality, my latest nonfiction book that is blending quantum manifestation with author strategy. It's not just a book, it's a movement for authors who think differently, feel deeply and are ready to call in aligned success without hustle. And guess what? The journey isn't over. If you missed the campaign during its live run, you can still sneak in the back door. Late pledges are open through mid-June and that means you still have time to grab some of the incredible bundles, meditations and even lifetime access to courses and memberships that I've built specifically for authors like you. Just head over to authorrevolutionorg forward slash kickstarter to check out the campaign or if you want the full behind the scenes scoop on this podcast episode head over to authorrevolutionorg.

Carissa Andrew:

Forward slash 272.

Carissa Andrews:

Again, thank you so much for listening and remember you're not just here to write books, you're here to write your reality.

Carissa Andrew:

So go forth and start your author revolution. Thank you.

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Carissa Andrews

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