Since interviewing Margot, she left Kickstarter to become the publisher at an awesome feminist press.
I talked with Margot just a couple months before I shot to success with my first $25,000+ Kickstarter project Monsters and Other Scary Shit, and I credit a lot of the advice she gave me here with unlocking the last bits of the puzzle for me.
This interview is INVALUABLE if you ever want to run a publishing or comics Kickstarter because you are listening about what to do straight from the person who runs that part of the Kickstarter platform.
Here is her bio straight from www.emdashandco.com.
Margot Atwell is a publishing professional with over a decade of experience. She is currently a Publishing Community Manager at Kickstarter.com.
Previously, Margot was Publisher at Beaufort Books, an independent publisher of fiction and non-fiction. Under her leadership, Beaufort published four national bestsellers, including Hide!!! by Jeff Foxworthy, If I Did It by the Goldman Family, and a new edition of I’m Dancing As Fast as I Can by Barbara Gordon, along with many award-winning books.
Margot is a freelance writer, editor, and book reviewer. Her writing has been published in The Huffington Post, Moviefone.com, Publishers Weekly, fiveonfive magazine, and Derbylife.com.
Her first book, The Insider’s Guide to Book Publishing Success, was published in February 2013. Her second book, Derby Life: Stories, Advice & Wisdom from the Roller Derby World is forthcoming from Gutpunch Press.
I knew of Margot before we met earlier this year, I just didn’t know it. Before I launched my publishing company, Wannabe Press, I read her book. When we first started talking, I knew the name sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it. When she agreed to be on the show I did my research, saw the cover, and IMMEDIATELY connected the name with a very formative book from my past.
We started our conversation talking about her past and publishing as a whole. One of the things I quickly found out about Margot is that she is publishing through and through. Even before Kickstarter, she was a publisher and author. Since then, she has launched two successful book campaigns focused on her love of Roller Derby. Check them out here and here.
The conversation quickly turned to Kickstarter, as these things must. As much as I would have loved to talk about publishing books for hours, the purpose of having her on was to answer your pressing questions about Kickstarter…well really my pressing questions about Kickstarter.
The first one was one that’s been gnawing at me for years, since even before I got on the platform: how do you get to be staff pick? I’ve done five projects so far and only one has been a staff pick, since renamed Projects We Love.
While I wish I got a hard data answer, the truth is more subjective. While anybody can look through projects and flag something they like, it’s really the curation team that has the final say. One thing she told me is that tweeting at the Kickstarter people and sending them gifts DOES NOT HELP.
What does help is doing something cool and original, making sure your page is clear and concise. Make sure it tells a story and does something original. They specifically look for books that are told from a different perspective and featuring diverse characters. The end goal is that it’s unique and original. It can’t be something they’ve seen before.
If you look at the comic book team or publishing team at Kickstarter, one thing you will see is that they have very diverse tastes. They are almost all creators themselves (if fact Kickstarter encourages their team to run Kickstarters for their projects), and their tastes are diverse. Margot told me that they like to get a wide range of projects, from the $50,000 banger to the tiny $500 one.
Another thing she told me was that there is no limit. If 50% of projects are deserving, then they will all get picked. I always thought there was a limit, so it was nice to see there isn’t.
One thing people complain about is that Kickstarter doesn’t work like it used to even a couple years ago. There are fewer people on any given project, and people feel deluged with constant project updates. While Margot wouldn’t cop to this, she did say that there are many more fantastic projects today by sheer volume than ever before. Additionally, there are many more people using Kickstarter to find projects as well. There are 12 million backers on Kickstarter, and 3.5 million of them are repeat backers.
Margot said this is where you should focus your energy. 60% of all money raised is raised through repeat backers. It’s critical for you to find these backers because they are your best chance for success.
The last point she made before answering some listener questions was that Kickstarter is a community. That’s what they are trying to build and that’s what they are most proud of creating at the end of the day. Even though it’s overused, the word community really matters to them. Kickstarter works hard to build custom experiences for backers and works to get people to find new projects to back.
We talked about much more during our conversation, but I’m not going to spoil it all here. There was so much gold and I felt this was a more in depth conversation than most people get when researching Kickstarter. I’ve never seen or heard a Kickstarter community manager or director interviewed on a podcast before, so this was quite a thrill for me. I hope you get as much out of it as I did and that there is enough meat to pull a whole lot away for your own project.
Here are some of the links Margot mentioned during the interview.
Kickstarter Creator Handbook
https://www.kickstarter.com/help/handbook
Kickstarter on Medium
https://medium.com/kickstarter
Kickstarter Basics on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/user/kickstarter
Kickstarter Campus
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