Crowdfunding for movies and books represents a high-potential solution to respond to the chronic lack of funding of independent productions and emerging authors. In the crowded contemporary cultural landscape, in fact, getting funded and noticed is very difficult for those who do not have a famous name or connections to the right people and institutions. We have already addressed this issue in the article about the crowdfunding for artists.

For those who write books, direct or produce film works, raising funds through direct audience involvement represents not only an alternative solution to traditional funding sources, but also a strategic opportunity to test the market, build community loyalty, gain visibility and promote your project in an authentic way.

Already hundreds of thousands of authors and filmmakers have brought their works to life through online crowdfunding: let's find out how to crowdfund films and books and why it's a good idea.

Why choose crowdfunding for films and books

Traditional publishing houses and film productions tend to invest in well-known names or products with a sure financial return, leaving out of the circuit many works that may be good but lack a certain following. This is where crowdfunding can come into play: an online fundraising tool that enables production funding directly with the support of those who are genuinely interested in the content of the proposed work, regardless of the fame of the author's name.

The main advantages are:

• Direct access to funds, without having to seek sponsors, agents, publishing or production companies.

• Full creative control, since no rights are given to publishers or producers and no artistic compromises have to be made in exchange for financial support.

• Active involvement of the public, who feels part of the project and is stimulated to promote it in turn.

• Immediate market test, useful for validating real interest in the work and understanding the tastes and characteristics of the audience.

• Building a loyal community, potential pool of readers or viewers for future projects as well.

• Gaining visibility that can attract the attention of both new audiences and agents, talent scouts or producers.

There are now numerous cases of book authors who started from niche online audiences and then were scouted by literary agents who understood the potential of the online community to bring those books to bookstores. Because cultural enjoyment today is highly fragmented and unpredictable, online fan communities are an invaluable following base for those who must invest in the production of a film or book, as they lower the risk level of the operation.

What types of crowdfunding for films and books?

The most suitable type of crowdfunding for financing book publication or film production is undoubtedly the reward crowdfunding.

This mode involves raising funds from online supporters by offering a project-related reward in return: rewards are differentiated according to the size of the financial contribution and can be physical or digital copies of a book, autographed copies, meetings with the author or director, tickets to the first screening of a film, merchandise of various kinds, and you name it. The reward serves to make the crowdfunding campaign more attractive and engaging to potential backers.

The most well-known and widely used reward crowdfunding platforms are Produzioni dal Basso, Kickstarter and Indiegogo. For books in Italy, there is also a publishing house that publishes by crowdfunding, bookabook: the basic mechanism is the same, but the operation is intermediated by the publishing house, which holds the funds and takes care of the practical work of editing and publishing, and does not provide rewards for participants, other than the physical copy of the book in advance of publication.

Depending on the platform chosen, the collection mode can follow two principles:

• "all or nothing", so you only get the funds if you reach the minimum goal
• "keep it all", so you get all the funds you can raise.

For charitable films and books, one can opt instead for donation crowdfunding: a fundraiser with nothing in return for donors, who contribute only in the name of support for a common cause. In the donation arena, the best-known platforms in Italy are GoFundMe and Produzioni dal Basso.

How to do a crowdfunding campaign for films and books

Crowdfunding is not simply putting a project online and waiting for people to flock to support it, but organizing real marketing and communication work to support your creative idea. To delve in detail into the specifics of the individual types of crowdfunding we mentioned in the previous paragraph, with their best practices, read our articles on reward crowdfunding and donation crowdfunding.

We dwell here on the basic steps to launch an online crowdfunding campaign and the focal points to focus on to achieve success and bring your film or book to see the light of day.

The target audience

Who to turn to when raising crowdfunding for films and books? This is the first, crucial question to answer.

The ideal audience of potential supporters of a campaign to finance the publication of a book or the production of a film are the users of that book or film. This means that you need to target everyone who might be interested, everyone who reflects the ideal profile of the reader or viewer of the product. Who more than they might want to directly support and participate in the production of a cultural product they would really want to buy?

Enjoying a cultural product is not like buying any product-there is much more emotional participation, and this is a very useful lever for crowdfunding. Book and movie lovers usually love the idea of being able to participate in the author's artistic creation and thought process and feel part of a community along with everyone else who loves the same kind of movies and books.

The first job to do, then, for a writer or filmmaker who wants to raise money in crowdfunding is to identify their ideal audience:

• How old is he/she?
• What are his/her interests?
• What are his/her favorite cultural products?
• What channels does she/he use to purchase?
• What social media is she/he on?
• What is her/his average budget?
• etc.

Only by answering all these questions can the perfect promotion strategy be built to reach and persuade the audience of potential supporters. To do so, it is helpful to identify the fundamental message or purpose of the book or film you want to propose to the audience: deepen a particular theme? Entertain? Make people cry or beat their hearts? Educate? Raise awareness? Make people empathize? etc.

Project roadmap

Embarking on a journey without having planned the route can be exciting, but risky. Especially if the journey is a crowdfunding campaign. 

It is essential to define the budget needed to carry out each phase of the project, set a minimum funding goal below which the project cannot be carried out, estimate the costs of promoting the crowdfunding campaign and creating and disbursing rewards. Only with this information can the goal of the campaign be set so that the money raised is really worthwhile.

The project roadmap should also include an estimated timeline: not only those of the campaign, but also those of making the rewards first and the book or film later. It is important to present yourself to supporters with a clear path in mind, to give an impression of credibility and reliability.

The choice of rewards

Rewards are key to incentivizing participation in a crowdfunding campaign. One reward for all is not enough: to stimulate the desire to participate, we need to produce scarcity, exclusivity, and recognition by differentiating rewards based on the timeliness of campaign subscription and the size of the financial contribution, and to propose expiring rewards.

The higher the economic goal, the greater the variety of rewards offered should be, with the richest rewards encompassing within them all those lower down, gradually adding more and more.

It should be kept in mind, however, that contributions between 50 and 100 euros are the easiest to obtain, which can therefore make up the bulk of the campaign: it is worthwhile to study really irresistible rewards for this contribution range, even if it is not very high.

Let's look at some examples of crowdfunding rewards for films.

• Digital incentives: preview downloads, extra content, themed concept art.

• Special mentions: thank you video from the production team, social media mention, live online.

• Experiences: confidential webinars, invitations to the film premiere, meetings with the cast, visits to the set, experiences related to the story told in the film (e.g., visiting a place where the characters go or learning about a sporting activity done by the characters)

• Credits: mention in credits, extra roles, credits as associate producer, name of supporter in the film.

• Gadgets: props, themed mystery boxes, T-shirts, etc.

• Rewards for insiders or aspiring insiders: participation in a production segment, photo shoot for actors, evaluation of a script or short film, acting lessons, sharing of material or promotional link on project channels.

Instead, here are examples of crowdfunding rewards for books:

• Hard and digital copies, autographed or special cover editions, exclusive extra content for supporters.

• Gadgets related to the history of the book.

• Participation in a briefing with the author.

• Name of supporters in the book (both in the acknowledgments and in the actual story).

Rewards should be as personal as possible but at the same time calibrated to the desires of the audience, to create a lasting bond for future projects as well.

The communication strategy

Once the crucial aspects we have listed so far have been defined, it is time to put in place a precise and pervasive communication strategy. This includes:

• Choice of communication channels (website, social media, newsletter, etc.).
• Creating a database of first contacts
• Production of material (pitch, text, video, images)
• Structuring an editorial plan
• Setting up engagement and conversion tracking software

The communication strategy should be put into practice with a precrowd activity: that is, it should begin before the campaign launch, to gather interest in advance and start preparing supporters for participation, which should be immediate on the day the project goes online. In this way, on the day of the launch one can see the counter go up immediately and the campaign will be more attractive to the public, triggering a herd effect. An Indiegogo analysis of crowdfunding campaigns for films found that 42.83% of funds raised come in the first 3 and last 3 days of the campaign. In addition to precrowd, therefore, it is also important to have an urgency-building strategy for the final phase of the campaign and a strategy for keeping attention high in the middle phase, the most difficult.

The first contacts will be friends, relatives, colleagues, collaborators, to be involved live, perhaps organizing a get-together at home to present the project, so as to stimulate support and an initial word of mouth. From this "hard core" one can start and then expand to the potential audience of the proposed cultural product. Data from the reading surveys promoted by AIE in Italy confirm that word of mouth remains the main stimulus for buying a book.

A crowdfunding campaign for films and books can also benefit greatly from offline events: small presentations can be organized in cafes, libraries, cultural centers.

Finally, collaborations can be sought with influencers or well-known figures in the relevant cultural field. 

Transparency and updates

Communication with the audience must be marked by transparency. It must always be clearly explained how the funds will be used, what the benefits are for those who support the crowdfunding campaign, and what the timeline is for the implementation of the project.

To create a strong and lasting bond, it is also necessary to regularly update supporters, show the behind-the-scenes of the project and the crowdfunding campaign itself, and value their support.

At the end of the crowdfunding campaign, after the proper thanks and disbursement of funds, it is important to continue to keep in touch with the community thus created, through social media and any other useful tools. Otherwise, the effort made will go to waste and you will not be able to benefit from the community's support for future projects.

Challenges and mistakes to avoid

Making a successful film and book crowdfunding campaign requires knowing the challenges and mistakes to avoid. Let's look at the main ones.

• Unrealistic collection targets. Setting goals that are too high can discourage supporters, making them perceive the project as not credible or unfeasible. This is why it is important to set a reasoned goal and share with the audience the reasoning behind budgeting.

• High competition. Crowdfunding is beginning to be a popular tool among writers and filmmakers, and more generally, online promotion of self-published books and self-published films is now an established practice. A truly distinctive campaign needs to be designed to attract attention.

• Incentives too complex or expensive to implement. It is easy to get caught up in creativity and enthusiasm when you have to devise appealing rewards, but you cannot forget that every reward is a promise that you must be able to keep. Calculating cost and time to implement rewards in advance is crucial to avoid nasty surprises and bad figures.

• Lack of communication with supporters. As we have already mentioned, the author of the book or the film production team must constantly communicate with supporters to convey trust and transparency and stimulate participation. Otherwise, one risks generating suspicion and detachment and damaging one's reputation as well as seeing word of mouth stagnate.

• Underestimation of time and resources needed. Doing a crowdfunding campaign for films and books requires you to spend a lot of time on finding supporters and promoting. It should be considered a real second job for a limited period of time. Finding yourself without time and resources (including financial) to devote makes it very likely that the campaign will fail.

No worries, however, about copyright: material produced and possibly disseminated online is automatically protected by copyright, which is established the very moment the work is created and signed. The only thing that matters legally is to be able to prove the authorship of the work, for example, by the date of the first file produced, or by a code embedded in the source of the file, or, for those who want to be even more comfortable, through an official registration.

With good preparation, authentic storytelling and direct involvement of supporters, turning an idea into a published or distributed work is possible, thanks to crowdfunding for films and books.

Two successful examples? The film Veronica Mars, whose production raised over $5 million on Kickstarter. The book Bedtime Stories for Rebellious Little Girls raised $1.3 million on the same platform. But the list could go on: add your own book or movie!

Do you need support in preparing a successful crowdfunding campaign and seeking potential investors for your project?

Turbo Crowd can accompany you throughout the process, from organizing the precrowd to closing the collection, developing effective and innovative marketing strategies to best promote your campaign.

Book a FREE video call!