Getting ready to launch a crowdfunding campaign? Listen up!
The number one mistake that entrepreneurs, creative types, and non-profits make before launching a crowdfunding campaign is failing to do enough research ahead of time.
Don’t make this same costly mistake! It will waste your time, money, and lead to a lot of frustration.
We’ve put together a few books to get you started learning about crowdfunding before you hit that launch button for your first campaign.
1. The Crowdfunding Bible
This 90 page book is written by successful crowdfunders and investors to help startups from any industry and with any budget learn how to run a successful crowdfunding campaign.
The Crowdfunding Bible has 60 reviews on Amazon, with an overall rating of four stars.
This is a great book for beginners and a quick read, but may be a little basic for people who already know a little about crowdfunding.
Also, in case you didn’t already know, this is one of the earlier books that was published on the industry and has stood the test of time up until now.
Pretty cool huh?
2. The Crowdfunding Fast Track
This is CrowdCrux’s ebook, which has over 100 pages of pure awesomeness. We’ll teach you exactly how to launch a successful crowdfunding campaign, pitfalls to avoid, resources to use, and also give you a comprehensive checklist.
You can access a sample of the eBook here and invest in a copy here.
If you enjoy the content on this blog, you’re going to love the ebook. Not only is it super helpful and practical, but it draws from hard learned lessons helping campaigners for the past 3 years.
You can check out the step by step formula for a great campaign here.
3. A Crowdfunder’s Strategy Guide
This book was written by Jamey Stegmaier, who has contributed a lot to the Kickstarter and crowdfunding community over the years with his blog, which explores tabletop gaming and crowdfunding.
What I like about this book is how it yields some insight into the actual backer community and how to go about getting pledges for your project.
Launching a successful crowdfunding campaign is very different than selling a product to the masses. The name of the game is individual, personalized relationships on a large scale (sounds counter-intuitive?).
This book explores how to build a community around your project and is worth a read!
4. Crowdfunding For Social Good
Written by Devin Thorpe, one of the respected members of the crowdfunding community, this book explores crowdfunding for social good.
Crowdfunding is a new way for nonprofits and social entrepreneurs to get their campaigns and projects off the ground.
Unfortunately, nonprofits can’t rely on grant money as much as they used to, and it’s tougher than ever to attract new donors for a new nonprofit organization.
This book will help get you started and show you how you can use crowdfunding to bridge the funding gap and master the fundraising game!
5. How to Succeed on Kickstarter
This is the first CrowdCrux ebook, which demystifies Kickstarter. I’m proud that it’s received a lot of positive feedback.
The comprehensive guide is the result of over 20 interviews that I’ve conducted with successful Kickstarter projects.
You can quickly see what it’s like to run a crowdfunding campaign, from preparing the launch to getting backers, pledges, and media coverage.
Not only that, but you can also copy some of the ways that successful campaigns have gotten backers to their page!
After reading this guide, you’ll know how to attract backers, get pledges, and launch that Kickstarter campaign of your dreams!
6. Launch!: How A Startup Made Over $100,000 Crowdfunding On Indiegogo With This Launch Strategy
We’ve visited Johnathan Leow’s blog in the past, which has some helpful crowdfunding content, and this book has some good content geared towards Indiegogo campaigners!
The book covers how he raised $106,830 on Indiegogo and some of the tactics and strategies he and his team used.
It’s a pretty reasonable price and actionable read.
I think that the most valuable takeaway with this book, and the other mentioned in this list is that you need to launch to an existing market.
You need to do pre-launch work and really gather a crowd before going live on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or another crowdfunding platform.
Conclusion
A search for crowdfunding in books on Amazon currently brings up 600 results! If you are thinking of launching a crowdfunding campaign, or getting into equity or real estate crowdfunding, there is a growing list of books out there that can help you learn the ropes and jumpstart your success.
If you are curious about the crowdfunding world and wish to learn more, this list is a good place to start. These six crowdfunding books cover different types of crowdfunding and reach out to different levels of understanding, from beginners to those who are looking for something a little more advanced.
