Janky Patel is an award winning children’s book author and a passionate healthcare advocate. Her first published work, Curious Conditions: Emergency Room, won second place in the coveted Bookemon Book of the Year award in 2010.
In her latest book, Curious Conditions: Dentist, Patel makes going to the dentist a fun, colorful, and adventurous story, rather than an intimidating and frightening experience for children.
Having run a successful Kickstarter campaign for her latest book, Patel joins an emerging group of authors who have been able to harness the power of crowdfunding to attract financial backers and new readers. Not only was Patel successful, but she ended up raising 20% more than her initial funding goal.
I had the chance to sit down with Patel and learn more about her approach to raising money online for her latest children’s book. Check out our conversation below, and be sure to follow her on twitter. Also, be sure to check out her blog post, 10 Tips for Writing Children’s Books.
What made you decide to start writing children’s books?
I began writing children’s books while volunteering at a local emergency room hospital, where I saw frightened children cry. I couldn’t stand the sight of seeing the children in fear, so I knew I had to do something. I created a children’s book series to help children learn what occurs in the healthcare setting to help lessen their fears. Children and healthcare are my inspiration and passion. Being able to combine the two has led me to write children’s books.
The Curious Conditions series is aimed at helping children learn about healthcare through an exciting, magical, and illustrative story.
When did strangers begin pledging to your campaign?
About 30% of the campaign funds came from strangers and a majority of those strangers pledged at the beginning. I think that this was the time where most attention was generated from my campaign, leading to great exposure and pledges. A majority of the strangers found me both from Kickstarter and from social media such as Facebook.
What websites, articles, and resources did you find to be helpful when you were preparing for your campaign?
I did a lot of background reading on crowdfunding before the launch of my campaign. Even though some articles on crowdfunding advice were about particular crowdfunding categories other than publishing, I still looked into what made the campaigns successful and applied a lot of the methods into my own campaign.
I really found a post by Tim Ferriss on Hacking a Kickstarter to be very helpful. I particularly liked the list of tools they mentioned, including utilizing bitly.com to track the sources of web traffic to their campaign. I also liked how they included the actual email templates for contacting backers.
When doing research, I also contacted previous Kickstarter campaigners that had created children’s books and received some great advice, including things they wish they would have done more or less of.
Finally, I took advantage of ‘Office Hours’ that Kickstarter posted on their blog, which were created from an independent group. It basically encompassed a Google+ Hangout Session with 4-5 crowdfunding experts around the nation that helped review your campaign idea and answer any questions in the span of 20 minutes. I found it to be really helpful, as it allowed me to share my idea and receive constructive feedback. It was also great because it allowed me to give my ‘elevator pitch’ to a group of strangers, and then during the office hours, I had a chance to perfect it.
Would you do anything differently if you were to start another Kickstarter campaign?
I think I would raise my goal by slightly more if I were to start another Kickstarter campaign. My original campaign goal was $1,000 and we ended reaching $1,211. I think gauging the right goal amount is really difficult, but I knew that if I raised it to $1,500, I would still be able to achievable. I would also take advantage of the first 5 days of the campaign as they really are the most crucial. It’s when you get the most attention and most views for your campaign.
What do you think about crowdfunding and the future of independent funding for projects?
I think the crowdfunding is perfect for a person with an idea who is ready to execute and turn it into reality. It helps allow creative people to achieve their dream projects without having too many obstacles in the way, such as funding limitations. Independent funding creates a great foundation for growth in a project and the future seems limitless.
Janky Patel is now working on launching a new crowdfunding platform with a focus on the public health sector, inspired from her positive experience with Kickstarter.
For more information, follow her on Twitter or check out her blog.
