I’m getting ready to wrap up my first Kickstarter campaign for my new book (which you can see here). It is not yet fully funded, and I do not know if it will be, but as I sit here working on an email to send out and pictures to post on facebook for the final days of the campaign, I am struck with how this experience has been so much more than I imagined it would be.
I want to write about the process now, before I succeed or fail (hopefully the former), but before either of those emotions clutters how I feel right now in this moment.
When I began this journey of launching a Kickstarter, I was excited to put the campaign together and craft each of the elements. I was also thrilled about the opportunities that the rewards would give me to connect with other artists. It was so fun to wander through the artist community, seeking out people who create beautiful things and then working with them to create something new and special. This week a box of journals that I had ordered for the campaign arrived from England stamped with a Royal Mail stamp. Each journal was carefully wrapped and inside was a wonderful hand scribbled note from a new friend. I was struck with how creating this campaign allowed me to develop new connections and new friendships before it even launched, and I love that.
I have been delighted, amazed, surprised, and humbled by the support that has come in for my book. Friends, some I have not seen in years, have reached out and said the kindest things, offering their congratulations and their support in so many ways. Sometimes I have found myself scrolling through a list of people, passing one by because I thought it had been too long since we had talked and he or she might think it presumptuous of me to send a group email, only to later have that same person message me about my new book and be so very kind.
I have squealed with delight as the backers have come in, each one a person I know or hope to know, each one someone who has shown kindness to me and put faith in my project, most of them evoking memories of times together and reminders of friendships that have spanned distance and time.
Connection for me has been the greatest joy. Seeing friends old and new reaching out, offering kind words and a share, lending a hand to make something I love and value become real—this is a true joy.
I am so thankful.
I imagined that it would be fun to see something come to life, but I did not imagine that the thing brought to life would be so much more than a book.
It has been a lifetime of friendships stirred up and reminding me that I am blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life.
I had lunch with a friend this week and when we started talking about my campaign, she looked at me and said something like, well of course people should support your campaign because I’m so tired of Grisham and Steele and all the other books that get selected for us, and you are starting a press that writes something new.
I could have hugged her. To have a dear friend stand in a parking lot in 94 degrees and echo back to you what you feel in your soul is to be blessed.
So here I am. Late at night, counting up the backers, wondering if this project will succeed, desperately hoping that enough people choose to support this book so that I can put it on pages in black and white, all the while knowing that even if that doesn’t happen, there has been so much success in the moments, in the kind words, in the support that has already been given, and in being reminded that the world can be a wonderful place.