Seth Godin on Kickstarter and the Value of an Author Platform

Seth Godin's booksI received an unexpected email from Seth Godin today – he read a post I had written analyzing his Kickstarter campaign for his latest book, The Icarus Deception, and wanted to chat about his experience over the past eight months.

Below is a video of our chat, and here are some of the more interesting quotes from Seth:

  • “I don’t need the cash from Kickstarter to put a book into the world, but with ebooks, no one does.”
  • “Bookstores have never really supported my work.”
  • “If you go to Barnes & Noble today you will see big stacks of my books ONLY because of Kickstarter. That sent a message to Barnes & Noble.”
  • “The hard part of publishing is selling the first 10,000 copies. It’s really hard.”
  • “If 5,000 people sign on during the first day, then the publisher will make note.”
  • “I am calling BS on the author who thinks there is a conspiracy keeping them out of the publishing world.”
  • “What you need to do is the hard work day by day is building a group of people who trust you, and want to support you when it’s time.”
  • “I lost money on my Kickstarter, the shipping costs alone were $100,000.”
  • “You don’t make money from your core tribe, you serve them. If you serve them well, you will make money from other people.”
  • “It is about writing for your readers, as opposed to finding readers for your writing. Totally upside down for most people in the book business.”
  • “Start today to build the platform that you will be able to use three years from now.”

Here is the full video: