At long last, we are at release day for the Pitmaster’s Log Book. What a wild ride and so much learned. It’s a culmination of a year’s worth of work. And I’m quite excited to share it with you.
If you want to grab your copy, do it here.
For those that are interested, here is most of the gritty detail that led up to the publication.
Kickstarter Not a Free Marketing Platform
We first started the project on Kickstarter. I thought it would be a great way for people to “discover” the project on the site organically (aka for free) and back it. Initial backing was promising but, as the backing window came to a close, I was forced to deal with a Kickstarter project that didn’t hit its support goal. I was a little disappointed that it didn’t reach the level of support we needed. There were some supporters that came from the Kickstarter homepage but that number was relatively small. There’s no question that my Facebook Ad spend got us to the level we reached. However, the ads were trending towards a declining ROI and when I paused the ads at my budget limit, it was clear we wouldn’t reach the goal level. So, what do you do?
Deciding on Future Direction
- Forget the project and don’t move forward.
- Change the scope/feature set and print some other way.
I decided on the second option, try and find a Print on Demand company.
What Print On Demand Service Did I Choose?
I looked at seven print on demand printers to try and fit the original scope/features including Lulu and some others. Ultimately, I gave up on that due to pricing, not printing in my initially scoped way or, logistical factors.
After looking at that many printers and finding none to print the way I had hoped, I changed the format of the Barbecue Log Book.
We would be giving up a hardcover for a coated paperback cover. And the page size was ever so slightly smaller. But, in exchange, I didn’t have to warehouse/mail and I could take advantage of their “enhanced” distribution. I decided this was the best compromise. Amazon CreateSpace/Kindle Direct Publishing was my ultimate choice.
Have you “Kickstarted” a project that didn’t work? What did you learn? What would you do differently in a future project? Let me know in the comments below.