Book crowdfunding has supported a large and varied publishing ecosystem on Kickstarter. The platform reported $100 million in pledges to Publishing projects from April 28, 2009, through August 10, 2016, while its 2023 review showed continued growth in both launches and successfully funded projects. The figures below cover historical activity, recent campaign leaders, success benchmarks, and the audience and production signals that matter when planning a book campaign.
Contents
- Historical scale of publishing crowdfunding
- Which book categories launch most projects
- Success rates and planning benchmarks
- Leading Kickstarter publishing campaigns in 2023
- Record-setting campaign benchmarks
- Prelaunch and production preparation
Historical scale of publishing crowdfunding
Kickstarter’s historical Publishing snapshot measured activity from April 28, 2009, through August 10, 2016. During that period, creators launched 33,009 Publishing projects, and 9,660 were successfully funded. The same snapshot recorded $100,000,000 in pledges, showing that book-related crowdfunding had already reached a substantial scale before the more recent examples in this article. These figures come from Kickstarter’s “$100 Million Pledged to Authors, Publishers, Book Shops, Poets, Podcasters, and More”.
The audience was international. Kickstarter reported 1,226,438 backers for Publishing projects, spread across 211 countries and territories. Those backers made 1,673,631 pledges, so the historical record includes repeat participation rather than only one pledge per person. The most prolific Publishing backer had pledged to 364 Publishing projects by August 10, 2016.
Creator participation also extended beyond a single campaign. By that date, 608 creators had launched more than one successfully funded Kickstarter Publishing project. In addition, 6,414 successfully funded Publishing creators had backed at least one other Kickstarter project. Together, these figures describe a community in which creators and backers could occupy both sides of the platform.
The historical figures are a dated Kickstarter snapshot, not a current total for the entire book crowdfunding market. They also use Kickstarter’s Publishing category, which includes more than conventional novels and nonfiction books.
Which book categories launch most projects
Kickstarter’s historical Publishing dataset recorded wide differences in the number of projects by subcategory. Fiction led with 8,009 launches through August 10, 2016, followed by Nonfiction with 7,170 and Children’s Books with 5,349. General Publishing accounted for another 5,020 projects. Art Books recorded 2,103 launches, while Poetry recorded 1,189 and Periodicals 1,129.
Smaller categories were still diverse. Kickstarter recorded 778 Radio & Podcasts projects, 660 Academic projects, 607 Young Adult projects, 255 Zines projects, and 231 Anthologies projects. Calendars accounted for 198 projects, Literary Journals for 195, and Translations for 116.
| Historical Publishing subcategory | Projects launched through Aug. 10, 2016 |
|---|---|
| Fiction | 8,009 |
| Nonfiction | 7,170 |
| Children’s Books | 5,349 |
| General Publishing | 5,020 |
| Art Books | 2,103 |
| Poetry | 1,189 |
| Periodicals | 1,129 |
| Radio & Podcasts | 778 |
| Academic | 660 |
| Young Adult | 607 |
The subcategory counts are useful for understanding the composition of Kickstarter’s publishing activity, but they should not be read as market-share estimates for all books or all crowdfunding platforms. The source is a historical platform snapshot with a measurement end date of August 10, 2016.
Anthologies offer one example of how volume and performance can differ. Kickstarter reported a 65% success rate for anthology projects in that historical Publishing snapshot, and the anthology subcategory had raised more than $1.2 million. Those are category-specific figures; they do not establish a general success rate for every book format.
Success rates and planning benchmarks
Kickstarter’s 2021 figures provide two format-specific success benchmarks. Photobook projects had a 73% success rate, while Art Book projects had a 69% success rate. The figures apply to Kickstarter in 2021 and should not be generalized to every publishing category, platform, or year. They are reported in Kickstarter’s “Funding Your Photobook or Art Book”.
Kickstarter later offered a broader audience benchmark in its 2025 book-launch guidance: 85% of Publishing projects that attract at least 25 backers are successful. The condition matters. This is not the success rate for all Publishing projects; it is the reported rate among projects that reached at least 25 backers. The benchmark appears in “A Creator’s Guide to Launching a Book on Kickstarter”.
The same guidance gives a way to think about a reachable audience. Kickstarter estimates that at least one-third of an Instagram following might buy a book through the campaign and afterward. For a newsletter, the guidance suggests that about one-half of subscribers might buy. These are Kickstarter planning estimates, not observed conversion rates guaranteed for an individual author. They also refer to purchases through the campaign and afterward, so they should not be treated as an exact day-one pledge forecast.
Print quantity is another planning variable. Kickstarter’s 2022 book guidance gives 750 to 1,500 copies as a possible print-run range for creators with more help, connections, and storage space. It says a creator with a major publisher or bookstore deal will want at least 1,000 copies. These quantities are guidance benchmarks, not a universal minimum order for every campaign.
Leading Kickstarter publishing campaigns in 2023
Kickstarter’s 2023 publishing review reported that the number of Publishing projects launched increased 9% year over year, while the number of successfully funded Publishing projects increased 14% year over year. The comparison is 2023 versus 2022. Kickstarter also said that dollars pledged to Romance projects grew more than 23-fold from 2022 to 2023.
The largest listed Publishing projects in Kickstarter’s 2023 review ranged from specialized books and editions to illustrated and genre-led releases:
- Seasons of Shadowhunters was listed as the highest-funded Publishing project at $1,158,224.
- Cradle (Books 4-6) by Will Wight: Special Editions raised $1,103,498.
- Shift Happens: A book about keyboards raised $753,291.
- KNITTING IN THE CITY Annotated Editions & Box of Happiness raised $578,098.
- PINOCCHIO. Art by Mike Mignola. Madness by Lemony Snicket raised $462,792.
- Larry Elmore: The Complete Elmore Volume III hardcover book raised $440,097.
- Nightlight Daily Horoscopes 2023 raised $426,575.
- The Art of Arthur Adams raised $426,056.
- Dangerous Tides: A Fantasy Romance Series raised $413,462.
- Dungeon Crawler Carl - V1 HARDCOVER Editions! raised $376,939.
These amounts are campaign-specific totals reported for 2023, not typical results or forecasts for a new author. The list also illustrates that the Publishing category can include special editions, hardcover collections, art books, genre series, and other formats alongside conventional book launches. The underlying source is Kickstarter’s “The Creative Download: Trends in Publishing”.
Record-setting campaign benchmarks
Brandon Sanderson’s four-secret-novels campaign provides an extreme benchmark for what a large existing audience can produce. Kickstarter reported that the campaign surpassed $20 million in its first 72 hours in March 2022, after launching with a $1 million goal. The campaign offered four brand-new novels in hardcover, ebook, and audio editions, with one novel scheduled for release to backers every three months in 2023.
The campaign had an unusually strong promotional base. Kickstarter notified 29,778 backers of Sanderson’s previous project when the new campaign launched. The YouTube announcement video had been viewed 1.2 million times when Kickstarter reported the result, and Sanderson had more than 330,000 YouTube subscribers when Kickstarter analyzed the campaign. His earlier The Way of Kings 10th Anniversary Leatherbound Edition campaign had raised $6.8 million on Kickstarter in 2020.
Dragonsteel Entertainment also had a 30-person team working on design, production, and shipping logistics for the four-novel campaign. That operational detail is important when comparing a record-setting campaign with an ordinary author launch: the reported total was supported by a large existing audience, a multi-format offer, prior campaign backers, and a dedicated production and fulfillment team. Kickstarter’s account is “How Brandon Sanderson’s Kickstarter Project Broke the Bookish Internet”.
Prelaunch and production preparation
Kickstarter’s 2025 book-launch guide recommends a funding goal in the hundreds of dollars for a simple print-on-demand campaign and describes $500 as a reasonable starting point. It also uses 20 hardcover backers as an example quantity that can be ordered after a print-on-demand campaign ends. These examples are designed for a particular production model and should not be confused with the much larger print-run guidance for creators with more support, connections, and storage.
The same guide reports that author Anthea Sharp has raised more than $130,000 on Kickstarter. This is a reported author example, not a median or average campaign result. It demonstrates that a campaign can scale beyond a small print-on-demand goal, but the available figure does not identify the number of campaigns, backers, books, or the measurement period behind that total.
For planning, the supplied Kickstarter benchmarks form a sequence: identify the audience that may convert, choose a production quantity that matches available support and storage, set a goal appropriate to the fulfillment model, and distinguish a campaign-specific result from a platform-wide statistic. The historical 2009–2016 snapshot, the 2021 format success rates, the 2022 guidance and record campaign, the 2023 publishing results, and the 2025 launch guidance measure different things and should remain separate when evaluating a book crowdfunding opportunity.