A Question About Crowdfunding

Last year, I completed the manuscript for Guards Gone Wild!, a memoir of my adventures in Singapore's private security industry. It was submitted to 4 publishers based in Singapore. As of today, my manuscript has been rejected by all 4 publishers.

Singapore being a small country with an even smaller literary market, it is blindingly obvious that it would be a futile waste of time to hang around and wait for fresh and receptive publishers to appear on the scene. Therefore, I have to self-publish. To do that, I will need to raise the necessary fund through crowdfunding.

This is the first time I am doing crowdfunding and so, naturally, I am not 100% sure about how I should go about doing things. If there are any self-published writers here who went through the crowdfunding route, please offer your advice and guidance. Thank you in advance.

And here's my question:

What do people want in return when they contribute to a crowdfunding campaign?

Originally, after talking it over with friends, we thought it would be a good idea to offer a free (and signed) copy of my book to any Singaporean donor who donates at least S$10 (the intended selling price of my book).

But now, I have just received the price estimates for various essential services related to the publication of a book, such as cover design and layout and copy editing and so on and so forth, and the total cost comes up to S$6960! And at the end of it, I get 500 printed copies.

500 copies. That makes our 1-free-signed-copy-for-every-$10-donation offer mathematically impossible. Because if $6960 is needed, then that would mean 696 ten dollars are needed and that means after giving away all 500 copies, I will still need to come up with an extra 196 copies to give away. And how am I supposed to do that?

I could make it if I offer a free signed copy for a $20 donation but then, that would make it look like I am overcharging them for the book.

So if giving away free copies to donors is no longer feasible, what can I do for the kind people who would be donating to my crowdfunding campaign?

Have you thought of trying publishers outside of Singapore before going the self publish route? Four rejections is so ... few ... before you jump ship.

Or even getting an agent to see what it might take to make it even bigger and better?

Not sure about the value of the Singaporean dollar and the general cost of things over there, but are your "essential services" a regular printer + contracted editing, page-setting and cover-designing services you've shopped around for and compared, or some vanity press ? If the later, RUN.

If you do go the crowd-funding path you can probably offer a digital copy of the book for some lower donation treshold.

Well, I did a market survey before I sent my manuscript around to the publishers.

You see, my memoir is basically a collection of short stories about my adventures in Singapore's private security industry. And after swapping stories with guards in Malaysia (which is just a bus ride away from us) and Indonesia and America and Canada, I decided that the people who will buy my book will most likely be Singaporeans.

Here's what a Malaysian guard told me:

"In Malaysa, our guards can get whacked anytime. If they send you to guard the nightclubs, you will have guns. But the gangsters will also have guns. And knives. Or maybe you work at the shopping center, boss send you to patrol car park. Some gangsters with knives may kill you if you are alone. So you tell me. In Singapore you got knives and guns? No right? No Malaysian will be interested in your stories. Why? Because Singapore got no knives and guns. No drugs."

I do think my book will be popular in Singapore but because the issues I discuss are rather localized affairs, I seriously doubt overseas publishers will want to take a business risk and publish my book.

And it seems that security guards in America and Canada and UK get to see way more action than your average Singaporean security guard, so...

In Singapore, there are very very few book agents because, like I said, the literary market is very very small. So publishers deal direct with the writers. The few agents that I have met so far I dare not trust.

I didn't approach a vanity press. I went around and asked for price estimates for everything and that's the result I got.

I could probably get things done for less, but it is better to set my goal higher. Because, you know, just in case.

Here'a an idea I thought of as an alternative to the give-away-free-books idea.

For a minimum donation of 10 dollars, the donor's name will be included on a special Thank You page in my book. And so, anyone who buys a copy of my book will be able to see who are the contributors who helped me make Guards Gone Wild! a reality. And the names will stay in my book, even in future print runs.

In addition to getting listed in my book as an honored contributor, a minimum donation of 10 dollars will also get you a limited edition Guards Gone Wild! postcard with a personal Thank You message written by me. Postcards aren't expensive to print and the postage cost for delivering those isn't expensive either.

So what do you think of my idea?