You’ve found our list of the best crowdfunding books.
Crowdfunding books are informational texts that help businesses find funding from large numbers of investors, usually through online platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Examples of these books are Kickstarter Launch Formula by Salvador Briggman, Step by Step Crowdfunding by Joseph Hogue, and Kick Start by Cody Smith. The purpose of these books is to provide guidance for running a successful crowdfunding campaign.
Books about crowdfunding are types of marketing books and are similar to content marketing books and digital marketing books. These books can be useful during marketing training for startups and small businesses seeing crowdfunded investments.
This list includes:
- books about business crowdfunding
- startup crowdfunding books
- crowdfunding books for beginners
- crowdfunding tips books
Here we go!
List of crowdfunding books
From Get Backed by Evan Baehr and Evan Loomis to The Kickstarter Handbook by Don Steinberg, here are some ideas for books to help your crowdfunding campaign.
1. Your First Kickstarter Campaign: Step by Step Guide to Launching a Successful Crowdfunding Project by Vilius Stanislovaitis
Readers looking for a ground-level view of crowdfunding will find much to appreciate in Your First Kickstarter Campaign. Author Vilius Stanisolvaitis shares his secrets for preparing a campaign for success, including acquiring 30% funding within 48 hours of launching. Detailed breakdowns and real-world examples highlight other campaigns that have met various levels of success.
Stanisolvaitis has run his own successful Kickstarter project to finance the production of his first book, which lends authority to the methods he describes. He covers aspects other crowdfunders may overlook, such as setting the right goals and determining a target audience for your project. With advice on using visual appeal and offering enticing rewards for investors, Your First Kickstarter Campaign provides an end-to-end guide for running a crowdfunding campaign with the best chance of success.
Notable quote: “63% of Kickstarter campaigns fail. Do this one thing, and you’ll be among the 37% who succeed. The one thing is pre-launch. Ask any crowdfunding creator, and they will confirm that it is the key to success.”
Buy Your First Kickstarter Campaign.
2. Kickstarter Launch Formula: The Crowdfunding Handbook for Startups, Filmmakers, and Independent Creators by Salvador Briggman
Salvador Briggman is a crowdfunding expert who creates blogs and podcasts explaining the process in detail. In his book Kickstarter Launch Formula, Briggman offers a step-by-step plan for conducting a successful Kickstarter campaign via meaningful marketing methods and proven promotional tactics. By exploring the inner workings of the Kickstarter platform, Briggman reveals how to use the site to its greatest potential.
Kickstarter Launch Formula offers friendly and digestible information in chapters covering each step of the campaign process. Briggman’s introduction also includes an insightful breakdown of the money from campaigns that reached full funding to show how many obligations a fundraiser has. This honest inside look at the financial side of crowdfunding lets successful fundraisers know what to expect.
Notable quote: “As a fellow entrepreneur, I know that one of the most common excuses for not quitting your job and launching that startup company is because you don’t have the money. Now, in a few short weeks, you can have all of the capital you need to launch and grow a thriving ecommerce business.”
Buy Kickstarter Launch Formula.
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3. Crowdfunded: The Proven Crowdfunding System for Launching Products, Raising Millions, and Scaling Brands Using Indiegogo and Kickstarter by Mark Pecota
With Crowdfunded, eager entrepreneurs get advice from CEO Mark Pecota, founder of a crowdfunding agency called LaunchBoom. Pecota’s inside scoop on funding high-dollar projects brings the murky mechanics of crowdfunding into focus. His exploration of the LaunchBoom process shows readers his company’s step-by-step process for creating their own successful Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaigns. By separating the structure into Pre-Launch, Launch, and Post-Campaign sections, Pecota defines the needs for each phase.
Much of what Pecota describes emphasizes effective marketing, which is key to any successful crowdfunding project. Engaging explanations tell readers how paid social media advertising boosts visibility. The author explains the importance of reaching your potential funders while making the process sound exciting. With clear descriptions and strong writing, Crowdfunded offers a workable path to funded projects.
Notable quote: “Raising a lot of money in a short amount of time is great and all, but it’s not really why I do this. The real gift is literally watching our clients’ lives change.”
Buy Crowdfunded.
4. Step by Step Crowdfunding: Everything You Need to Raise Money from the Crowd for Small Business Crowdfunding and Fundraising by Joseph Hogue
As an introduction to his crowdfunding process, author Joseph Hogue describes six habits of a successful campaign. These habits provide helpful guideposts for the following content, which is a breakdown of what works best for completing a crowdfunded project. Rather than beginning with the history of crowdfunding, Hogue jumps into the process for a fast-paced explanation of what works best. Hogue shares his experiences with creating communities that reinforce crowdfunded projects beyond the campaign’s end date.
As a consultant on many crowdfunding ventures, Hogue is happy to share what he has learned over the years. His practical writing style and concrete examples set a course for any sized project to follow. Readers searching for books about business crowdfunding will appreciate Hogue’s descriptions of crowdfunding as an expansion of the business rather than a separate enterprise. But instead of focusing his process solely on businesses, Hogue provides roadmaps that can work for both businesses and nonprofit organizations.
Notable quote: “Raising money from the crowd is a huge opportunity but very few know the true process involved. There’s a reason nearly two-thirds of all campaigns end in failure.”
Buy Step by Step Crowdfunding.
5. The Kickstarter Handbook: Real-Life Crowdfunding Success Stories by Don Steinberg
Rather than simply explaining the basic process like other startup crowdfunding books, The Kickstarter Handbook illustrates each step with stories from creators who have run successful campaigns. Author Don Steinberg uses a journalistic approach to exposing the best Kickstarter practices. Readers can explore firsthand accounts of how businesses crowdfunding and what they learned during their fundraising promotions. Steinberg explains the requirements for running a Kickstarter project and reminds his audience that Kickstarter is for creatives building a company or making a product. His interviews with bands, artists, and filmmakers give a voice to makers with an entrepreneurial spirit.
By focusing on the creative aspect, The Kickstarter Handbook offers creators an honest description of how this platform can work for them. By letting Kickstarter users speak for themselves, the author offers an insightful manual to help artists in all mediums launch potentially successful campaigns.
Notable quote: “Kickstarter is one of those rare so-crazy-it-just-might-work ideas that did in fact work. Who would’ve imagined it?”
6. Equity Crowdfunding: The Complete Guide For Startups And Growing Companies by Nathan Rose
Equity Crowdfunding takes a more academic approach to explaining the crowdfunding process. Author Nathan Rose explores fundraising sources outside of online platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Rose’s background as an investment banker lets him explore the contrast between traditional funding and crowdfunding. The main difference is that while Kickstarter offers reward-based crowdfunding, equity-based crowdfunding rewards investors with ongoing stakes in the company or project. This insight will be helpful for startups with a more business-oriented plan in mind for their crowdfunding efforts.
Rose traveled to several countries while researching what makes crowdfunding successful. Many of the crowdfunding platforms in his descriptions are from countries outside of the US. His clear, authoritative writing can help clarify the concepts of the less-familiar equity model of crowdfunding.
Notable quote: “Startups and growing companies are able to access capital sourced from large numbers of small investors, using the Internet. Welcome to the world of equity crowdfunding.”
Buy Equity Crowdfunding.
7. Crowdfunding: The Story of People by Ravina Banze and Irfan Bashir
Author Ravinia Banze takes a more human approach to explaining why crowdfunding works. By exploring the stories of the entrepreneurs behind the projects, Banze reveals the meaningful origins and ideas that prompt large groups of small investors to contribute. For example, one of these stories describes the crowdfunding of a canal that provided water for farmers in India. With a textbook-style format, Banze lays out the numbers involved in the project while emphasizing the human value of the results. This blend balances the reasons and results of crowdfunding efforts that investors find compelling enough to support.
Banze gives an eye-opening view of the life-changing potential of crowdfunding when applied to scenarios beyond startups and creative projects. These projects stand in the gap between commercial and nonprofit, serving a greater purpose than simply starting a company or launching a new product. This view is especially revealing for campaigns run outside of the US. The shift in perspective is helpful for social enterprises needing funding that defies the usual crowdfunding profile.
Notable quote: “Throughout the book, we will engage with pertinent questions like why is there a need for crowdfunding in a world governed by wealth inequity?”
Buy Crowdfunding.
8. Funded Today: The Ultimate Guide to Crowdfunding by Thomas Alvord and Zach Smith
Aspiring moguls searching for books about crowdfunding from proven experts will find much to love in Funded Today. Authors Thomas Alvord and Zach Smith aim to motivate armchair entrepreneurs to the heights of crowdfunding achievement to launch their dream projects. Both authors have mastered crowdfunding and pour their expertise into an energetic title that teaches novice businesses how to find financial backing. Their company, also called Funded Today, has helped more than 3,000 entrepreneurs with their crowdfunding projects, resulting in over $329 million in funding.
Though Alvord and Smith describe several types of crowdfunding, their book focuses on methods used for successful Kickstarter campaigns. By sharing methods, tricks, and anecdotes from their experiences, the authors create one of the more relatable crowdfunding tips books for demystifying the crowdfunding process. Their advice extends beyond the end of the campaign with suggestions for building a stronger company once a project receives funding.
Notable quote: “Through the ages, many of the arts—music, books, paintings—were financed by having masses of people invest in projects to bring them to fruition.”
Buy Funded Today.
9. Crowdfunding: The Next Big Thing by Gary Spirer
Gary Spirer lays out the ups and downs of crowdfunding, offering background information into what made this form of digital-age capital raising possible. By launching the JOBS act in 2012, the federal government cleared the way for crowdfunding as a viable funding method. Sprier explores how this development applies to projects that might have difficulty securing traditional funding. His text includes a rundown of the various kinds of crowdfunding to help readers identify the best model for their project.
Spirer’s gritty honesty and end-chapter summaries distill complicated truths about crowdfunding into content that budding entrepreneurs can understand. With references to familiar companies providing valuable takes on identifying your customers and building on innovations, this title shows readers a real-world framework for how projects progress. The resulting blend can help entrepreneurs identify their clearest path and map out a plan for success.
Notable quote: “No one strategy is the best. Each strategy has its pluses and minuses. Each can be successful, depending upon the risk versus the reward you want and can emotionally handle.”
Buy Crowdfunding.
10. The Crowdfunding Bible: How to Raise Money for Any Startup, Video Game or Project by Scott Steinberg and Rusel DeMaria
The Crowdfunding Bible aims to inform potential crowdfund users of the innovative capital-raising method’s real challenges. Though the authors emphasize the advantages of crowdfunding, they also share the possible pitfalls all projects face. Steinberg and DeMaria provide a realistic view of what a crowdfunding campaign involves with guides for starting projects, managing marketing and promotion, and post-mortems on success and failures. This insightful approach creates a balanced view that helps prepare readers for crowdfunding’s reality.
In language that reads easily and clearly, The Crowdfunding Bible weighs the pros and cons of crowdfunding, letting aspiring entrepreneurs know what they might be in for. This title is a quick and informative read that can help incoming crowdfunders decide which approach is best for their needs.
11. Kick Start: How to Successfully Fund Your First Crowdfunding Campaign on Kickstarter by Cody Smith
In Kick Start, author Cody Smith uses laid-back language to detail a plan for crowdfunding that reads like a how-to guide. The text bypasses the lead-up of how crowdfunding platforms came to be in favor of jumping into the process. This strategy begins at the Idea Stage of the process and takes readers through the conclusion of a campaign one step at a time. Though the process aims for success, Smith also includes a rundown of what might happen to derail a project. Creative concepts, such as producing a compelling Kickstarter video, receive equal attention to business considerations, such as building an effective launch team. The combination of art and commerce creates a full picture of successful crowdfunding’s requirements.
Smith’s experience with Kickstarter crowdfunding includes ups and downs that he shares with honesty and humor. His briskly paced writing energizes the text, generating excitement for readers to try a crowdfunding campaign for themselves.
Notable quote: “You owe it to yourself and your time to know what it takes to completely crush your Kickstarter campaign. Take it from me—the guy who did almost everything wrong.”
Buy Kick Start.
12. Six Figure Crowdfunding: The No Bullsh*t Guide to Running a Life-Changing Campaign by Derek Miller and Joy Ho
Author Derek Miller fills the pages of Six Figure Crowdfunding with his snarky advice on maximizing the financial potential of Kickstarter-style crowdfunding projects. Miller’s candor comes through as sharp-edged advice peppered with cutting commentary that reveals the difficulty inherent in any sort of project funding. Miller shares his expertise in reward-based fundraising while sharing pro tips from other successful crowdsourcing projects. The projects’ combined funding totals more than $30 million. Cartoons by Joy Ho reinforce the humor while illustrating key concepts, adding visual fun to the verbal banter and insightful information to one of the most engaging crowdfunding books for beginners.
Miller is a crowdfunding expert who has helped clients reach their goals through Kickstarter and Indiegogo. His cheeky, down-to-earth take on how to make the most of any crowdfunding campaign is entertaining and informative for first timers in need of an honest guide to the process.
Notable quote: “If money is all you want, crowdfunding isn’t for you.”
Conclusion
Crowdfunding books can mean a successfully funded venture for entrepreneurs seeking unconventional funding. By reading up on best practices from authoritative sources, startup owners learn effective methods for promoting their projects to a favorable audience. Because crowdfunding comes with financial obligations, campaigners can also explore how to handle funds after achieving their goals.
Next up, read about business finance books and social media marketing books.
