620. Romance and Kickstarter with Oriana Leckert

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Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 620 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and my guest today is Oriana Leckert. Oriana is the head of publishing at Kickstarter and works with the many, many authors who are finding community support on Kickstarter. They are hosting a celebration all this month, Heartstrings & Hardbacks, Kickstarter and romance, so we connected to talk about successful romance projects, strategies that work and don’t work on Kickstarter, and the evolution of fandom, which is a topic I’m always curious about. Oriana has worked in publishing for a long time, and her entire employment experience is part of her current job. She’s also the author of a book called Brooklyn Spaces, and it sounds like a really cool project.

I will have links to everything we talk about in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast under episode 620.

Hello and thank you, thank you, thank you to our Patreon community. You keep me going every week; you make sure every episode has a transcript – heyyy, garlicknitter – [howdy! – gk] – I cannot thank you enough for your support. If you like the show and you value what we do here, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

All right, shall we get started with this podcast? Let’s find out all about what Kickstarter is up to. It’s cool. On with the podcast.

[music]

Oriana Leckert: Thank you so much for having me, first of all. I’m Oriana Leckert. I’m the head of publishing at Kickstarter. My job, I believe, I’ve described it as one part sort of literary industry expert, one part crowdfunding consultant, one part life coach, and one part cheerleader? I basically help people figure out whether their work makes sense for Kickstarter and then try to help set them up for success if they think that it does, so really I get to work with a pretty incredible array of authors, illustrators, publishers, art book makers, photo book designers, just helping people figure out how to raise money to bring their literary dreams to life. It is an incredible job that I feel very lucky to have.

Sarah: There’s a lot, I have a lot of questions here. This is, this is a really interesting, I think, sort of extremely new technology publishing job.

Oriana: Yes.

Sarah: As publishing is such an old industry and you are doing a lot of the familiar, like, there’s a lot of familiar words in your job description, but you’re doing it on an entirely new platform. Does that sound about right?

Oriana: Yeah! That sounds, I would say that’s accurate. I mean, it’s sort of, it is and it isn’t. You know, when I started at Kickstarter, some of our, like, onboarding materials are like, The Statue of Liberty was crowdfunded. You know, like, conceptually, crowdfunding is not actually so new?

Sarah: No.

Oriana: But yes indeed, I do work at a tech company. I work on one of the analog teams at the tech company; most of the folks are, like, engineers doing their, you know, all sorts of back-end machinations, whereas I just get to professionally be friends with people? But yeah…

Sarah: Sounds like publishing! Yep!

Oriana: [Laughs]

Sarah: Story checks out!

Oriana: You know, my background is sort of half and half traditional book publishing and digital media, so I was an arts and cultural journalist for a long time; I also was a freelance editor for many, many years. I’ve worked at a lot of different points on the publishing landscape. I started out at Random House before they absorbed Penguin. I’ve been a fact checker for a book packager. I was a matchmaker for ghostwriters. I’ve done, you know, freelance editorial consulting and editing and copyediting and proofreading for probably over a hundred small-to-medium presses and magazines all across the country, so I do have, like, a pretty vast knowledge of, like, all of the different ways that publishing can happen –

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: – which I think is really helpful to bring to bear to this kind of work, but yeah, you know, crowdfunding, and Kickstarter specifically, have long been sort of denigrated by the traditional publishing industry as for, like, desperate losers who can’t get a book deal and, you know, I…

Sarah: [Laughs] Of course they, of course they did! They’re not getting a cut!

Oriana: Exactly! Obviously. So, you know, I try to do a lot of work to sort of, like, shift that perception and help people understand that, like, doing something like crowdfunding brings you back all the control. It gives you a direct line to your readers which is not available through most avenues of traditional publishing. You know, a lot of the work that a publisher would require you to do, community building, brand management, like, all of that, you know, you’re going to have to do that anyway. Why not just do it on your own, reap all the benefits, keep all the control? You know, DIY, baby!

Sarah: Yep! I know a few people who have worked in publishing and have left publishing and have gone to work at tech companies of different types, and I remember one person telling me that a lot of her job was explaining how absolutely bonkers publishing is as a business. Do you spend a lot of time explaining to people who are, like, tech people and who have worked in the tech sector that, like, Okay, so the, first of all, it runs on consignment. It’s –

Oriana: [Laughs]

Sarah: – nothing makes sense. Just don’t expect any of the things I’m about to tell you to make sense, but here is how it works. Like, do you do that too? Do you spend a lot of time translating publishing as an industry?

Oriana: Hundred, a hundred percent.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Oriana: I mean, in fact, I don’t know if this would have crossed your radar, but during the, when the Department of Justice was suing Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster to stop that merger, Kickstarter was actually brought up in that suit, and so –

Sarah: I didn’t know that!

Oriana: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, okay, so then the bad, the pe-, how that worked, one of the big execs – so firstly, you, I don’t know if you heard Brandon Sanderson raised forty-three million dollars on Kickstarter last year?  I’ve –

Sarah: I did hear!

Oriana: – been –

Sarah: Yeah!

Oriana: Highest-funded crowdfunding campaign of all time, in all categories, on all platforms. Kind of a big deal. And so –

Sarah: Bigger than the GDP of several countries.

Oriana: [Laughs] I’ve never phrased it like that, but I should.

Sarah: It is! It literally is bigger than the GDP of many nations.

Oriana: Yeah, no, a hundred percent. And so what happened was somebody – so the, the, the DOJ’s case hinged on monopsony, monopsomy, which is –

Sarah: Monopsony, yeah.

Oriana: I’m not going to bother – your readers can google it if they don’t already – or your listeners, I mean. But the idea was that it would decrease advances if all of the companies are just kind of like, they’re, like, different imprints, but they all ladder up to the same budget line?

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: So some, one of the executives said, Look, if people don’t like the advances that we are offering, they could just run a Kickstarter like Brandon Sanderson did and raise as much money as they possibly could want, which, like, LOL times a million, obviously. [Laughs]

Sarah: Buddy –

Oriana: But so that happens. Of course everybody at Kickstarter was like, What are they saying? What does this mean? Wait, are they really testifying that publishing just runs on vibes –

Sarah: Yeah!

Oriana: – and nobody knows how it works or whether it’s going to go well?

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: And I was like, Please, yes. Please sit down; let me tell you all of – yeah, mm-hmm. So…

Sarah: So on one hand you’re like, Well, none of what just came out of that guy’s mouth is a surprise, including the now former CEO of Random House, who was like, I have no idea how a bestseller is made! It’s just random! And I’m like, I am a person who interacts with all the publicists and all the people in marketing, who do not earn a lot of money, who have Sharpies and box cutters, and you know all of them were just like, Ffffuck you, asshole!

Oriana: [Laughs]

Sarah: Pardon my language, but –

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: – oh my goodness! So I imagine that your job, you, you translate the absolute –

Oriana: A lot.

Sarah: – wackadoodle, unhinged nature of this whole business.

Oriana: Yep, yep. Because, you know, our, Kickstarter’s publishing department is me. There’s not, like, a vast team of people who are –

Sarah: Right.

Oriana: – you know – so yes. I mean – [laughs] – the, the truth is, most people at Kickstarter are not thinking about publishing all that often –

Sarah: No.

Oriana: – unlike me, who is thinking about it all day, every day, forever, for my whole life? But yes, every once in a while, someone’s like, I’m sorry, it works how?

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: I’m sorry, your history does what?

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: Like, yes.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Oriana: I’m afraid so. [Laughs] As if I…

Sarah: You know how if you are in sales, you are selling a thing, right? You can go and see how many units have sold of your thing from your inventory –

Oriana: [Laughs]

Sarah: – right? If you publish with a publisher, you’re going to get that data in pieces ninety to a hundred and twenty days later, when it is useless to you. Enjoy!

Oriana: Totally, and most of it will not even be –

Sarah: That’s, that’s supposed to be a benefit! [Laughs]

Oriana: Yeah, I mean, that’s, but this is like a, like a, you know, deeper thing that I did not expect I’d talk about on this podcast, but I’m actually, this is far into the future, but I would like Kickstarter to be a reporting entity for BookScan –

Sarah: Yes!

Oriana: – because, you know, I mean, that’s part of, like, why this data is so borked is, like, it’s not counting so many of the, like, weird new strange sales avenues, and so, like –

Sarah: Yeah, you should absolutely –

Oriana: Yeah, I –

Sarah: – be in there!

Oriana: The pro- – [laughs] – we had a really, I, I’ve had a lovely couple of calls with them, with our chief strategy officer, and they were like, We’d love it; we’d love to have Kickstarter reporting. All we’re going to need from you is meta data sales information like ISBN, you know, like, all this stuff, and we were like, It’s going to be a minute before Kickstarter could even possibly consider –

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: – having, collecting that kind of data, let alone escalating it to you in a regular report anyway. It is on the, I, I think maybe next year we might be able to get it due to a lot of changes that are happening internally at Kickstarter, where we will actually be collecting a lot more data in a lot different ways, a lot of different ways, but we are not, we are not there yet at all.

Sarah: So tell me – you’ve mentioned the publishing department, and it is a department of one – what do you do? What is your job?

Oriana: [Laughs] Yeah! Yeah, I mean, it is a weird job with very few analogs in the rest of the world. I truly am, like, so blessed; I get to wake up every morning and I’m like –

Sarah: Me too! Yep! I understand completely!

Oriana: – just…what my job is.

Sarah: Yep.

Oriana: Yeah, totally. I do a lot of travel. A lot of it is being out in the world of my categories, so, you know, as we have been emailing about, I was just in Denver for a couple of weeks at Readers Take Denver and then the IBPA publishing university, I was on the keynote panel. This year the theme was Rise and Disrupt –

Sarah: Heck yeaahh!

Oriana: – so I got to talk about how Kickstarter is disrupting publishing. I will be –

Sarah: They hate when that happens, by the way. I don’t know if you know this, but they really don’t like it.

Oriana: [Laughs] Yeah, I know, they really – yeah, mm-hmm. Mm, yes!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Oriana: So yeah, so I do a lot of, I also do a lot of virtual stuff. I do things like this! I do all kinds of webinars, and I’m doing a Reddit AMA for the first time ever next week…

Sarah: Oooh!

Oriana: Yeah, so, like, all kinds of just sort of like spreading the word, really; like, explaining how to think about Kickstarter differently or how to think about Kickstarter at all, because, you know, I used to go to AWP every year, and that was a whole lot of conversations of, like, You can have books on Kickstarter? You know, so it’s sort of like starting even there of, like, Yes, you can, and we care about them, and here’s why: blah-blah-blah.

I also work a lot directly with creators. I have, you know, there’s, there’s about a hundred and fifty projects launching and publishing every week, so I am not up to the guts of all of them, but, you know, when possible, I can talk to people about strategy; I offer a lot of guidance about sort of, like, how to structure a campaign; how to, like, think about your promotion, all of the various ways to, like, build your community before, during, and after. My day-to-day job is, like, certainly a lot of Zoom meetings or just, like, gallivanting all around the country, and occasionally the world, and then, you know, just like a hundred million emails a minute of, like, trying to help people be as successful as they can with their projects.

Sarah: Yep! Yeah, piece of cake!

Oriana: Yep! Yeah, no big deal.

Sarah: It’s fascinating to me to hear you talk about how you, on one hand, have an audience that’s like, Oh, Brandon Sanderson made forty-three million dollars; I’ll make forty-three million dollars –

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: – and then you have people who are like, There are books on Kickstarter? You have a very wide audience to reach.

Oriana: Yeah. Yes, that is extremely true. [Laughs]

Sarah: And it helps, I think, with romance specifically that there have been some really successful projects, especially Katee Robert and –

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: – Bonkers Romance and people who have really created a very unique opportunity for their readers. It reminds me a lot of the sort of exclusive boxes that used to be, like Illumicrate or, remember Birchbox? I remember Birchbox. That was a fun –

Oriana: Yeah, totally.

Sarah: – makeup subscription. But you take out the intermediary, and you’re like, No, I’m making the box. Like, Lucy Eden, I had a call with her once, and she was showing me the design of her box. Every single surface of the box that it comes in is used in some way to build the experience.

Oriana: I use Lucy’s project as an example all the time. In fact, I’m getting ahead of myself, but so we haven’t even talked about, like, romance on Kickstarter specifically, but I will say, since we’re talking about…

Sarah: My next question is that, so bring it up and whenever you like.

Oriana: Yeah. Totally. Well, okay, so, I will, I will just quickly say we’re doing, I’m doing a live event with Lucy, actually. We’re doing a panel discussion in Brooklyn at The Ripped Bodice, which started on Kickstarter, next Friday. It’s going to be me, Lucy – you’d think I’d be ready to say all the names – doo-doo-doo – Melinda Kucsera, who’s a fantasy novelist, who’s going to be moving into romance, and Adriana Herrera? So the three of us, or the four of us will be talking all things sort of like romance, Kickstarter, yeah, and that is sort of a kickoff to – okay, here I’ll going to back up a little step, because another part of my job, which I didn’t even get to, is that I get to, each year I sort of get to say, like, where is a place that Kickstarter is not serving or could be doing better? Like, what’s a section of my world that I could be focused on? And in 2021 I decided that segment was going to be romance. I felt like we always had a super strong sci-fi/fantasy contingent on the platform, but why not romance? I mean, romance novelists could not be more perfectly positioned –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Oriana: – to, by necessity, having been denigrated by the traditional industry for all of history –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Oriana: – had to do everything themselves, had to become so adept at, you know, building their audiences, working with their communities, making direct clients of their readers, figuring out how to produce all the books that traditional publishing was not going to help them do, and I said, I think that there is something here. So I actually pulled some data for you to share, just to show that, like, to toot my own horn a small bit, it –

Sarah: Please toot your horn and share data! Data is so sexy. Bring as many pieces of data as you like.

Oriana: Totally. I love it. So in 2021, we had twenty romance projects, which raised – where’s my number? – about two hundred grand. Last year, in 2023, we had 317, which raised just shy of six million dollars. So romance has been growing tremendously –

Sarah: Wow!

Oriana: – year over year because of people exactly like – so, you know, Katee, Bonkers, and I would also count Willow Winters as one of our, like –

Sarah: Oh yes, Willow Winters for sure!

Oriana: – first early triumphs? Willow, I was on a panel with, by the way, at Readers Take Denver. She is every bit as delightful in person as you would assume she would be.

So yeah, I think by, you know, I sort of, like, turned my focus there. Those three gals and gal collectives did incredible campaigns, and I spoke that in 2021 virtually at RAM, at the Romance Authors Mastermind, and so I think, like, those sort of things combined were really what kind of launched this whole, like, I think really good success of bringing, bringing romance to Kickstarter, bringing Kickstarter to the romance community, and so it worked well enough that the company writ large has finally taken notice, and so this summer we’re doing a spotlight on romance in July.

We call these Open Calls or prompts. They’re sort of excuses or encouragements or enticements to get many of a certain kind of project on the platform at the same time? We’ve done this in film with something called Long Story Short; that’s for short films. We do Zine Quest for RPG games. We’ve done Witchstarter, which we’ll, we will continue to do every October, and that’s, like, cross-category everything sort of like spooky, witchy, New Age-y; anything from, like, a Tarot deck to a, a record that you made on a theremin –

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: – to, like, a comic about vampires. And so, so July, we’re calling it Heartstrings & Hardbacks. It’s not only for hardbacks, but…

Sarah: Alliteration is important.

Oriana: And so, honestly what happened is we had a different name with an ampersand, and we all got so excited about how sexy ampersands are that we were like, We have to come up with a name that has an ampersand in it, so Heartstrings & Hardbacks. And so what happens during these prompts, any, any publishing project that is romance-specific that is live at any point in July – so it can launch in June, it could launch the end of, of July and run through August – we’re going to be doing extra newsletters, a dedicated landing page, extra resources, social promo, and I’m, like, out here doing stuff like this marvelous podcast, the panel next week, my Reddit AMA; like, all of these ways that, like, we’re just showing that, like, Kickstarter cares about romance and we want to see more of it, and we think this is, like, a great home for you to come and do your books and find great success.

Sarah: Oh, for sure! And if you’re going to unite a fandom and a creative person or an artist, the platform that allows both of those parties the most engagement and the biggest cut of the money that is made is, is a very, very attractive concept for many people, especially, especially because it’s harder and harder to make money selling books in retail spaces! Like, it’s just hard!

Oriana: Yeah. I think two, two really, really key things that make Kickstarter very special for authors is that our cut is five percent.

Sarah: Yep.

Oriana: Five percent. Also we have Stripe, who processes our payments; they take three to four percent. Even so, you’re paying less than ten percent in fees, which is so much less than you’re paying to any other avenue through which you might sell your books, and also Kickstarter is in the business of giving you your audience. This has been, like, foundational to Kickstarter since long before it kind of like mattered the way it matters now, but, like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Oriana: – as we see the continued fracturing and dissolution of social platforms, as we watch these, like, you know, mercurial to malevolent executives with a flick of the wrist change their algorithm in a way that now that, like, you know, a hundred thousand strong audience that you’ve worked so hard for, you can no longer access, or not as effectively.

Like, if you run a Kickstarter campaign, first of all, during the campaign you get a tremendous amount of data about where your backers are, where they’re coming from, are they using desktop or mobile? What time of day are they backing? Which of your promotional avenues have reached them? And then afterward you get everybody’s email addresses! You get to send them surveys. You get to ask them all sorts of questions. You know, like, this is just what Kickstarter has done –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Oriana: – but now, like, holding onto those direct avenues to reach your readers is so much more important than ever. This is something that, like, we can do for our authors that, like, Amazon’s not going to give you. You know, everything else is like a black box.

Sarah: So what are some strategies that you recommend for a romance author on Kickstarter? And conversely, what doesn’t always work?

Oriana: Yeah, such good questions. The, the tactics are not measurably different for romance authors than kind of any other authors? I mean, very broadly, you want to build your community before you start. You want to make sure that, like, Kickstarter can help you publishing projects; on average it’s like fifteen to thirty percent of your backers will come just through the Kickstarter ecosystem, and we track that in your dashboard so you can watch it, but you need to bring your audience first. You need to have a – this is one of my corniest lines, but, like, everybody thinks about the funding side of crowdfunding. You equally need to think just as much about the crowd. That’s what you’re doing with this kind of fundraising is you’re figuring out who is in my crowd? Where are they? How do I reach them? What do they want? How do I give it to them? So Kickstarter provides both the excuse and the mechanism to sort of like make those connections, and so one tactic that I recommend, especially for a first-time Kickstarter-er: talk to your audience before you start. Get them excited about the project as a concept? We’re going to be doing a box set; a special edition; recovers of our, my first series; a new book; a new genre. Whatever it is, start telling people about that –

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: – then you can say to them, And guess what? We’re going to do it on Kickstarter. Here are all the reasons why. The next step is, We’ve got a pre-launch page. Click this button to be notified on launch –

Sarah: Yep.

Oriana: – and make your account now so you can have access to those early bird rewards before they’re gone –

Sarah: Don’t miss out.

Oriana: – blah-blah-blah-blah, whatever it is you need to do. So this way, by the time you’ve launched you’ve really warmed up your audience in terms of what you’re doing; they’re really excited about it; they want it; they’ve removed all of that friction that’s going to stop them from, like, jumping on right away and giving you their money.

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: Yes. So that –

Sarah: And I think it’s an interesting audience, too, because some of the people who I’ve seen do campaigns on Kickstarter are like, We want to start a business; we want to do this. We want to do this thing, but we can’t do it without you. We want, we, we need your help to start the thing.

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: The, the starter part of Kickstarter. And then –

Oriana: Totally.

Sarah: – there’s people who are like, We’re doing this thing; you need to get in on it.

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: The thing will be done? You just want to get in now, as opposed to –

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: – not now, because then the thing –

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: – will be done, but you won’t be in it. And it’s –

Oriana: Totally!

Sarah: – it’s a very subtle difference, right?

Oriana: Yeah, and they both work equally well. I mean, you know, another sort of misconception that I’m often pushing against is people say, Oh, running a Kickstarter, that’s just like begging for charity. But it is exactly not. You are saying, Support me early in this creative endeavor and get stuff in return.

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: The reward structure at Kickstarter is also, I think, like, super exciting and really fun. Like, it allows you to give your audience not just the book – which, not to say “just;” I mean, the book itself is thrilling and incredible – but you can do all sorts of things with rewards that are – we were talking about Lucy Eden. Lucy con-, she convened a huge number of community creators who make candles and soaps and, like, scarves. All of these things – she got ones that were themed to the various books, so the box was full of not just books but swag and, like, all of these other – I think you can also do crazy conceptual rewards. I, Matt Dinniman, who writes LitRPG about zombies, for $666 he would kill you off in his next book, and for $677 he would bring you back to life.

Sarah: Ohhh!

Oriana: Think how delightful! I mean, for an author that you care so much about. I’ve also seen all kinds of naming rights: name the dragon after your dog, name the villain after your mother-in-law, name the prince after your son. Like, getting yourself, it just, like, it makes, fosters these connections between readers and writers –

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: – that are so deep and so thrilling. Like, where else in publishing do you get to do that?

Sarah: And it’s interesting because the concept – one of the things I actually wanted to ask you about, which wasn’t in my original suite of questions, but I am curious about your thoughts: I’ve been thinking a lot about the evolution of fandom and how fandom, in romance especially, has changed a lot. And I mean I’ve been, I’ve been running Smart Bitches for almost twenty years, so I’ve seen my own evolution as a fan and what I want to do and what I don’t want to do. But I, I look at that and I think, Okay, but people now understand where their art comes from, and social media has made it so that artists can say, Actually, here’s what it costs me to make these things, and –

Oriana: Totally.

Sarah: – people are more aware of and happy in most cases to support the artists that they like, whether it’s through Patreon or through Kickstarter. The understanding is, if I want this thing that I enjoy to continue, I need to help support it, and being able to do so where you know you’re doing so directly is –

Oriana: Totally.

Sarah: – is a big incentive, I think.

Oriana: Yeah. Yeah! Yeah, I couldn’t agree more, and, I mean, publishing, too, has – it’s so opaque. I mean, I’ve been, I, my, I spent my whole career in publishing, but if you gave me a Word document and said, Make me a book, I probably couldn’t.

Sarah: No! [Laughs]

Oriana: You know, it’s, so, like another thing that, like, these sorts of direct community supports can do is it can demystify that whole process. I mean, with Kickstarter, I’m sure with Patreon, anything else, like, you do backer updates; you say, like, Here’s the books coming in from the printer, or –

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: – Here’s the way that you get books! Did you know they come from Asia on a boat? Did you know – you know, like, Here’s how, like –

Sarah: Tracking my shipping container! Doo-doo-doo…

Oriana: [Laughs] Totally! Like a real sausage getting made, which gives people, I think, so much more respect –

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: – to their, for their creators who are doing it, and also just, like, I, I have to always tell people, like, Kickstarter backers are less price sensitive, they’re much more patient, because they are, like, seeing the world of creativity, like, come to life before their eyes.

Sarah: Right.

Oriana: You know, it’s not, not at all the same as, like, clicking a couple of links to, like, get a book that appears at your house delivered by some poor, you know, guy who’s, like, dodging the Ring cameras and, like, trying not to get a parking ticket. Like, you really get to, like, see all of the aspects of, like, how these things –

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: – develop and come to you.

Sarah: So starting with your fandom, engaging them, and then saying, Hey, and we’re going to do it on Kickstarter, and here’s the preorder page. Building a, a more active warm audience from an already warm audience is clearly a good strategy. What are some other strategies you recommend?

Oriana: Yeah, totally. So, you know, the next thing would be kind of like developing your project page? They’re both relatively simple and can be as complicated as you want. Choosing a strong project image is really important. I like that I work in books because it’s the same thing as choosing a good cover for your book. It is a harder explanation for, like, people who are doing films or art or various other things. You know, making good use of your title and subtitle. It’s, Kickstarter’s algorithm works on attention, not really as much on keywords? You can always tell when people are coming from KDP because the title of their project will be like Reverse Harem Lesbian Romance Set on the Moon rather than just, like, the title of their book –

Sarah: Yep!

Oriana: – ‘cause they’re so accustomed to having to lard everything up with keywords.

Sarah: Did a whole post about what I call the SEO titles.

Oriana: Yeah, a hundred percent. You really don’t have to do that –

Sarah: SEO titles are just everywhere.

Oriana: And I get it! I mean, no shade to people who…

Sarah: Absolutely I get it! It’s annoying –

Oriana: You don’t need to do that on Kickstarter.

Sarah: – but I get it.

Oriana: Not really going to help you. You know, you get to, Kickstarter’s really designed for storytelling, so your project page, of course you’re going to talk about the plot of your book, but you also can talk about who you are, what brought you to this work, what inspires you, collaborators, your timeline, your budget, anything that, like, is around the world of what you’re doing, and again, like, getting people into more of the guts of your creative life.

Developing your rewards, like, so, so exciting. I, I can go on and on about rewards for-truly-ever, which I won’t do, but I will just say, you know, as I sort of alluded to before, rewards, start with your physical item, you know, you start with your book, whether that’s eBook, audiobook, paperback, hardcover, deluxe, etc., whatever iterations, and then think about what other things you can do kind of above and below that. Some swag is fine if you know how to do swag. Swag is also an excellent way to ruin your life if you don’t, like, really understand your timeline, your budget, your production costs, your shipping rates, etc. And, like, really do try to think about partner rewards, event rewards, virtual rewards; like, things that you’re not going to have to, like, spend additional money to produce and ship. So that’s the sort of –

So, so we’ve talked about the, like, pre-campaign phase: that’s the, like, setting up your project, and then the running of it, you are going to shout from the rooftops to everyone you know, everyone you’ve ever thought about knowing, the audience you have, the audience you want. Think about every promotional avenue that’s available to you. Can you go on amazing podcasts like Smart Bitches –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Oriana: – to talk about your project? Can you get people on TikTok to do advance reviews? Can you get some press? Can you, like, you know, find, identify signal boosters, amplifiers in your community? Are there other projects on Kickstarter that have similar audiences? Reach out, talk to them, cross-promote via backer updates. Any avenue that’s available to you, you’re going to use it to push the hell out of this project, because – and people say, like, Oh no, I shouldn’t send so many emails or, like, make so many social posts. Like, I promise, the day your campaign closes you will get ten emails from people who will say, I had no idea you were running a campaign! I would have loved to support you! This is just the attention economy that we live in. Promote everywhere, all the time, in all the ways, as hard as you can.

Sarah: Yep! You are throwing pebbles into a roiling sea; keep throwing. Keep throwing!

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: Keep going. Yeah.

Oriana: Totally! More and more and more pebbles.

Sarah: What are some of your favorite rewards that you’ve seen? What are some things that made you thought, Oh, that’s brilliant? I love the idea –

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: – of killing somebody and bringing them back. I know Lucy Eden just showcases amazing artists and people who are creative and so good at what they do. What are some things that you think work really well as rewards?

Oriana: Yeah, totally. I think, you know, small stuff. People love stickers and bookmarks and enamel pins. Actually, though, beware with the enamel pins because if you’re shipping media rate in the US, an enamel pin will bump you right out of that. If you do, like, flat stuff made of paper like stickers and bookmarks and postcards you’re fine, but if you do anything that’s not a book, that’s going to dramatically change all of your shipping.

Sarah: Yep!

Oriana: I talked about naming rights, which I love. I also think, like, you know, notes from the field, outtakes; I’ve seen people write entirely new scenes to be as, like, bloopers, things like that. Or, you know, ad-, additional writing work that you have. If you’ve got a backlist, selling through your backlist titles as individuals or bundles is an excellent way to, like, bring people into your whole oeuvre? For the art, if you’ve got, we’re seeing, I mean, the special editions are, like, really going gangbusters on Kickstarter, and so…

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Oriana: – the rewards can kind of build on – I think the Bonkers Romance ladies have done custom vellum art inserts?

Sarah: Yep!

Oriana: So instead of having to do a split print run with different vari-, variations of illustration, they’ll do like ten vellum inserts, and you get to pick three that you like the best, that you get to put right into your own book so it looks, you know, specialized to you. If you have art, I’ve seen a lot of like prints of various sort of sizes; people want to hang that on their wall. Zoom studio tours, custom playlists of like twenty tracks I love to listen to while I write or a soundtrack to the book.

You know, I think also a really strong tactic for rewards, which is for Kickstarter altogether, if you are even a little bit Kickstarter curious, find five campaigns on the site and back them now, even for a dollar. Find and follow the creators out in the world. Start to get a sense of, like, what people are doing –

Sarah: Yeah!

Oriana: – the tone and cadence of their updates; the, like, what rewards have they offered? You can see what they’ve offered and also how many people have backed it. I, there’s another thing I say a lot, but, like, I’m an expert in Kickstarter because I stare at Kickstarter all day long –

Sarah: Yep!

Oriana: – and you too can stare at Kickstarter all day long, and you can find the best tactics and steal them and appropriate them just as your own, and that will help you find your own success.

Sarah: For sure!

What doesn’t work? What are some things that you think are not a good strategy? ‘Cause I can see people saying, Well, I shouldn’t send out, you know, all these email campaigns. No, you need to send out all those email campaigns; that is not a negotiable. What are some things that you’ve seen not fly well?

Oriana: You know, the success rate on Kickstarter in publishing – I actually have the statistic to share with you also – the success rate for the category overall on average is fifty-six percent, which is like kind of, it’s not as high as I would like it to be, and so I felt like, I don’t think that stat tells the whole story? So I asked for another metric, which is success rate for projects with at least twenty-five backers. In publishing, for that, the success rate is eighty-three percent.

Sarah: Ooh, wow!

Oriana: Yeah. So I think the biggest What Not to Do, like, if you are taking your campaign seriously, if you are able to reach twenty-five backers – that’s like a little bigger than, like, your mom, your best friend, you know, the folks who are sort of obligated to do, to back anything you do – if, if you can get beyond that and you have, like, done your homework, if you’re not dramatically overreaching and trying to raise forty-three million dollars as a brand-new baby emerging author, like, your chances of success are really high!

Sarah: Yeah. And if you are able to put together a successful campaign, in the end you could make more than you would have made with a publishing contract.

Oriana: Absolutely. You’re, yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: You do have to, like, manage shipment.

Oriana: In almost all cases.

Sarah: What are your –

Oriana: Of course, of course.

Sarah: What is your advice for people who are like, Yeah, but the fulfillment!

Oriana: Yeah, it’s a lot! I mean, you have to be prepared for that, a hundred percent, and there’s, of course there’s, like, economies of scale with that. You know, if you’re talking about fulfilling to a hundred backers, two hundred backers, that sounds like you’re going to get all the books shipped to your house, all of your associated rewards; you’re going to get all the neighborhood kids, buy ‘em some pizza, and spend a Saturday putting books in boxes.

Sarah: Yep.

Oriana: If you’re talking about –

Sarah: Get ready to make room in the garage for all those boxes.

Oriana: Yeah, exactly, exactly. If you’re talking about thousands of books and if you’re shipping internationally and you have much more, a larger number of SKUs, much more complicated rewards system, you can work with a fulfillment partner. There are warehousing companies, you know, like – all of these folks will take a cut, of course, but a lot of great companies, Lulu and Ingram for sure and, like, many smaller print shops are starting to do, they will do some fulfillment on your behalf. You could do stuff like tip-in sheets for autographs, rather than getting the books shipped to you, signing them, then distributing them. You can get, you know, tip-ins and send those back to get those bound into the book and then – I mean, I, I shouldn’t speak specifically for, like, Lulu and Ingram, but I believe there are many options of this nature –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Oriana: – to, like, offload some of that fulfillment work and reduce your costs on it. But yeah, you know, I mean, I can’t stress enough all of the, like, pre-work you need to do to make sure you really understand what you’re in for. Like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: – all of these benefits will come for you, but also, like, you will have to do all the work.

Sarah: Yeah!

Oriana: So make sure that you have not set yourself up for failure by being overly ambitious; by, like, skirting around bothering to do a full budget. Like, get book samples and go to the post office and weigh them –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Oriana: – and understand –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Oriana: – what the costs are to ship to all the different places where you’re going to offer it. You know, like, just really, really do your homework so that you understand what this will all mean for you in order to get –

Sarah: Oh yeah. I was selling stickers for a time on my site, and I had put together the envelope of every little thing that was going to go in them, and I actually brought them to the post office, and I said, My scales say that this is acceptable for a Forever mail stamp, international or domestic, and I can use a Forever stamp internationally to send this envelope. Is that right? I did not know this: the person behind the post office desk picked up a little fake door and slid the letter into a fake mail slot on the door. The mail slot was standard size –

Oriana: Ohhh!

Sarah: – and they said, For international, it has to fit through a mail slot with no problems, and this is fine, and I was like, I did not know about the fake door test! I did not know about this!

Oriana: [Laughs] Really!

Sarah: Thank God I went to the post office!

Oriana: That is so cool!

Sarah: Isn’t that wild? And they’re like, Yeah, no, it has to –

Oriana: Yeah, it has to…

Sarah: – fit through this particular size of a mail slot, and I was like, Wow! Glad I, yeah, glad I asked.

Oriana: I, another little plug I’ll give – this is not like an official Kickstarter endorsement, but as a human I recommend, there’s a Facebook group, a private Facebook group called Kickstarter for Authors. It’s run by an author, Anthea Sharp, who’s a romance novelist. She’s a romantasy writer. It is incredible. It’s about four thousand, maybe forty-five hundred people, and, like, I, you know, I dip into it sometimes. I try not to, like, put my thumb on any scales, but, like, it is just writers all day long saying, Did you know this unique fact about expedited shipping to Canada? Or where are you getting your sprayed edges? Or does anybody have experience with, like, split shipments and, like, these – it’s just people sharing tips, tricks, strategies, asking each other questions. It is incredible! I really, to be honest, I thought that I was, like, fully done with Facebook; I had, like, completely extricated myself from that mess; but this group is, like, so good that I do, like, I come in sometimes just to, like, see what people are talking about, and it is, I just think it is so helpful to any author who is on this path.

Sarah: I just need you to know you’re not alone. I deleted my Facebook permanently in like 2018, and I –

Oriana: Good job.

Sarah: – created a new Facebook this year, like a couple of weeks ago, solely to use Marketplace and local groups –

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: – because my local Buy Nothing group is terrific, my local Bulletin Board group is amazing, and I’m like, Aw, I’ve got to – and I was using someone else’s account, and I was like, Well, I can’t say anything ‘cause I’m under their name; I’m just reading…

Oriana: [Laughs]

Sarah: And I was like, I’ve got to get back on Facebook for groups? Ugh!

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: And yes! And yet! Yet! I know so many things now! I know –

Oriana: It’s incredible.

Sarah: – all the things!

Oriana: Well, and I really think that that speaks to where we’re moving into; like, how different this moment soc-, in, like, the social media landscape than even two years ago. You know, like –

Sarah: Oh gosh, yes!

Oriana: – this is, in addition to that sort of, like, hundred true fans, like, it’s much more important to have, you know, a smaller number of people who, like, extremely actually give a shit about what you’re doing, as opposed to, like, maybe passively notice you once in a while while doomscrolling. Like, I think we’re just moving into these, like, small, intimate groups –

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: – as opposed to the like one to like very, very, very many that we were sitting in for a while.

Sarah: Oh yes.

Oriana: That’s community, that’s what community-building looks like. I mean, I wish I was not, you know, contributing to Mark Zuckerberg’s various takeovers of the world, but, like –

Sarah: Thank you, yes.

[Laughter]

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: Me too!

Oriana: That’s where you find the people who are doing the same things you’re doing, and that’s really important for all of us as creative people, but just as, like, people in the world.

Sarah: Yeah, and barriers to entry for getting on Facebook are very low, and now, of course, you know –

Oriana: Right.

Sarah: – I friend one person, Facebook knows I am going back to, like, my date of birth.

The other thing I think that’s interesting about how we are, we are forming into little communities is that, it seems to me that in a large way publishing is still chasing the big many. Like, they’re –

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: – so focused on TikTok right now, and I’m like –

Oriana: Sure.

Sarah: – I don’t, I don’t understand how this is a viable pathway to revenue. It is a fad, and I can see it’s selling books, and I can see everybody –

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: – putting out their TikTok table, and this book’s big on TikTok! And every other book on Amazon in the title says Big on TikTok; TikTok Sensation; a Gripping, Thrilling, Heart-rending with a Twist Blah-blah-blah Trope-Trope-Trope. We, we have all of these places where it’s like a fire hose; where it’s like many, many, many, many, many huge things; and it’s so hard to actually, like you said, quantify what are the actual sales? And –

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: – also, are those people ever going to see you again, or did they just drive by and see you while they’re doomscrolling? You, you can’t go from – I mean, you probably can, but it’s going to be several steps to go from, Oh, I saw you on TikTok to, Now I’m on your newsletter.

Oriana: Right, right, right, absolutely.

Sarah: That’s a very passive form of absorbing information, and I think people, like you said, are now trending towards actively curating where they’re getting their information on purpose.

Oriana: Yep. Yeah, the sort of like real recommendations from people you know –

Sarah: Yes.

Oriana: – as opposed to, like, a trend you may or may not have noticed –

Sarah: Yes.

Oriana: – that you only sort of understood and barely cared about. I mean, and yeah, I think it’s the same, like, if, even if you do get a book on TikTok, are we sure you’re going to read it? Are we sure it’s going to resonate with you? Is that going to be the author that you would pay five hundred dollars for naming rights to the characters in their next book?

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: Probably not.

Sarah: No, I, I see, I sicced, I see TikTok and Instagram as the aesthetification of reading? It’s not exactly the book; it’s the vibes and the aesthetic of the book.

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: And you, and it’s weird, it’s so weird to me, because you see, like, romantasy, the cover has to match the vibes inside the book. If you’re going to give me cozy, soft-focus, like, pretty Bob-Ross-style paintings of a cottage, then I’d better feel those vibes. Whereas with contemporary it’s like you could have a whole other set of humans on the cover and have nothing to do with inside, and that’s fine.

Oriana: Yep, yep, yep.

Sarah: And it must be weird for you to see, seeing different subgenre project on Kickstarter, they’re so very different from each other, even though they’re in the same major genre, ‘cause the, the subgenres –

Oriana: Yeah. No, totally.

Sarah: – right now also operate so differently!

Oriana: Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, I mean, there are more and more and more romance projects all the time. I don’t, we are not at any kind of like saturation point yet when there’s like dozens of available projects at any moment for every single subgenre –

Sarah: Right.

Oriana: – but I think that what that has led to is people being like, Well, normally I read only contemporary, but this historical looks pretty lovely, or like, Maybe I can try for a little spice because I’m so impressed by the special edition and the way this person has made it, or like, you know, Maybe I will, like, move a little, I’ll put a toe into romantasy because I’m, like, really touched by the way this person told their story or filmed their video or whatever.

Sarah: Yep.

Oriana: So I think that’s really exciting too.

Sarah: It is very exciting.

So I am curious about your book. I want to ask you about your book. You wrote a book called Brooklyn Spaces – speaking of very specific curated small communities. I – could you tell me about this? This sounds so cool. I want to know all about your book; please tell me everything.

Oriana: Thank you! That’s super sweet. Yeah, I did! I did; it’s true. It came out almost ten years ago, which is wild. It…

Sarah: Heyyy! It’s a classic!

Oriana: It’s a classic. I…

Sarah: My book came out in 2009; I’m feeling ya. [Laughs]

Oriana: Totally, yeah! I, actually, somebody messaged me about it, and I’m not sure how you can – I, I, I don’t think, I think it’s in that, that weird gray area where it’s not, like, out of print, but nor is it exactly for sale anywhere? Although I think there’s some used copies on Amazon; I need to write to my agent.

Yeah, you know, it sort of, I was very much in the right place at the right time. I had mentioned at the, earlier, that I had a career in digital media? I was just sort of like in Brooklyn, bouncing around, going to all of these, like, weird, strange, wonderful spaces. I haven’t talked about this in a while, but I think the, the sort of inception was in one weekend I went to, my sister’s an anarchist, so she took me to the 123 Community Center, which was in a squatted basement where they would do, like, pancake breakfasts, bicycle fixing, anarchist reading hours…

Sarah: As you do!

Oriana: As you do, obviously. I went to that; I went to something called the Bushwick Trailer Park, which was a group of artists who had put a bunch of Airstream trailers in a warehouse and built like a little, sort of like community neighborhood inside, until the fire department came and was like, We don’t understand what this is, and we don’t have a regulation against it, but it just seems bad. We’re going to have to evict you. [Laughs] And this place called the House of Yes, which is a very wild aerialist performance venue, also in north Brooklyn.

Anyway, I just, so I was going to all these places and feeling like, God, my life is so impressive and incredible and wonderful, getting to just see this, like, unbelievable amount of creativity all around me all the time. And, like, yeah, the 123 Community Center got evicted; the Bushwick Trailer Park, they were called at something like flood regu- – I don’t even know what they threw at them to get them out – the House of Yes burnt down, although they then rebuilt.

But so I thought, Gosh, there’s, like the thing with these spaces, these, like, weird DIY underground bizarre spaces, like, they’re so fleeting. There’s, and they’re only, they exist on the back of, like, usually one person, like, forgoing sleep and socialization and all sense, just to, like, keep them going, and I just wanted, I was walking around saying, like, there should be a record. There should be a record of the existence of these weird and wonderful places before they are gone, and I said it enough times that people said back to me, Make that record! You just have to do it then, if that’s something you want so badly. And so I started writing about them; eventually I was able to, like, parlay that into a book deal. It was a blog for a long time; I covered probably a hundred spaces on the blog. The book is fifty spaces. All of the, it’s all done through interviews with the people who run them, photo shoots with various friends of mine who are willing to contribute their time. I, like, the idea was gestating and, like, coming along for a long time, and then when I finally got the book deal they were like, Yes, we’ll do it, but it was like the apotheosis of sort of like Brooklyn as brand? They were like, We need this book to come out in six months, so you need to write it in three.

Sarah: Oy!

Oriana: So I spent a summer just, like, biking hither and yon; interviewing all of the weirdest, coolest people; and putting a book together; and yeah! So it came out. I would say, of the fifty spaces, probably, maybe twenty are still open, which is –

Sarah: Wow.

Oriana: – actually more, ten years later, than I could have hoped for? Yeah! So that was my sort of journey into chronicling the incredible weirdness of Brooklyn in, you know, the twenty-teens or whatever it was.

Sarah: That’s so cool! That’s just so cool!

Oriana: Yeah.

Sarah: And, and you’re right: there are, there are so many spaces, both virtual and actual, that are in danger. I mean, Twitter is probably held together by duct tape and some dental floss at this point.

Oriana: A hundred percent. Totally.

Sarah: One of the projects that I’m doing on the podcast is to recap an old magazine called Romantic Times, which went out of business in 2016. Very few of the issues are digitized, and I’ve been sent them or bought them on eBay, and not all of them are in the, there’s one library of popular culture in Bowling Green State, and they have most of them, but they don’t even have all of them. And so recapping this magazine, which was also a conference like Readers Take Denver.

Oriana: Ohhh!

Sarah: A lot of the, I think a lot of the hope for Readers Take Denver and Steamy Lit Con comes from the fact that Romantic Times Book Lovers Convention was a behemoth. It was thousands of people; it was the romance fan con for many years; and then it abruptly ended in, like, I don’t know, 2016? 2017? A new conference tried to take its place. Then there was a pandemic, and now we’re sort of coming out of the, the pandemic isolation thinking, Oh, conferences is a thing we used to do, and the ones that we had don’t exist anymore, or we don’t want to go, and so you have this, like, new energy for finding these spaces together.

I think it’s really fascinating that your career has included both writing up virtual spaces and creating virtual spaces, but also writing about actual spaces that themselves were so fragile and transient that they were almost virtual, except that they were in a real place for a time being.

Oriana: Yeah, I’m in, you know, I’m old enough now that I can do the thing where I look back and go, Yes, yes, my career was clearly a straight line leading me to exactly where I was, when of course at the time and always I had no absolute idea –

Sarah: None. Mm-mm.

Oriana: – what I was doing at all. But yeah, there are, that’s a through line. The other through line that I think is kind of marvelous: my whole – so, when the book was coming out, my editor and my agent were like, Can you write some other things so that people, like, know your name and want to buy your book? That’s how I, like, accidentally also became an arts and culture journalist? But all of my writing always was kind of like in service other people –

Sarah: Yeah!

Oriana: – like, propping up, you know, doing a review of this play or an exploration of, like, this event or chronicling this, like, cool piece of architecture that nobody really knew about. And so, you know, I started at Kickstarter and like a year on I was talking to someone I knew from, like, my writing life, and she was like, You haven’t done any writing! I mean, I guess you’re so busy, but don’t you miss it? And I was like, You know, strangely, I have not felt a squelching of the creative urge. Like, you know, there’s no part of me that’s like, Oh woe, if only I had more time. And she said, Well, it really makes sense because you’ve sublimated that same urge to help people into this thing that you’re doing like, still I am working in service of propping up other people’s creativity and, like, helping them find success, and so I think that’s pretty lovely. [Laughs]

Sarah: But I do think, I do think that’s (a) a marvelous through line, but also a very particular people skill that not everyone has, that isn’t appreciated, that you don’t necessarily need to be the person doing the thing; you need to be the person connecting the person doing the thing with the person who wants to see it. Being able to connect two very disparate groups of people and two very disparate individuals is an art skill. Like, it’s, it’s an artistic skill, and not everyone has it.

Oriana: Yeah, totally. Yeah, you know, I mean, I – [laughs] – I was reluctant to come to Kickstarter. I did not think that this was the job that I wanted. I actually, just before this, I, I was in my, I got tricked into a marketing job, so…ever.

Sarah: Nooo! No, not a marketing job! Nooo!

Oriana: It was so bad. It was like a year-long slow-motion catastrophe, and I was extricating from that mess, and I was like, Man, I really just want to go back to proofreading fantasy novels in my pajamas, and this Kickstarter thing came up, and I was – really, I had to, I knew someone who was part of the whatever, and she had to ask me like three times: Are you going to apply? Because we’re going to start doing interviews. So, you know, I really did not really know at all what I was walking into, and it, like, accidentally is this kind of really just perfect intersection of, like, all of these disparate skills that I have that accidentally really work well together to, like, do this thing that, like, like I said earlier, like, there’s no analog to. Like, what other job could I have where I could, like, combine this really strange, weird set of skills and, I think, have, like, really great success?

Sarah: Yeah. That’s brilliant!

Oriana: Pretty good.

Sarah: Well played!

Oriana: Thanks! [Laughs]

Sarah: Now, I always ask: what books are you reading that you would want to tell people about?

Oriana: Oh my God. My favorite book from last year was Big Swiss by Jen Beagin. Are you aware of this book? ‘Cause it’s…

Sarah: I am not; tell me everything.

Oriana: So the basic plot is that our heroine, she’s like mid-forties, she kind of torches her relationship, moves across the country, and finds this, like, old friend of hers who’s living in a gigantic farmhouse in the Hudson Valley in like upstate New York. One entire floor of the farmhouse has been taken over by beehives. She gets, like, mini goats. Her friend is like this kooky character, and so she gets to the Hudson Valley, our hero. She gets a job as a transcriptionist for the town’s only sex therapist? So she sits at home all day, like, transcribing all of these sessions, so now she knows everyone in town by voice and sexual foible –

Sarah: Oh boy!

Oriana: – and of course she later goes out and finds one of the patients. They fall in love. Insane hijinks ensue. It is one of the funniest books I’ve, like, literally ever read. Also one of the sexiest. Just, like, so tremendously fantastic. I made – there’s a little Kickstarter book club – I made them read the book.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Oriana: I’ve been, like, yeah, passing it to everybody. I loved it so much, I got Jen’s first book that I just finished last month, which, like, it is also really weird and wonderful, but it’s so clearly, like, this is the first book written by the person who will go on to write Big Swiss?

Sarah: Yeah.

Oriana: Like, a lot of the same early building blocks are there. There’s, actually , both of them have a dog named Piñon, and it’s like – [laughs]

Sarah: As you do!

Oriana: Like, yeah. So she’s my, she is my current, and then the other one I was going to say – oh, this is also from last year – Plain Bad Heroines? Is this a book that you are familiar with?

Sarah: I have heard of this one.

Oriana: I forget the name of the author; I hope that your listeners will look it up. [Emily M. Danforth] I, actually, I saved this ‘cause it’s a big book and, like, I live in Brooklyn; I do most of my reading on the go. I need it to be, like, light enough to carry in my bike basket –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Oriana: – so I saved this for, like, the depths of winter, when I was not leaving and could just sit on my couch and read it? It’s got two plots, the old plot and the modern plot, and so the old plot – this is like minor-ly spoiler-y, but it’s, like, very, very, like the first chapter of the book. It’s these two young women in an all-girls boarding school out, I think, in Maine. They fall in love and then die tragically. And then, so fast forward to the modern story, where someone has written a book the, like, literary joy and this, like, young girl of the moment wrote a book about the, about these women, and it’s being made into a movie starring the current celesbian? Amazing portmanteau. So there, so our three modern characters are the writer, the celesbian, and a, a supporting character, and then of course they have some very sexy hijinks, and it also, like, goes back into – and it’s like, the book is, like, really, really voice-y? The narrator is like a character that you never understand kind of who she is until the very end. It’s also, like, very sweet, very sexy, very Gothic. Yeah.

So those are my, my two favorite books I’ve read recently.

Sarah: Thank you! Where can people find you if you wish to be found? And if you don’t wish to be found, that’s okay! You do not have to be found!

Oriana: [Laughs] I mean, I’ve got a weird name, and I’m very online, so if you want to find me you can. I am @orianabklyn on most social platforms, though I am spending less and less time on said platforms. But, you know, I’m out in the world a lot. Come, come to The Ripped Bodice next Friday. Come find me at various Kickstarter events and presentations and AMAs and conventions and, you know, I, if you want to find me, it’s not super hard. Do reach out. Let me know how I can help you, how I can support your work.

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Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you to Oriana for connecting with me and sharing so many insights about basically what works on Kickstarter and what doesn’t. I think it’s really kind of cool to get all that behind-the-scenes detail.

I will have links to all of the books and things we talked about in the show notes, as usual.

And, as always, I end with a terrible joke. This joke is from Bull.

What is more dangerous than a formal tea?

Give up? What’s more dangerous than a formal tea?

A casualty.

[Laughs] Thank you, Bull, for that absolutely terrible joke. [Snorts] Casual tea!

On behalf of everyone here – including the cats, who are snoring; I hope the mic is not picking that up – we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we will see you back here next week.

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

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