Kickstarter for books: what a campaign costs

General information about costs and fees, not financial or tax advice. Our guide to how to pay for a book covers crowdfunding alongside presales and bulk orders; this is the deep dive.

How the money works

Kickstarter is all-or-nothing. You set a goal and a deadline; "If the project falls short of its funding goal, no one is charged" (Kickstarter). A campaign can run from one day to 60, and Kickstarter says it tends to see 30 days work best. Once you launch, the goal and the deadline are locked, and a campaign cannot be paused, only cancelled and relaunched (Kickstarter).

If you reach the goal, backers' cards are charged when time runs out. The payout for the campaign is sent 14 days after the deadline (Kickstarter Help Center). So the money for printing reaches you two weeks after the campaign ends, not while it runs. Plan the print order for after that date.

Not every pledge turns into money. Backers whose payment fails get 7 days from the deadline to fix it; after that their pledge is dropped. Kickstarter still pays out what was collected, less fees, even if dropped pledges take the total below your goal, and you remain liable for delivering the project and its rewards (Kickstarter Help Center). The total shown on your page does not change, so read the backer report, not the headline number.

One rule shapes a book project: Kickstarter is for making creative work, and you "can't create a campaign solely to raise money for yourself." A book qualifies. Kickstarter also says creators should factor a salary for themselves into the budget, which is worth taking seriously if the campaign will take weeks of your time.

What Kickstarter takes

For a project based in the US, from Kickstarter's fees page:

Fees are taken "only from successfully collected pledges," so a dropped pledge costs you nothing in fees (Kickstarter Help Center). The per-pledge 30 cents matters more on small pledges: on a $15 ebook pledge, fees come to $1.50, or 10%.

What each reward costs you

Every physical reward has three costs: printing the book, packing it and posting it. Here is how we priced each for a 50,000-word nonfiction book, which our calculator lays out as a 140-page, 6 x 9 paperback.

Printing. On Amazon KDP, a 140-page black-ink paperback costs $1.00 plus $0.012 a page, or $2.68, and author copies cost the print price with no further discount (KDP, KDP author copies). KDP shows the cost of shipping those copies to you only at checkout, so get a real figure before you set reward prices. IngramSpark is the alternative for larger orders: its print price for this book is higher, but it takes 2% off orders of 100 or more and more at higher volumes (see what IngramSpark costs). For a print run of a thousand or more, compare offset quotes; the printing guide explains when that pays.

Postage. In the US, books can travel by USPS Media Mail, which is for "eligible books, media, and educational materials." Books must have at least eight pages, and if a parcel holds anything that is not allowed, "you (or your recipient) will have to pay higher postage rates" (USPS). A tote bag or a mug in the same box breaks the rule. Retail Media Mail prices, effective October 4, 2026:

Source: USPS Notice 123, Price List. Postage is priced on the packed weight, so weigh a finished book in its mailer.

For weight, IngramSpark's spine and weight calculator gives 0.438 lb for a 140-page, 6 x 9 paperback on 50 lb white paper. One book in a light mailer should stay under 1 lb, and three under 2 lb, but your printer's paper and your packaging decide that, so check on a scale. For backers outside the US, check current rates with USPS or your carrier for each country you will ship to before you offer international rewards.

Packing. Mailers, tape, labels and your time. Prices vary too widely to quote, so get your own.

A budget template

Kickstarter's advice is that the goal "should cover everything you need to deliver on your promises," including reward production, shipping and packaging, fees and "a small buffer for surprises" (Kickstarter). Fill in each line for your own book:

Then use Kickstarter's own check: goal divided by your average pledge gives the number of backers you need. If you cannot name roughly that many people who are likely to back the book, lower the costs or the scope before you launch.

A worked campaign

This is an illustration, not a forecast. Suppose the campaign pays for the second half of the book: proofreading, cover, print and ebook layout, ten ISBNs, copyright registration and the reward copies. The calculator prices those at $4,264.68 for a 50,000-word book with 160 author copies, at typical freelance rates. The author offers three rewards, all shipped within the US:

Our arithmetic from Kickstarter's US fees, KDP's print cost and USPS retail Media Mail prices, October 21, 2026. Before mailers and the cost of shipping author copies to you.

Now say 180 people back it: 60 take the ebook, 100 the signed paperback and 20 the three-pack. That is $5,400 raised, an average of $30 a pledge, and 160 printed copies.

A $5,400 goal covers the budget with about $108 to spare, and that has to pay for mailers and for shipping 160 copies from the printer to you. It is too thin. If 10% of pledges dropped, the campaign would fall short of its own costs while still owing every collected backer a book. Raising the goal to about $6,000 gives a buffer worth having, which at $30 a pledge means about 200 backers.

Two things this example shows. First, $13.50 of a $15 ebook pledge reaches the book, against $20.23 of a $30 paperback pledge: the cheap digital tier is the most efficient one. Second, about a third of every signed-paperback pledge, $9.77 of the $30, goes to fees, printing and postage before any of the book is paid for.

Taxes

Kickstarter's guide for accountants says that "in general, in the US, funds raised on Kickstarter are considered income," that project expenses may offset it, and that creators over the IRS thresholds receive a Form 1099-K from its payment processor, Stripe (Kickstarter and Taxes). Sales tax can also apply to physical rewards. When you use Kickstarter's Pledge Manager, Kickstarter's subsidiary acts as a marketplace facilitator and calculates, collects and remits sales tax on qualifying rewards shipped to US backers, using the item details you provide (Kickstarter Help Center).

The timing can matter too, for example if you raise money in December and print in January. Ask an accountant before you launch, not after.

Indiegogo by comparison

Indiegogo charges 5% of the amount collected plus processing of 3% and $0.20 per payment, and nothing if the project misses its goal (Indiegogo, last updated October 13, 2026). On the 180-pledge campaign above, that is $468 in fees against Kickstarter's $486. The difference is small; the audience you can bring to the page matters far more than the platform you choose.

Mistakes that sink book campaigns

• Setting the goal at the production cost. Fees, printing and postage come out first. Build the goal from the template above, not from the editor's quote.
• Free shipping without a price for it. Postage on the signed paperback above is $4.39, more than the $2.68 the book costs to print.
• Extras that change the postage. A non-book item in the parcel loses Media Mail rates and adds weight.
• Too many tiers. Each one is another item to source, pack and track.
• Counting the headline total. Plan on what is collected after dropped pledges, which Kickstarter's backer report shows.
• Printing before the payout. The money arrives 14 days after the deadline.

Before you set the goal, work out the cost of the book itself in the calculator. Scribe Media, which makes this site, sells publishing with editing, design and distribution included, from $4,833 a month for 6 months, $29,000 in total (scribemedia.com/pricing). For an author with an audience ready to back the book, a well-budgeted campaign can pay for much of a freelance-built book instead.