It’s the wrong end of January to wish you a Happy New Year, but I hope that 2018 is treating you well so far.

My crowdfunding campaign for The Disappeared is now 40% funded so the target is getting ever closer.

I wrote something on my own blog recently about why readers should consider supporting an author’s crowdfunding campaign and I wanted to share a condensed version of that with you.

Here are three reasons to feel good about supporting a crowdfunding campaign:

Every pledge means the world to the author

When someone supports your book, it’s a fantastic feeling. You creep a little closer to your target and get a big wave of validation.

It’s especially exciting when that person isn’t someone you know. Because that means they’ve happened upon your campaign and they LIKE THE SOUND OF YOUR BOOK. They want to read it. They think of you as a real author (this is very exciting).

New and different voices have a chance to be heard

With studies showing that people are buying fewer books, the big publishers are looking for a guaranteed formula for success. That might mean a book with a celebrity author or something in an already successful genre. They want to publish books that will sell.

But that doesn’t always leave much space for new authors, who don’t bring guaranteed audiences with them.

Crowdfunding gives those people a voice, because it takes away some of the risk for the publisher, allowing readers to choose the books they want to see published.

And that brings me to the final point…

The reader becomes part of the journey

As a reader, you don’t often get to influence the publishing industry in a real way. But with crowdfunding, you can.

In an obvious way you become a part of the books you fund, with your name on the list of supporters in the back of the book.

But you also get to follow the author through the publishing process. You get to invest in making this book a reality.

And when the process is complete and the book arrives, you can look up at your shelf and know that you made someone’s dream a reality. You gave them the chance to tell the story they desperately wanted to share. You made them feel, finally, like a real writer.

This post was originally published here.