Case Study: The Romance Anthology That Hit Over 1 Million Dollars in Pledges
A conversation with authors and creators Ali Hazelwood and Adriana Herrera about their wildly successful Kickstarter campaign.
Ali Hazelwood and Adriana Herrera's After the End: A Dystopian Romance Collection, featuring "eight original stories exploring love after the end of the world," is, as of now, Kickstarter's biggest publishing project of 2025. The overlap of romance, the apocalypse, and the authors' playful sense of humor ("After The End, we'll still have HEAs," they write on the project page) has clearly resonated with folks: With a few days to go in the campaign, Hazelwood and Herrera have surpassed their goal of $10,000 to go comfortably over $1 million.
We were curious about their process, their path as creators, and what they thought had contributed to that kind of success, so we asked them a few questions.
What is it about Romance that captures your imagination?
Ali Hazelwood: Absolutely everything! Romance is such a sprawling genre, which means that there is something for everyone. You like thrillers? You like historical fiction? Sports, or sci-fi, or fantasy? You get to have that, with a side of a delicious love story that is going to take you on a roller coaster ride but has a guaranteed happy ending.
Adriana Herrera: What is not to capture the imagination… The very premise of it is radical. We all deserve a happily ever after no matter who we are. What is more powerful than that? Romance is also such an amazing literary space to explore your own desires safely as well as to learn about other lived experiences, because you know everything will be okay in the end.
There are clearly many other fans of the genre out there, too. This is likely part of the project's success, but why do you think this project, in particular, has been so successful?
Adriana: When Ali and began to talk about doing a project together we knew the most important thing was to invite authors we were personally obsessed with and that we wanted them to have the most supportive writing experience we could give them. Romance readers love to hear other readers gush about books. We love reading these books in community and I think there is something really powerful in creating a space for folks to become excited about a project. To see our enthusiasm about the stories we were bringing to them.
Ali: Because people are hungry for projects that are powered by creatives, projects that are diverse, and above all projects in which authors haven’t had to compromise their creative vision!
Brandon Smithwrick
At the end of the project video, you thank folks for watching, and also mention it was awkward to make. I appreciated that honesty. And, you write the project updates almost like blog posts. I feel like part of the success could also be relatability, folks seeing themselves in you. Or, they feel like they know you, as friends. There's approachability here.
Ali: A big part of it is that this project feels like we are in conversation with our community! We may be writers and publishers within the context of After The End, but we’re first and foremost readers. We’re talking to our people, using the same language we’d use if we were chatting about books in DMs or over coffee.
Adriana: What Ali said! The two of us have become such great friends not in a small part because our shared love of this genre and because we love a lot of the same books. That connection between romance readers is strong and we knew folks would understand our language.
What do you get out of this creative work and what has it taught you about yourself?
Ali: I began writing at a time in my life when I was very stressed out, and I quickly realized that writing (just like reading) is a great way for me to both work through my issues and forget about real life.
Adriana: I’ve always loved reading and romance has been a soft landing for most of my life. Like Ali, I turned to writing Romance at a time when the world was feeling very unsafe for me and my community. As an immigrant and a Black Latine and queer woman, I felt a strong need to write stories of people who looked and sounded like me getting the love stories and bright futures we deserve.
What makes a good creative collaboration?
Ali: To me, it’s so important that everyone feels like they can go wild, run with their ideas and creativity, and see where they take them. That’s something traditional publishing often can’t afford to let authors do—but with a project like ours, it’s a whole different ball game.
Adriana: Trust and respect for the stories and giving folks what they need to be their freest creative selves. Ali and I work well as partners because first and foremost we love great romance and we are very passionate about creating something that people who are like us can get excited (and maybe a little feral) about.
You funded in under four minutes, and had almost 700k in the first 24 hours. It seems like you really set yourself up for success. Can you offer some tips to first-time creators? How did you manage to have so much interest at the very start of your campaign?
Ali: A huge part of it was the social media/newsletter work done in the months before! Everyone in the anthology made sure that their readership was aware that the project would happen. In turn, those readerships helped us spread the word.
Adriana: We were very intentional on how we rolled out the project. We made sure we had branding that was distinct and recognizable. We planned content months ahead of time. We made sure to include our contributing authors in all the key decisions without requiring them to do the heavy lifting in getting the word out about the project. We also made sure to provide them with assets and resources for them to share with their readers and on their own platforms.
With a success this big, I imagine there's also a lot of stress. How do you avoid burnout?
Adriana: Having a great partner in Ali has helped. We really compliment each other’s ideas and are so aligned in our vision for what we wanted to bring to readers with After the End.
To be honest this has been such a rewarding experience at every level, that I have not felt burnt out, if anything I am ready for the next one!
Lastly, what's something you wish someone told you when you began to make art?
Ali: That just because it’s fun, it doesn’t mean it’s always easy. And that’s okay!
Adriana: That sometimes it takes a while to figure out what it is you are there to say, and that discovery is one of the best parts of making art.
The campaign for After the End: A Dystopian Romance Collection is up until Tuesday, September 23.
