A book for AFOLs, from AFOLS

“We should definitely do more for AFOLs in the book area.”

That was one of major takeaways from the 2019 Books for AFOLs Workgroup, according to Sanne Dollerup, Project Manager in the AFOL Engagement Team. The Workgroup ran with 51 AFOL participants, who took part in a survey and discussion around the possibility of LEGO books targeted at adults.

There are of course plenty of LEGO books targeted at AFOLs already on shelves by other publishers, so it was important to understand how the LEGO Group could make this one special, Sanne explains.

“After working with the AFOL Engagement team to survey the LEGO Ambassadors Network, we confirmed our belief that AFOLs love books and are looking for information that no other publisher can provide,” says Robin James Pearson, Director of LEGO Publishing.

This was to a book for AFOLs, with AFOLs as involved in the process as possible.

“We believe there is a strong opportunity to support and serve the AFOL community with a niche, targeted, co-created book that answer the specific needs of this important audience,” Robin explains.

But what should the book be about?

“Initially we wanted to do this crowdsourcing of ideas via LEGO Ideas, but with the risk of competitors stealing those ideas we felt it was better in a more closed form – and then came the idea of doing a workshop with LAN Ambassadors,” states Sanne.

While the Workgroup involved participant giving basic feedback into AFOL books, the workshop was much smaller and more focused on book topics. The workshop ran virtually in June 2020 with 14 hand-picked AFOL volunteers. These volunteers gave feedback to directly to the strategic publish partner AMEET, referred by The LEGO Group’s publishing partner Unbound, on 5 possible topics – helping the team narrow down the choice to the 3 featured in the LEGO Ideas vote:

The Brick Museum         

LEGO History in 100 Bricks

The Secret Life of LEGO Bricks   

Next came the fan vote on LEGO Ideas, where participants voted on which book they’d most prefer. The results were announced in August, the first AFOL co-created LEGO book would be…

From crowdsourcing the book moved into crowdfunding through Unbound.

“We want to offer AFOLs books that are just for them, books that wouldn't find a commercial outlet at retail because they are too focused and made specifically for the adult LEGO fan,” says Robin. To do that, it was necessary to crowdfund the book – to ensure there was a market for it.

Funding did not take long.

“We launched the crowdfunding in August and just 2 weeks later the book was fully funded!” exclaims Sanne.

Not bad for a book which technically has not been written. Not that AFOL author Daniel Konstanski was not already busy doing research.

“Having an AFOL for the author means he knows what questions are relevant, “says Sanne. “Our partner at AMEET is [also] an AFOL: he was so impressed by the input from the workshops. The one strong thing he took out of it was ‘go deep’, rather than stay at the surface of the topic.”

With a book targeted at AFOLs, who already have so much knowledge of LEGO, it is important this book is highly detailed, so give readers even greater insight into the brick.

“We expect to keep this crowdfunding open until Spring 2021. This is the way to get hands on this book. It won’t available at stores either online or physical,” Says Sanne. So if you want to get the book, you have to fund it while it’s still available, which you can do here.

Sanne says LEGO Publishing is already looking into other ways AFOLs can be involved more, both in the production of this book, and in future projects.

“There is a lot of internal attention to this project, which is always great but in this case even better as it is about AFOLs!” She explains. “Every meeting I have with the publisher they get more and more excited; they are so impressed by [the community].”