Tag: kickstarter

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How I’ve Run 11 Successful KickStarter Campaigns

Hold on to your seats, because I’m about to reveal how I have run 11 Successful KickStarter campaigns.

And unlike some folks, who put these kinds of secrets behind a pay wall, I’m sharing this learning for free in today’s post.

I started running campaigns specifically for comics way back in 2013. And I’ve averaged 2 or 3 campaigns per year since.

Now, here’s the thing: if you’re looking to raise millions of dollars, these tips COULD still help you. But keep in mind these things…

The most I have raised in one campaign is a little over $2,000, for Validation’s Final Push. This is still 419% of the asking goal. That said, I HAVE run one campaign that raised 800% over the asking goal.

How did I do it? Well here are my tips:

Know your BARE MINIMUM that you need to make a project happen.

Do the math. Factor in costs to print, shipping orders, KickStarter and credit card fees. Add up anything that could cost you money for the project. Know the bare minimum amount that you need to make your project come to life.

This is NOT the time for bells and whistles. If you’re raising funding to get a book printed, know the minimum you need to get JUST the book printed. And ONLY the book.

Often when I see first-time KickStarter campaigns launch, the asking goals are $3k or more – and yet the audience for it cannot raise that much.

And the asking goal is set so high so often because the math is just inaccurate. Because these folks ignore the next point…

Set the rewards to be easy on the budget – and related to the project.

Most of my campaigns are to get a specific product printed. Usually a book. So my rewards are copies of the book, MORE copies of the book, other books I have excess stock of, and something easy I can fulfill with little cost to make. Like commissions!

Often, when I see an unsuccessful KickStarter – and yes, this includes one failed campaign I have under my belt – the campaign fails because of one thing… The rewards offered cost extra to make. And the creator tries to tack on the cost of making those extra rewards onto the overall asking goal.

So for example: a creator may only need $600 to get a book to print…but they think “I could offer stickers! I’ll offer 3 different designs!” But those stickers cost an extra $500 to print. So they add it up and ask for $1100 on the campaign as the initial goal. But wait, there’s t-shirts they wanna make! And those cost $500 more to print, so they add it on and –

You see where this is going. Eventually there are so many rewards offered that the creator THINKS are essential. But they are stretch goals.

Offer stretch goals for after your bare minimum is met.

Stretch goals are goals to make when your campaign raises extra money past the initial asking goal.

Stretch goals are THE THING TO USE when you have extra products you could make, but are not considered essential to make it happen.

For example: if you want to get a book printed, stickers and T-shirts are NOT essential to make it happen. Make those your stretch goals.

Whether you succeed or not – POST. UPDATES.

I’m speaking here as both someone with successful campaigns AND as someone who has backed other campaigns. A creator who posts updates on the KickStarter page, before AND after the campaign ends, is a good creator.

I can count on one hand the number of people I have backed on KickStarter who have not posted updates. And those are the same number of people I would not support again if they launched another campaign.

Posting updates, even irregularly scheduled ones, is still better than dropping off the face of the earth.

And yes – you need to post these updates on the KickStarter page. There’s a link in the creator menu called “Post Update.” USE THAT FEATURE.

Updates can be little things or big things. Just keep your backers in the loop regarding the progress of the project they helped you launch.

Hopefully, with these tips, you can launch your own successful KickStarter, and make your project happen. I believe in you.

If you have any other questions, leave a comment below!

That’s all for now. Thank you for reading!

You. Are. Awesome.

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Things I (Re)Learned in Promoting My KickStarter Campaign

By the way, The Legend of Jamie Roberts, Chapter 2’s KickStarter IS STILL GOING. You have until 11:59 pm EST on Feb 21 to back this project.

Not gonna lie – I’ve had 11 successful KickStarter campaigns. Once you’ve had so much success, you fall into a rhythm.

But I HAVE had one KickStarter campaign fail. I learned a lot from that failure, which makes it true that you learn more from your failures than your successes. Because when you’re successful, you develop a groove.

The thing about grooves, though, is that it’s easy to get comfortable inside of those grooves. It’s like when you walk in circles in the dirt – after a while, there’s an obvious path of where you’ve tread.

And if you want to grow, you have to take a step outside of that dirt circle.

I’ve re-learned a few things in promoting the KickStarter for The Legend of Jamie Roberts, Chapter 2 (which is STILL GOING until Feb 21 at 11:59 pm EST). Here’s what I’ve re-learned:

Make Use of Empty Space on Your Blog Sites

Ever since the demise of Project Wonderful, I’ve written off the power of ad spots on blog sites and webcomic sites. It’s easy to write it off, since it can be difficult to make money from posting ads in this era of ad-blockers.

Yet the original reason these became ads were to signal-boost SOMETHING. Someone wanted their product known, so they made a promotional image and paid someone to post it.

Well, I don’t (yet) have a network of peeps to reach out to and ask about posting an ad on their site and paying them for it.

But I DO have sites of my own. Sites for Johnson & Sir, Charlie & Clow, The Legend of Jamie Roberts, and THIS site. AND I have space on these sites that isn’t used yet.

So I made a button to promote the KickStarter, posted it on the sites, and VOILA – insta-ad. I’m still getting traffic on these sites, so the ad spots are seen by the peeps who go to these sites.

Reach Out to Folks Who Are Adjacent To What You Do

I have to thank Jamie (no relation to Jamie Roberts) for this one. I had almost written off this particular tactic.

The Legend of Jamie Roberts is about a genderqueer pirate. So Jamie (no relation) suggested I reach out to LGBTQ centers, and ask for their help promoting this KickStarter campaign. He sent me a list of LGBTQ centers in Ohio (which you can find here). This resource includes contact information for these sites.

I also had a flier for another LGBTQ center, from when I went to Flaming River Con. (One of the few positive things to come out of that show). So I reached out to this center, as well.

All told, I reached out to 5 or so of these centers, and only heard back from 1: the center whom I had a flier for. I think it helped that the contact spoke with me at the show, so they had a face to connect to the email.

So while perhaps blind contacting doesn’t work – what DOES help is keeping your rolodex of peeps you meet at comicons, festivals, and other shows. Reach out to those who are adjacent to what you do and ask if they can help signal-boost you.

Don’t Underestimate the Power of Fliers

I made a flier for my local comic shop to promote my KickStarter campaign. Then I sent it shortly after launch. I asked if they could print up copies and set them with their other fliers, and make a social media post, as well. And they agreed to help (I’m very fortunate that the folks at my local comic shop are cool dudes).

I DID notice that a few days after I did that, the number of backers and money raised went up a good 20-25%. Pretty dang good!

So don’t underestimate the power of fliers. Share them with comic shops. They’re usually more than happy to help indie comic creators succeed. If not? Find someone else who’d be happy to share your flier.

Those are what I’ve re-learned in promoting a KickStarter campaign into success. Next time I’ll make a post about how to run a successful campaign. I just realized I don’t have a post about that (yet).

Thank you for reading!

You. Are. Awesome.

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What Does a KickStarter Scam Email Look Like? Well…

You come across a LOT of junk mail and bull-crap whenever you run a KickStarter campaign, whether it’s your first time or your tenth.

As it turns out, The Legend of Jamie Roberts, Chapter 1 is my tenth campaign on KickStarter. And, true to form, I’ve been getting messages from total strangers saying that they “can help boost this campaign to millions of people” and that they know “the best outlets to promote this KickStarter to” so I should “reply to this email ASAP to jump on this unique opportunity.”

But there was ONE email that I got recently that stood out to me… for all the wrong reasons.

First, this is not the first time this guy emailed me. He had sent a previous email starting with, “I get it. You’ve seen thousands of messages from people saying they can help your campaign” (which I have). But the difference was this NEW guy emailing me called himself “a guru in crowdfunding.”

Pro tip: never call yourself a guru of anything. You sound pretentious and it’s step number 1 of making sure I delete your email.

But shortly after that one, he sent me a NEW email.

Here, I’ll show you a screencap of this thing. Don’t worry, I’ll censor out the guy’s email, name, and face. Just pay attention to the email text:

In case you can’t see it, the email says, “we’ve chosen The Legend of Jamie Roberts, Chapter 1 as our weekly “what could this campaign be doing better?” round table discussion.”

Already off to a bad start. I know what I can do better. This is my TENTH campaign. And I already made the fixes before this dude sent me this message.

And he adds, “We choose one very lucky campaign and go through it top-to-bottom to see what you can do better.”

This is the most slimy sentence I’ve come across.

And I’m saying this as someone who’s sat through brutal art class critiques and read thousands of pages of copy other people have written to promote their work.

I’m saying this as someone who studied marketing and promotional materials during college AND after. That sentence is slimy.

Why is this sentence slimy? Because it is preying on the email recipient’s insecurity about their campaign.

Whether you’re running your first campaign or your hundredth, there will always be a bit of insecurity that you feel when you launch. Will this thumbnail stand out? Did I make enough rewards? Did I overprice one of these tiers? Etc.

That sentence in that email is designed to snag onto that insecurity and make the email recipient feel like they NEED help.

Trust me: you do not need help from a guy like this.

I’ve had better luck getting help from ComixLaunch, and I found that program to be very hit and miss for me. Again, I’ve run ten successful KickStarter campaigns, and The Legend of Jamie Roberts, Chapter 1 is looking to be my eleventh successful one.

Never trust a dude who would use sentences like that, no matter how professional or “well-meaning” the rest of the email sounds.

I hope this helps you if you’re looking to start crowdfunding – or even if it helps you spot similar emails in the future. I hope this blog post has helped you spot what kind of language to watch out for and what to avoid.

Best of luck to you, and thank you for reading.

You. Are. Awesome.

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NOW ON KICKSTARTER: The Legend of Jamie Roberts, Chapter 1

HOLY BANANA PANTS, it’s finally here – The Legend of Jamie Roberts, Chapter 1 is now on KickStarter, looking for funding to get to print!

Patreon support has helped make the production of each individual page possible. But KickStarter will help cover the gap to get this first issue to print.

The book will include a never-before-published short comic about Captain O’Malley (just how DID she lose her arm?). Plus there will be behind-the-scenes sketches showing how pages for the comic are made.

Among the rewards available for backers, there’s commissions, WANTED poster-style mini-prints, and even a new 11 x 17 inch print!

So if you can back this KickStarter campaign, please do so BEFORE JUNE 20.

Broke? Share this campaign with your friends. Every share helps.

Want to back the campaign, but don’t see a reward you like? Hit me up via email at kelci(at)kelcidcrawford.com and I’ll work with you.

That’s all for now. Thank you for your support!

You. Are. Awesome.

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Featured Artist Friday: Interview with FalconHyrste creator Melissa Capriglione

Falconhyrste is a young adult, coming-of-age story set in a world with magic, mystery, and a rainbow of characters. It’s also charming as heck.

Today I got one of the creators of the story, Melissa Capriglione, to answer some questions for me about the inspiration and process behind making this webcomic.

Not only is this a return of an old segment on my blog called Featured Artist Friday – it’s also the launch date of Falconhyrste on KickStarter! Let’s celebrate by taking a peek into Melissa’s creative process:

What inspired you to make this comic in particular?

Initially, I wanted to make a comic because I needed experience in making comics! I was in my sophomore year of college at the time and, wanting to be a comic artist when I graduated, I realized I had little to no experience at making comics. So I went with the most accessible option- a webcomic! Anyone can make one, and you can host it on a variety of platforms.

The story itself was inspired by love for everything supernatural, and I brought in a lot of inspiration from various anime and comics.

You make this comic with another artist. What prompted the collaboration?

In December of 2015, I went on social media and asked if anyone wanted to collaborate on a webcomic. Clara (now my co-author) responded out of the blue and then we began brainstorming the story and swapping sketches. Both of us were beginner comic artists and didn’t have set styles at the time, so it was tumultuous.

I wanted to collaborate on the comic because we planned for it to be a larger project and I couldn’t see myself taking it on my own. We also act as each other’s beta readers, so the collaboration helps us figure out the plot and make sure our writing sounds good. It also just helps to have an extra set of eyes around for general feedback!

How was the collaboration process when you started out? What kinks in the system have you had to work through?

It was pretty rough in the beginning! We had no idea how long it would take us to make a page, so we were scrambling to finish our first handful of pages. It took us about an entire two weeks to make just one page, but now it takes us about a day or two.

Since then, we learned a lot about formatting pages, setting them up so we’re not using 50 layers, and general streamlining of the process.

This comic has been online for 4 issues now. How long do you intend for Falconhyrste to last?

Since we’re printing issue four, we plan on printing issue five sometime mid 2019. The pages for issue five (and half of issue six) are all done and on the website (falconhyrste.com), so we hope to have those in physical form soon!

As for the story itself, we’ve been doing this for about three and a half years now, and we’re not even a third of the way through our story! But the reason why it took us all these years to do barely 200 pages was because of our busy schedules. We were both in school when we were beginning, so we had to skip a lot of updates and take mini hiatuses due to exams and work schedules.

But now I’m full-time freelance so I can dedicate more time to the story, and hopefully Falconhyrste won’t take another ten years to finish!

Do you consider yourself a plotter or a pantser? (A plotter outlines the story in advance, a pantser makes up the story as they go along. It’s ok if you’re somewhere in between!)

Definitely somewhere in between! The entire script is written out in its entirety, but it’s mostly still the first draft from early 2016, so it’s not that great! We’ve kept a few parts but we’ve added and edited stuff since then. We usually try to plan a chapter ahead, though.

Dang near everybody in this comic is somewhere in the LGBTQ+ rainbow – which I’m not complaining about! I also saw in your portfolio website that you call yourself a “queer artist.” Now, there are (I have discovered) LOTS of LGBTQ+ comics and creators out there. What is it about Falconhyrste that makes it special to you?

Both of us are LGBTQ+, so we wanted to make a story that included people like us, as well as many other people in the community. It’s important to have queer stories available to younger audiences (Falconhyrste is classified as young adult) so that it can be more normalized.

Falconhyrste is special, I think, in that we enjoy just having queer characters existing happily in a world without bigotry and adversity, and use magic! Lots more comics these days are going that route, and it’s certainly refreshing to see, and I’m glad to be a part of this movement.

To create my own stories from my perspective and make the queer comics world even more colorful is one of my goals.

Falconhyrste will be on KickStarter November 16 (that’s today)! Is this your first KickStarter campaign or have you run previous ones? If you’ve done it before, what have you learned from previous campaigns?

This is our first Kickstarter, yes!

Before this, we did a pre-order for issues one through three, and the response to it was far greater than expected, so managing all of that by hand was kind of overwhelming. I figured Kickstarter would be our next best bet because it’ll be easier to manage rewards and stretch goals, as well as communicate with our supporters on a better level.

Obvious question: What tools do you use to make your comic? Is it purely digital?

Yes, 100% digital! I use a Wacom Cintiq 24HD with Photoshop CC, and Clara uses a Wacom Intuos with Clip Studio Paint.

Falconhyrste is a coming of age story if I’ve ever seen one. Are there other coming-of-age stories you want to write, or do you think your next story idea will be in a different kind of genre?

I think coming-of-age stories are my main focus. Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of stories I could relate to and ended up being uninterested and bored by most stories. Nowadays it’s so inspiring to see comics reaching a much wider variety of audiences than they did just ten years ago!

Lots of comics makers (and aspiring comics makers and other artists) read my blog. Is there anything you would like to say to them?

Start where you can!

If you have a story that you just need to create, don’t wait until you’re “good enough” to create it. You’ll get better through the process. It takes time, practice, and effort, but it will all pay off eventually.

Thanks Melissa!

You can find Falconhyrste at falconhyrste.com.

Be sure to follow Melissa on Twitter at @mcapriglioneart and co-creator Clara at @tenhousandbeez.

Be sure to pledge on KickStarter to claim issue #4 of Falconhyrste (as well as other rewards).

Thank you for reading!

You. Are. Awesome.