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revisionstudios
Mar '18

Okay, so, yes. I am totally making this thread partly to promote my Kickstarter. But I ALSO wanted to give back to the community!

I know it's something that's pretty intimidating for creators, especially starting out. So having run one already6 and in being in the midst of my second17, I figured I could give some first hand experience. I also do conventions regularly so I'm quite familiar with printing and merchandise.

Is there anything you've been wanting to know and can't find a good answer on the internet? Ask away!

(Also please check out my campaign :thumbsup:)

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DiegoPalacios
Mar '18

Hi @revisionstudios!
I am still not ready for a kickstarter, but i am curious about it in the longterm. So here are my questions:

When did you know you were ready to make a kickstarter?

What kind of rewards did you offer and which rewards were more interesting to your readers/donators?

phen
Mar '18

Oh, congratulations on your second campaign! Best of luck to you and the staff, yo, this is looking absolutely killer.

My question is about the significance of certain funding sources: Are IRL contributors a necessary factor? Family, friends, facebook associates? Or are virtual connections just as viable?

revisionstudios
Mar '18
DiegoPalacios

It sort of came to a point where I had to. It wasn't a choice--I had to if we wanted to get it printed. Our first one was for the compilation volume 1 (issues 1-4), and the print cost on its own was nearly 3k for an order of 500. Me nor my creative partners have that kind of money lying around, so the only option was to crowd fund! And the extra we got from it really helped us in the following years in keeping the business money with minimal personal investment.

For my second one, I'm in a similar situation. If anything, the stakes are higher! I've been trying to draw this long form comic for close to 5 years alongside a full time job, and it's just gotten too taxing. The comic is its own full time job (I can easily fill a 40-50 hour week every week) and if I have to work somewhere else, I can't put out content fast enough to grow the business. I need to break this cycle and make moves to doing this full time, which is why my current Kickstarter is focusing more on my wages than printing costs.

I've offered a pretty vast selection, mostly because I already had access to merchandise from going to conventions. Between both campaigns, I've done:

  • Books
  • Comic Issues
  • Digital PDFs
  • Custom voiceover work (from Nox's old voice actor)
  • Soundtrack file (that I commissioned for the video)
  • Posters
  • Keychains (two kinds: home made resin and acrylic charms)
  • Pinback buttons
  • 3D printed steel pendant
  • Custom artwork
  • Inserted the backer as a background character in the comic
  • Let the backer create a villain to be inserted into the comic

I know this looks pretty extensive--but honestly you don't need all this. If there's anything I've learned, it's that people care the MOST about the actual content. So your actual comic. Second is being involved somehow (like becoming a background character), and third is probably merchandise, though you should try to keep it limited and organized. Don't offer like 20 different things with variations, you know? It creates unnecessary overhead and your campaign will lose focus!

DiegoPalacios
Mar '18

Thanks a lot for your advice!, hope you reach your goals and wish you the best for your projects!

revisionstudios
Mar '18
phen

ABSOLUTELY.

Let me tell you something that will (maybe) blow your mind:

Midwinter was not a webcomic when I made my first Kickstarter.

Midwinter started in 2013, I had the first Kickstarter in early 2014, and I did not start posting to Tapas until 2015. We started by printing issues and going to conventions, not the other way around.

A lot of people neglect real life connections, but if you have any sort of community for art or indie comics in your city, it is vital to take advantage of it. Here's the thing: Kickstarter is a financial investment. People only invest in something financially if 1) the product is good and 2) they are invested in the person. I would argue that #2 is more important. People are way more inclined to donate to a cause where they know the creator, have seen the work they put in, and know them as an active part of the community. You can totally cultivate this online too (and you should!) but everything online still goes through a filter. Seeing and interacting with someone face to face will always leave a bigger impact. And frankly? There are less things competing for people's attention irl at like, a meetup. You don't have to rise above all the equally good comics to get noticed.

Having that foundation of irl investors ALSO creates a great snowball effect: people are more likely to pledge to something when they see people have already put trust in it.

That said, it's totally possible to go in and get funded with only an online fanbase to your name. But to make it viable, you need a following of upwards of 10k, if not 20-30k. Probably half the people subscribe and read for a little while, but lose interest. Most of the people still reading just read it casually. Maybe a third of them consider themselves actual "fans" and actively look out for your posts and toss in a like. A third of THAT might comment and are potential donators. But then, only a small percentile can actually afford it. This is normal and to be expected of any business.

This is still true of real life connections, but the percentage of people willing to donate (and able to) are higher, because your rate of personal investment is higher. Does that make sense?

(Sorry for the total wall on that, but I felt like I had to cover a lot! And thank you, I'm glad you like the campaign. :heart:)

scythe
Mar '18

How did you work out what your initial goal amount would be?

phen
Mar '18
revisionstudios

Ah, thank you so much, I deeply appreciate the breakdown. I've been curious about how convention attendance and on-foot meets influence potential investors but never had a solid answer. This is massively helpful to hear.

Again, serious respect to you and Midwinter (love to the ever-charming Pendiah, too, she's such a cool character!!)

revisionstudios
Mar '18
scythe

You kind of have to work in percentages with this and do some guesswork!

Start with your basic costs. Printing? Wages? Merch production? Add that up. You have to predict how much of each thing you need, of course, so here are some basics:

Printing: How many are you ordering? Do you want enough to cover the Kickstarter AND have some left over? Are you just selling online afterwards (less) or are you going to cons (more)? It's safe to say you'll need at least 100 backers if you estimate your goal will be in the 3-5k range (this is assuming you're printing BOOKS not ISSUES). Maybe plan for a run of 200 so you have a safe buffer.

Wages: How long do you think it's going to take you to put out this product? Is part of it already done? (I wouldn't suggest kickstarting something that's going to take you more than a year or two, it wears on you) How much do you need to make bills per month? And if you don't already have like 3 years of consistent comic making experience, double the time you think it'll take and add it to your goal. NOTE: For a first Kickstarter I would honestly suggest only doing it when you have 80-100% of the pages already done so there's not much guesswork and your goal isn't inflated by wages.

Merch: Go lower on the estimates for this than the books. Less people will want the bells and whistles. Maybe a third of your estimated 100 backers will want merch, so only plan for like... 30 ish of each item, if not less depending on what it is and what tier you plan on making it. Ideally, I wouldn't do much variety of physical merch unless you already have it made or plan on selling it at cons or something.

Now that you have your basics covered, you need to calculate shipping the rewards. Domestic first class packages in the U.S. run ~$4. International, your average is ~$14. So even if all your backers were domestic, that's $400 for 100 backers. Of course, some of them will get digital tiers and some of them will be international, so you can't calculate exactly. I usually add a $50-100 buffer, so I calculated $500 in mine. This helps, too, in case I end up having to ship 2 packages or something if I offer posters or want to ship the merch separately (some printers will ship the books directly to the backers for you!).

For my first Kickstarter, I also included the ISBN and barcode cost because I wanted to sell them in book stores. Might be something to look into if you're printing a graphic novel!

So after you have all that added together, the Kickstarter takes a flat 5% fee and Stripe (credit card processor) can be anywhere between 2-5%. Best to just round it up to a flat 10% and plan for that.

For my current Kickstarter, my costs came out to:

$6,800 - Wages
$200 - Small issue print run
$500 - Shipping

(I did not include merch because I already have it made)

= $7500

%10 of that would be $750, so I have to add that to my goal:

= $8250

Now, raising the goal means that the 10% fee changes. It's now going to take $825 out, which is about $75 more than what was calculated. I personally pushed my goal up to $8,300 to even it out and decided to bank on the fees not being a full 10%. There's some variance there, and worst case scenario, I'm eating the cost of like $50. Not a big deal to me.

You definitely want to build in a buffer, but don't go crazy with it. You don't want to inflate your goal to where it's double what you actually need or something. You can't change it once you launch!

PROTIP: If at all possible, finish and deliver your product within the calendar year you Kickstart it, because if you don't, your Kickstarter income WILL BE TAXED as profit. This is why fall Kickstarters are generally a bad idea unless you have the book done, because you need to have spent that money by December to not get bit in the ass by this.

revisionstudios
Mar '18

No problem! Here's one thing I'd like to talk about that's tangentially related to rewards (even though no one asked)

Remember how I said that people care most about your content, and that 100 backers SHOULD cover 3-5k? That means that your average backer needs to shell out $30-50.

If what most people care about is the content, make the reward tier for your book at that level.

In my first Kickstarter, the tier for JUST the book was my most popular by far, and it was $30. Bear in mind I do not sell them for $30--they're $15. But remember that the people on Kickstarter are not just ordering items from you; they are donating to a cause. It's OKAY to inflate the costs within reason. I wouldn't go higher than double what you're going to retail them for, but considering most people pay at least $25 to Kickstarters, take advantage of that and plan your rewards accordingly. You can have lower tiers ($5, $10, or $15) but make them completely digital and only have one or two options for those.

sarrowsmith10
Mar '18

My question will be, what do you do for marketing and advertising? We are also currently running a kickstarter for our comic, and I've already hit all the major places- facebook, twitter, tapas, reddit... but I don't want to constantly spam the family, if you know what I mean.

revisionstudios
Mar '18

Complete disclosure, I'm still learning the best ways to do this myself, but I can share some tips!

When it comes to sharing on those places, honestly I think you gotta get over the fear of spamming the family. It's OKAY to post every day, or at least every other day, about it. People understand more than you'd think. To help soften the blow and not make it too annoying, I've done a couple things:

  1. Vary what you're posting and how. If they feel like they're seeing something new, it's not so bad. So far I've shared a short text post with a link, the video proper with a longer explanation, a funny post with a stupid caption in all caps, featured specific rewards we're offering, and featured the few other businesses that helped us get things together. You can also vary your wording between sounding like a sales pitch and an appeal to emotion (excitement, empathy). Different people will respond better to different things. Setting goal posts every now and then is a good idea too, like "WOW WE'RE ALMOST AT 2K WHO'S GONNA PUSH US OVER THAT EDGE?! LET'S GET THERE BY TOMORROW"

  2. Be upfront about why you're posting and ask for help. Facebook's algorithms were screwing me, some of my friends didn't even know I had launched, and engagement was poor. I posted on my feed just asking them to LIKE any post they see with my Kickstarter link, even if they weren't interested in pledging, so it could get around to the people who might be interested. I got a ton of people on board and now I have a mini coalition of friends who go like everything I post so it gets the maximum amount of reach.

  3. Remind them of how Kickstarter works. Some people don't pledge right away because they don't have money yet. Sometimes a nice reminder of, "HEY, you don't get charged up front, so as long as you have the money when the campaign ends you can pledge now!" can help. Or maybe a family wants to support you but aren't interested in the product--they think they have to choose an award. So mentioning, "If you just love us that much and don't want anything in return, you can always pledge without a reward, or choose a lower tier reward and pledge higher!" can help.

  4. Make a list of friends with influence and contact them directly. Ask them to share you project and write a few words about it on their pages--personal and professional. Anyone with a following that you have a connection with, it doesn't hurt to ask. I contacted a couple local comic shops, a few conventions I frequent, and a handful of other artists with established followings. It's okay to make a template message for it, but don't send out mass emails--people ignore those lol. Asking directly will get a response way more often.

Departing from social media, it's a good idea to find people who review comics or give recommendations, and submit to them. Since you and I are already in the throws of the Kickstarter though, this isn't viable anymore--you usually have to get in contact with these people a month or two before launch to give them time to read and write about it. :sweat_smile: It's good to have for next time though!

Don't ignore your local community, either. Print out flyers and take them to your local comic book shops, book stores, art stores, cafes, and even colleges to see if they'll let you hang something there. A lot of places have community boards. Make sure your flier is clear about what your comic is and how to get to its Kickstarter! I'll include mine as an example:

KS2018_regflyer_web.jpg675x900 604 KB

I went with an explanation of how to find us because no one likes typing in a long ass URL. You can also do one of those scannable square bar code things or outright tell them to take a pic of the poster with their phone. Whatever you feel is easiest.

Lastly, if you have a bit of money, there's always paid advertisement. I've been boosting a couple posts on Facebook and Instagram. I wouldn't dump money into it, but doing up to $10 bucks or something gets it out there a bit better. We've also been in the talks with a couple podcasts to get some ads thrown in--but you definitely need more money for that. We dropped about $200 between both of the ones we're advertising on. This is the first time we're trying this though so I can't tell you yet if this works or not!

Generally it's good to find places where real people are recommending your comic/campaign to someone. People are more likely to check it out if someone they respect is vouching for it, you know? Normal ads on sites don't incite that same trust.

sarrowsmith10
Mar '18

This was fantastic advice thank you! My writer said she would run a bunch of fliers to the comicbook stores she frequents and see if they will take them. I will try to email some folks too that I'm friends with. I just hope I'm not spamming.

Thank you again too!

10 days later
revisionstudios
Mar '18

In my comic team, it's 5 people including three owners and two contractors. I'm the artist and the one that manages the crowd funding projects, though. :slight_smile: (Well, I manage everything, really.)

I did have someone help me with the video though, I partnered with a local post-production company and they did the film section of the video and the audio editing for the whole thing~