Last Day for the Kickstarter
in which our hero shares some lessons learned
Dear Readers,
Over the weekend, thanks in no small part to a Twitch-stream shout-out from my friends at World Anvil, the Kickstarter for The Blood of Seven Queens #3-5 met its funding goal. Things were looking a bit dicey there for a while, but now—with 15 hours to go if you’d still like to get in on it—I can call the campaign a success.
I’ve learned a lot from this one. And while I’ll save a full post-mortem for later, I wanted to share a few quick bits now in case they’re helpful to fellow creators:
Give yourself more time than you think you’ll need for prepping the campaign, maybe as much as double the amount of the time you think you’ll need if you’re still just getting started with crowdfunding. Maybe triple if your surname starts with a C and ends with a lark.
Don’t skimp on the video just because you’re determined to launch on a certain date. If you can’t get the video done properly, re-schedule the launch. Chances are that the promo you’re hoping to get from the person you were told to contact at the crowdfunding website isn’t going to come through anyway. They’ve got a lot of projects to choose from when it comes to promotion in their newsletters and whatnot.
Never stop building your audience. Never. Stop. Don’t count on the same super-generous and kind folks to be able to save your ass every time.
If you’re going to do the project anyway, regardless of whether the campaign funds, set a low goal—like as low as you possibly can.
If you can swing it, don’t be working on the project while you’re fundraising for it—especially if you have trouble separating your worth as a person and artist from your ability to raise money and promote.
The second person pronouns in all of those might as well be first person, as all of that is advice I really want to give my future self. But I kept them second person, because maybe they’ll help someone else too.
That’s all for this time. We’ll be back to some kind of normal newsletter schedule next week. Until then, be sure to check out the Kickstarter if you haven’t already. Your chance to pre-order copies of the new issues of The Blood of Seven Queens ends tonight at midnight.
Yours,
Chris