After two successful Kickstarter campaigns for his children’s horror comic, House of Fear, James felt the time was right to get his stories out to a wider audience. Before, he’d been too scared to pitch his work to a publisher. What if he wasn’t ready? What if they could tell he didn’t know what he was doing?
But now, armed with the confidence gained from crowdfunding success, James was ready.
It was time to submit.
James knew that he couldn’t just spray his pitch around to every publisher in the game. His experience with Kickstarter told him that having a specific, targeted plan was important to success.
“I made a list (a...
With two campaigns running at once, he felt pressure to make both succeed. But as a collaborator on one project and "just the writer" on the other, Travis wasn’t fully in charge of either.
How was he going to get through this month?
Both of Travis’ campaigns were a challenge—for very different reasons.
“One of those campaigns (DOG DAYS) was run by another publisher. It was challenging because I couldn’t build the campaign as I saw fit. I didn’t have complete control of how much we needed to raise. I didn’t know all the backend numbers, and I didn’t get a lot of pre-campaign planning in. I also...
Like many creators, he’d had an idea for a comic, which he successfully funded on Kickstarter. But by his own estimation, about 90% of his pledges came from friends and family.
For his next campaign, Andy swore he’d expand his fanbase and get that percentage down. There was only one problem.
He didn’t know where to start.
Andy decided he needed a support system, so he joined the ComixLaunch MasterMind, a group of creators who meet once a month to help each other grow their creative businesses.
“Being around like-minded creatives gave me a sense of reassurance. I’d picked people’s brains before and received loads of help, but this was a forum where everyone...
After years of Kickstarting his own series, Margo: Intergalactic Trash Collector, Jim was now faced with a different task entirely. His latest project, DarkARTS, was an oversized pin-up book featuring work by various artists. He knew he couldn’t rely on his established audience to come out and support it—and there was no guarantee the audience for a book like this even existed.
Before hitting launch, Jim wondered, “How the heck am I going to market this?”
The first challenge Jim faced was deciding on a Kickstarter category. It didn’t fit neatly into any of the available options, so he had to decide:
Would this be a “book”...
With only four days before the big Kickstarter launch for his webcomic, “Crescent City Monsters,” Newton was about to go under the knife for knee surgery.
He’d spent a year posting his comic online, working through the ComixLaunch Course, and meticulously planning his campaign.
But now, facing surgery and a painful recovery, he had to ask himself:
Should I postpone?
So: did Newton postpone his launch?
Before we answer that question, let’s talk about the well-crafted plan he was thinking of putting off.
Because Newton is a member of the ComixLaunch...
It was his first-ever Kickstarter campaign, and there were a lot of unknowns. But he’d methodically worked his way through the ComixLaunch Course and felt like he had a solid plan in place.
Now it was time to put it into action.
Rene knew that in crowdfunding, the crowd brings the funds, but YOU have to bring the crowd.
He had been following the YouTube channel of creator Jason Brubaker (reMIND, Sithrah), a Kickstarter veteran who recommends building an audience by posting your comic for free online. A quick check of the most funded comics Kickstarters of all time reveals that—yes, posting for free online helps.
...By Clay Adams
After his last Kickstarter failed to fund, Jerry knew he needed to expand his marketing efforts if he wanted his new campaign to succeed. So, heeding the old Henry Ford maxim that “Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping a clock to save time,” he decided to go all in on Facebook ads.
The only question was: “Would it work?”
Before he launched again, Jerry took a long, hard look at what went wrong last time.
“The biggest lesson I learned from my last failed campaign was that you can't launch with no audience. I thought that the same people that backed me in 2012 would come out to back me five years later. I...
It was the final week of his campaign for DIARY OF NIGHT, and the funding total sat at a seemingly insurmountable $2,000 shy of his goal. With the clock ticking, Will had a difficult choice to make: cancel the campaign and try again later, or double down on his efforts to secure a win at all costs.
Will dug deep and doubled-down.
Will had already tried—unsuccessfully—to fund DIARY OF NIGHT once, so the thought of cancelling didn’t appeal to him. But the task ahead seemed daunting.
“That last week was brutal. By this point, I was nearing exhaustion, and still had around $2,000 to go to meet the goal. I still had hope, though. I had a backer that I knew I could depend...
After years of posting her comic, THE VELIGENT, online, she was ready to launch her first Kickstarter and put it into print. But as she built out her campaign, too many fears swirled around her head.
What if she didn’t make her goal? What if she overlooked an important detail? What if there was a hidden expense she hadn’t accounted for?
What if, what if, what if…!
She shouldn’t have been so worried.
The phenomenal success of Melody’s Kickstarter just goes to show: it’s never too soon to start building your audience.
“We have been publishing my art for about forty years, so I have a following… I have also been posting the...
by Clay Adams
If you’re TALES OF THE TWELVE STARS writer Albert Lim, you go indie.
…Indiegogo, that is.
When comic book writer Albert Lim discovered Kickstarter isn’t available in Malaysia, he wasn’t surprised.
“Finding venues and events where I can sell my books is a challenge… While they do exist in Malaysia, many of them are not very well-known.”
But he didn't let lack of access to the number one crowdfunding platform stop him from launching his book. Albert buckled down, did his research, and found that one site was available to him: Indiegogo.
...