Kickstarter Post Mortem - Part II

9 Things to Work On

In part two of my Kickstarter post-mortem, I need to talk about things I’d do differently. The elephant in the room is that the Lump Dog campaign paled in comparison to its predecessor.

With both revenue and backer numbers cut nearly in half between this campaign and the last, it would be easy to “compare and despair” when looking at the two Kickstarters. But I met my funding goal, attracted entirely new fans to the series, and got Lump Dog moving forward, so there isn’t really a lot to be sad about.

That said, there are lessons to be learned.

If this campaign was not as successful as the last, why? What follows are some of my thoughts.

The Quantitative

- I had almost no sales from the Instagram advertising I did. At this stage in my comics career, I suspect any ad spend would be better off used to market my newsletter. Either that, or hire someone who knows what they are doing like Jellop or Kickstarter.

- The Digital Deluxe category dropped from 16% of revenue to 5%. Conceptually, the only real difference was the price, as I raised it from $5 to $7. In my next campaign, I’ll go back to a $5 price.

- The most dramatic drop in revenue occurred in the high-value CGC collectible tier, where the total raised dropped from 32% to only 11%. I suspect a lot of things were at play here, not the least of which is the tighter economy. The theory goes that people just don’t have as much disposable income to spend on high-ticket items. 

I suspect the actual answer had more to do with the fact that the artist I brought on board was not (yet) a known name in the comic industry. While Jeffrey had several Marvel covers to his name, Rahmaan Hameed is known more for his mural work at this point. 

Would I do anything different? No, because I have every confidence that the variants Rahmaan created for me will do well on the digital collectible side in the future as he has an audience in that community. However, if that doesn’t go as planned, the obvious pivot would be to only use a known “name” comic artist next time.

I had hoped to compensate for any unfamiliarity by also selling more of my Veregge comics from inventory, but Jeffrey tragically passed away mid-campaign, I pulled his books from this Kickstarter out of respect. I didn’t want to be seen as profiting from his death. 

- I came into this campaign with a mailing list that was at most a third of what it was when I launched the TLSS campaign. My move from the “#space #comics” list to this Tech4Comics substack had me starting over. I suspect that the discussion of divisive issues like comic NFTs didn’t help either. More than any other single factor, I suspect my smaller mailing list contributed the most to the weaker numbers in this campaign. Solution: Lean into building this mailing list!

The Qualitative

- In many ways, this campaign echoed the comic shop reality that issue number twos rarely do as well as number ones. While I tried to spin this campaign as a pseudo #1 as Lump Dog, true fans of the series know that it is the second book in The Lump Sum Saga series. Sadly, I can likely expect even poorer results from a n issue number three unless I am proactive with other promotions.

- Campaigns are about trust and community, and frankly, I am guilty of neglecting my audience. I took a break between issues to write “Comic NFTs - An Ethical Approach,” mostly because I had to get that out of my system, but three years between campaigns is too long. I need to find a way to have more frequent campaigns, but admittedly there are restrictions here in terms of funding.

- I was told by one prominent creator that “non-adult content is hard to sell” on Kickstarter. If this expert is correct, putting out a comic with a fuzzy white dog isn’t really conducive to sales. There isn’t really a lot I can do about this, short of changing platforms, as the ideal avatar for the series is a gifted middle school student who thinks they are an adult. 

I challenged the Kickstarter algorithm and lost. Knowing what my campaign earned last time, I set my initial goal higher. Sadly, this meant the campaign did not fund early, which meant there was no real momentum, and it was harder to reach milestones. Knowing that the campaign is unlikely to cover all of my expenses anyway, it would make sense to lower the initial funding goal back next time.

The Speculative

- Wow, have y’all started creating awesome campaigns! Just look at the video for Steamroller Man and you’ll see that my campaign was nowhere near as visually compelling. Attracting clicks on the platform matters, so I need to make sure that I have compelling images and video that can compete.

- Roughly four months before the main TLSS campaign,  I ran a Make 100 that included a postcard and a tiny preview comic. It may have primed the pump, so to speak. I would like to try that again. 

- I left Facebook for my own sanity. Long story. Given that comic Kickstarters are about community, it is likely this had an effect, especially since it meant that I lost connection with the Comixlaunch community in particular. I’m mostly back now from my Facebook hiatus.

The TL;DR - My To Do List

• Build my mailing list  

• Have a $5 Digital Deluxe

• Attract a “name” CGC comic artist 

• Launch more frequent campaigns

• Start with a lower initial funding goal

• Present compelling images and video

• Prime the pump

• Engage in community even more

• Maybe do a dollop of Jellop

And did I mention building my mailing list?