After a long month of endless promoting and shouting out into what felt like the void during most of that time, In Our Dreams Awake #3’s Kickstarter finally came to a close. While we funded (yea!), and I definitely wanted to take a moment to soak all of that in (only 1 issue left to go!). However, in light of that, I wanted to do a post that was a Lessons Learned.
Because I feel like this campaign turned some of my thoughts upside down and has me scratching my head about other things. Maybe writing them down will help me make a little more sense out of what went down.
The Good
The comic got funded. I mean, that is the single biggest thing to come out of all of it. There are a couple of reasons why I do the Kickstarters in the first place. The main reason is to pay for the printing so that we can get the comic into as many people’s hands as possible. This is why we’ve set the Target to $500.
We had more backers this time than we had for Issue #2. The other big piece of this self publishing puzzle is to try and gain new readers each time we put out a campaign. That’s the only way all of this is ever going to completely work. Maintain the readers we have and add to them.
I expanded my digital footprint with appearances on multiple podcasts. This was something I have neglected in the past, focusing more on website reviews and spotlights. It really was great to be able to chat about not only the comic book but tv shows and other comics. And everyone was so gracious with their time, it couldn’t have gone better.
The Bad
We actually raised less money on this campaign than we did for Issue #2. This was something I had worried about but hoped wouldn’t be the case. As I said above, we mostly would like to pay for the printing… BUT it would also be nice to help cover a little bit of the comic production costs rather than having to come almost completely out of pocket.
The Dead Zone was BRUTAL. For those who may not know, the pledges on a Kickstarter happen at the very beginning and the very end of a project. The Dead Zone is normally the middle weeks of a Kickstarter campaign is the time where pledges are very difficult to come by. On my other comic campaigns things certainly slowed down during that time. Maybe we’d get 1 pledge here or there with a couple of days having no one. This time we legitimately didn’t have a new pledge for most of those 2 weeks. Talk about frustrating.
The Ugly
Facebook Ads. I ran them for the first time on a project and realized I need to learn a whole lot more about how to best use them, what might work, what might not work. Everything.
So What Did I Learn Then?
More, More, More – If I want to reach more people, then I need to up my social game. That means I need to reach out to more podcasts.
Make better use of Linkedin more than I have in the past. I know I got at least one Backer from one of my posts there (and I only did 2 posts total). Some of my former co-workers might be interested to see what the heck I’m been up to.
More Kickstarter Update Spotlight Swaps – While I’m not exactly sure how much they helped or didn’t help in terms of new backers. I think it is another possible opportunity to put my comics in front of people who are already predisposed to supporting Indy Comics.
We don’t hand hold you on In Our Dreams Awake – What do I mean by that? The story is a complex one where our main character is living two different lives, and we just throw you into the deep end. He’s a painter? He’s a gang lord? Is this a fantasy or a cyberpunk comic? In my talks with people about the comic there was a bit of confusion from some as they read issue #1. Most got what we were going for, but for others it didn’t click until they got to issue #2.
It’s complex, but that’s the story we wanted to tell. We just have to hope the readers will trust us enough to deliver a satisfying conclusion in issue #4.
What Questions Do I Still Have?
That said, I feel like I did share more this time on Facebook/X/BlueSky/Instagram than I ever had in the past. So I’m not sure how to convert those posts into Backers consistently.
Kickstarter Spotlights/Reviews – I’m not sure how much these end up driving traffic to the campaign. It feels stupid not to do them because you never know when it’ll spark someone’s interest, but you’d be surprised how much time it takes to send out those email requests.
Video – I think our video is pretty good. But I also wonder if people need to see Egg and my faces to connect a person to the project. I truly don’t know what the answer is because I almost never watch anyone’s videos (maybe 1% of the time I click on them).
Substack – There are a number of people who do Kickstarter Spotlights on their substacks, but contacting them is a gigantic pain in the ass. You need to subscribe and then direct message them. And I don’t think any of them ever responded to that.
How in the world can I get Kickstarter to Love me? There is a badge Kickstarter can bestow on you called “Project We Love”. When you get this badge the algorithms are going to help you get a little more spotlight than you’ve had before. More eyeballs on the project. I heard that sometimes hitting your funding goal early will get you that attention, but that didn’t really happen on Issue #2. So at this point I’d love to get it, but I think I’m going to have to hold the Boombox outside the Kickstarter offices to have a shot.
Thinking about the Dead Zone – It seemed like there were more comic projects running campaigns in October. It makes me wonder if that hurt us as well. Maybe the algorithm likes Horror/Halloween comics more during that time period.
Maybe there is a conspiracy? I don’t know. Just more things to figure out before I run my next comic campaign!