Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, Estefania Rodriguez, kickstarter, Ninjabot, Origin Series

7 Steps For Creating Your Own Kickstarter Project

Estefania Rodriguez writes for Bleeding Cool:

These days it seems like everyone and their grandmother is using Kickstarter to fund something. It makes you wonder if it's because people think it's easy money from complete strangers, and they are just trying to take advantage of possible backers. I'm here to tell you that, that's not true. Kickstarter is by far one of the hardest, most social media driven, and completely emotional things we, The Ninjabot, have ever done. Yet, here we are, doing our third Kickstarter called Origin Series Part II –The Book + New Prints.

Our project is about comic book characters and their origin stories displayed in a very unique, art deco style. Our Kickstarter project is for the funding of a hard cover book that contains all of our Origin Series designs in one place, along with some concept, and sketch work we have for them. We are also offering new print designs, and potentially more pages added to the book depending on if we reach our stretch goals.

Currently we're 80% funded, which means about $2,200 away from our goal, but if you, the awesome Bleeding Cool readers can help us get to our goal by Monday night, we will record a very special video, specifically for all of you, of us lip-singing part of a song of your choice! That's right we will make fool of ourselves for your entertainment! Just pledge for the project righthere, and share it on your social media, then leave a comment on this post of the song you want us to sing! If we reach our goal by Monday night, we will pick one of your songs and make a video as a big thank you for you!

Doing a Kickstarter project is super intense, and time consuming. There is a lot work that goes into it, and I'm going to give you tips on what it takes to get it done, plus our own personal experiences along with them.

1. Have an idea!

Or if you are like most artists, try to decide which of your fifty ideas you want to do first. This part is super easy, right? Not really, but I'll tell you why. Not only are you choosing to show the world your project idea, which you most likely are extremely fond and it feels like your very own art baby, but you are telling the world about your dream and how badly you want it to come true. With all of that on your shoulders, you still have to know that it may not get funded. That can feel like a slap in the face, but you still take the risk because you just have to try it! I mean, it's you dream, right?

OUR EXPERIENCE – We decided to do a Kickstarter project when we came up with the Origin Series because as days went by this series got bigger and bigger, and for the two of us, it was way too costly for us to handle. We knew we were going to need outside funding if we wanted to get all of our art printed.

1.5. Social Media Awareness!

Make sure you have people who are interested in this idea. People who are strangers, not only friends and family, and are willing to support your work. Your project will get funded if people like it, and share it online, but you have to have that audience before hand, not just when your project is live. You need to have Twitter, and Facebook, or at least a few different media outlets that you will use before, during, and after the project to communicate with new customers.

OUR EXPERIENCE – We had a bunch of different social media Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr. We already had people who were interested in Part II, since they were big supporters of Part I. Plus, we also had done flyers about a month in advance and handed them out at loc

2. Set clear goals, and products for your project!

After deciding what your project is, you have to decide what the main goal will be. If you're doing art – How many prints designs are you doing? Will you be doing a book as well? Are you offering your designs on other things like t-shirts, or phone cases? Do you have a Kickstarter exclusive design? If you're doing eatables- How many flavors do you have? Will you have extra if you meet stretch goals? Will they travel well to other states? Other Countries? What about the packaging, is it strong enough to travel hundreds/thousands of miles? Once you answer these types questions you will be able to start getting something done inside Kickstarter.

OUR EXPERIENCE – It took about 2 months to figure out our second project called Origin Series, Part I. After we we knew how big this series was going to be, and what designs we wanted to offer, and what other products we could offer with those designs, we knew we could finally start!

3. Put your project together online!

Now that you have clear goals, and you know what product you will offer people, you need it to put write out on Kickstarter. You need to set your reward tiers, and prices. You need to figure out what each tier will have, what their prices will be, and estimate how much shipping will be(VERY IMPORTANT – Research on shipping costs to different places, and/or countries, with different weights BEFORE you set your prices on your project). Also, will you offer discounts as the tiers get bigger? Will you have stretch goals? What will you offer for them?

You also have to set up your project timeline together explaining who you are, what the project is all about, and what you will do with the money if it gets funded. Not only do you have to explain to people all these things, but you have to connect with them. They have to feel that they are a vital part of this journey, because well… They really are.

Don't forget to add on the Kickstarter/Amazon fee that goes in effect if your project gets funded, AND that you will have to sale taxes(depending on your state).

OUR EXPERIENCE – This part took about 3 months for us. We kept creating tiers with certain rewards, and prices but then after a week, I kept changing them. I wanted to make sure they weren't too expensive, but at the same time, it can't be too low. Calculating shipping was difficult. Even though, we went to the post office to talk to someone, and did research online, prices for shipping vary from state to state, and in Kickstarter you can't charge someone in New York $3 more for their shipping than someone in California, which is closer to us in Nevada. The prices are set standard so you have to find a happy medium that won't leave you high an dry.

We created a lot of images for our timeline. I find that people don't want to read 7 paragraphs of all of the things you need to explain to them. They just want to see something cool, and give you some money for it, so in a few months they get a cool product. That's why creating visuals for the reward tiers, and stretch goals seemed to work pretty well for us.

4. Create a video!

This one is probably one of the most fun parts of putting the project on Kickstarter! Although a lot of people don't have one because it requires some sort of equipment, it is very important to do one for your project. No matter what kind of project you have. A video is the fastest way to communicate your idea to someone in 30-60 seconds.

OUR EXPERIENCE – This took about a week, or two, to shoot, and edit. I, Estefania, went to art school for video stuff, so it was like being back in school doing a homework assignment for me. We used a photo camera that we've had for a few years, nothing special. We wrote a script, and tried to keep short and sweet, while still explaining what the project was all about.

5. Double check everything!

This step is pretty easy! Just check for misspelling, share the project with other friends to see if they catch anything. Make sure everything is set exactly to what you want, because once it goes live you won't be able to change your tiers if someone pledged for it.

OUR EXPERIENCE – Use all of the resources you have at hand. Friends and family are the best audience for an honest critique.

6. Your Project is LIVE! – Now share it!

Let EVERYONE you know that your project is up! Share it on your social media! Try to reach out to people that have in interest in projects like yours, without being too pushy and always be very respectful to them even if they don't answer back.

Consider buying ad space, or trading some product if project is funded of course, with someone's website that has a lot of potential buyers.

Create business relationships with people, websites, and blogs that will carry on, so when you are doing your next Kickstarter, step 1.5 should have already been started.

This process is something you will most likely have to do during the entirety of your project, unless you are an established artist, then you may not have to do that much work on your own. Spreading the word to different places is very important.

DON'T FORGET – Communicate with your backers during your project the whole time. You should do a post every 3-5 days updating them on what's going on in your project. You don't want them to think that you haven't even noticed them joining the project so they end up dropping their pledge.

OUR EXPERIENCE – This part is emotionally exhausting. Now that your project is live, people have the ability to love your work, or hate it. People can throw money at you, or they can go to your project page and leave after 5 seconds when they don't see anything they want, and not give you a cent.

Thankfully, people online in blogs and such have been pretty nice about our projects. There is always the occasional hater, which is not to be confused with the people that just simply don't have an interest in our project. You have to remember that that is okay, not everyone will love your project. It's nothing personal, it's just people having their own opinions.

There are two things that can happen from here on out:

A. You don't meet your goal.

It's ok, don't give up. Learn what you did wrong, fix it, and try again.

B. You meet your goal! Congratulations!

Your job is just getting starter!

OUR EXPERIENCE – We don't know if our project will be funded yet because we can't predict the future. We are at 80% funded with a little over 2 weeks left in the project, but we can sure use your support to help us get there! Click here and pledge today!

7. Fulfill orders!

Once your project is funded, Kickstarter let's you send out surveys to your backers in order to get their info to fulfill the orders. In these surveys you can ask them their shipping address, what flavors of sauce they wanted, or what print designs they wanted, and anything else you need to know from them.

After you send out the surveys, and collect all of the answers, which takes about a week for most people to answer them, you will have to start ordering all of your products.

This is where everything can really go downhill if you didn't plan things accordingly before hand, and/or if life just wants to test your persistence a little bit. Depending on what your project is, production time can take a longer than expected because things happen, people make mistakes, things have to get shipped, and that can take a long time, so stuff gets delayed. That's bad news, but no matter what happens during this time, good or bad, you need to keep communicating with your backers. Just because you have their money, doesn't mean your job is done. You need to update people on how things are going with you project. People really appreciate it.

OUR EXPERIENCE – I make an update every 3-5 days, sometimes every 2 days because there are things happening, product coming in, things getting shipped out, and people deserve to know what's going on. They trusted you, they believed in your project enough to give you money before they have anything in their hands! That's a pretty risky thing, so they deserve to know you are taking care of their orders the best you can.

We try to get everyone's order done as soon as possible. Everyone is always really excited to get their order, so it's nice seeing people's reaction when they get our prints, and they end being in love with them. That reaction, that love, and appreciation for our work is why keep doing the work with do. It's addicting, and no matter how much hard work, and sleepless night we have gone through it's all worth it for us.

Believe it or not, this is a simple version of all of the details that go into making a Kickstarter. There is so much work that goes into it, but the reward can be just as good. For our Origin Series Part I project we asked for $3,000, and we received $27,000. Now, we have Origin Series Part II and we asked for $13,000, and in 10 days we received almost $11,000, and we couldn't be more grateful and excited to know that this project might get funded as well!

If you have an idea, or some kind of passion project, take a chance and try it out. It's free to create a Kickstarter project. They only take a fee once your project gets funded, so you have nothing to loose. It is an exciting time we are living in. Creators have been given the gift of crowdfunding sites so that they can make direct contact with the audience they are trying to reach. All you need is the passion and the drive to make things happen.

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