Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, kickstarter

Kicking Ass At Kickstarter – Replicator

Published Sun, 18 Oct 2015 14:00:23 -0500

Rob Xara writes,

I'm going to keep this simple, short and to the point. There are many factors in making a Kickstarter successful, today I am going to highlight just five of them.

The aim is bring awareness to my project Replicator on Kickstarter now and also talk about some key points in achieving success.

1- Concept

One man battles Mutants and Crazy Tech all the while going in"f*cking"sane. Introducing the Replicator.

It is impossible to predict how your idea will be received, not to say your idea isn't fantastic it could be the best thing ever created but it's like trying to predict the success of a viral video, you just don't know. Do you think the guy that recorded "Charlie bit my finger" knew what he had just recorded? That his video would go on to be the worldwide YouTube phenomenon that it was?

It's the same with comics, some ideas just resonate more with certain people, the point is you can't predict what you have, until people see it.

Ok, now in saying all that, unique concepts seem to do really well, things totally outside the box. I'll give you a Kickstarter example.

Skies of Fire was a runaway Kickstarter success, their concept description from their website is "Skies of Fire is a limited-series comic book featuring massive, diesel-powered airships and their duels on the high skies."

Sounds awesome right? Also, it's something that I haven't heard of before, combining a great concept with beautiful art they managed to attract 525 backers.

Skies of Fire available here http://www.mythopoeia.us/skies-of-fire.html

2- MARKETING

I think a lot of the mistakes people make when marketing their Kickstarter is that they try and market to everyone. Figuring out what your niche is and then homing in on that seems to be the way to go, that and challenging people. I don't think I have ever seen a better example of this then from Miles Greb the creator behind After the Gold Rush.

He found his market and just destroyed it, challenging people as to what science should be.

"The worrying trend is fear. Science has been playing the role of the atom bomb again, instead of the moon-lander."- Miles Greb

On the same note, challenging atheists to support a comic about science, it was a masterstroke. I'm sure this is only the tip of the iceberg in regards to what he did marketing wise.

You can support Miles here- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=756517&ty=h

3- INTERACTIONS

This ties in slightly with what I mentioned in the marketing section about finding your niche in the fact that it's better to interact with a smaller yet more relatable group than everyone else.

Be a part of something, interact with people, give feedback and support, be genuine. I am a member of a forum on Reddit called comicbookcollabs-https://www.reddit.com/r/ComicBookCollabs/

The amount of support I have received from that forum has been immense, because of what I said above I participated, offered feedback, pledged to other campaigns and I was a part of something.

When you are a part of something people want to see you do well. If you are just mass spamming your Kickstarter on everyone no one is going to give a xxxx.

4.- CROSS PROMOTING

This point ties in really well with part 3, interactions. I guess it might seem a bit crazy to promote other people's work in my article for bleeding cool. I mean I am trying to get MY project funded not theirs, well it comes down to cross promoting. As a new comic writer starting out it's hard to get followers isn't it? There is no magical button you press and then everyone from all around the world comes and checks out your work.

In fact it's a slow process, which can be sped up by cross promoting, reaching out to other comic creators who are in a similar position and just saying you noticed their project on kickstarter and as you have a similar project ask them if they would like to do some cross promotion with you.

Most of the time, but not always, they will be interested and instantly people who have backed their comic, liked their Facebook page, followed them on twitter are aware of your project. If you do this a couple of times with a few different projects/creators the number of people you can reach will skyrocket.

Now in terms of After The Gold Rush and Skies of Fire – I haven't organized anything with them cross promotion wise – I just thought they were excellent examples and I will reach out to them and say hey I just wrote an awesome article about you guys anything you could do to help promote my campaign would be much appreciated.

5- ASKING PEOPLE

This part sucks and no one enjoys it I'm sure.

People are not all the same, you will have some people that will rush to support you, others just won't at all and the remainder fall into various different categories. Some won't realize that they can help, some won't know how to, some will need a push over the line to help and some people just forget.

It's fine to ask people. I would suggest the following these two rules:

1 Ask once

2. Just make sure when you start asking people that those people are people you have interacted with at least on some level.

So we come to the final part of the post- if you have made it this far and found anything I have said to be useful I want and need your support. YOU. Yes You.

https://goo.gl/TpMeUG

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1609857238/replicator-0

Pledge £10 or more

0 backers Limited (20 left of 20)

THE BLEEDING MONSTER

*Bleeding Cool – Backers receive the Variant cover of Replicator and it's cheaper!
*Variant "The Monster" First Edition Print of Replicator #1 – Available only on Kickstarter.

*Digital Copy of Replicator #1.
*Shout Out! (Name in Thank You Section)