Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Bill Williams, Charmer, Comics, entertainment, kickstarter, Richard Silva

Bill Williams' Five Reasons To Use Kickstarter

Published Sat, 29 Oct 2016 18:00:33 -0500

by Bill Williams

There are a load of reasons to use the power of a crowdfunding site like Kickstarter or Go Fund Me to underwrite a new project. There are obvious short-term goals like fund raising and long term goals that range from creating a brand to pointing a spotlight at a new career. Here are five reasons to gather money and fans using crowdfunding sites.

1 – You Raise Cash- Money makes it easier to get the work done. Cash on hand means you get to buy enough of your life back to get the art chores done in a more timely fashion. You can hire a professional letterer and maybe even a PR person to help sell your project when it's done.

2 – You Measure Interest- One way to see if your project has legs is to see if you can convince X amount of people to part with $20. People will eventually vote with their dollars and not with 'Likes'. Can you attract enough of them to demonstrate that your project is well-reasoned and well- structured?

3 – You Provide an Alternative Digital Distribution Channel- Offering a DRM-free pdf of a comic has a lot of charm for people that do not like the bigger comic distribution sites.

4 – Sales lead collection- A successful Kickstarter campaign gives you the chance to gather information on early adopters. Those are the people that you can go back to as you launch future projects.

5 – Get your Name out There- Many people that make comics are working toward career goals that are helped if people recognize the names of the creators involved. Being attached to a project that came to fruition is a step toward that goal.

There are two approaches to the reward structures that are married to a Kickstarter campaign. One has tangible rewards. Destiny, NY is a swing-for-the-fences-let's-print-a-trade-paperback kind of project. Veteran comic book writer Pat Shand is raising cash and will ship books and prints anywhere in the world. This is a Hi-Fi Approach with big risks and big rewards. In this type of campaign, Pat is the publisher.

An example of the Low-Fi Approach is CHARMER #1. The project has a much more modest budget and reward structure. The only rewards in this campaign are digital with the goodies being delivered by dropbox and Drive Thru Comics. Anyone who shares the CHARMER campaign via social media gets a free digital mini-comic. In this type of campaign, comics are sold digitally as the creators search for a traditional publishing partner.

As a backer of 160 campaigns, some successful and some not, I approached the task of running a campaign very conservatively. That Charmer campaign, that one is mine. The thinking was that the creative team would rather concentrate more on making comics and less on the fulfillment chores associated with a successful campaign. People that have completed successful campaigns tell horror stories of money lost on shipping that had to come out of their own pockets.

The point of using a site like Kickstarter or Go Fund Me is to be more like a success story and less like a ghost story.

You can find the Charmer Kickstarter project here.

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