I really want to see that video about fulfillment, because many artists like myself, live outside of US and probably close than 100% of our campaigns, if we successfully manage to complete one, would be international shipping.
This was a great start-to-finish look at running a Kickstarter campaign (minus talking about postage and packing and trying to convince the post office to pick up dozens of packages). While you do have to bring your own audience to the platform, I'm always amazed at how many people back my campaigns who've never heard of me before coming across the campaign. What if anything are you going to do differently for your third Theseus campaign?
Dear Jordan, this video, again, was worth waiting for! Very informative! Your open and honest way of sharing your experience is always a pleasure to watch and listen to! You are not just a great artist but also a very sympathic person! I can't wait for more like this, because it helps me as an artist with zero marketing skills 😅 to move on and to be brave enough to give it a try at least! Thanks for that! Keep going! Are you also going to international comic cons? I'm asking, because I wondered if we could meet at the Comic Salon in Erlangen, Germany, this summer...?! This will be the first time for me sellinv my art in public😊😅
Thank you for all the kind words. I'm not traveling out of the US yet -mostly sticking to the American South for now. Slowly increasing risk by venturing further based on perceived profit. If I grow enough of an audience where international is feasible -i'd do those cons in a heartbeat.
thanks for this, my cousin tried to get me into kickstarter, ive been drawing my book for too long to mention the time is near, watched this twice, feel much more confident, again thanks!
Hi Jordan, Your channel is great! I was looking forward to this video. I really appreciate the honesty and thoughtfulness of your channel that is paired with the beautiful artwork of yours. Can't wait to watch this later today! Cheers, (ps. I don't ever write comments)
Well, that was a journey. But very informative, thanks for sharing your experience. I have been looking forward to the second part of this series I guess and it helps me alot. Looking forward to more videos and I will definitely check out your work. Thanks again. Also also ( I never write comments but your beautiful work and effort was truly admired by a fellow artist)
Hi! Thank you for sharing your experience. I am a subscriber and I appreciate your transparency throughout your comics journey! You shared multiple times throughout this video that FB marketing ads, social media, or any of the additional marketing tactics you tried did not seem to boost your Kickstarter campaign (I think you said your 1st campaign was 80% backed by people who didn't know your work previously?). Did you have a concrete way of tracking that for each campaign? I'm a data nerd and would love to know if you sent out a survey or had a question like that for your Kickstarter backers.
I'm surprised to learn you've printed a large number of physical copies and are selling them through a personal website. I guess graphic novels are a different thing, but virtually all book sales these days are either ebook or POD. And websites, outside of the major platforms, are mostly dead. But there are various markets for selling physical goods, plus some obvious markets for books. Etsy and Amazon seem like the obvious places. Any reason you haven't tried those options, or did you try them and they didn't work out for you?
Etsy I've had bad experiences with, although that's another story. Amazon I'd like to be on but I haven't taken the plunge. Probably will in the next month or two.
It probably depends on the size of your goal. I had built a small audience (through means like webcomic posting that I talked over in the previous video on marketing) and was able to push over $10k for the first Kickstarter. Had I not had that audience, I think I would've been lucky to get half that. On a small print run of a comic (rather than a full on book) costs can run lower ($1k-3k for example) and that's a more feasible goal with little to no audience, just relying on tenacious promotion and Kickstarter's own audience browsing their site for new work. However, I think the best bet is to post pages, gain a readership, and then utilize the audience you grow there. There's no guarantees in crowdfunding, but there's also no rush to start one, giving us time.
Very poorly. I consistently pushed it on social media, bought social ads, ran a local giveaway, attended an author fair -none of which seemed to help. That first campaign ran on Kickstarter advertising me just by my listing and my preexisting audience. And more and more I think that's key. 95% of crowdfunding marketing is the audience building that comes BEFORE the campaign.
I wasn't able to get paid advertising working. That's not to say no one can as I could just be very bad at it strategically. But paid advertising is very expensive. With a low budget (anything under thousands is peanuts for ads) you have to strike a bullseye on time, place and audience for an ad to work. Audience building is a lot of work but since I can do it outside the campaign, and with just time instead of money, I favor it over direct paid ads.@@MrHyjac
I really want to see that video about fulfillment, because many artists like myself, live outside of US and probably close than 100% of our campaigns, if we successfully manage to complete one, would be international shipping.
Thanks for letting me know. That helps me gauge the temperature. International shipping is really tough right now.
This was a great start-to-finish look at running a Kickstarter campaign (minus talking about postage and packing and trying to convince the post office to pick up dozens of packages). While you do have to bring your own audience to the platform, I'm always amazed at how many people back my campaigns who've never heard of me before coming across the campaign.
What if anything are you going to do differently for your third Theseus campaign?
Dude i also look foward to your videos, i really enjoy them, keep up the good work
Thank you very much!
Dear Jordan, this video, again, was worth waiting for! Very informative! Your open and honest way of sharing your experience is always a pleasure to watch and listen to! You are not just a great artist but also a very sympathic person! I can't wait for more like this, because it helps me as an artist with zero marketing skills 😅 to move on and to be brave enough to give it a try at least! Thanks for that! Keep going! Are you also going to international comic cons? I'm asking, because I wondered if we could meet at the Comic Salon in Erlangen, Germany, this summer...?! This will be the first time for me sellinv my art in public😊😅
Thank you for all the kind words. I'm not traveling out of the US yet -mostly sticking to the American South for now. Slowly increasing risk by venturing further based on perceived profit. If I grow enough of an audience where international is feasible -i'd do those cons in a heartbeat.
Thanks for the info and the work you put in to produce your videos. I always look forward to seeing a new one.
Glad you like them! Thank you for watching.
thanks for this, my cousin tried to get me into kickstarter, ive been drawing my book for too long to mention the time is near, watched this twice, feel much more confident, again thanks!
Glad it helped! Good luck with your project!
Really appreciate this detailed of a breakdown. Thanks for taking the time to make this!
Thank you!
Inspiring story man, I admire your resilience! Thanks for sharing 🙏
Awesome video and great advice, thanks!
Thanks for watching!
Hi Jordan, Your channel is great! I was looking forward to this video. I really appreciate the honesty and thoughtfulness of your channel that is paired with the beautiful artwork of yours. Can't wait to watch this later today! Cheers, (ps. I don't ever write comments)
Thank you for letting my video be one of your comment places, then! I appreciate the support.
Well, that was a journey. But very informative, thanks for sharing your experience. I have been looking forward to the second part of this series I guess and it helps me alot. Looking forward to more videos and I will definitely check out your work. Thanks again. Also also ( I never write comments but your beautiful work and effort was truly admired by a fellow artist)
Thank you!
Excellent info.
Glad it was helpful!
No fat in this video, this was fantastic! looking forward to more of your videos and work. cheers!
Thank you!
Hi! Thank you for sharing your experience. I am a subscriber and I appreciate your transparency throughout your comics journey! You shared multiple times throughout this video that FB marketing ads, social media, or any of the additional marketing tactics you tried did not seem to boost your Kickstarter campaign (I think you said your 1st campaign was 80% backed by people who didn't know your work previously?). Did you have a concrete way of tracking that for each campaign? I'm a data nerd and would love to know if you sent out a survey or had a question like that for your Kickstarter backers.
I'm surprised to learn you've printed a large number of physical copies and are selling them through a personal website. I guess graphic novels are a different thing, but virtually all book sales these days are either ebook or POD. And websites, outside of the major platforms, are mostly dead. But there are various markets for selling physical goods, plus some obvious markets for books. Etsy and Amazon seem like the obvious places. Any reason you haven't tried those options, or did you try them and they didn't work out for you?
Etsy I've had bad experiences with, although that's another story. Amazon I'd like to be on but I haven't taken the plunge. Probably will in the next month or two.
@@jholtillus have you taken the plunge on Amazon? When you do, I would love to hear about your experience.
Thank you for sharing your experience. Was the RUclips experiment successful in the end ?
Still working on that one. Many experiments to come.
Hey, great video. Do I need an audience in order to start crowdfunding?
It probably depends on the size of your goal. I had built a small audience (through means like webcomic posting that I talked over in the previous video on marketing) and was able to push over $10k for the first Kickstarter. Had I not had that audience, I think I would've been lucky to get half that. On a small print run of a comic (rather than a full on book) costs can run lower ($1k-3k for example) and that's a more feasible goal with little to no audience, just relying on tenacious promotion and Kickstarter's own audience browsing their site for new work. However, I think the best bet is to post pages, gain a readership, and then utilize the audience you grow there. There's no guarantees in crowdfunding, but there's also no rush to start one, giving us time.
Thank you sir.
ali babwa?
Such pronunciations result from a condition called Tennessee Tongue
How did you promote the crowdfunding?
Very poorly. I consistently pushed it on social media, bought social ads, ran a local giveaway, attended an author fair -none of which seemed to help. That first campaign ran on Kickstarter advertising me just by my listing and my preexisting audience. And more and more I think that's key. 95% of crowdfunding marketing is the audience building that comes BEFORE the campaign.
@@jholtillus so there’s no real advertising anymore it’s just building a following on socials?
I wasn't able to get paid advertising working. That's not to say no one can as I could just be very bad at it strategically. But paid advertising is very expensive. With a low budget (anything under thousands is peanuts for ads) you have to strike a bullseye on time, place and audience for an ad to work. Audience building is a lot of work but since I can do it outside the campaign, and with just time instead of money, I favor it over direct paid ads.@@MrHyjac