So, as many of you know, I was successful with my Part-Time Gods Kickstarter, finishing off at just under $8000 which is more than 300% over my funding goal. There’s no doubt about it, it went amazingly and I can’t say enough great things about the experience. Since i did a blog post about setting up (here), i thought i’d also talk a bit about the back end of Kickstarter.
Gettin’ Yo’ Money
So, Kickstarter is pretty up front about their services. They give you a place to display your work and an infrastructure to make it easy and they take 5% of the funds. On the Kickstarter FAQ, you know the one i didn’t read until now, it also says that Amazon takes their chunk out of the funds too. It ends up being another 3% to 5%. For anyone looking to do a Kickstarter, just keep that in mind when planning your spending budget. I got enough of a surplus that I’m ok, but i’m just saying.
And yes i realize that it’s just my inability to read all the information up front, but i know i can’t be the only one that doesn’t, right? Right? Otherwise, the process was painless. I got my money within days and have already started getting the print run, flyers, t-shirts and everything else together.
The Survey
First off, Kickstarter gives you the chance to create a survey in order to collect all the info you need from your backers. You know - name, number, e-mail, blah blah blah and blah. Funny enough, not everyone answers these quickly. For anyone that is going to start a kickstarter for their project… i’m sorry that you’ll have to go through this frustrating waiting game. For anyone that’s going to back a kickstarter…
USE AN E-MAIL YOU CHECK REGULARLY!!!!
You’ve given us money in exchange for a product. If we can’t get your info in order to give it to you, then you’ve removed the second part of the equation and it’s just free money for us. I know other people would be happy to take free money, but it just doesn’t sit right with me. I have a few that i need to track down still and it grates on my nerves.
Keeping the Updates Coming
I’m still trying to keep up with my Kickstarter updates, so that no one thinks that i’m ignoring the project. At the same time, taking the time to do that is me ignoring the project for a bit while i complete it. It’s an interesting dilemma that i’m getting used to. It appears that customers don’t mind waiting longer as long you tell them they have to wait longer. Strange, huh? I’m having fun with them though, giving people t-shirt totals and junk. Always have fun in whatever you do.
So, what’s next?
I am currently planning for a second Kickstarter to fund the second sourcebook for Wu Xing: The Ninja Crusade. I’ll be using it more as a preorder service than anything, but the idea of experimenting and getting hard data on the difference between a sourcebook Kickstarter and a corebook Kickstarter seems too fun to pass up. I love experiments.
I hope these tips were somewhat informative. The future holds great things.
Until next time.
