The first issue of The Crimebusters is currently live on Kickstarter through July 2, so I thought I’d give an update on how things are going as we approach the halfway point of the campaign.
So far, everything’s going great! I set my initial goal at $500. In truth, when I did my initial calculations for the project, I figured I would need $800 to accomplish my goal with this issue, but I set the goal intentionally low to make it more likely that the project would succeed. I figured that if necessary, I could pony up the shortage out of pocket.
That won’t be necessary, though, as we just passed the $1000 mark! I’m super grateful to everyone who has supported this project, it’s really been humbling. I just hope that everyone like the comic once they receive it!
From day one of this project, I’ve been very transparent about every phase of the process, so I think it’s only fair that I continue to give an inside look at the world of self-publishing. I know it’s a bit unusual for people to open up about the financial details of publishing, or Kickstarter, but I know there are some people reading who are hoping to one day do their own projects, so maybe this will help.
After the Kickstarter campaign ends and I’ve completed fulfillment, I will do a complete rundown of the whole process — what I learned, what I did wrong, strategies that worked or didn’t work, the costs involved, etc.
For now, I’ll say that peripherals are proving to be surprisingly expensive. This stuff adds up, and quickly. And it’s important to remember that between Kickstarer’s own fees, and the fees of their credit card service, you lose about 10% of your pledged money right off the top.
As a result, I’m only going to get about $900 of the $1000. I’ve also spent more money than I anticipated on rewards — things like buttons, stickers, etc. — and I still have the fairly large cost of shipping to deal with. The upshot is that for my expenses directly relating to the Kickstarter campaign (I’m not including startup stuff like the cost of filing for copyright, or hosting this website), printing the actual comic is going to be less than half of my total expense! And since these costs were higher than I originally budgeted for, I think at this moment I’m just about at the break even stage, even though I have doubled my original goal.
Definitely a learning curve!
Okay, with all that said and done, let’s get to the meat of the thing here: a Kickstarter media roundup!
First, my good friends at Nerd Caliber were nice enough to have me on their YouTube channel for an interview about The Crimebusters. I look like I just fell off the back of a moving train, but here’s a look. Thanks, Nerd Caliber!
Here’s the Kickstarter campaign video, in case you haven’t seen it yet:
I also made a short video to advertise the Kickstarter campaign on Facebook, so here’s a look!
I also made an unboxing video to show off all the sweet swag you get if you choose to join the Crimebusters Fan Club!
And finally, my brother was nice enough to have me as a guest on his podcast, the CMass Politics Podcast, which usually covers local politics in Central Massachusetts. But this time, we’re talking about comics — though we do get into some political stuff discussing the 1950’s setting for The Crimebusters, with stuff like the Red Scare and more. You can check it out here on Spotify!
Thanks, everyone!