Two Good Thoughts on Kickstarter: A Letter and Dork Tower

• Posted by Johanna on April 13, 2012 at 8:57 am
• Category: LinkBlogging

In response to a letter complaining about how Kickstarter is biased and 'playing favorites' because they feature only some projects on their front page, Joseph Bloch at ICv2 makes some great points.

'a project should not rely on that sort of 'walk-by' traffic for success. The key is to get the word out among your target audience, get them talking about it and running up interest, and make your project such that your backers are also your evangelists. If you're relying on Kickstarter itself to generate backers, you're going to be disappointed.

'Waiting for Kickstarter itself to provide a host of backers isn't a winning strategy, and if you bring enough of your own backers to the table, you won't miss the casual browsers who are swayed by what's featured on the front page.

That first complaint letter, by the way, also says, 'Very often 'creators' are not in the business of marketing or PR.' Perhaps, but if you're going to try and fund something yourself using the Kickstarter site as a tool, you'd better be ready to market and promote it, or you're going to fail. If you don't want to handle all the aspects of a creative business, concentrate on finding a publisher, rare as that is these days, and resign yourself to getting less control and less of a cut. Blaming the tool just tells me 1) you're not ready to be running a business and 2) you didn't understand what Kickstarter offered and what it didn't promise. (And also maybe 3) you read the stories about million-dollar Kickstarters and got so starry-eyed over the numbers you didn't realize you don't have thousands of existing fans already like they did.)

On another note, since it's more fun to read comics than letters, today's Dork Tower strip has some Kickstarter wisdom. Click the panel to read the whole thing.

Similar Posts: Comic Book Diner Discusses Kickstarter § More on Kickstarter: I Was Wrong § Two Kickstarters Worth Supporting, and More Thoughts on the Method § Why I Won't Be Giving to Kickstarter Projects § What Happens When the Kickstarter Creative Team Changes Before Publication?

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