What Makes a Successful Kickstarter??

Kickstarter is a way for creators to fund their work through supporters pledging money towards the project. Many comic creators use it as a platform to fund the creation, publishing and distribution of their work. Because of this it’s important for the creator to make sure that they promote their project enough and engage with pledgers so they can reach their goal. Some people who run a Kickstarter page are unsuccessful because they don’t have the right sort of information or they don’t tell the pledgers enough about their project to get them interested and thus don’t reach their target.

A successful Kickstarter needs to have a decent amount of information about the work being created. In the case of comics this means a general description of what the story is about as well as characters and even how the creator came up with the idea. Telling the story of how the comic was first thought up and some of the trials that led to its inception will get “sympathy” from pledgers and lead to more money being donated to fund the comic. Images of the comic as well as character designs and concept art shows the journey that the creator has taken to make their comic and gets the pledger more interested in the content. Regular updates also help as they keep the pledgers informed as to the progress of the project as well as allowing them to communicate with the creator so as to learn more about the project as well as give their opinion on it. If the Kickstarter also has intriguing rewards then pledgers are more likely to give higher amounts of money for said rewards. This is also a good way to raise funds.

A Kickstarter can be unsuccessful if the page isn’t well maintained. If there isn’t much info amount the project then the pledgers won’t be inclined to put any money towards it. Without information, it’s hard to know what you’re putting money towards and thus you’ll be less willing to. Having little to no images of your work also doesn’t help as it can make it seem as though you’re not producing much or have little interest in your project. If there are no updates to your Kickstarter then no one will know how the process is going and some who have pledged may start to wonder what they’re even pledging for. Uninteresting rewards will also not help as often people will pledge due to expecting to get some cool merchandise but if what you offer doesn’t interest them then they aren’t likely to want to pledge money. Ultimately if you fail to entice people to pledge to your Kickstarter then you will undoubtedly fail to reach your goal so it is important to engage with your audience.