Comic Book Printing Good News and Bad News for Kickstarter Update

Good News = We are only a few pages from completing the comic book.

Bad News = We are not going to be able to get the physical comic books to you before the end December.

The Good News Explained

The Good news is that we are almost done with the comic book and currently ahead of schedule on getting the final copy ready for printing. We have been working hard to make the changes from the original script to this new and improved one… We are very excited to hear what people think.

The Bad News Explained

We talked to the printers today and it turns out the company we had planned on using has several hidden costs they do not mention in their pricing list online and it turns out their standard turn around time for a order our size is 5 weeks.

We are currently looking for a new printer.

What does this mean to Backers?

More Madman of Magic Questions

I got some more questions via facebook message and YouTube Comments that I felt others might find interesting.  You can see my Last Q&A Session at

jasonloveslife.com/kickstarter-madman-of-magic

Question

How much would it cost to make the comic book in total.

Answer

It is a hard question to answer.
Easily $2,000. According to my research. A starting comic book writer would get paid $1800 and the artist around $2500 (I can find my references on this, but that is what I found online). So for a company hiring people to make the comic book it would be $4,300 (not including a colorist) plus publishing costs, marketing, fixed costs, etc. etc. For us to do it, the biggest cost is our time. For those using kickstarter you have to include Kickstarters 5%, Amazon’s 5%, cost to create rewards, postage, and other costs that pop up.

Not sure if this is what you meant, but I hope it helps.

Question

I love the project, but I am broke and can’t afford to back it.

Kickstarter Madman of Magic Q&A

I have received a lot of questions surrounding my choices with Kickstarter and the Madman of Magic Comic Book project. I figure instead of answering the same questions over and over again, I will share them here for everyone to read.
If you have a question of your own, leave it in the comment section and I will answer them too.

Question

What do you think of Kickstarter?

Answer

Kickstarter is ideal for projects like mine.  My wife and I don’t have any way to raise funding for investing in this project or, at least in our case, not to cover all of it.  With Kickstarter we can pre-sell and see if people are interested in our work.  It turns out they are interested in our project and in a big way.

Question

Isn’t Kickstarter a scam?

Answer

I guess it depends on how you define scam or who’s projects you fund.  I am not sure what happens if a user doesn’t fulfill his backer’s rewards.  Maybe someone could have a project, collect the money, and run.  I am not sure, but the 3 projects I have funded all seem to be fulfilling their rewards

Fulfilling your Kickstarter project – an email from Kickstarter

I received this email 14 days after the success of my campaign and a few days after the funds were placed into my bank account.  I wanted to share this with you for those interested in starting, in the middle of, or have just completed a Kickstarter campaign.

The email from Kickstarter campaign

Congratulations on your successfully funded Kickstarter project!As you dive into the next stage of your project, we’ve put together a few tips to help you along the way:

1. Stay connected with backers
Respond to comments, questions, and messages, and use project updates to keep backers in the loop. Your backers will love getting the inside scoop on your project’s latest developments.

2. Send out reward surveys
Send out your surveys when you’re ready to collect all the info you need to deliver

Update # seven: Full Production Mode

Last week we received the Kickstarter funding in our amazon account; which means we can start ordering prints for all of the cool rewards purchased by our backers. T-shirt, posters, and stickers have been put into their appropriate file format and sent off to the various printers. Once the proofs are finalized we just wait to get the final products in the mail. Their has been some revisions on the script for the comic.  We are in the process of creating new images and reorganizing the panels for each page.

The Plan

Your First Emails from Kickstarter

I have been getting a lot of questions lately about the process of running a proper Kickstarter campaign.  I realize this is something people are struggling with and interested in finding the best way to get their project crowdfunded.  To best help these individuals, I will be putting together posts that cover the process.  The posts from the last few days cover the emails that are sent from Kickstarter during the process to give you an idea of what to expect.

In this article we take a look at the first 2 emails you will get when putting together your Kickstarter Campaign.

With Kickstarter, they let you work on setting up your project in peace.  They have several articles on how to set-up your campaign they call Kickstarter School.  After you first start your project Kickstarter sends you the first email:

Kickstarter experience as a backer

Before you launch your Kickstarter campaign, it is important to have an idea of the experience from the side of a backer.

Why you should back a Kickstarter project before you launch your own:

1. You can get a sense of what draws you to a specific project and use what you learned in your campaign to draw in others.
2. You can help trouble shoot problems or explain the process to your friends/family/fans that have questions for you.
3.  Ensure your backers have the best experience possible.

How backing a Kickstarter project helped me

After failing my first Kickstarter campaign I waited 3.5 months before launching my next campaign.  The best thing I did during that time was back 3 other projects.  This was to learn the process of what others were doing and they were projects that I wanted to see created.

The biggest thing I learned was that the funding could be done through existing Amazon accounts and was really easy.  Before backing I did know Amazon did all the financial part of Kickstarter, but I thought Kickstarter had their own credit card payment page.  I found out people can pay using their existing account and this makes backing a project an easier sell to those who worry about sharing their credit card information online.

Emails backers get

Another thing I got to experience was the emails backers get from the process.

The emails backers receive are:

1) THANK YOU for the pledge (received when they initially back project)