Tim Ferris on Product Launch

The Madman of Magic Comic book is scheduled to launch January 1, 2013.  That is 21 days away.  With all the excitement of finding a new printer, preparing kickstarter rewards, etc; I have had little time to plan the actual marketing for the launch.

With such little time, I will be limiting my marketing efforts on this launch and instead schedule in time for the second comic book launch.

This video gives some great resources and practical tips for planning and learning about the best way to get free publicity and how to properly utilize your paid strategies.

I hope you enjoy the video as much as I did.

Is every idea a good idea? What side projects should I be doing?

I am constantly bombarded with ideas.  Projects I want to work on, funny photos I would like to create, short videos concepts, blog posts I want to write, etc., etc.

It is a constant struggle to stay focused on finishing the comic book even though the Comic is the thing that needs to get done.  I feel this is my biggest weakness as a businessman, an artist, and as a person.  No matter what I am working on, I can’t stop thinking about all the other things I could be doing or other projects I could start.

The criteria for a side project.

1. How much time will it take.  My newest thing in time management is leaving a time slot open for side projects.  Right now it is just a few hours on Saturday, but I hope to expand it to an entire day.

I Present to the World my Son

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.

Is boostlikes.com worth using?

I got an email the other day from boostlikes.com saying they can help me get more page likes for my Facebook Page.  According to them they put ads on their big websites promoting my facebook page and when they reach the number paid for, they pull it off.  If this is really what they do, then it is an amazing service.

Doubts

I have to be honest that I have a lot of doubts about the service of boostlikes.com.  I have hired companies/people in the past to build up fan pages and they all used fake accounts which means the numbers went up but no one looked at the page.  Having a thousand likes for a page helps build social proof, but I personally only am looking for people who will be interested in my projects (in this case the Madman of Magic Comic Book).

My Hopes

The truth is that I will not know how good this companies service is till I try it and you will know too once I post my review.  I have used several other products that I assumed could be a scam and was pleasantly surprised at the quality.  I am hoping boostlikes.com is going to be one of those cases.

Research

Niche Site Journal Week 8 – We made some money in our Last Week of the Journal & I talk a little about “the best spinner”

A crazy week as usual.  It was hard to find the time to put in my 16 hours this week.  My wife is due any day, the comic book (Madman of Magic) my wife and me are working on, my laptop died, family is planning to come to see the baby, I signed a new contract for putting on animation workshops for the local schools, and …. Well that is all I remember I can remember, but I did find 16 hours to work on the Niche Site.

Still in the Middle of my BackLinking Strategy

I have figured out that attempting a backlinking strategy for the first time is very time consuming.

This tool makes it a little easier (it is free):
http://www.my4hrworkweek.com/ultimate-backlink-tracker/

Some Notes on article directories:

These are links for my back linking strategy.  If you don’t know what that is, please read my post from Week 5: Back links and Article Marketing

Sites that no longer work or cost money

• Article Dashboard now charges money.
• Article Blast said my account hasn’t been approved yet.  It has been a few weeks and I still haven’t heard anything.  I did have to submit examples of work, which is cool, but you think they would have contacted me by now.
• Aricle Alley said the email provider (gmail) is blocked.  This is weird to block google email accounts, but I am not opening or using one of my website accounts for a backlinking strategy.
• Buzzle said external links are no longer allowed in Articles.  I signed up and was about to post when I read this.
• The Free Library does not accept new articles at this time.
• iSnare says you can post an article and have your website on the article, but if you want it to link back (be clickable) then it costs money.  I put one article on there just for the heck of it since I went through the trouble of opening an account, but I will not be posting any more.

Sites I did use