Some Quick Updates
Big Smoke Pulp Vol. 1 to the Next Phase
Call for entries have unofficially closed for Big Smoke Pulp Vol.1
I’ve read 200+ unpublished short stories and have accepted just over 20% of them into the first volume of this anthology. Some of them really stuck with me for days after I read them.
It’s something new and different. These stories are all thrilling, engaging reads. You’ll be hooked from the first few sentences with each and every one.
I’ll be sharing a lot more about Big Smoke Pulp Vol. 1 in coming posts as it all comes together.
We’ll have a solid launch date once we’ve fulfilled the next project by Pesto Comics: From Parts Unknown #1.
See more about that announcement in the last post:
Colourist Secured From Parts Unknown
Speaking of From Parts Unknown, we have a colourist to work on Daniel Caval’s excellent art: JP Jordan. I knew him from his great work on Sagas of the Shield Maiden and he’s recently coloured the Titan Comics book High on Life based on the game by Squanch Games.
I’m absolutely thrilled to have him onboard after seeing what he was able to do with those books. He’ll bring a whole new level of energy to the series.
The prelaunch is still pending fulfillment of Crazy Latte Thing Called Love, but you can give me a follow on Kickstarter as a next best step.
Voyager 3 on Kickstarter
To start, I’d like to share a project that isn’t by Pesto Comics, but one of my good friends,
.Voyager 3 has 13 days left and after a hot start, it’s languishing in the deadzone of the campaign. Roberto is an excellent artist and the first couple issues of his the Voyager series have been great! The third issue should be well worth checking out.
Show the campaign some love here:
The Crowdfunding Debrief
A Quick Preface
This post-mortem is partially based on a section of Tyler James’ ComixLaunch course. If you’re serious about launching your comics on Kickstarter, I highly recommend signing up. It’s so much more beyond the course itself, including live twice-monthly coaching calls and a community of other successful creators and crowdfunders to lean on.
I’ve adapted it and changed it for my own purposes. If you’re familiar with the course or post-mortems from other Kickstarter creators out there, you’ll see some common threads.
That said, I’m going to break this all down into three parts:
Backers
Dollars
Ads and Referrals
If there’s something more you’d like to see, let me know!
Let’s get into it!
Backers
This is easily the most popular Pesto Comics project by far.
Day One brought 60 backers. That’s nearly double the first day of Unlimited Udo and a third more than Stay Cool.
On Day Two, the backer count matched the first two days of the other two campaigns combined.
Day Three, the backer count surpassed the entire campaign for Unlimited Udo. Stay Cool was surpassed on Day Ten.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of the backers were completely new to Pesto Comics. We had a healthy amount returning backers. Though the new backers alone would have allowed this campaign to hit new heights, the returning backers made this a huge success.
Here’s to cracking 200 with the next campaign!
This campaign had more people following the campaign than the previous two combined. The conversion rate stayed almost the same, which led to a higher converted backer count. The high follower count could be attributed to the extra long pre-launch this campaign had.
We’ll know with the next one as we won’t be going nearly as long for prelaunch again.
Something very interesting happened with the formats. Every campaign has been almost 2/3 digital to 1/3 physical. That’s nothing new.
But in this campaign, more physical books were sold than digital! The bundle deals seem to be working as new backers were getting the back catalog.
These tend to be bigger ticket items, so it helps the overall funded number (while also bringing costs of their own). It’s been a recent conversation online that backers seem to be shifting to digital more than ever, but we’re still seeing the opposite here. It’s a tough balance as campaigns gross the most income from physical issues, but digital are pure profit (production-wise, at least).
It’ll be interesting to see how this trend goes in future campaigns.
USA! USA!
As a Canadian, I’m humbled to have so many backers from South of the border. It helps that services like Stallion Express actually make it less expensive to ship to the US than within Canada.
The first backer was actually from the UK. He also happened to draw the “Groovy” variant and picked up a handful of copies for himself: the amazing Will Robson.
Dollars
Lets talk some dollars & cents.
The campaign for Crazy Latte Thing Called Love was by far the best performing book so far. Within two days, we made more than either of the previous campaigns.
It also had no “zero days” with every day of the campaign having a pledge. Even with a handful of backers dropping their pledges, the campaign always ended up in positive territory by the end of the day.
The goals on the campaigns are artificially low. They’re simply a marker as the comics are mostly completed by the time we launch. Surpassing the goal, by substantial amounts like this did, are critical to keep this going. Fortunately, this campaign did so.
This report is as of June 26th. Normally, this campaign review would be static a month after funding. However, since the introduction of Late Pledges, this can change up until surveys are sent. We’ve seen moderate success with it so far.
The average per day was skewed, positively, by an extra hot first couple of days.
Yet, all the funds that are raised aren’t the true total sent by Kickstarter.
The Kickstarter fee itself is 5%. The remainder is Stripe processing fees.
Dropped backers also eat into the total. These are backers who were still on the campaign post funding, but their cards do not clear. Considering we had 18 errored backers, getting that number down to 6 is a positive to take from this.
It was a relief to see this trend go back on track. Stay Cool was a smaller, black & white book so it was a lower cost overall, but it did make the climb a lot tougher to funded and beyond. Crazy Latte Thing Called Love was our biggest book. Having more content to include in bundles helps bump the per backer average up as well.
Even with how successful this campaign was, we’re still far from being profitable. The campaign funds cover the print cost.
Granted, the printing is not a 1-to-1 based on Kickstarter orders alone. A stockpile is being built for conventions, online sales and bundles in future Kickstarter campaigns.
Maybe one day I’ll share the balance sheet for the company as a whole, but we’re very much in start-up mode. Break-even is the first target and we’re still a bit far from that.
Ads and Referrals
I’ve been asked a few times why I opt for Kickstarter over other platforms. The answer is simple: the referral system.
This is why I always applaud bigger campaigns, like Skybound’s recent G.I. Joe campaign, for coming to the platform as they bring new users to the system. Then Kickstarter pushes our campaigns to them.
Most of the referrals still come from emails to followers and previous backers, so building your own community is key, but with more potential backers scrolling activity feeds and the discovery page; the opportunity for growth expands.
The harder work is getting folks outside of the system to join in. There’s still a whole host of avenues to do that. Surprisingly, and maybe unfortunately, Twitter is still going strong in this regard. The few of us who haven’t fled to other platforms are still happy to support indie creators, thankfully.
The shout-out by Comics Beat was a feather in the cap. It didn’t lead to the biggest boost, but everything helps. Even if it was only followers who will now be in the Kickstarter referral system.
You’ll notice on the previous slide that 1 backer managed to bring in 4% of total funded on their own. That nearly made the advertising worth it - nearly.
The challenge with Kickstarter campaigns and advertising is the very short runtime. Late Pledges may help with this, but unless you’re really willing to spend high amount to reach the maximum amount of potential backers, ads can be risky.
This campaign overspent on ads with a negative ROI this round. Every time someone clicked the ad, it ended up costing 71¢. Definitely not the result you want with margins being so thin.
Much more fruitful was using Backerkit Launch. The benefit of this tool is it pulls in all your previous backers plus newsletter subscribers (like you, maybe?)
The challenge with advertising is breaking through. Even though I felt like I was pushing everywhere I could, I still found myself having conversations where folks didn’t know I had launched. Tools like this help bridge that gap a bit.
The film school kid in me is bothered by this retention trend, but it has a very straight-forward answer. For the first two campaigns, the video was simply a trailer. A couple minutes of pure hype and excitement.
For this campaign, there was still a trailer. It was then followed by a campaign explainer. I imagine this is where the majority of viewers clicked off - understandably so.
I think the strategy for the next campaign is the separate these. The main Kickstarter video will be the trailer. I’ll add an explainer to the body of the campaign for those that prefer not to read.
Launch Experience Q&A
How do you feel now that the Kickstarter campaign is over?
I feel pretty good about how this campaign went. It started off really, really well. Better than any campaign to date - and the good vibes continued throughout.
It was really a dream campaign.
What was the best part / high point of this campaign for you?
There were multiple high-points in this campaign. Every time another big name in the comics gave the campaign a shoutout or even a passing mention - I was over the moon. Scott Snyder, Pat Shand, Kat Calamia, Michael Avon Oeming, Anthony Stokes and so many more I’m sure I missed.
What was the worst part / low point of this campaign for you?
A first for this campaign was having backers drop pledges mid-campaign. It was significantly more backers that I’ve ever had and therefore more opportunity for backers to drop out before the campaign closes. Still, it was always a let-down to see a “backer alert” and it be bad news instead of a new fan.
How are you different now that the campaign is over?
I feel more eager to get the next campaign going than ever before. I’m ready. After Stay Cool, I felt good and wanted to keep this going eventually.
Now I’m impatient about it. I want to do it right now!
What surprised you the most about this campaign?
The organic reach on this campaign was a shock. I truly did not expect it to go as far as it did and reach so many people outside of my circle. I had a lot of help from big names sharing it on socials, but it was still a surprise to see it show up where it did.
What’s your biggest concern now that the campaign is over?
My biggest worry is that I’ve set the bar too high for myself. I know it’s a silly concern and I should be striving to do my best, but that self-doubt is a monster and will always creep in if you let it. I know this will go away once I’m in full motion with the next campaign, but for now I’m worried I’ve hit my peak.
Launch Debrief Q&A
What worked really well during this campaign?
The homage variant covers were a real hit. It started with the silly idea to do the “groovy” variant (which is an Army of Darkness variant that Will Robson absolutely nailed) and went from there. Every artist did an amazing job with each one and they really sold great.
Can you do it again?
Absolutely. I think I’m locked into the idea from now on. I loved seeing what these talented artists can do. Backers - and folks at Niagara Comic Con - seemed to love it. Had a lot of double-takes, so it’s working.
How might you do it even better next time?
A rethink of the stretch goal strategy is in order. Rather than getting different tchotchkes printed or made, I’ll focus on putting extra funds into getting more artists to do their takes. Whether it’s new covers or prints.
What did backers really seem to resonate with?
Aside from the variant covers, the digital backlist did really well. Offering a bunch of comics at a reasonable price is an easy choice, it seems. Obviously happy to do this again (and keep DRM free versions exclusive to Kickstarter campaigns).
What completely bombed?
The second variant cover didn’t do as well as I had hoped. I knew it wasn’t as flashy as the main or homage variants, but I commissioned it for Mattia to do anyway - even though it wasn’t budgeted for. I liked it that much.
At the very least, we got a really cool sticker out of it.
What will you NEVER do again?
Although I like the digest variants, I don’t know that I’ll continue with them as a stretch goal. They’re a little bit expensive to make if they’re not being sold - and the novelty doesn’t make it worth it.
What were your THREE biggest lessons learned or takeaways from this campaign?
Be ready before setting a launch date. I thought I had everything I needed, but as the campaign wore on, I found I ran out of marketing material and didn’t have every day of the campaign planned as well as I had hoped.
Don’t put too much effort (or money) into ads. A couple of videos and images are plenty.
Keep the momentum going. Have the next project well in flight so you can keep everyone’s attention. It was too long of a gap between this and Stay Cool.
In Summary
I’m still in a bit of shock with how well this campaign went. That said, it’s just another step in the journey of breaking even with these campaigns. I’ll continue to refine and retune.
With the next couple campaigns, we’re trying something new with each. We’re diving into serialized stories, with From Parts Unknown and Naked Kaiju Woman, and prose publishing, with Big Smoke Pulp Vol. 1. I’m excited to get these going.
Up next: Fulfillment. I’ll share how printing and shipping this comic went in future updates. (Colours are being finished up by Mattia, so I’ll have news on this soon.)
If there’s anything I didn’t cover that you’re hoping I would, let me know in the comments.
Until next time…
What’s Next?
July 15
To The Letter
How I letter comics and why it’s so dang important (plus: prepping for San Diego Comic Con!)
August 1
TBD - One of Three Topics
Three possible outcomes for this newsletter based on timing:
1. Juggling Multiple Projects at Once
2. Post-Mortem Part II: Fulfilling Crazy Latte Thing Called Love
3. Launching From Parts Unknown
These will all be future newsletter entries one way or another, but it depends on where we are with each actual action.
Find Pesto Comics In-Person!
What’s Coming from Pesto Comics
Post-Mortem: Crazy Latte Thing Called Love