Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, kickstarter

Avoiding A Silence On Kickstarter

Published Sun, 02 Nov 2014 13:00:33 -0600

The Silent Witch by Mark Lowery – writer, Chip Boles – illustrator, Matthias Ransheim – illustrator, Hillevi Gustafson – Kickstarter manager. Close date: 20 November 2014. Publishing date: 2 November 2014

A dark secret follows two lonely young people as they search for each other and themselves on a fantastic journey in a dreamlike world. Benjamin Frost is a loser. He loses things. He lost his parents, his sister, his joy, and his hope. And at the nexus of every loss is the Silent Witch.

Written by Hillevi Gustafson

When my friend Mark asked me to help him out with his Kickstarter campaign I was pretty sceptical. I'd worked on a Kickstarter once before and it's a lot of work, not to mention the anxiety about whether or not anyone will even support it. But then he started to tell me the story of The Silent Witch, and there was no way I wasn't going to help make this graphic novel happen. The story is both exciting and meaningful, and the art is quite frankly crazy cool. You can check it all out on our project page over at Kickstarter.

So I got roped in to helping out, and while I had some experience with Kickstarter before, a lot of this is done in a way that feels like you're flying by the seat of your pants. And it's exhilarating and daunting, but in the end it will all be worth it. It's not over yet, but I thought I would share five things that I have learned from our Kickstarter campaign so far.

Your friends will want to back the project, but they are going to be lazy about it.

Before we started our campaign we made lists of out friends and family who we knew would want to back the project, even just out of familial loyalty or guilt. So we contacted them on Day 1 and told them about the project and got their promise of support. And two weeks later most of them have yet to actually do it. I guess what I'm saying is, you're going to have to remind people to do something they already want to do. The best way to get it done, I would say, is to invite unsuspecting friends over for coffee and cake, and then whip out an iPad before they realize what's going on.

Don't exhaust yourself in the first week

When you're planning a Kickstarter campaign one of the first things you're probably going to do is set a start date. After you do that so much of your energy is focused on getting ready for that date — writing the project page, planning the rewards, preparing and outreach strategy. But a good thing to keep in mind is that your campaign will continue for more than just that first day or week. We got so focused on that deadline of D-Day that we kind of worked ourselves crazy in the first week and started freaking out about the fact that we didn't reach our goal right away. Rookie mistake. Our campaign is 30 days, the average length for a Kickstarter campaign, and we have finally calmed down a bit. You can't make it to the end if you burn out. Also and IV drip of coffee may be a sound investment.

Find support in your community

Sometimes it helps to live in a small town or country. Our very first backer was an older lady in the town where Mark lives, who just saw our post on the online community notice board and decided to lend a hand. This is maybe not the obvious demographic for us to find support for our dark and fantastical graphic novel, but you'd be surprised. So hit up your local knitting circle and tell them about your project while you purl with the experts.

Don't loose hope

We're about halfway through our campaign and we have gotten a significant chunk of our money and we have a bunch of lovely backers, but we are still very far from reaching our goal. It's really easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it's just never going to get there. But we can't all be the Veronica Mars campaign and make millions in less than a day. For most campaigns it will be a long and hard fight to make it to the finish line, and you have to stay positive for the entire journey.

Have a blast and keep on truckin'

So you don't make it to your goal and you just have a handful of people back the project? That doesn't mean you get to fall into a pit of despair and never show your face on the Internet again. (I hope!) Keep in mind all the cool things that happened during a campaign and realize that you are in no way worse off than when you started the thing. I have gotten to do some really cool stuff for this campaign, like write this piece for Bleeding Cool. We've also discovered that there are a lot of people out there who are interested in getting their hands on a copy of The Silent Witch – and we are gonna work damn hard to get these people this graphic novel if this campaign doesn't do the trick. (But we really want it to!)

Now I know it's a Marvel/DC world and we're all just living in it (I mean, they're making over 30 movies in 5 years, holy carp!) but perhaps there is room for something a little bit different? Mark has been thinking about this story for a really long time, and it's ready to meet its readers. We believe in this story and we hope you will to, so go over to our campaign and check it out (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/949080562/the-silent-witch). You can also find us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/TheSilentWitch and Twitter (www.twitter.com/SilentWitchTeam), so drop us a line – I love getting notifications!

And just 'cause you're all awesome, here is a special offer just for Bleeding Cool readers – if you pledge 250SEK ($33.81) to get the soft cover book, you will also get a special physical print! Just send us a message on Kickstarter once you've pledged with the discount code BLEEDINGCOOLWITCH and we'll take care of the rest! Thank you so much for your support!

Contact info:

Mark Lowery, lowerymark@hotmail.com

Hillevi Gustafson, +44 7889035565, hillevi.gustafson@gmail.com

twitter.com/silentwitchteam

facebook.com/TheSilentWitch

www.thesilentwitch.com

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!