Have you seen the new hardcover of Steve Bryant’s Special Kickstarter Edition of Athena Voltaire (above)?!! Woah! And yes, that’s the sound of me geeking out. 

Last week, Steve’s graphic novel project “Athena Voltaire” met and exceeded its funding goal with 32 days to go—not bad!  While there is no one way to successfully run a Kickstarter project, we were especially impressed by the sheer amount of preparation and dedication Steve put into his campaign, and he was kind enough to share with us his personal recipe for success. Words of wisdom that any potential (or current!) project creator could learn from. 

Check out what he had to say, below. Support his project here.

What do you think contributed to the success of your Kickstarter campaign?  Any tips for folks out there who are thinking of bringing their projects to Kickstarter?

First of all, Kickstarter is awesome, amazing, incredible…whatever qualifiers you want to use. But it’s not magic. Kickstarter gives creative people a vehicle to achieve their goals, but it should never be treated as a situation of “If you build it, they will come.”

For me, preparation and promotion were the keys.

Preparation: 

Before my campaign launched, I spent a month preparing for the launch. In addition to shooting and editing the video, I put a lot of time into creating the incentives: Are they of comparable value to the money I’m requesting? Are they rewards that would coax me into pledging a particular project? Can the incentives be shipped to the backers within a reasonable time after the campaign ends? Kickstarter isn’t a charity and it isn’t an “investment opportunity.” It’s a patronage program and you want to make people excited to be your patron. Give them value.

I also prepared by ramping-up my social networking presence, particularly on Facebook and Twitter. “Out of sight, out of mind” applies here. I talked about the campaign for a couple of weeks before launching, in hope of preparing my readers for the campaign in advance.

I also contacted a number of comics podcasts and news sites, telling them that the campaign was coming, trying to line up interviews and articles in advance. Even if you don’t have an established following, someone will find your Kickstarter campaign interesting and will give you the forum to talk about it. You don’t do comics? Doesn’t matter. You still probably are a part of, or have access to, a community that would find your campaign interesting. Make contact with them before your campaign launches.

Remember, once your Kickstarter campaign launches, you’re on the clock. The more legwork that you can do in advance, the more time you’ll have to promote when your campaign is underway.

Promotion:

Don’t be a jerk about it, and don’t make Kickstarter the subject of your every Tweet, Facebook update, or forum post. But keep your potential patrons apprised of how far along you are, both in terms of fundraising and any preliminary work you’re doing on your actual project. Utilize the Kickstarter updates, too.

The bottom line is that no one can pledge if they don’t know you exist.