I really truly am at a loss. I very much want to start either a Kickstarter or an Indiegogo to get some help with hiring an artist full-time so we can begin “Clara Bottle: Paranormal Investigator” as I have some really great ideas where I want to go with it. But the problem is, the threshold to entry is so high, none of the money I collect will be left to pay for the swag I’d have to offer in order to entice you to buy into it. I don’t know if y’all are aware of this, but last year, Glance set up a Kickstarter for her “legit” series Lavender Legend in order to raise money for con season, and in spite of getting almost five times the money she asked for, by the time she paid for all the extras, stretch goals, etc. she actually ended up OWING money instead of making it. Artists are notorious for being lousy accountants, which is why almost none of the C.P.A.’s in the world make a living drawing. but it’s a constant battle to try and figure out what to offer when the product doesn’t yet exist.
Here’s the bottom line, though:
If I want to hire another artist for this new series who is even HALF as good as Prettio here on Ship in a Bottle, I need to come up with at LEAST $5000 in revenue to fund us at 2x a week for a year. (that’s our so-called “goal”) Which means I will have to come up with ADDITIONAL funding to the tune of say, $500-2000 in order to cover any prizes, rewards, stretch goals, etc. Given that our readership here is roughly the size of Lavender Legend’s, and they came up with about $2500 (less after the horrendous Kickstarter and AmazonPay fees), I can’t help but grimace at our prospects here. Especially since any bonuses and rewards achieved here will have a SUBSTANTIAL lag-time due to the whole “it doesn’t exist yet” problem we will have. So you could say I’m in a real pickle here trying to figure out what to do.
I’m open to ideas. Nothing is too radical to air out at this point. Yak about it in the comments.
~Mace
Hello Mace, I’ve been lurking for a while now and I’m sorry to hear about the wall you’ve hit here. Perhaps you could offer exclusive pin-ups or some such. I can’t say that I entirely understand what “extras” and “stretch goals” need to be payed for though, so some more info on that might help me give you some more exact suggestions.
The problem with Kickstarter or any other crowdfunding venue is that you really need the prizes to exist before you even start, and that defeats the entire purpose of having the project funded by the public in the first place. There’s nothing I can offer that doesn’t require me to spend money out of pocket up front to create works to entice you with.
The rigid stretch goal system is a big problem with most crowdfunding schemes.
It isn’t just individual artists, but even corporations who do have accountants who get into a hole by promising a stretch goal that costs way too much and they end up unable to deliver (or taking a loss to deliver)
That’s where Glance got jammed up as I mentioned in my lengthy lament. She got to goal, then suddenly, you have to do “stretch goals”, and I think that’s a tad ridiculous. On my podcast radio show, we offered intangible prizes such as “guest host for one week” or “write a joke and have us read it on-air”. It was a moderate success, but only good for a handful of C-notes.
Mace, why not give a timeline for contributions, and the end of the Timeline have a drawing for all those that donated for an autographed custome image or series, not something for everyone.
Interesting idea. I always worry some folks might feel cheated if they don’t at least get a “consolation” prize. Even if you can’t contribute big bucks, we do still have donation options (you can visit my other comics for working donation buttons…) where everyone gets a prize once we hit a few different tiers. That’ll never really go away.
FYI the donate button doesn’t work in FireFox. Fixing that may help your plight a bit.
I didn’t think it was yet functional in any browser at all. Trying to figure out why I can’t seem to work the most basic of HTML anymore. lol It’ll work someday, but it has to be off-site. :/
I can give you a hand with that if it is Mace, programmer at a fairly low functional level (still in education xD and actually starting an internship on monday!) so if you got issues with HTML, it should be fairly snappy to fix 🙂
I appreciate the offer, but the issue is that I *DO* know HTML, but for some reason, I cannot get the file to display *AS* HTML. It seems to want to show up as a text file. I’ll figure it out. It’s one of thousands of things on my “to do” list. lol
From my own experience: 2 heads and 4 eyes are more than 200% the efficiency of 1 head and 2 eyes.
That said, that offer will always stand, just hit me up if you need a bit of help!
No clue Mace :\
That’s a tough spot!
I know. Thanks for reading, at least. 🙂