Ship in a Bottle: Sexy Ecchi Magical Girl Fantasy Webcomic

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