KickstarterForum.org

First Kickstarter:

We launched a Kickstarter in 2013 for the first book of our graphic novel. I was so excited, we hit our goal of $1000 in just 11 days. I know many hit theirs the first day, but a win is a win!

We didn’t have much of a following- let me rephrase that, we had no following. So I was blown away that we had a success our first time around.

It also wasn’t much money, but allowed us to get off the ground by obtaining our ISBN numbers and paying the setup costs for the first book.

Second Kickstarter:
We launched our second Kickstarter at the end of July, we were trying to raise money for the next two books and to help us get to our very first comic convention. We extended it to 45 days with a goal of $1500.

This time around I am actually put off by the lack of involvement. We have slightly more of a following, have learned a lot about KS, there is more to the rewards and so on and so forth.

Yet we are only at 15% funded.

There are still 28 days left which is a ton of time, I know. Yet the feeling of failure is creeping in.
I post updates on social media and talk as much as I can, but I don’t want to be spammy.

So what could have led to such a dramatic change between the two campaigns?

• Longer funding time? I felt like we didn’t have quiet enough time last time so we extended it 15 days.

• Higher goal? Only $500 more than last time.

• Started later in the year? This could be, we started a month earlier last time, could back to school be effecting performance?

• Kickstarter changed. The inner workings of the site are a lot different from two years ago. I feel like I'm getting lost amongst the sea of projects.


- A problem with our core? I'm starting to feel this may be the case. Right now our comic posts online for free which I’m beginning to think may have helped with our first Kickstarter, but now I kind of feel like people are taking the whole thing for granted. We may have to change our strategy on this one.

I’m trying to remain optimistic yet realistic. If our campaign should fail, I will be going over it with a fine toothed comb to see what could have happened. Total reconstruction may be in order.

Here's the link to our campaign if anyone wants to check it out and see what's going on.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1974601825/the-acryden-the-journey-continues

Yeah, the Kickstarter marketplace has changed a lot and it's definitely more competitive unfortunately. That could explain the difference between the two experience if the projects had a similar target audience and the same value proposition.