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Hi my name is Antoine Hicks is my project Kickstarter is A.R. Hicks Dark Souls. It's a fantasy steampunk comic I have been working for years now. I'm a single father of two kids and I'm 32. I was wondering what I could do to get my comicbook out there to the people.

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It can take many months to learn to market yourself and successfully crowdfund, but you can do it.

ARHicks00 wrote:Hi my name is Antoine Hicks is my project Kickstarter is A.R. Hicks Dark Souls. It's a fantasy steampunk comic I have been working for years now. I'm a single father of two kids and I'm 32. I was wondering what I could do to get my comicbook out there to the people.

Hi, Antoine! Glad to see that you made it.

I think that your Kickstarter project has a lot of merit to it, but I think that you've not done a very good job of showcasing it via your project page. In a nutshell, your project page is starving for visual impact. So, let me look at it, anew, and offer you some feedback on things that I think need changing.

1. Your project video doesn't really do much to take advantage of the video medium. It is mostly a combination of music, text segments, and still images. The only actual full motion video sequence is near the very end, where you talk only a very small amount.

2. In the video, you are not wearing a shirt, it looks like. This hyper-casual approach doesn't create a positive visual image. It also doesn't come across as professional. If you want people to take your project seriously, then you need to take not just your project seriously, first, you also need to take your project video seriously.

3. As far as your very brief video appearance goes, you don't display much in the way of enthusiasm for your own project. You don't see energetic. You're not animated, no hand movements, nothing in the way of body language that typically accompanies human beings when they are talking about something that they are excited about. The end result is that you come across as boring. Plus, you said very little of substance about your comic book. If Marvel or DC Comics were to interview you, just to talk about your comic book, what would you say, and how would you present it? I would wager that it wouldn't be the way that you presented your comic book to potential backers on Kickstarter.

4. For the reasons above, you should re-do the video from scratch. Put yourself and others, if possible, in it. Give us the real low down on your comic book. You're the creator, so you should know it like the back of your hand. Why is this comic a "must have" comic? Give us some background. Give us details. Show us some visible interest and visible energy and excitement. If it's real, people will recognize it. Just be sincere, and don't be hesitant nor afraid to talk it up, as to why this comic book matters.

5. Kickstarter is a visual medium. Your project page presents very little, in the way of art or photographs. This translates into a very reduced footprint, where visual impact and visual energy are concerned. You need to post a number of art pieces and photographs, flesh that project page out. Visually, you're starving your own project page. It's not as though you have no art that you could post, to make the project page more visually interesting. Don't assume that people are going to click on link after link, in order to find the good stuff about your project. Your project, page, itself, needs to be the visual heart and soul of your project. Your page needs visual amplification!

6. You posted barely more than a single paragraph about your project, on your project page. What the Hell?! This is your one chance to connect with potential backers - so, connect with them. Put some honest-to-God effort into your project page. Talk about your project. The devil is in the details. Give people details. Your project page has very little going for it, at present, in terms of textual narrative.

7. Have someone proofread your project page, after you revise it, in order to eliminate any errors in grammar or punctuation. You want a top notch project page, in order to maximize your first impression with project page visitors. If your project page has errors in it, it may send the subliminal message that your comic book might, as well.

8. Your project image and that small image in the circle are the same image. Find a good picture of you, and put it in that small image, or a logo for your company, if you have one.

9. You need photographs of yourself and others involved in this project on your project page. Art and images of things are useful for imbuing your project page with visual impact and visual energy. Photographs or art of people helps to inject your project page with social impact, as human beings are, by their inherent nature, very social creatures. Don't leave your project page a social desert. Populate it with people, preferably smiling, laughing, or being depicted ina positive light - in order to create an impression of positive energy.

10. For visual impact, compare what your project page currently looks like to some other comic book project pages. Here's one for a project that was successfully funded:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/10 ... d-foj-6-co

Take note of how they used art to create a far greater visual impact, than just using a single project image, as your project page is reliant upon, currently.

11. One thing that many comic book Kickstarters fail to do is to create art specifically for use on their project page. I recommend that you guys create some visual dividers, horizontal banner type images that are useful for acting as a visual method to break up large masses of text into more manageable bites. to make it more tempting and appetizing for page visitors to consume. Your project page currently has very little in the way of text being used to hype the product. When you create more text, use visual dividers of some kind, art or photographs or cropped images, to break the text into segments.

12. Your project has a mere two pledge categories. You're shooting your project in the foot, that way. No one dollar pledge category, to capture the occasional buck tossed in. No typical pledge categories, such as 5, 10, 20, and 25 dollar categories. No large categories, so you're very unlikely to get anyone to really hit you with a large amount of money, even if they happened to come across your project. In other words, your project page's own pledge categories aren't geared toward promoting your project.

13. It costs someone four bucks to get a digital download of your comic book. Why? If you make it buck, it becomes very affordable to a broader cross section of the population, plus it makes it easier to grow your readership. I can buy print comics for less than four bucks. You're pricing your project out of the market.

14. Your pledge categories demonstrate a lack of faith in your own project. You are not thinking big. Your project page is crafting a small player image for you. It needs changing. Your project page needs to get real, and be a happening place. Some serious comic book stuff is going down, here, but your project page doesn't evoke that kind of perception amongst project page visitors. Your project page won't be perceived as amazing, if it's blah or boring or bare bones. In layman's terms, your project page has no bling. You need to pimp your comic book's project page ride.

15. Your comic book project's Facebook page has 1,605 likes, at present, while your project has a mere 7 backers pledging a grand total of just $41. What's wrong with that picture, I ask you? Factor in, also, that the Kicktraq link for your project lists your project as having only 40 shares. So, basically, word isn't getting out. Nobody seems energized by this project. It's up to YOU to change that! You and your fellow creators need to get up off the couch, and get this project moving, socially. I don't mean just tweet and share the same old boring canned messages. You need to genuinely interact with people, one-on-one. Send out some e-mails. Get some dialogue flowing. Currently, you have very little dialogue flowing by others on your project, and the numbers show that.

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/165130 ... ark-souls/

16. If you don't like the Kicktraq numbers, then here's the link to your project's Kickspy data:

http://www.kickspy.com/projects/1651308 ... dark-souls

17. Browse other projects, and if you see them do something that really stands out and catches your eye, don't be afraid to step up and utilize something similar on your project page.

18. Make some revisions to your project page, and then post again, here, to get more feedback. Keep doing that, over the course of your project's remaining campaign cycle, continuing to hone and to refine your project page, to better maximize its impact and effectiveness.

19. If your current project page is perfect, then why are the number of backers and pledges so low? Your project page doesn't tell a story, but the numbers don't lie. Your page is boring. Fix it! Don't let criticism offend you. Just figure out why your project page isn't getting the job done, and fix whatever ails it.

20. Every day that you wait to implement changes to your project page equates to more backers and pledge dollars lost. You have 36 days left to make this project fly and be successful. What are you waiting for?

Also, create a link to your project in your forum signature. This link explains how to do that:

http://squatchkick.blogspot.com/2014/09 ... forum.html

1. First Kickstarter project so sorry if I got it wrong.

2. Didn't know if there was dress code.

3. I'm nervous and camera shy.

4. Don't know how to make videos. I just learn like a week ago. I don't know how to do visual effects. Just putting music and stuff together.

5. I have put a few pages on page.

6. I'll try.

7. Yeah, can you find one that doesn't charge?

8. Sure thing,

9. We work at a computer and others have not given me the okay to use their pictures so I can't. Not much to display if we did.

10. I'm just the writer...I don't know how to set up a presentation of that scale.

11, 12, & 13. See #1 and I can't redo it.

14. How do I do that? Also see #10.

15. That was before I added Kickstarter, but yeah that is pretty bad. Also I don't know how to track. I understand graphs and lines, but I don't know how to track.

16. I did.

17. See #14.

18. See #14.

19. See #2 , #3, #4,and #14

20. See #14.

It's not that I don't know what to do, but I either don't have the money, resources, or skill to do half of what you asked of me. I can redo the paragraph, but without proofreader, I won't see all the mistakes and those guys charge. Then there images, I can post images of the comic, but what good does that do for me if my page looks boring? I can't make videos, I just threw pictures together with music. I'm camera shy and I'm only brave when I'm angry.

Also I have been advertising on facebook and I have seen the tips on your website before through a friend, but as we discussed, without money and manpower with talent, we can't do too much to improve on what we have. In otherwords, to make this page look presentable, we need people willing to do it for free. I don't have the time to learn how to do graphic design and presentations. I wish I had learn it early in life, but then I couldn't have foreseen kickstarter.

Antoine,

Here's the deal, the proverbial bottom line, as they say, either you guys make major changes to your project page, or your crowd funding project will likely fail. That's not to say that it definitely will, because none of us can know what the future actually holds, either way. But, you can see the Kicktraq data for yourself. It currently says that your project is trending towards 5% of your funding goal.

Excuses, either truthful or imagined, won't fix a single thing about your project page. You need to take action, and you need to get imaginative. Your project might still fail, but then again, it just might succeed. At your present rate of progress, your project is looking doomed, more and more each day.

ARHicks00 wrote:It's not that I don't know what to do, but I either don't have the money, resources, or skill to do half of what you asked of me. I can redo the paragraph, but without proofreader, I won't see all the mistakes and those guys charge.

OK, well let's consider what you said. Let's assume that you are right, and that you don't have the money, resources, or skill to do half of what has been asked of you. That leaves the other half. Half is better than none. So, do the half that you can do. Even if you can only do one thing, do something. It will be a starting point.

There is more than a little irony in the fact that you decided to launch a comic book project, even though you are lacking in money, resources, and skill. You must have had something - perhaps desire, perhaps gumption, perhaps drive. You have an imagination, so get imaginative. Figure out a way to improve that project page. If all that you have is your skill as a writer, then write. Just make it interesting and persuasive.

ARHicks00 wrote:Then there images, I can post images of the comic, but what good does that do for me if my page looks boring? I can't make videos, I just threw pictures together with music. I'm camera shy and I'm only brave when I'm angry.

Your page looks boring, because there's virtually nothing on it, not because of what you do have, already, but which you are not putting to good use. There's art for your comic or this series in a Facebook page that I looked at. I already know that there's some decent looking artwork that can be used. Even if it's not colored art, use black and white. Again, it will be better than nothing. There's also several front cover pages in color. They are posted elsewhere, but elsewhere isn't your project page.

Take your project page one step at a time. That way, it will come across as seeming less overwhelming. Part of your core problem is that you are discouraged, and it shows.

I am well aware that you just basically threw together pictures and music. It shows.

Now, let's deal with your comment about being camera shy. OK, you're camera shy. You think that that isn't obvious as Hell to anyone who watched your current project video? That would explain why your appearances in your own video was so exceedingly brief.

But, you are missing a golden opportunity to turn a weakness into a strength. Why not just tell people, up front, that you are shy, and that it makes you nervous, and ask them to bear with you? Do you think that you're the only one who is shy, Antoine? Hell, most people are.

I used to be shy. In some ways, I still am. I used to absolutely hate having to stand up in class and give oral book reports. At some point along the way, I transitioned to speaking in front of people on a regular basis, including in front of over a thousand people, once. So, I do grasp where you are coming from. I do relate. Hell, I've been there.

But, I'm no more special than you are, and you're no worse off in your shyness than I was. Necessity is the mother of invention. How bad do you want this crowd funding project to succeed? Either this project is important to you, or it's not. Courage isn't something that you make, yourself. It comes from other things, from things that matter, whether they be causes or situations or dreams or people that you care about.

You don't have to be a star. You just have to talk about something that actually matters to you, about something that you actually give a damn about.

Plus, if you succeed with this project, it will help to bolster your self-confidence, and it will serve as a starting point for you getting a grip on your shyness, so that you can pursue your own dreams.

ARHicks00 wrote:Also I have been advertising on facebook and I have seen the tips on your website before through a friend, but as we discussed, without money and manpower with talent, we can't do too much to improve on what we have.

Nonsense! That is such absolute crap, Antoine. Money and manpower are excuses, and piss poor excuses, at that. Numerous Kickstarter projects have succeeded, before, with just one person being the driving point behind them. So, don't try to cop out with a lame manpower excuses.

And, as far as that equally lame money excuse goes, I get it. I grasp that with money, you can get things done. Money is a mover.

Money didn't always exist, though, and people still got things done. Money isn't what makes the world go around. You want to know what money is, Antoine? Money is a crutch. It is an impediment to the stuff that God gives you, to the natural skills, talents, and abilities, even to your inner drive, as a human being. Ironically, crowd funding is about getting money, not about needing money, first, in order to get more money. If you think that you need money, first, to make this project a success, then you're wrong, Antoine. If your project fails, it won't be because you didn't have money.

ARHicks00 wrote:In otherwords, to make this page look presentable, we need people willing to do it for free. I don't have the time to learn how to do graphic design and presentations. I wish I had learn it early in life, but then I couldn't have foreseen kickstarter.

OK, so start asking people. I fully relate to not having the time to learn how to do graphic design and presentations. Can you crop an image from a page of comic book art already done? If not, I can.

You've spent a lot of time telling us what you can't do. Now, tell us what you can do. What are you good at?

Also, you still haven't bothered to create a link to your project in your forum signature. Do that, now. Do that on any forum that you post on about your project. It's a free way to advertise your project, Antoine. You like free, right? You can do free, right?

ARHicks00 wrote:Also I have been advertising on facebook and I have seen the tips on your website before through a friend

Who is this friend of yours. Antoine? Get them involved. As small and as unknown as my Squatch Kick website is, if your friend found it, then they must have been actively looking for something. You need to get that person more involved.

And the other individuals who are creators of this project, each in their own way, they need to get on board. There should be links to their websites or Facebook pages or online galleries, whatever they have. What they have is an online presence and some degree of networking with other people, even if it is small in size. Small is better than nothing. Something is better than nothing.

Your project page should talk about each of the creators a bit. Post an image of each. Post at least one piece of something that they created, before, yourself included. What that is is experience. Experience means that you can speak with a degree of authority on a subject. It means that people will take you more seriously. It all adds up, all of the bits and pieces that you post on your project page. It works to generate variety (which makes it more interesting, and interesting is the opposite of boring). It works to create better and bigger visual impact upon page visitors.

I had to go back in and dig it up, but here's a link to a project that I backed, previously.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/de ... collection

Compare their project page to yours. Look for any similarities and differences. They went with a mostly text approach. So far, you're making that same mistake, Antoine.