KickstarterForum.org

On Tuesday March 21st, 2017, I launched the Kickstarter for "Four Elements, Four Nations", a book about the social and political themes of the Nickelodeon hit "Avatar: The Last Airbender".

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ka ... ur-nations

In this thread, I'm going to post public (as in posted on the Kickstarter) and diary updates.

I had originally planned to get the pre-launch started on February 9th, my birthday, and have the campaign launched on February 21st (the 12th anniversary of "A:TLA"), but someone I was paying to help me with the campaign fell way behind, so I ended up doing the pre-launch on 2/21, then making the campaign live one month later.

Despite having friends who were fans of the show express desire to help me before and during the pre-launch, very few of them came through with the effect I desired - I compared the pre-launch to shaking a bottle of soda, and the launch to screwing off the cap. Sure, I expected most people to not actually do anything, but I didn't expect it to be like every single person. Then of course the one person I could count on, my roommate, decided to quit Facebook. However, she helped me a bit on Reddit.

I like to think that I'm pretty good at adapting to changes and making the appropriate course of action. It seemed like I generated just enough excitement to get people aware of the project and its launch date. What probably worked best was when I boosted the Facebook event for the launch.

I really wish that Kickstarter had a schedule option so that I could launch my campaign exactly at 12:01 am PDT. I was so afraid that my internet would go down or something, and I would be late in making the page go live. Fortunately, there were no problems with the launch. When I woke up this morning, I was surprised to see 2 backers and $80 in contributions. I'm hoping the momentum builds.

Today, I'm spending my time writing more press releases (it doesn't seem like anything has come to fruition yet) and looking at other ways to get my campaign out there. I submitted the page to Kicktraq:

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/katrin ... r-nations/

Currently, they project that by the time the campaign ends, it will only raise 55% of the goal. Looking to make sure that will not be the case...

First Update and The Alex Merced Podcast:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ka ... ts/1839288

The campaign definitely hasn't been going as well as I wanted it to. I made another thread asking for advice about this, but this a major theme (and problem) I've been facing: There are many, many people (like dozens, if not hundreds) of people who have expressed interested in the project by liking, sharing, commenting, messaging, etc., but they're not actually contributing. They are acting like the campaign will automatically be successful, and the book will be published soon, which is not guaranteed at all.

I'm considering since I aimed this campaign at people in their twenties (since the show aired mid-2000s), they feel that they don't have enough to actually contribute. I've been trying to emphasize that backers will receive an award for giving just $1, but that's not doing anything.

What I wish I had done more of was plan for Facebook ads. So far, those seem like bright lights in the gloomy atmosphere.

This post has been moved to the General Chat + Introduce Yourself section.