The Kickstarter Diaries (part 2) | Surfing the Dead Zone
Struggling through the Kickstarter Dead Zone and falling off a surfboard.
Continuing diary for the crowdfunding campaign of my cannibal space opera, Gourmand Go.
The Kickstarter Diaries
Day 8: 01/11/2023
Darren and I had a rest from hyping the thing today. We finished up at about 104% yesterday and climbed to 107% today on the fumes. I very much enjoyed not posting on social media furiously and refreshing the Kickstarter dashboard every 8.4 seconds. I’m my friends and contacts enjoyed not hearing from me for a few hours even more.
There are still a few hours to go, but the Halloween promo was a bit of a bust, with only one person took us up on it. Maybe it was too expensive. I originally had it priced much lower, and I was going to do the art myself. The thought was to make it an incentive to buy the book, not a thing that people might want for themselves. But then a couple of the others volunteered to participate and I felt like I needed to compensate them for their time—so I couldn’t sell their sketches for peanuts. Live and learn.
I guess this is now what’s called the Dead Zone. The middle portion of the campaign where not much is going on.
I am keen to hit 125% of the target, or $5000 AUD, which is… actually the original target I pitched to Darren. We lowered it due to the uncertain economy to try to ensure that we didn’t walk away in the hole. $5K a rough estimate, because I couldn’t predict which reward levels backers would choose, but that’s about where I break even on printing, shipping an campaign costs. I’ll push a little bit more tomorrow and that will probably be it until I get back from holiday.
Day 9: 02/11/2023
I was super-busy today trying to clear as much from my desk as I could at work, packing and preparing for tomorrow’s trip. We didn’t push the campaign much and haven’t move from that 107% mark. I have likely found the limits of my reach across my readership and social media. I thought we’d have a bit more momentum and that people on the platform would just magically find us, but I realize now that was a fantasy. Promoting a Kickstarter is hard work and requires constant effort. This shouldn’t be news to me.
Day 10: 03/11/2023
Stayed up late packing and then got up at 4:30 to get to the airport. Two flights with one wife and one child—that was pretty stressful. Once we checked into the hotel we found lunch and coffee nearby and hit the beach.
The weather isn’t great, which is a bit of a shock here at the Gold Coast. Looks like it’s going to get worse before it gets better—just in time for us to leave. The boy and I have a surfing lesson tomorrow and that’s probably all the beach we’re going to get.
Another $0 day on the Kickstarter, although we did announce the first stretch goal in today’s update. Darren will push those a bit tomorrow. Not expecting much activity until I get home, but I’d love to see a constant trickle. That would give me confidence we can make a strong finish.
Most of our traffic has been from Facebook, where Darren and I are most active. But we’ve had hits from Substack, X/Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram, and even LinkedIn. Probably it’s time to push those other networks.
It’s been 20 years since I last fell off a surfboard so tomorrow is likely to be… interesting…
Day 11: 04/11/2013
How was your day? This was mine:
I had a surfing lesson with my son (not pictured) this morning. I think he did better than me—although I definitely screamed less. I have surfed before. I had alesson in the 1990s and went out a few times after that, until I blew up a shoulder paddling into current. My shoulder is better now, but my hips aren’t what they were when I was 22 and an instructor pulled me aside to teach me a different way to get on my feet. That made me feel young, I can tell you…
We moved the bar on Gourmand Go 1% today, which is… a lot better than the 0% we did for the two previous days. We announced a Dean Rankine pinup as a stretch goal today and that will go out in tomorrow’s update. Let’s see if that does anything to move us through the mire of the dead zone. We’re at 97 backers—I’d love to hit 100 tomorrow. I am still optimistic we’ll make that original 5K target.
Day 12: 05/11/2023
Lucky number 13! It bucketed with rain today so we did some indoor tourist stuff—Ripley’d Believe It or Not, bookstores—and then took an Uber to a nearby mall to take the kid to a movie: Scarygirl, adapted from an Australian graphic novel by Nathan Jurevicius. I didn’t anticioate that the mall would be mostly open-air, so we still got bit wet.
We hit 102 backers today and 114% of the target, which is much better than I had hoped. I’m feeling good about it.
Day 13: 06/11/2023:
Hey, we had pretty good weather today! We went off to Seaworld, where we saw the seal and dolphin shows, and the stingray feeding time. Did a bunch of rides with the boy, including one in which we got absolutely soaked. Had to buy dry clothes in one of the gift stores—that was an expensive exercise.
Another $0 day on the Kickstarter. We tried an advertising meme that missed the mark. That’s ok—I think I should spare my social media friends a second day of frantic hustling. Will try something else tomorrow.
Tomorrow is my last day on holiday. We’ll fly home on Wednesday and Thursday it’s back to work, and on with the final week of this campaign.
Gourmand Go Artist Spotlight
The first time I met Matt Kyme, he approached me to draw a comic for him, which is hilarious, because Matt is a much better, faster and cooler artist than I am. Later, I wrote a story for his All Star Bulletproof Kid anthology, featuring the villain Monochrome, but Gourmand Go is the first time I’ve have been wanting to work with him directly. Mat is a chameleon and part of the fun of this chapter was seeing what kind of style he would choose to draw it in. I love the result. Matt keeps everyone on-model but makes it completely his own, and here he gets to show off some comedy chops we’ve rarely seen from him. The body language in this panel—engineer Schwartz giving a teary, drunken hug to bosun Gravlox—is all Matt and it’s one of my favourite moments in the book.
That about covers it for this week. Next email we’ll be in the final days of the campaign. Having funded early there’s a lot less… drama… in the diaries than I had expected, but there’s still room to for me to stuff it up completely, so hang in there.
Live wrong and prosper,
— Jason