[xsace]

So if you want to succeed your crowdfunding campaign you have to basically spend money first. I mean, this whole post is about how they happilly spend $5k to get in a position where they can raise money..

So what's next? Crowdfunding the kickstarter campaign?

[egypturnash]

This is nothing new. I do comics and publish them through Kickstarter; my working method is

1. spend a year drawing a graphic novel 2. do a Kickstarter campaign 3. profit?

I've spent money on hosting, and hundreds of hours of my time drawing. I've also looked at a bunch of failed Kickstarter campaigns; one thing common to a lot of them is that most of them show no proof of having done any work beforehand beyond making the video.

You can only pull a Double Fine on Kickstarter if you have the reputation and fanbase of a Tim Schafer. If you're just Some Gal, then yeah - do some work, get your thing to the stage where everything is set up for you to tell your remote factory how many copies of your thing you want made, THEN launch the campaign.

[surfaceTensi0n]

It may not work for graphic novel length works, but have you looked into patreon[0] at all? For comics (or any recurring works) it seems like it might be a better business model than repeated KicksStarter campaigns.

[0] - http://www.patreon.com/

[egypturnash]

Hah, I was just having this conversation on Twitter earlier this morning. Patreon seems to be much more about putting out small, self-contained pieces of content; one page of my GN is not something anyone in their right mind would pay for. If I was doing gag-a-day it might be super awesome, though - especially if I had no interest in ever collecting the strips!

[PhasmaFelis]

Wow, I thought your name was familiar. I just finished archive-trawling Decrypting Rita. Small world!

[dorkrawk]

It seems like story is the punchline to an xkcd: http://xkcd.com/1055/

[AJ007]

Its a positive thing that someone publishing a crowdfunding project has a personal stake in it. If they spend money great, if they have a working prototype or have an existing business even better.

[lesinski]

Ha! Great point.

One perspective might be that you'll get more bang out of your Kickstarter if you show the backers that you've done some work first. I'm more likely to contribute when I see prototypes than vague ideas.

[MPetitt]

Russian nesting campaigns.