I've been taking a workshop on how to do a Kickstarter. I've supported various Kickstarters over the past ten years. The first one I ever supported was performance artist/comedian/fellow geek girl Pam Noles.
Since then I've supported a movie, plush critters, and children's books. Things that were labor and money-intensive to do right.
But I never really thought about doing one myself. Let's face it. People aren't going to give you money for your bills if you don't have a product. And by the time I have a product, well, I figured I might as well deliver the product to retailers for sale.
But I've got two new series planned. I have the covers already. So I've been considering using one of them for a test of whether I can make a Kickstarter work.
Or I could use both for different purposes. I could do one for sheer testing purposes. I've already got some cool stickers. And the overall concept fits what a lot of parents have gone through over the past year with the pandemic. So all I need are some additional swag, like t-shirts or something.
The other series is a new fantasy trilogy, a little more sword and sorcery than the Justice series. Justice started as sword and sorcery, but somewhere along the way it turned into a full-out epic fantasy. But again, I have the covers already. And it would be a perfect series to test out whether hardbacks are worthwhile for me to produce.
So it's a question of whether to do one series. Or both.
Either way, I would need to write the books before I ever start the Kickstarter.
And for all of my "Should I?" or "Shouldn't I?", the end result is I might end up doing both. Just to see what happens.
I just don't know what scares me more--failing or succeeding.
So while I sit in my office chair and debate my works' future, here's an entertaining piece from Pam Noles from 2011. You'll understand why I supported her Kickstarter.
