The Journey: Part Two
Thoughts on a successful Kickstarter campaign
Back in February 2013, I wrote Part One of this story in the middle of a truly taxing, but ultimately successful Kickstarter campaign to make our first printed issue of The Great Discontent. It has now been several months and much has happened, including the publishing of a very large magazine. Until now, I’ve made very little time to reflect, but it’s important that I do so. I want to share about how this year has unfolded before another whirlwind of events transpires.
“What’s your secret?”
Since our Kickstarter campaign ended in March, it’s been the number one topic, and we’ve received a lot of questions, mostly, “How did you guys do it? What’s the secret?” Everyone wants to know how we ran a successful Kickstarter campaign, especially because our goal was six figures.
Fair enough. Kickstarter is cool and popular, and movies are being made because of it! From the outside looking in, it feels like free money — more on that in a moment — and the attention it garners is fantastic for small teams just getting started. The appeal is strong, but, wow, is it a lot of work. The things you have to consider and think about before, during, and after the campaign — in order to do it right — are downright mentally exhausting. I could write a whole story just about that, but back to what people really want to know: our secret.
An inside look: how our campaign really went down
Here’s our story. Our campaign started out very strong. The interwebs were abuzz with the news that The Great Discontent was going to print. Plus we paired the campaign kickoff with the announcement that Tina and I were going out on our own. Everything was looking up, and 72 hours in, we had already reached 33% of our goal! We felt like we were gonna glide to a funded campaign in no time, but after about a week, it plateaued. The next two and half weeks are what I like to refer to as our Kickstarter desert walk. We started rethinking and modifying rewards, researching alternative methods of shipping (despite extensive research prior to the campaign), and, ultimately, started to feel the weight of what we were setting out to accomplish. Basically, we were trying to tap into the wellspring we hit at the launch of the campaign.
Honestly, from the midpoint of the campaign up until the last day, we didn’t think we were going to meet our $100k goal. And it wasn’t for lack of trying; we worked every angle we could think of, exhausting ourselves in the process. On the last day, I woke and immediately opened Twitter on my phone; opinions were split 50/50 about our campaign. Some said it looked like we weren’t going to make it, while others were encouraging friends to back it because “it had to get funded!” Many people wanted this magazine to exist, but to be fair to the naysayers, we had less than 24 hours to go with a whopping $32k to raise, if my memory serves me right. The mere fact that there was still conversation regarding our campaign on the interwebs put wind into my sails.
After digesting mentions of TGD in my Twitter feed, I turned to Tina with a little spark of hope in my eyes and said, “Want to give it one last go? Hell, what could it hurt? We’ll at least go out with our boots on.” For some reason, Tina tends to like my crazy ideas, and she enthusiastically said yes. We spent the remaining hours of the campaign bent over our computers working hard to promote the campaign and mustering all the social media influence we had. It was nothing short of a roller coaster of emotions.
Fifteen or so hours later, and much to the surprise of everyone, the campaign was funded by 2,272 backers who raised $105,097, which was $5K over our goal!
Tina and I didn’t know what to feel in that moment. We were astounded. Even though it was late, we decided to meet up with our friend, Frank Chimero, who worked with us on the campaign and magazine, to have a celebratory drink at a favorite local haunt. Tired, the three of us parted ways, went to sleep, and woke up the next day to start on the magazine — the magazine that we didn’t think we were going to be making. But now we were, and we had deadlines to meet and big decisions to make. It was now time to do the work, and that’s exactly what we did.
$105k is a lot of money, or is it?
Yes, $105K is a lot of money by most standards, but it’s not much capital when launching a print magazine. Anyone who has started a magazine or done any kind of commercial printing for a publication knows that it’s not cheap. Also, good design and design systems are not cheap, nor is shipping and fulfillment. There are a lot of expenses to navigate, even with a small team like ours. I won’t bore with you the nitty gritty details or spreadsheets of figures, but I do want to share some numbers because I think it’s helpful in understanding why we had such a high goal.
First, we didn’t make money off of our Kickstarter campaign. Not only did we reinvest all $105k back into the project, but we also threw a large amount of our own money into the pot — and that doesn’t account for the time we spent on it. When all was said and done (after several refunds, credit card and Kickstarter fees, failed payments) we had around $93,500 left to make the magazine. That’s a tight budget for a 272-page, 9"x12" monster that represents a hybrid of a high-end magazine and book and that’s ad-free.
Here’s how that budget broke down: we spent over $43K on printing (mags, posters, totes), about $16–18K on fulfillment and shipping for Kickstarter orders, and a majority of the rest on the design budget, which included hiring Frank Chimero to design the layouts and help create a sustainable design system for the publication going forward. Plus there were costs for video, photography, travel, font licensing, a wide-format office printer and ink for proofing, and other incidentals. I think you get the picture.
Now, going forward, thankfully we’re making money from selling the magazine in our online shop and in stores. But to be clear, we didn’t make any money off of the Kickstarter campaign. It helped us do what we wanted to do: raise capital to invest in our first printed issue. With almost all of our Kickstarter backer rewards fulfilled, now we’re focusing on getting issue one into more stores and in front of a wider audience, which is its own journey.
All of this goes with the territory. It’s the cost of entry that one must pay when entering the world of publishing, which is quickly changing, but has also closely guarded its secrets for a long time. There’s no manual on how to go from digital to print — or how to start a print magazine at all — and there’s a huge learning curve. We’ve learned a lot since March, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. We have a physical product, and when I see it in my favorite bookstore, it makes it all worth it. People love this beautiful hunk of paper we’ve made, and they connect with the stories within, stories that inspire people to take risks, like we did this year.
There is no magic — only hard work over time
What’s our Kickstarter secret? I’m not sure we have one, but I will say this:
Pour yourself entirely and truly into the thing that you love for a very long time. If it’s good, people will most likely support it. Grow a community first, invest in them, and they will invest in you. We spent two and half years building TGD, and, frankly, we probably should have waited a little longer before trying to get people behind a $100k magazine project. But our community of readers really wanted this to happen. They wanted a magazine and, in some ways, I think they really wanted us to succeed even more. Who doesn’t love a good underdog story? We had no special plan or strategy other than working really hard on the campaign and putting ourselves out there. There was no magic other than that of our community who backed it, and that’s exactly how we wanted it.
Other than that, I’d give some practical advice: Be prepared and do your research. Keep your rewards simple, be sure you can deliver what you promise (in a timely manner), and stick to your guns. We changed stuff specifically based on feedback from potential backers, and if we were to do it again, we would have left things as they were. We might have had a few extra backers, but we lost money and made the rewards way more complex than they needed to be.
I heart Kickstarter
I’m writing all of this because I think there needs to be more open communication about what Kickstarter really is and what it actually takes to run a campaign. I love Kickstarter and have backed many projects on it. It is an amazing tool, and Issue One of TGD would not exist in its current form if we hadn’t done a campaign. It’s perfect for raising money to start something, and I’d encourage people to use it for that. Unlike borrowing money from a bank, which means only one person/entity to answer to, you’ll have hundreds or thousands of fans who are eager to get their hands on what you’ve promised them. It’s an amazing responsibility, and it’s nothing short of awesome that people are willing to rally around you.
Running a Kickstarter campaign was one of the most grueling things we did this year, and I think we’re still recovering. After all, we jumped from quitting our day jobs to running a campaign, to making a magazine. People ask us, and I often ask myself, “Would we do another Kickstarter campaign in the future?” We’re definitely not ruling it out. And for what it’s worth, I’m very glad we did it.
What’s next: issue two and beyond
As the third part of this year’s journey is about to begin, it’s been helpful for me to look back over the past months and reflect on how much has happened in a relatively short amount of time. When you’re hustling, it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. Looking back, I’m incredibly grateful for how far we’ve come. We’ve done things we’d only dreamed of doing, and it’s because of the people who have believed in us — both our readers and partners. And in the process, we’ve accomplished the one thing we’ve aspired to do all along: inspire people to get out of their own way and pursue the thing(s) they’re passionate about.
“Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.” — Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
In the coming weeks, we’ll be announcing plans for issue two and some other things that I can’t even begin to describe my excitement over! In the meantime, every day we wake up excited to meet people and share their stories in creative ways. We hope you’ll continue the journey with us. We’re just getting started…
I hope this post was helpful for those that are interested in using Kickstarter for their project or that are just intrigued by the inner workings of a Kickstarter publishing project.
Thank you to all of our Kickstarter backers who took a chance on us this year. We hope you got everything you expected and more. We all “made a magazine”!
