Kickstopper and a Peek at Blood of My Blood's Cover Designs
I blitzed "How to Kickstarter" content while prepping my book for printing
Well, in the two weeks since I shared the final installment of Blood of My Blood, I jammed a bunch of How to Kickstarter content into my head like Neo learning kung-fu, but didn’t come out the other side thinking, “…I know Kickstarter-fu”.
Or actually, I do feel like I have a good sense of at least how to put together a campaign. I did most of the work of setting one up for Blood, including estimating costs, writing all the copy, and creating a lot of the graphics for the campaign page.
But you have to link a bank account to Stripe to accept the funds raised from Kickstarter, and I wondered if it was better to be a business bank account rather than one’s personal account. I then saw some advice online that for tax purposes, it’s better that it be a separate business account since that keeps things cleanly separated from your personal affairs. But maybe that’s just if you actually have a business and are bringing in business revenues? Well, I decided to scuttle the Kickstarter for now and move ahead with printing—hence my cheeky “Kickstopper” in the title of this post.
I wonder if there are people doing Kickstarters for small zine projects. If so, they’re probably not incorporated and doing things on a personal, hobby level. I would guess I’d be fine given that I would be surprised if I raised more than a couple hundred dollars at this point in my comics journey.
The whole “when to incorporate” question, and crucially how to handle things before then, is vexing to me. If anyone’s got good guidance on this issue, I’d love to hear it.
Anyway, on the plus side, in the process of honing (and re-honing) the campaign copy, I think I developed much better copy for the back of the book blurb.
Speaking of the book, below is a sneak peek at the front and back covers I designed for the print version!
Because my printer quoted a lower cost to do a full-color cover than to print black on colored paper stock, I decided to take advantage of the color print to design a fancier looking version of the original concept—which is that it’s meant to look like an old canvas-bound (and now that I’ve finished publishing the story online, I can say necromantic) tome. It’s a bit of a hint that won’t make sense to the reader until after they finish reading the story.
Up next, I’ll get the small print run done so that I can sell Blood at small comics/zine fests this summer! I’ll be sharing details of when/where I’ll be tabling once I have them confirmed.
Till next-
William
It looks so beautiful! Also, that banner at the top of this post is badass. I REALLY like what you did with the contrast! 🤩