Kickstarter Campaign For Comic Book That Aims To Reward Retailers As Well As Backers

from the interesting-ideas dept

Fri, Oct 5th 2012 5:37pm — Mike Masnick

It's always neat to see whatever creative ideas people come up with to make their various crowdfunding projects more interesting. Writer Alex Wilson recently alerted us to his own Kickstarter campaign for printing The Time of Reflection, a short comic he wrote, which recently won "the Eagle Award" at the London Comic-Con, as part of a challenge sponsored by Universal Pictures (as part of a promotional campaign for Snow White and the Huntsman). I'm a bit surprised that Universal didn't require them to then hand over any copyright on the comic (you see that happens sometimes with these kinds of contests), but it looks like Alex and Silvio (who did the drawings) are free to do what they want with the comic. So they're doing this Kickstarter campaign to do printed copies of the comic. That, alone, probably wouldn't be that interesting, but Wilson added an interesting little twist. There have been plenty of concerns about what's happening to independent comic book shops in the digital era, so Wilson is looking to use Kickstarter as a way to also "give back" to some of those shops. For anyone who pledges over $3, not only do they get a copy of the booklet, but they also get to designate a local, independent comic book shop and Wilson will send a copy to that shop as well (at no cost to the shop), at which point the shop can turn around and sell it, give it away for free, burn it, whatever (and yes, he's checking with each shop before sending it to make sure they'll take it...). Who knows how well that aspect will work, but it's a neat idea to increase awareness and distribution on multiple levels. First, it's really a way for backers to effectively buy an extra copy for the stores in question. Second, by getting the book into cool indie comic book shops, Wilson clearly is hoping to get more awareness of the book as well. The campaign is already well over its initial (modest) goal of raising $450, and it will be interesting to see how well the retail tie-in goes. Hopefully Wilson will stop by again and update us on how various retailers responded to the whole thing, and if anything interesting comes out of it.

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Filed Under: comic book, crowdfunding, retailers, time of reflection

11 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2012 @ 5:56pm

I am confused. Their goal was $450. Didn't anyone have that under their sofa cushions? Why are they begging for such a small amount of money?

Really, it seems like Kickstarter is a good indication of how risk adverse people are.
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- Shane Roach (profile), 5 Oct 2012 @ 6:17pm
  
  Re: Low Budget requests
  I don't know for sure, but if you are doing something like this on a shoestring, Kickstarter seems to be a nice place to test the waters to see if there is even any reason to put money into it to start with.
  
  Most living beings are somewhat risk averse. It keeps you alive.
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- teka (profile), 5 Oct 2012 @ 6:25pm
  
  Re:
  it is a matter of publicity and also to achieve the goals of getting the book in small shops.
  
  Scraping up a couple hundred bucks and getting a books printed is great, but this way they are getting the printing, pre-selling a large amount And getting some distribution to markets that may not be well served by the large players.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2012 @ 11:46pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Yes, but then again, isn't that using Kickstarter just as a store, and nothing more? It's not like new stuff was created as a result of this campaign, just some extra printing.
    
    It seems to go pretty contrary to what Kickstarter is suppose to be about. I mean, come on... $450. Take the damn risk yourself.
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    - R, 6 Oct 2012 @ 12:29am
      
      KickStarter eliminates the risk by demonstrating demand. If people had to take those risks, most people wouldn't, and we as a society would miss out on the things they could have created.
      For some people, $500 is too much to risk losing. That doesn't mean those people don't have anything to contribute though.
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    - The eejit (profile), 6 Oct 2012 @ 2:36am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Consider this: Kickstarter can also be used as a demand-gauge. This is the key point: it permits others to invest in you to get a product that they're interested in, with compariatively little risk to either that Kickstarter of the Kickstartee.
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      - Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2012 @ 3:25am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        It can, but it isn't it's intent. Kickstarter has stated that they are NOT a store. If they keep allowing this, they risk to become a sort of vaporware shop, and not much more.
        
        R, $500 may be too much risk for some, but without risk, why reward?
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        The Groove Tiger (profile), 6 Oct 2012 @ 9:44pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Way to read out of context.
        
        Actually read the "not a store" blog post of Kickstarter. They clearly mean it's not an online catalog where you point at a picture and buy stuff and wait for it to be delivered. They want to make it clear that you're financing something.
        
        Everyone just takes the "not a store" as some sort of catchphrase and say "but but you're not supposed to give money to Kickstarter in exchange of stuff!" or something silly like that.
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    - The Groove Tiger (profile), 6 Oct 2012 @ 9:46pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      "Take the damn risk yourself."
      
      Or... not.
      
      Hey, check it out, two different options.
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- Doug, 6 Oct 2012 @ 9:54am
  
  Re:
  I only scanned the article but a customer of mine did a KS campaign. It did start slowly then finished exceeding her goals. Now I'm in the middle of printing a bunch of high end shirts and hoodies that's part of her payback.
  
  I'm tempted to say because what they wanted was so low is why people avoided it. Campaigns with high goals seem to generate more income.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2012 @ 7:38pm

Its interesting they are involving retail. I wonder how that will go.
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