I’m about twenty pages away from the end of book 2 of Rita, which means I’m about twenty pages away from the Kickstarter.
Here’s what I’m considering:
$5 – PDF of book 1 and book 2
$25 – Physical copy of book 2, plus PDFs.
$? – book 2 plus PDFs plus some other stuff, personalized signature?
$100 – Text sponsorship in the book, a sketch in your copy, pdfs, and whatever physical tokens I’m offering at lower levels.
$150 – Same as $100 but with an image sponsorship.
$250 – Same as $100 but with a big image sponsorship.
Add some extra for international shipping.
Add +15 and you can get a copy of book 1. I have like 230 of them in my closet; if I get more people buying both books then I will happily pay for the second printing out of my pocket!
I want to avoid drawing in a ton of books. I priced that way too low for book 1 – just $10 more – and that ate up a TON of time and energy I would have really rather poured into drawing more pages. I’m also probably not offering a commission level of sponsorship, as I still haven’t delivered on the ones from the first book. (And the two super sponsors are cool with this, one hasn’t even decided what he wants me to draw yet.)
Stretch goals? Spot gloss cover, or maybe something crazier like UV-reactive. I will ask printers what kind of crazy inks and processes they have available when I start looking for quotes.
So I’ve got most of it planned out already. But I’m stuck for the mid-list backers. The ones who want to give me more than the $25 for a book but don’t want to spend about $100 or more for a sponsorship.
What kind of stuff would you like to see as perks for a level or two somewhere between “book for $25” and “sponsorship for $100+”? Give me your ideas and they may become cool perks. Especially if they can fit into the same envelope as the 5.5×8.5″ book!
Maybe a space tourism poster? Though sourcing and shipping that could be a pain.
Buttons? Charms? It’s a shame I don’t have any recurring insignia, as those could work as patches.
Stickers? I’ve got some halfway drawn. I had that as an idea partway through the first Kickstarter, thought of adding it as a perk for a minor stretch goal, but ended up just shelving them. I figure a sheet or two (depending on how big I draw them) of all four Ritas and some Panopticon eyes would work. Who doesn’t want to put Panopticon eyes on things?
$50 for the book and stickers, maybe? $70 for the poster, $90 for the poster and the stickers? It may be worth also offering a level for two printed copies of the book (or maybe an extra $20 for a second Book 2).
Ether way… *puts “Fund Book 2 of DR at $150 level” in todo list*
Yeah, something like that. Though the stickers are simple enough that I might just go “stickers, stickers+poster, stickers+poster+text sponsorship/sketch”. I am always confused when Kickstarters offer a lot of crazy mix-n-match options. If I had other people to help handle merch sourcing and fulfilment I might consider more variety, but right now it’s just meeeee.
I figure that “a second copy of Book 2” could be a “add $20 to your pledge if you want it” kinda thing? I’m thinking of having a comic shop level – something like 3 books for $40 to stores only – but that’s a very different kind of thing.
I like the space tourism poster idea a lot, though yes, that’s going to add a lot of work to the process of shipping. I do know of a decent source for printing that sort of stuff on the cheap (and good quality). I also know a good source for buttons, if you don’t have one yet — me! I own a professional button press, and for fellow artists, I basically charge the lowest price possible. Email me if you decide to do this, I would love to help out!
For the inbetween prices, Maybe a series of space tourism postcards to go along with the books? Those’ll fit in the envelope, AND they will allow you to draw pin-ups and interesting places. I imagine they would be suitable for framing!
You could also offer “appear in the comic” specials, though as background noise — a mentioned name, a sign in the background, NOT a major figure in the comic. It means you aren’t stuck drawing anything but the comic, just with a few details added.
I’d ponder “appear in the comic” but to be honest I don’t think there’s much of a *chance* for it. I’ve got the third book plotted out and it’s very much about tying all the existing elements together. I’ll have to ponder if there’s room for any name-checks in there…
Buttons are tempting. Got any sample images of what you can do online? Send your pricelist to egypt@urnash.com and it’ll go into the pile of KS2 notes.