A Week in Writing #273

I try to write these with a positive point-of-view but sometimes that's hard to do. This week, in particular, has been particularly hard. Our Kickstarter is underperforming, despite our best efforts to get support. Our mailing list feels like a waste of time, as so few open the emails on a weekly basis and even fewer of them have supported the Kickstarter.

I don't mean to blame this on our "fans" but most of those on our mailing list have never purchased a second issue and apparently have no desire to help us with our need for funding. Our need is somewhat artificial, in that I've been paying for it to be made and can probably continue to keep doing it but it comes at a cost. We don't go on vacation because we have a comic book, we don't save money because we have a comic book. The hope of the Kickstarter is to help out with that and hopefully get new readers and buyers in the process.

I feel like what we're doing is good work and unique in comic books, though not so unique that it has no place for it. It seems to me that when people actually read it, they like it. Converting that into sales has been hard, if not impossible. This has been our best year for sales and I don't think I've made back more than a couple hundred dollars.

The work is good enough, even the earliest book that we were chosen to have it reprinted by a major printer company as a promotion for what their product can do. And that first issue is nowhere as good as the later ones we've been working on.

I'm not giving up, in fact, against the advice of other Kickstarter creators, I've hired a company with hopes that they can get us funded. They have a 21-day plan and we have 21 days to go, so I'm cautiously optimistic that we can turn it around. If we do, then we'll have to reconsider a lot of things going forward. I'd love to re-examine our mailing list and perhaps some of the promotional work we're doing. But that's probably going to wait until the new year.

While the Kickstarter has been weighing on me, I've been able to do some other work as well.

I've been happy with the time I've been able to spend on rewrites of The Runaway. I recently had a thought during the night that would help with the story and plot. Not a major update but one that made what happens later in the story make more sense. I  like those little moments that make the work better.

I also wrote a future review of Trophy Unlocked, one for Treasure Island (1950), the film we watched on Friday night. This week's Saturday Morning Review was one that Trevor wrote for Accounting+,
a VR videogame that Justin Roiland of Rick and Morty fame wrote and voiced.

Well, that's enough kvetching for one week. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.