She loved Half Price Books and WQXR, New York’s classical music radio station. She thought the Dallas Theater Center’s productions of Little Women, Christmas Carol, and Twelfth Night were just fantastic.
She loved the broth of the dduk guk I made her. She loved the chicken broth I made, the richer the better. I’d load the stock pot with garlic, onions, scallions, daikon, leek, shallots. Over a teaspoon of salt – no skimping. Let it simmer for hours. Skim off the fat. Pull the meat and bones, strain out the vegetables. She loved loved loved it.
She had no poker face at all. In her childhood pictures, I see the same big, joyful smile and funny little dubious expressions that she made to the very end. You could read her like a book, her heart on her face.
Grade school picture of Jane Pak, maybe 1946 or 1947.
She loved good writing and close reading and careful editing. She was a huge supporter of student journalism and a meticulous editor of the publications of the various groups she volunteered for.
She would have loved this essay, but she’d think it could probably be shorter. She’d be right.
From the Oberlin College yearbook, 1962.
She was her high school’s valedictorian, went to Oberlin College, and taught middle school English. She kept learning throughout her life, taking a speech class, cooking classes, photography and film classes, Spanish classes. She read thousands of books and discussed hundreds of them with the multiple book clubs she belonged to for decades.
She was so interested in things.
She took us to the library so many times. She took us to so many museums. She took us to concerts and operas and plays. She took us to state and national parks. She took us to nature camps and museum workshops. Around 1979 or 1980, she took me to the community center where I played Dungeons & Dragons for the first time, just because she’d read about it and thought I might enjoy it. She took us everywhere.
She loved spending time with young children, marveling over how they learn each new thing. I have dozens of pictures of her literally getting on the same level as little kids, sitting or lying on the floor with them, reading, playing, gently guiding, teaching and watching, totally focused and present, entirely happy.
Her greatest joy during the pandemic was the weekly virtual book club she ran with her school-aged grandchildren. Eventually I joined to moderate a writing workshop, which she participated in alongside her grandkids, delighting in every role as grandparent, educator, fellow student, and peer.
She loved Scrabble. She loved to be exasperated when a child or grandchild would play a word she’d never heard of. And then she’d demand the definition, because if you’re going to play a word, you should know what it means.
She was a brilliant visual creator whose luminous black and white 35mm vérité photography has been a fundamental influence on my storytelling and aesthetic. Her framing and lighting and ability to capture a subtle, intimate moment were stunning. She was a storyteller, shooting in sequence to establish scenes, move in close, follow action and emotion, document place and time and character.
Photo of me by Jane Pak, circa 1971.
The thousands of photos she shot over the decades are a tremendous comfort. They show her intense curiosity, her delight in so many different aspects of the world, and the joy she took in her primary subjects – her children, husband, and extended family – and the love we shared with her. Her own character shines in her photographs of her children inspecting things, poking through dirt and sand and logs, peering under rocks. She taught us to look closely, to discover for ourselves, to be curious and fearless in learning. And there she is behind the camera looking closely, discovering us as we discover the world, documenting it all with patience and quiet joy.
Monahans State Park, photographed by Jane Pak, circa 1980.
Even into her seventies, she took awesome pictures of interesting bugs.
An awesome picture of an interesting bug, photographed by Jane Pak in 2012.
She thought coloring books were awful. Instead, she bought us blank paper and crayons. She was my collaborator on the first comic book I ever wrote. I drew pictures of Superman naming things that start with “S,” a rip off of a Sesame Street interstitial, and she wrote the captions for me. I might have been three or four. She stapled the pages together to make a book and saved it for decades, along with dozens of my other drawings.
She loved a slice-of-life short story I wrote in 11th grade, “Mary Loves Her Boy.” She wasn’t a huge fan of fantasy or science fiction. But she thought Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine was tremendous and bought me a giant collection of Bradbury short stories for my birthday when I was twelve. I can’t remember her saying much about the comics I wrote. But she loved going to comic shops and telling the folks who worked there that she was my mom. She loved hearing me talk about the process of making comics and kept a whole binder of her notes on Persepolis and a box under her desk crammed with newspaper articles about graphic novels.
Her favorite thing that I wrote as an adult was an essay for Poetry magazine about the gifts poetry has given me. I’m so glad I wrote it, so glad she read it, so glad it gave her such joy.
She was so proud of the accomplishments of her children and grandchildren. But she was most intensely proud when she saw a kindness, a care for others, especially when expressed by small children.
She cared about people. She cared about the world we share and how we share it. She cared about the rights of individuals and the responsibilities of individuals to the group. She spent countless hours volunteering for Camp Fire, the League of Women Voters, the Gloria Shields Journalism Workshop, and many other groups. She thought we should help each other.
A framed poster on Jane Pak’s desk.
If you’ve ever benefitted from the community, political, or fundraising work I’ve done, you can thank Jane Pak. If you’ve ever benefitted from a shared undertaking or act of kindness or any kind of altruism from me, you can thank Jane Pak.
She liked certain things to be done in very specific ways. She was a tremendously good sport about being teased about it. But she was usually right. She had strong opinions about the best route to take to get anywhere in the city. Once when I was driving back to the hospital, I used Google Maps instead of following her instructions, ended up at the wrong entrance, and sat in the car laughing at myself. Jane Pak knew what was what.
She had a generally poor opinion of takeout food and preferred meals cooked by herself or one of her children. Except sushi. She loved sushi.
She was born at the end of the Great Depression and loved to clip coupons and find good deals. She loved the Staples clearance section. She was obsessed with boxes. Could never part with a good one. There are pristine boxes still in the house from computers bought, used, and recycled twenty years ago. Some of those good boxes are filled with other good boxes. She saved dozens, maybe hundreds of empty spice bottles. It’s entirely possible she never threw one out.
She used phrases like “Jeez Louise!” and “For Pete’s sake!” She swore with real curse words infrequently, and it was either harrowing or hilarious.
She thought of herself as a shy and reserved person, which I thought was astounding, because she was the one who opened the circle, who made people welcome, who smoothed and guided and kindled thousands upon thousands of positive interactions. She loved conversation. She loved to listen and talk. She loved to think and grapple with new ideas. She loved to laugh, even through tears.
She loved the Wordsworth poem “Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.” She quoted the key phrase to me as “trailing streams of glory.” We looked it up and saw it was “trailing clouds of glory.” But her edit was great. I’ll forever see those clouds as glorious streams across the sky.
Jane Pak was trailing clouds of glory her whole life. I told her that near the end, and she said “That’s children,” and she was right, because Wordsworth is talking about kids in that passage. And I said yes. And it’s you. That’s what you did your whole life. And she pursed her lips in a dubious smile.
I haven’t read that whole poem. Just the section with the quote. I’m not ready for the whole thing yet.
I had so much time with her. I’m so lucky. I know. Incredibly lucky. So many moments and hours and days over a lifetime. I told her that I’ve known her longer than anyone else in the world, and she smiled that Jane Pak smile. I loved her with all my heart and I know she loved me the same way. But I want more. I want more. I want more.
Donations can be made in Jane Pak’s honor to the Preston Royal Library Friends, c/o Preston Royal Library, 5652 Royal Lane, Dallas, TX 75229. In the memo section of the check, please indicate “In memory of Jane Pak for children’s educationalprogramming.”
The other week I posted a few tweets about the practical steps I take when writing a comic book script. The thread took off and the initial tweet has now been viewed almost half a million times (!!!). So here’s the whole thread, all cleaned up and expanded on — hope it’s helpful! (And if you’re intrigued by my ideas, please do subscribe to my email newsletter and/or my Patreon about comics writing!
How I Write a Comic Book Script
A big note up front: Everyone has a different process! This is just what works for me, right now, for the most part, most of the time. Be sure to check out what other writers do as well — here’s a fun thread from Tim Seeley describing his process, for example. Then figure out what works for you and do that.
So here’s what I do:
Just one example of my brilliant outlining.
1. Outline the whole thing. This is an entire topic unto itself. But if my outline is really working, it nails the big plot beats as well as the big emotional turning points and thematic brushstrokes — all the essential things that make the story work and matter. A great outline means the scripting goes MUCH more smoothly.
2. Break the outline down into pages.
3A. Break pages down into panels first, then add dialogue.
OR, depending on the scene and how I’m feeling:
3B: Hammer out some dialogue first, then break the pages down into panels.
NOTE: When determining panel breakdowns and page breaks, I always try end a page with some kind of mini cliffhanger. A question, a half finished thought, an action that gets completed on the next page. Gotta keep people turning pages!
4. Write from the beginning, but if I get stuck, skip around and write the easier scenes first.
5. Go back and write the harder scenes, which are easier now that I’ve done the rest.
6. If I’m really stuck on a scene/beat, call up my editor and talk it out. Editors are awesome. Sometimes they just nod and say “uh huh” and let me blab until I work it out. Sometimes they ask just the right questions. These calls ALWAYS help.
7. Rewrite the easier scenes now that I’ve written the harder scenes and know my story better.
8. Revisit the harder scenes again now that I’ve figured out what I needed to tweak in the easier scenes.
9. Go through and edit everything multiple times, paying special attention to little details, making sure I’m explaining what needs to be explained for the artist, and making sure that if, during revisions, I’ve added some detail or bit later in the script, I’m properly setting it up if necessary earlier in the script.
10. Turn it in when I run out of time.
11. Enjoy that fourteen minutes of calm you get after turning in a script.
12. Get feedback from my editors/creative collaborators and work on revisions.
13. Figure out what it’s REALLY all about and make the subtle dialogue and action tweaks that bring out that deeper theme/emotional thread.
Hardest parts of writing a script:
The outline.
The beginning (particularly working in exposition seamlessly in a serial story).
The ending/cliffhanger.
Pages 14-16 or so. Those beats before the climax.
(p.s. it’s all hard, sorry.)
Other thoughts:
There’s an interesting mechanical aspect to writing a script. Where you come up against page count limits, for example, and realize that helps you make decisions that work. For example, every once in a while, I’ll have a three page scene that’s hard to crack. So I’ll write everything that precedes & follows it. And suddenly I discover that there’s only a page left for the tricky scene — and that’s all it needed. Or maybe I don’t really need it at all.
(Relatedly, more than once, when I’ve had a huge amount of trouble figuring out how to crack a scene, I ultimately discovered that I didn’t need the scene. I had trouble cracking it because it didn’t belong.)
Two general notes to myself that always seems to work: Give your characters quiet moments that dramatize character, especially early in the script/story, and give the big emotional beats time to play out. Let it breathe when it needs to breathe.
There’s a kind of unspoken, panicky pressure, particularly in superhero comics, to blow something up pretty quickly. Understandable. Gotta grab people’s attention in five page previews. But action without emotional drama falls flat. Gotta take the time to build character and emotional drive.
Other ongoing activities essential to the writing process:
A. Drink a glass of water.
B. Get enough sleep and food.
C. Acknowledge that whatever you’re writing this very instant isn’t perfect, but you’re gonna revise it and make it better and “perfection” is an illusion anyway.
Finally, if you’re looking for more comics making advice from yours truly, please feel free to check out MAKE COMICS LIKE THE PROS, a how-to book I co-wrote with the great Fred Van Lente with amazing art by Colleen Coover.
And finally finally, if you like this kind of advice, please do subscribe to my revamped email newsletter, where I’ll be sharing this kind of thing regularly, along with all kinds of other sneak peeks and bonuses!
If this kind of info is helpful to you, please feel free to check out my Patreon, which is packed with practical articles about the craft of comics writing!
From time to time, folks have asked me for a format template for writing a comic book script. I finally took a few minutes to prep one — so download the MS Word template here!
This is the format I use every day, a variation of the version the great Fred Van Lente introduced me to when we were co-writing Incredible Hercules back in the day. It’s a simple MS Word document with two custom formats — ACTION and DIALOGUE. The dialogue in the script is formatted using the “DIALOGUE” format, shockingly enough. Everything else is formatted using “ACTION.”
I wrote up some thoughts and examples of other formatting things I do in the body of the template.
And while you’re at it, please do consider picking up MAKE COMICS LIKE THE PROS, the how-to book written by yours truly and Fred Van Lente with illustrations by the great, Eisner-award winning cartoonist Colleen Coover.
UPDATE 06.09.2021 – If you like this article, you’ll love Kickstarter Secrets an ebook of Kickstarter advice that I funded (you guessed it) via Kickstarter! Grab it at the Greg Pak Shop today!
By Greg Pak
A small wave of folks have asked me for advice on running Kickstarters for comics or book projects over the last few months. It’s a huge subject and I’m still learning every day myself. But I thought I’d put together a few quick thoughts about what I’ve learned from the Kickstarter campaigns for ABC Disgusting, The Princess Who Saved Herself, and Code Monkey Save World. (Also, please do check out my current Kickstarter for ABC Disgusting, an alphabet book about disgusting things. That campaign ends on July 29 — every fun, gross kid in your life needs this book!)
1. Make sure you understand Kickstarter and are ready for everything that running a project requires.
One of the best things you can do to prepare for running a Kickstarter is to back a bunch of Kickstarters and follow them for a few months. First, that will show that you’re committed to the idea of crowdfunding and community building. Backers can be very suspicious of creators who have never backed another Kickstarter, sometimes rightly so. A creator who’s backed multiple projects before launching his or her own is more likely to understand the culture of the site and the expectations of other Kickstarter backers.
Second, you’ll learn a huge amount about the general life cycles of Kickstarter campaigns as you read the updates about the trials, travails, and triumphs of the creators whose projects you back. Running a Kickstarter is a massive job — it requires a total commitment to the creative project you want to make as well as the ability to budget, run a production, manage customer service, and handle publicity and marketing. Make sure you understand the scope of the undertaking before you plunge in.
2. Make sure your project belongs on Kickstarter.
This is a tricky one, mainly because the glory of Kickstarter is that the conventional wisdom about what there’s an audience for gets overturned every day on Kickstarter. So on the one hand, don’t let anyone tell you there’s no audience for your project — your job is to prove there is! At the same time, don’t walk into this thing blind. Study similar projects on the Kickstarter website. Think through what made them successful. Consider their quality, their ability to get press and attention, the reasonableness of their budgets. And take a look at your own project and think hard about where you fit in and what your realistic expectations might be. If your project doesn’t match up in terms of quality, think about how to improve it before launching. If your project can’t be described in a simple hook, think about how to pitch it better. If you don’t have enough material to show off for the launch, take some more time to create more and better art. If there are a hundred very similar projects on the site already, think hard about what makes your project unique.
3. Get pros to handle the legal and accounting stuff.
Hire a good lawyer and a good accountant to handle that stuff. That’s a job for the pros.
4. Budget thoroughly and add 10 percent to your major costs.
I’ve gotten cold sweats while looking over some seemingly successful Kickstarters that have raised tens of thousands of dollars — because I can see what they’ve promised to deliver and I know they’re going to end up in the red. This is what you desperately want to avoid. Budget for everything your project will require, including your postage and fulfillment costs. I highly recommend talking to actual fulfillment houses if you think you’ll need to send out more than a couple of hundred packages. Get actual quotes from your printer and every other vendor you’re planning to use. Ask lots of questions. Talk with friends who have done similar projects and find out all the hidden costs. Create sample packages and weigh them at the post office to determine how much they’ll actually cost to send across the country or overseas. Always assume the worst in your budget so that you won’t be surprised. And repeat this process every time you add a new reward or stretch goal.
5. Tell the story of your project in both the video and the text description.
People absorb information in different ways. So you can’t expect the video to do all the work of explaining your project — you need good, written text and static images, too. Also, I recommend getting a clear description of your project and what makes it awesome as early as possible in your pitch. Past credits are useful for helping folks determine if they’re going to back the project, but potential backers are only going to get to that stage if your initial story pitch has wowed them.
6. Show as much of your project as you can.
The Princess Who Saved Herself children’s book, based on the classic song by Jonathan Coulton, began life as digital stretch goal for the Code Monkey Save World graphic novel Kickstarter, also based on the songs of Jonathan Coulton. So when Jonathan and I launched the Kickstarter to make physical copies of The Princess Who Saved Herself, we had the huge advantage of being able to share completed pages. In fact, we delivered the complete digital version of the book to our Code Monkey Save World backers the day we launched the PWSH Kickstarter. The book itself was the best advertising we could have had.
With the ABC Disgusting Kickstarter, my team had four or five great pages that we were able to show off when the Kickstarter launched. Artist Takeshi Miyazawa, colorist Jessica Kholinne, and letterer Simon Bowland have been working on the book as the campaign’s progressed and we hope to share a lettered preview of a good chunk of pages in the next week.
Of course this could be a risk — there’s a chance we might lose existing backers if they don’t love some of the new pages. But we’re running the Kickstarter because we believe our project is awesome. So we’re showing as much as we can without spoiling the experience of reading the actual finished book.
7. Make sure your base reward actually delivers the project you’re creating and that it’s affordable.
I’d guess that the average backer of a comics or publishing Kickstarter is willing to pay somewhere between $20 and $35 for the basic finished book. If your Kickstarter doesn’t provide the thing you’re making for a price somewhere around there, you’re probably going to run into trouble (unless you’re offering a spectacularly massive reward like the great Tom Tomorrow’s current double volume set).
If you’re charging a huge premium for a smallish book, you’re looking less for readers and more for patrons — folks who are willing to give you TONS of money, overpaying for your art. That’s possible and I’ve seen a handful of projects survive that way. But not many of us have enough fabulously wealthy patrons to draw on for that strategy to work. I think it’s a much stronger move to get the actual project into the hands of a much larger number of people for a lower average price.
8. Have a reward for every level of backer.
So you’ve got that basic $20 level covered. But some backers might only have a few bucks, and others might be willing to spend much more money. With all my publishing projects, I’ve put in a $3 or $5 level for stickers, a $10 or $12 level for a digital version, and higher levels for signed copies (or copies with signed bookplates) along with a few very high levels for special things like the backer’s likeness drawn into the book. I’ve also found that rewards of multiple copies of children’s books do well — people with several small children in their lives often want to buy each of them a copy of the book.
9. Don’t overdo it with rewards that will be incredibly hard to fulfill.
With the Code Monkey Save World Kickstarter, we went a little crazy with T-shirts and mugs and posters and challenge coins. All of these items were awesome and we loved making them. But every new physical object you add to your rewards increases the amount of time you’ll be devoting to fulfilling the ancillary aspects of the Kickstarter instead of actually making the main thing the Kickstarter’s all about. I have zero regrets about all those rewards — they were a blast and totally added value to the rewards those backers chose. But we made a conscious choice to scale down a bit with The Princess Who Saved Herself, which we just needed to print and wanted to get out to backers as soon as possible. At the same time, special rewards can be absolutely critical to getting smaller Kickstarters over the line. Right now, the “Likeness” rewards in ABC Disgusting have been key to nudging us up where we need to be to hit our goal.
10. Don’t ask for too much for a first-time project. (Or a third-time project, for that matter!)
We’ve all been dazzled by Kickstarter projects that rocket into five figures on their first day. But that’s rare — and almost vanishingly rare for first-time creators. If you’re launching a Kickstarter for your very first project, it’s a great idea to aim low — pick a project you can complete for just a couple of thousand dollars or less. Then build on the experience and audience you get to go to the next level, and the next. Even for established creators, it’s smart to keep the “ask” as low as possible without shooting yourself in the foot.
That being said, I highly, highly recommend budgeting to pay your collaborators. Both because it’s the right thing to do and because projects that don’t plan to pay people often don’t get made.
11. Build your audience for months (or years) BEFORE you launch your Kickstarter.
This may be the hardest piece of advice because the whole point of crowdfunding seems to be to open the doors to folks who have great ideas but haven’t been able to get traditional support to make them come to life. But the reality is that Kickstarter backers are smart and choosy and will only support projects they fall in love with and that they think will actually get made. So successful Kickstarters tend to come from folks who have already done enough work to start honing their craft and building an audience. So if possible, it’s a fantastic idea to get some work out into the world before you launch that first Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a great place to build audience. But it works best for folks who are able to bring some audience along to prime the pump.
12. Plan your launch dates and end dates carefully.
I’ve launched each of my Kickstarters on Monday mornings and ended each on a Tuesday or Wednesday. I launch on Mondays because if I’m getting press to coincide with the launch, I want a full work week for that press to have a chance to work its magic. Launching with press on a Friday would be a terrible waste because so many people zone out from Friday afternoon until Monday morning, and then that press cycle is dead.
It’s also smart to be aware of what holidays fall during your Kickstarter dates. We launched ABC Disgusting the Monday before Fourth of July weekend, which in retrospect might not have been the best idea — people were likely to be leaving on vacations early that week and were almost certainly online less. But we weren’t ready to launch before then, and launching later would have put us in direct competition with the San Diego Comic Con, so you do the best you can.
13. Reach out to everyone who’s ever supported your work to promote your Kickstarter — but don’t spam.
If no one knows about your Kickstarter, no one will back it. But emailing or tweeting dozens of people you don’t personally know with the link to your Kickstarter isn’t likely to help. Kickstarter is based on trust, and people who don’t know you personally or by reputation aren’t likely to help you spread the word about your project because they have no idea of the project’s quality or if you’ll actually finish it.
So start with the people you know, or the people who know your work. If you have pre-existing work, contact the folks who have interviewed you or reviewed your work in the past to see if they’d be willing to write about your new project. Post about your project — frequently — on your social media sites, particularly if you’ve been using social media for your professional work. Change all your bios to include the link to your Kickstarter. Change your email signatures to include the link to your Kickstarter. Don’t be shy about reminding people about the project from time to time, but strive to find new things to reveal or talk about each time you do it.
In general, I’m also a big advocate of casting my bread upon the water when it comes to crowdfunding and creative projects in general. Back other people’s projects. Spread the word about other people’s great projects to your own networks. Do it not because you expect an immediate tit-for-tat, but because you love that work and want to support it. That’s the culture you’re buying into when you launch a Kickstarter. Embrace it.
14. Figure out your niche and reach out to it.
Many of the most successful projects on Kickstarter are projects that big companies might pass on because the target audience seems too niche. But the internet thrives on niches. There’s a community for just about every interest. So if your project relates directly to a certain niche, figure out how to reach it. Ideally, before you launch your Kickstarter you’ll have spent months or years building relationships and joining communities that let you reach your niche. Code Monkey Save World is a pretty extreme example of that — its niche audience was Jonathan Coulton fans, and Jonathan clearly had the best ability of anyone on the planet to reach them directly, so we definitely had that going for us.
15. There’s a reason anthologies have great success rates.
Just food for thought… comics anthologies are incredibly hard to sell in the traditional marketplace. But they’re consistently successful on Kickstarter. It makes perfect sense when you think about the number of people involved in creating an anthology. Sometimes fifty different creators can contribute. That means fifty different people will be sending updates about the Kickstarter out to their personal networks.
Sometimes you may have a project that involves tons of people. Sometimes it’ll just be you and a few others. Each project needs to be what it needs to be for its own creative mandate. But if you’re thinking about crowdfunding, be aware of the power of collaborators — both creatively and in terms of getting the word out.
16. Don’t use Facebook ads.
I keep getting tempted by those dumb things, but I don’t see any new backers when I use ‘em. If anyone has ever seen actual Kickstarter numbers increase as a direct result of using a Facebook ad, I’d love to hear. But it hasn’t done anything measurable for me.
17. Try to do actual events in physical spaces.
During the Code Monkey Save World campaign, Jonathan and I did a number of events in New York City that absolutely helped goose interest, get press, and bring out more backers. Of course, we had a huge advantage in that Jonathan’s an internet superstar musician who actually performed at those events. So this doesn’t necessarily apply to every project. But if you have the chance to do signings or panels or events during your campaign, I highly recommend doing them and plugging your project. Reaching more people is always going to be a better plan than not.
18. Think about how to get attention at different stages in your campaign by providing new art or announcements at key moments.
Most Kickstarter campaigns start off with a nice spike, then dip down, come close to flatlining a few times in the middle of the campaign, and then end the last few days with another nice spike. So a big challenge is figuring out how to maintain and grow interest in the middle weeks of the campaign.
Sometimes you’ll have some nice built-in announcements — if you hit your goal before the end of the campaign, you can announce stretch goals. And if you have great stretch goals, you might be able to get more excitement and even some press for them. During the Code Monkey Save World campaign, we came up with a stretch goal of making a digital children’s book based on Jonathan’s classic song “The Princess Who Saved Herself.” That garnered a huge amount of attention — we had a number of backers say they were more excited about that bonus book than about the main book!
But not every campaign hits its stretch goals so quickly. Right now ABC Disgusting is halfway through its campaign and 82 percent funded. So now we’re working towards releasing a gorgeous, lettered preview of the book, complete with never-before-seen colored art. That’ll hopefully help us get new eyes on the project to help goose things in this middle stage. And if we’re lucky, we’ll hit our goal and be able to announce some stretch goals and get another bit of attention before the final stretch.
(And here’s a little secret — I’m hoping this very article brings a few more eyes to ABC Disgusting during this quiet middle period! Shameless, right? But go ahead, check it out!)
19. Answer questions from backers and potential backers quickly and be upfront about any problems, miscommunications, or schedule changes.
We live in an age in which people are used to getting fast answers via the internet from the companies they buy from. When potential backers message you via Kickstarter with questions about the campaign, it’s a great idea to answer them as quickly and courteously as possible. Same goes for answering backer comments. You can also learn a lot from those messages and comments — there was a point during the PWSH campaign when I realized a LOT of people wanted multiple copies of the book. Listening to those requests and adding rewards with multiple copies helped us move a lot more books.
For funded projects, creators have the additional responsibility to communicate about any problems or delays to the schedule and to stay on top of any problems backers might have during the fulfillment and shipping stage. If you’re managing a Kickstarter, you’re signing up for customer service. Embrace that job and do it right.
20. Always say please and thank you.
Crowdfunding isn’t just another way to sell your product. For backers, the campaign itself is an experience and a community, a chance to be part of something exciting at the ground level. As a creator, your dreams are coming true because of the excitement and generosity of your backers. Thank them sincerely and frequently, because they’re making it all happen, and if you do it right, maybe they’ll be back for the next crazy project you throw out into the world.
21. Don’t be afraid of failure.
Your Kickstarter might fail. That sounds terrible. But I’ve heard Kickstarter’s Craig Engler say multiple times that success rates for people’s SECOND Kickstarter projects tend to be very high. Creators often take all the lessons they’ve learned from their first, failed Kickstarter to rework their budgets and scope. And many of their original backers come back on board to support their second try.
22. Adjust on the fly and never give up.
If you have a 30 day Kickstarter campaign, you’ve got a lot of chances to figure out what’s working and what isn’t and adjust accordingly. Study your project’s stats on Kicktraq.com. Pay attention to the referral data on your Kickstarter page to figure out what kind of outreach is working best. And if things aren’t working, you can add better art. Replace your Kickstarter video. Come up with more attractive rewards. Rework your project description.
I was recently a contributor to the Broken Frontier comics anthology Kickstarter. Given how that campaign was going, it seemed pretty destined to failure. But it had the most mind-blowing finish I’ve ever seen for a Kickstarter. Just check out this daily chart from Kicktraq.com:
That late surge is almost unheard of. But it happened because the dozens of people involved in the project rallied and spread the word and put it over the top.
So that’s my basic Kickstarter advice in a nutshell! Hope it helps and best of luck!
In our book “Make Comics Like the Pros,” my co-writer Fred Van Lente provides some spectacular advice about how to work a comic book convention. This year at the New York Comic Con, I took Fred’s advice seriously and did my Artists Alley table up right for the first time. And I had my best con ever! So here’s what I did:
1. I’d printed up the “Code Monkey Save World” banner last year. But for the NYCC, I ponied up a few bucks to print a second banner featuring gorgeous Aaron Kuder/Wil Quintana art from our current “Action Comics” run. I figured folks who don’t know me probably know Superman, and might pause a few more seconds at the table if they saw his face. And they did!
2. I got vertical! In “Make Comics Like the Pros,” Fred writes about the need to stand out in a crowded con by raising your stuff up into the field of vision of passersby. So I went to Staples and bought a few clear magazine holders, which worked beautifully for displaying single issue comics and bigger books. The three-level magazine holders in particular provided a great way to catch folks’ eyes with the titles of a variety of books.
3. I sat down for an hour or two and printed actual labels for everything. At past cons, I had handwritten labels with prices of things. That’ll work, but I think the clearly printed labels helped make everything feel more professional and encouraged sales. The clear label over the “Code Monkey Save World” books reading “Based on the songs of JONATHAN COULTON” saved me from having to explain the book as often as I’ve done in the past. Multiple Coulton fans read that label and bought the book without my having to say much at all.
4. It’s a little hard to tell from the photo, but that little black box is a portable speaker through which I played Jonathan Coulton music whenever I was sitting at the table. Bouncy music subtly encourages people to linger and buy. And multiple Coulton fans heard the music, then discovered the table and bought the book.
5. For the first time this year, I brought a short box of single issues of some of my work-for-hire comics, which I sold at cover price. I ended up selling all but one issue of “Action Comics” and every issue of “Storm,” “Doomed,” and “Batman/Superman” that I brought. The experience reminds me of advice a friend gave me about Kickstarters, which was to have a reward at every price point. At my table, I had the $20 “Code Monkey Save World” and the $23 “Make Comics Like the Pros” books for the big buyers. But I also had a bunch of $3 and $4 comics for casual browsers who might just like a little something to remember the con by.
6. Fred told me that after he did a panel about making comics at a small convention in Maine, he sold all of the “Make Comics Like the Pros” books he had within a few minutes. So I ordered what I figured would be too many “Make Comics Like the Pros” books to sell at the NYCC. And I sold them all. A big part of moving those books was doing the “Make Comics Like a Pro” panel and the Nerdist Comics Panel, where I shamelessly plugged the book. Some folks bought the book from me right there after the panels; many others found me at the table later to buy the book.
7. Sets of individual comics sold pretty well. I had a few sets of individual comics of a few miniseries I did, which I bagged together and sold at a slight discount. All of those sets sold. It makes sense — it’s nice to get a little discount and it’s nice to get a whole story in a single bag.
8. I was seated next to “Action Comics” artist Aaron Kuder and facing frequent collaborators Fred Van Lente, Ryan Dunlavey, and Charles Soule. That meant if someone was looking at a copy of “Action,” I could say, “And you can get Aaron to sign it for you, too!” I think that helped move a lot of books.
And now here’s a list of things I thought about after the fact and will try to do for the next con:
1. Make a little sign saying I take credit cards. Most Artists Alley vendors these days have little Square thingies that let them take credit cards. But not all visitors realize that. A little sign would probably have increased my sales just a bit.
2. Make a sign listing my collaborators who are at the con and where they’re sitting in Artists Alley. As noted above, sitting near Fred and Charles and Aaron certainly helped move single issues. But probably a dozen other artists I’ve worked with were attending the con. If I’d had a little sign at my table noting what books they’d worked on and where folks could find them, it might have encouraged a few more sales. And it would just be good karma to point fans to the tables of my friends and collaborators.
3. Bring a sheet to cover the table. On the first day of the con, I forgot to bring a sheet. So every time I left the table, I had to spend a few minutes moving books off the table. I brought a sheet on the second day and probably saved a half hour to forty minutes over the course of the con as a result.
4. I’d thought of creating a little insert to stick into books that I sold people that listed my name and website and Twitter handle. But I forgot. I think that’s a pretty good idea and will try to do that for the next con. Seems like a good way to help turn customers into Twitter followers, which can then help keep them informed about my future work.
And, finally, a quick list of things I learned.
1. Iconic covers and #1 issues sell. If folks aren’t following the storylines and looking for specific books, their eyes get drawn to iconic covers featuring characters they know and books with a big #1 on them. So “Action Comics” #28, the book in the rack next to the short box featuring the iconic Superman flying towards us with the explosion behind him, sold out very quickly. And every time I put “Storm” #1 on the table with its gorgeous Victor Ibañez cover, it would sell within a half hour.
2. There are tons of parents roaming the con with small children — including tons of small girls. But I didn’t have a ton of stuff to offer those families. I ended up drawing with those kids a ton, which was a blast. But I’m pretty eager to see what’ll happen when I finally have hard copies of the “Princess Who Saved Herself” book I’m doing with Jonathan Coulton and the “Code Monkey Save World” team.
3. I actually paid $30 for a Facebook ad saying I was at the con and providing my Artists Alley table number. I have no idea how many people actually came to the table because of that ad. I should have asked folks. But if only a few buyers of “Code Monkey” or “Make Comics Like the Pros” came because of that ad, it was worth it. As dubious as I am of Facebook in general, I’ll probably do it again.
Writer of over 500 comic books, including PLANET HULK, MECH CADET YU, FIREFLY, and DARTH VADER
