The Kickstarter project to fund a reprint project estimated to cost $57,000 has raised over $1.2 MILLION dollars for Order of the Stick creator Rich Burlew. Depending on the level of donation, backers of the project were promised several incentives from fridge magnets to a cameo in the webcomic. In total 14,952 individuals donated the $1.2 million.
Michael Cavna interviewed Rich and asked him about any insights into this success.
I think it just really confirms the whole “free content” model, especially for creators who start with no existing audience or reputation. Not just as a publishing strategy, but also as a way of building a social network of a sort. It may take awhile for it to all come back to you, but you earn so much goodwill from your audience by providing your creative work for free over that period of time that when you need help, they are happy to respond.
It turns out I had this huge geeky safety net out there that I didn’t know about this whole time, made up of people who have been reading my comic for nine years but never contacted me.
That is really inspiring. I think he’s right, it is possible to create an audience and chart your own course. It gives cartoonists like me hope.
Psst… There’s a week left on my kickstarter 🙂
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supersiblings/super-siblings-the-graphic-novel
This is amazing. Good for Rich!
AWESOME! Congrats!
(and think I felt good raising “only” $2300 for my comic with only 30 days of comics created so far… lol! God bless capitalism, and group funding! )
Wow, crazy how well that worked out!
Refrigerator magnets … I’m going to have to remember that one! 😉
Kickstarter is such an amazing thing. I’m really happy for Rich, OotS is a great comic and I’m glad so many fans were able to donate to him
Does he have a contractual obligation to spend all that money on printing his comic? Because that’s a LOT of books to keep in your garage…