There are more ways to make and publish comics than ever. But how do you fund them? That’s an important question, and it’s one many creators and even publishers have struggled with, especially of late. Of course, questions like that can create opportunities. That’s probably why there has been an influx of crowdfunding platforms entering the comics space in the past few years. Each likely hopes they can fill the gap that question creates, each offers a slightly different flavor of the same thing, and each has its own value for that reason.

But even with that surge of competition, the marriage of comics and the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter continues to grow. Whether its small press folks looking to bring their projects to life, publishers attempting to roll out a showcase piece for an existing title, or creators debuting a comics adjacent release for their existing audience, the number of comic projects on Kickstarter and the amount of pledges dedicated to them has only swollen in the four years since I last explored the platform and its impact. One thing has remained the same, though: comics continue to have a tremendous amount of success on the platform. It’s the category with the highest success rate of any on Kickstarter.

While some things have stayed the same, others have shifted. Comic publishers seem to be leaning on it more and more as a core part of their strategies. Some creators have altered their approaches and expanded what they might use the platform for. Even Kickstarter itself has tweaked its approach, especially with the new vision they rolled out for themselves as part of the 15th anniversary of the platform. These times are a-changin’, and Kickstarter is as well.

That made it an ideal time to learn more about what’s happening on the Kickstarter side of things. To do that, I recently sat down 1 with Kickstarter’s Senior Outreach Lead for Comics, Sam Kusek, for an extensive chat on Zoom about his role and how hew views the relationship between the platform and comics. In this conversation, we talked about how previous jobs he’s had have shaped his approach to this role, the importance of community to the platform, where Kickstarter fits in the overall comic book ecosystem, the influx of publishers on the platform, the rise of single issues, the creator relations side of his job, that expanded crowdfunding field, recent changes at the platform, and more. It’s a big one, and one that likely only skims the surface of where we could have gone, even if there’s plenty to it.

You can read it all below, as it’s open to non-subscribers. However, if you enjoy this interview, maybe consider subscribing to SKTCHD for more like it. The site is entirely funded by subscribers, and your support allows me to put together features like this.

Let’s start with the basics. You are the Senior Outreach Lead for Comics at Kickstarter. It’s a fancy title. What does it mean exactly?

Sam Kusek: We have a number of teams at Kickstarter. We have our technical teams who run the nuts and bolts of the platform, and then we have an outreach team. The outreach team is made up of subject matter experts for each category. So we have design and tech, we have games, we have publishing. I was hired on because I am recognized as a subject matter expert within comics. That’s indicative of my background, both working at a retailer as an events coordinator for Comicazi, working for Boston area shops, and then working in publishing for BOOM! Studios.

My role is to be the public face of Kickstarter within the comics category. I interface with creators, both old and new. I reach out to people who I think could bring some interesting talent and projects. A friend of mine described it as, I’m a reporter in an interesting beat. I get to talk to anybody and everybody who’s involved with comics on Kickstarter. That’s new creators, old creators, larger companies, small press people. That’s what outreach does. We’re here to be that person-to-person contact for people who want to run things on Kickstarter and have questions from, “How do I get started?” to “What can I do differently for my 10th or 11th project?”

I know I’m going down the insane rabbit hole of corporate titles, but your predecessor on the comic side was Bryce Gold. His title was Head of Comics. Is there a difference between your roles? Or is it just different times, different titles?

Sam: There’s not too much of a difference (between our roles) because I’m the sole comics person, like Bryce was. I would say my roles and responsibilities are pretty similar to what Bryce was doing – I am Kickstarter’s resident comics expert, help creators in the category understand how crowdfunding can help them bring their ideas to life and give them advice and support on launching a successful campaign. It’s just a title difference, which gives me the opportunity to have something to aspire and grow into.

You’re coming for that Head of Comics title. 

You mentioned this already, but you were the Special Projects Manager at BOOM! where you worked on an array of Kickstarter campaigns for that publisher. I imagine most who preceded you in a similar role come from that side of the aisle before coming over to Kickstarter. What did you learn from that role that you’ve carried with you? Because I imagine that’s a foundational experience for this job.

Sam: Yeah, that’s a great question. In addition to working with BOOM! as their Special Project Manager, I own a boutique tabletop role-playing game publisher called Cave of Monsters Games where I’ve done three Kickstarter campaigns to fund my own projects.

So, you come from a creator and publisher side.

Sam: I come from a creator and publisher side. 

But the point I’m trying to get at is my experience with Kickstarter as a creator is very different from my experience working at a publisher. Seeing how campaigns are run there, seeing how metrics are tracked and measured, understanding how you have to work collaboratively with a team. I can spend time watching movies and packaging books myself, and that’s one experience as a creator. But knowing how to work with different fulfillment houses in different regions and understanding how VATS and customs works to get the things out or what steps we need to do to create replica hand terminals for this larger property (is different).

I learned I think how to do much more complex projects at BOOM!, and that allowed me to come to Kickstarter with a better understanding of working with publishers who are looking to do projects at that scale, but also being able to help guide creators who are trying to take that next big step and understand, “What can I do outside of just printing books, printing single issues or trades or maybe doing print on demand?” I have a fuller understanding of everybody’s experience.

I also was able to take a look at what a licensor’s relationship with Kickstarter. That’s becoming more common on the platform. You have Hasbro who’s allowing Power Rangers to be on Kickstarter. I can’t even think 10 years ago of them or G.I. Joe or any other large licenses coming to the platform and being crowdfunded. They have their own questions and unique needs.

Having a fuller scope of seeing projects at different sizes of scale has really benefited me in coming to the platform because I can talk to anyone and be able to relate to their experience.

That’s important because the age of comic publishers not crowdfunding projects is gone. It’s just not going to go back to that. I imagine you being conversant on both the publisher and the creator side is an essential part of your job because it allows you to put yourself in their shoes and understand where they’re coming from, whether it’s a massive project that involves licensors or it’s just a single issue of a comic.

Sam: Definitely. At the end of the day, we were saying this a little bit before we recorded, but the community is the driving force of the platform. I think that’s why Kickstarter is the strongest crowdfunding platform out there because we have a strong community of creators. We have a strong community of super backers, people who really want to see success. Being able to have that person-to-person conversation and understand where they’re coming from…people appreciate that. 

I always hate getting to this point, but there’s times where I have to just say, “Hey, I’ve done everything that I can for you. Here are my recommendations. Ultimately success is up to you.” And people are a bit more understanding of that when they have a face to the name. I’m not a nameless person. I’m not just somebody who’s on a support team at this larger company. They know me, they have a relationship with me, they see the things that I make. It’s helpful. 

I am part of the community as much as I’m part of the Kickstarter company.

Outreach is fundamentally a community-based role, so that makes sense. 

One thing that I think is interesting is the people who are just observing Kickstarter as an entity, I’m not sure they realize what kind of comic projects are happening in there. When you go through the comics category and look through the projects that are on there, there are so many different versions of what comics Kickstarter even looks like. 

There are the big ones with publishers and big-name creators, but there are also small ones. I saw this one that had a $25 goal and is 7000% funded. There are little ones like that, and then there’s a whole bunch of creators who have really created a model for themselves. Somebody who does this well is (writer) Charlie Stickney. He uses Kickstarter to his advantage and has found a way to make it work for him. There are so many different species of comics Kickstarters, and I think people kind of sleep on that.

Sam: Yeah, I agree. That’s something that I picked up on quick coming into this. When you’re working at a publisher, you’re kind of siloed into, “What are other publishers doing? What do we do?” It is kind of a rinse and repeat flow for the most part, or at least it was at BOOM! 

But seeing those smaller projects…I remember early on, there was a project about a woman who was publishing a comic about dealing with her anxiety and her own journeys through diagnosing mental illness. And then there was a project that was an anthology from working class comic creators, and it was the first project they had put out. It was like, “Oh, this shit rocks.” It’s neat to see a group of people who are not industry greats — they probably don’t go to Thought Bubble or San Diego (Comic Con) every year — but they’re out here trying to put out interesting work.

It’s awesome to see so much of that still coming out on the platform. Like you said, there’s this rise of publishers and big names. There are a lot of super creators on the platform. But even those people are doing their best to highlight some of those new projects and making sure that those voices on the platform aren’t getting buried underneath these larger projects.

I try to encourage publishers when I talk to them…”What are ways that you can give back to the community?” This was before my time, but BOOM! on the BRZRKR campaign gave, I think, $100 to 10 projects, and it was just projects for new creators or things that people really loved. And I talked with one of those creators, and that boost helped them get funded which then helped them start doing work for other publishers. It helped them get their foot in the door, and now they have more of a career making comics. 

So, I think there’s ways for that community to continue to feed in on itself.

I wanted to talk about where comics fit on Kickstarter overall. Amongst all the tracked public categories for Kickstarter, comics has far and away the best success rate at 67.15% of projects being funded, as of yesterday. That compares to an overall platform average of 41.67% of projects funding. I have my theories about this, but why do you think that marriage between comics and Kickstarter is such a strong one?

Sam: I actually just want to correct you real quick. It’s 77%, not 67%. That’s the number that I’m seeing and have been communicating.

It says 67.15% on the stats page of Kickstarter.

Sam: Yes, that is the percentage of comics projects that have been successfully funded since but I am happy to report something a bit higher than that. Since the start of the year to date, we’re looking at a 77% success rate for comics projects.

Wow. That’s amazing. Why do you think that is?

Sam: I mean, we’ve touched on community a lot already. I don’t want to harp too much on that, but I think the community is strong. People are seeing success and celebrating each other and lifting each other up. 

I was talking to somebody else about this…we live in this society where there’s content that comes out that we really love. I think about the show on Netflix called Lockwood & Co. that was about teen ghost investigators, and it had this interesting world where kids could see ghosts in certain ways. They all had swords, and it was this great series that we watched and were like, “Man, I hope a season two comes out.” And that show gets canceled and never gets a physical release and doesn’t go anywhere. We live in this era of media where there’s a lot of interesting content that comes out but doesn’t necessarily have a long lifespan or an accessible way to get in and cherish it for a while. 

Kickstarter is, I would say, the very opposite to that. You’re able to come in and support a creator and help them grow their creative empire. Charlie Stickney is a great example, as you already mentioned. I think the folks at Comic Uno, Phil Falco and Kat Calamia are also doing a lot of really great work there. But we’re able to have this sort of consistency of output for being able to collect and cherish in a way that they may not be able to otherwise.

Similarly, when I was at BOOM!, we ran the campaign for The Expanse: Dragon Tooth, and that had 12,000 backers. 2 We surveyed that audience, and 51% of them don’t have a regular relationship with comic shops. So they don’t necessarily have the same means that maybe you or I do, where we can go and browse and find the next fun thing. Kickstarter is, in a way, replacing some of that hunting, as I like to call it. I love to go to a comic shop and hunt and find something that I’m excited about or maybe something that I’ve been looking for before. Not everyone has that accessibility or those great comic shops. I live in Portland. We have eight great comic shops. I can go wherever.

Kickstarter is creating that marketplace of super interesting ideas that you’ll be able to get and cherish for a while, and you’re a little bit more in control of your media because you’re voting directly with your dollar as opposed to just being at the whims of these larger companies who may be producing really interesting content, but we don’t have a way to buy into it in the same way.

Comics are interesting because there’s a shorter distance between creators and fans, and comics are more accustomed to the DIY, self-publishing energy. That’s always been a part of it. That makes it a bit easier too, and I think that’s part of the reason some creators can be possessive of Kickstarter as a platform. It was their world, but I think as publishers got on there, some people were like, “Well, what exactly is Kickstarter? Where does it fit in all this?” It’s not a publisher, a creator, or anything like that. Where do you think Kickstarter fits in the overall comic book ecosystem?

Sam: It’s the direct-to-consumer channel right now. To the point about DIY creators, this was brought up when I was talking internally with some folks and they noted — and I think it’s true and resonates as to why comics on Kickstarter is so successful — most of the content that comes to comics Kickstarter is done. You go to a comics Kickstarter; it’s done and it’s ready to go. Most people are ready to submit their print orders once the campaign closes, and you can have that within a couple months of it completing.

You can’t say the same for a design and tech project or a film project. Film projects operate very differently here. You get funded, then it goes to pre-production and is being produced for a year or years. Now you can’t say that for every comics project on Kickstarter, but I would say for most of them, they’re ready to go, so you’re getting your content quickly out the door. Which is great.

To me as an outsider, it seems like there’s an increasing number of creators funding single issues instead of collections or graphic novels. That’s been an interesting trend to watch. Do you think there’s been a shift in terms of the types of comic projects people are crowdfunding, both in the time you’ve been there and over the last few years?

Sam: It’s interesting because you’re right. I’ve been talking about how Kickstarter comics is pretty wildly segmented. When you look at publishers, publishers are traditionally doing those larger collections in boxes with a lot of merch. That takes a while to get out the door. Independent creators are doing single issues, which don’t take a lot of time to get out the door. Once you complete the project, you can go onto the next project and just continue to pump that content out.

I do think seeing more of those independent creators go towards the single-issue model is just a way to continue to stay relevant and to keep your audience engaged because they may not have the same staying power as…G.I. Joe was always going to be wildly successful, because it’s one of the most revered properties in America ever. It’s hard to compete against that. But if you can get six books out in a year while G.I. Joe is waiting to fulfill and keep your audience engaged and excited, that’s a very different mode of operating and a very sustainable way to make a life in a creative career.

So, I think it’s a positive response to having more competition on the site. It’s made you need to move faster. And I think that’s really neat. It’s great to be able to just see more content coming out as a result.

That reminds me of something that retailers have said, which is that single issues are the cash flow to get to trade. And so, if you’re a creator, Kickstarting a trade is going to be a tough run if you don’t have the funding heading into it. Doing each issue yourself, being your own publisher in a way, that makes a lot of sense to me. It’s been interesting to see that and to see publisher tactics, like having lots of variants, showing up on there.

Sam: I was going to say, I think you can have a lot more just doing single issues. You can have your variants, your foil covers, your remarque sketches. There’s a lot more flexibility and control over what you’re able to do. And I know as a creator, I funded an expansion to one of my games which has two covers. I tried to do six covers, and it just didn’t work out for me financially. But I had the freedom to explore what those numbers looked like because my form factor is just all the more flexible.

You mentioned earlier about how one of the things you discovered when you were at BOOM! was the 51% of people who don’t have go to comic shops. But I do think that there’s a flip side of that. There are also the hardcore fans. Those are the ones who are like, “I really want this amazing cover that artist X, Y or Z did for this comic that I already like.” Being able to marry those two things in a direct-to-consumer way seems like it’s powerful for creators, and I understand why it’s so appealing to creators for that reason. You kind of get the best of both worlds.

Sam: Yeah, totally. Obviously not everybody can do this, but for the publishers, the direct-to-consumer channel pairs nicely with the direct market channel where you can have different product offerings in either lane. You have your Kickstarter exclusives both with merchandise and covers. The true diehard fans are going to want to get that. They may also then go and pick it up at their local comic shop because they’re just excited to read it. They don’t want to wait for those trades to come out or wait for that Kickstarter releases to get it, so there’s a way to produce and sell some interesting artwork that way. It adds creative flexibility to a title, if you feel adamant about having both.

How do you help creators and publishers find the right solutions for their projects? I imagine that’s a big part of your job. You’re the one who has institutional knowledge. Not everyone’s Charlie Stickney, not everyone’s BOOM! What is that side of your job like?

Sam: That is a lot of in-depth conversation. People can get in touch with me via my email, and I am able to, when schedule allows, make time for folks to talk about, “What’s your plan? What are you hoping to produce?” Obviously the earlier that we can have a conversation, the better. Some people come to me the week before saying, “Hey, I want to launch next week,” and it’s like, “Great, I can help you in X, Y and Z ways,” but I generally tell people that we plan a lot of our promotional efforts four to six weeks out. So, if you’re able to give me that heads up, I’ll be able to help you much better.

But a lot of it just comes down to one-on-one conversation. I look at people’s campaign tier offerings and provide advice on pricing, scaling up, what products are included, what add-ons you should or shouldn’t include. I like that kind of work. It’s time-consuming, obviously. I can’t do it for everybody. But I try and make time available to the people who reach out to me and just be honest about what I think will work and what won’t.

I was talking with someone who asked me why stretch goals are still a thing because it’s bitten them every time. And my response was, “Well, you kind of need to plan stretch goals” as something that’s going to happen, not as something that could happen. Having the conversation early and often and treating everything like it could happen and having all your ducks in a row is the best way to approach a campaign. Then you’re just firing on all cylinders and there are no surprises. I hate surprises. I’m not a big surprise kind of guy, but especially when it comes to campaigns.

It seems like part of your job is helping eliminate unexpected variables, but also positioning creators so they’re in the healthiest place possible before they even get started.

Sam: I have two children. Before I had my first son, I set up time with a bunch of dads who are young fathers to be like, “Tell me about your experience. What went well? What advice did you get that worked? What advice did you get that didn’t work?” It was an interview, essentially.

But I learned a lot from that, and I think it’s just helpful to just talk to people, especially if you haven’t done a campaign before. It’s so easy on the internet to feel isolated and siloed into your own experience, and then to compare yourself to other people’s successes without knowing what went well and what didn’t go well. I encourage people to talk to me, but also to talk to other people in their community. People are excited and adamant about helping other people out. 

Removing those obstacles of fear is a big part of my job.

It’s obviously a different species of crowdfunding, but one of the things I did when I set up my Patreon was I studied other Patreons. “What can I use from there?” There’s nothing better than picking from things that already worked. I’m sure that’s a huge part of what people do when planning their Kickstarters.

But there’s also no one size fits all solution to comic Kickstarters. For everyone that has a million reward tiers, you have something that was successful with a simplified approach. Like, Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s The Wicked + the Divine covers book. It was basically, “Here’s the book. Go to town.” It’s really just about finding the right solution for your project.

Sam: It’s funny. I was putting together a Kickstarter 101 deck because part of my job is giving talks. I’m giving a talk to a group of students next week about, “Hey, you’re thinking about doing Kickstarter. Here are my tips and tricks.” And I think getting to that point with the The Wicked + the Diving covers book you were just talking about, being specific about what you’re putting out is great. I’ve seen some projects where every reward tier is different, and  It can be hard to understand what the campaign is about.

It’s not the book and something else. It was like, get a sketch from this person or this person, you can have a video call with this person, etc. etc. But if you’re able to be a bit more specific and either scale up with a set of products that make sense for a higher price point or just have the simple approach of “Here’s the book,” or sometimes I’ll just do, “Here’s a bundle of my book or this new book and all my other books in PDF for a discounted price,” and that’s all you get. The more specific you can be about what you’re offering, the more successful you’re going to be.

Related to that The Wicked + The Divine book, there also seem to be a lot of comic art books of late, whether they’re driven by creators or by publishers like Clover Press. Those are becoming an increasingly popular thing to crowd und. I like that because sometimes, there can be a trap of just doing what other people have done before, where you’re just doing a single issue or a graphic novel but finding the right answer for you. Do you think that there’s still untapped potential in terms of what people in comics should be doing or could be doing with Kickstarter?

Sam: Yeah, totally. I think the art books are a great example. I know there’s a games creator, Possible Worlds Games, who ran a Kickstarter for one of their games where they’ve engaged with a well-known writer and comics creator. They’re building a limited release game together, and Possible Worlds is putting that out.

But I think there are ideas like that, where a limited release of something you’re not going to see in the direct market, or you may see the trade come out or a book like that. I think Kickstarter is ripe for those kinds of special projects. I think special projects are a unique trend that I would like to see more of.

Art books are great too. It’s nice to be able to collect and celebrate somebody’s work, and those are wonderful for anybody who’s interested in comics. You don’t have to be a diehard reader or fan of a particular kind of franchise. You could just get that for somebody, and that’s a fun Christmas gift, or you can get it just because you love it. 

I do think there’s some untapped potential there.

The other thing that’s nice about the art books too ties into what you were saying about single issues. You can trust that the project is going to be completed. With the art books, a lot of them is just assembling existing art into a book so the path to release is shorter.

Sam: And like I said, it’s a nice way to celebrate something. And yeah, you’re right. It’s exciting. They’re easy to produce, and it’s just a fun way to be like, “I love this medium,” and you don’t really have to justify it other than you just love it.

I do have to bring up the creators and publishers topic again. Some people have come around to realizing that it’s additive rather than destructive, as it brings more eyes to the platform. But some creators still bristle at the presence of publishers on the platform. How do you view it?

Sam: Here’s my stance. When I talk to publishers, I try to encourage them to be as respectful of the community as possible and encourage them to find ways to give back. That’s what ultimately makes Kickstarter successful, and they need to understand that they can’t really come in here and just run rampant and be like, “This is our zone.”

But again, I welcome publishers coming to the platform because it allows them more flexibility to run some interesting projects and produce some things that they wouldn’t be able to produce through the direct market. And it’s a nice way for us to feed niche communities of people. I use The Expanse as an example a lot, but that’s a community that had a TV show that went through a couple of different distributors, ultimately got canceled and has this fervent fan base that’s hungry for more content. 

The book that was produced is content that exists in-between the TV series and the books, and it probably wouldn’t see life elsewhere. It may have some success in the direct market, but I think Kickstarter allowed it to allow the fan base to be as vibrant and excited as they’ve been in the past.

That’s a great use case for how publishers can use Kickstarter effectively and responsibly. Find those projects that have a dedicated audience who’s hungry for it, that may not have the means to go through a traditional channel, and they can make some interesting stuff they wouldn’t otherwise be able to make through those traditional channels.

It goes back to community too, there. It’s just tapping into a community that already exists with a community that they can work with.

Sam: And if we can find ways for those publishers to connect…because here’s the thing about publishers bringing licensed material. They’re going to bring a lot of first-time backers to the site, which is great. We want to then find ways to keep those backers on the website engaging with the comics that are already there. So, in my role, if there are ways that I can encourage those publishers to give back to the community to continue to dive in and open up the floodgates of, “Hey, here’s what else is on comics Kickstarter,” and then get those people spending their money elsewhere, everybody benefits.

What about the consumer side? How important is it to manage the expectations of what the experience is going to be like? Because I remember early on in Kickstarter’s days with comics, there were campaign that didn’t fulfill, or people just disappeared. How much of your job is that side of things, where you’re trying to make sure that the consumer side doesn’t feel burned and has the best experience possible?

Sam: A lot of my job is creator focused where I’m interfacing with the creators, and like I was saying earlier about having the conversations well ahead of time, I try to encourage creators to…I don’t have a specific number for this, but I found that a lot of creators don’t provide shipping rates up front, which I think is interesting. I’ve been trying to encourage people to say, “Hey, make a chart. Do it by tier and by region based on any data that you have about where your readers may be, if you have an existing audience and just say, ‘Here are my estimated shipping rates.'”

They may come later if they do a BackerKit or they may come immediately through the survey, but at least you’re setting an expectation with people up front about, “Here’s what your total spend is going to be. Here’s when it’s going to come.” I found that to be a helpful thing when we were at BOOM! Studios. Oftentimes you’ll get people who forget about the shipping rates, or you’ll forget about what the timelines are.

If you have that information clearly presented on your page from launch, you’re better set up for success to have a smooth experience. Lay out your plan as much as you can. Dates are flexible, they can change and move. You can use Kickstarter’s updates feature to inform people about those changes. But at least if you present a plan up front, you’ve set a clear expectation with folks about what they’re getting into and where their dollar’s going to be going.

And generally, people have been responsive to that from a creative perspective. It builds confidence, like they’re coming to the table as a serious businessperson. They’re approaching it by being like, “I want to continue to self-publish, and now I feel like I have some legitimacy.”

I think it was Spike Trotman 3 that said this to me a long time ago when I wrote a piece about Kickstarter on my site. But the gist was that one of the sweet spots you get into is when you have a few successful campaigns under your belt, then you can send a message to the audience who backed you previously to back your new one. Your audience keeps building and building. And when you communicate clearly and have the right information ensuring that a person has the best experience possible, that means that it’s a little easier for you to build from then on, I imagine.

Sam: I said this on a panel at San Diego…you can plan all day and all night for every eventuality, and something’s going to happen during your project that is completely outside of your control that you just have to learn how to navigate around. Sometimes that’ll lead to a delay or something like that. But if you have that solid foundation of clear and consistent transparency with people, then it’s a lot easier for you to surmount those issues and for people to understand if an issue comes up, you can clearly explain it and talk about how things are changing on your timeline. But they know that you are there for them and you’re there ultimately to fulfill on what you say you’re going to do.

I wanted to ask about some of the shifts that have been happening in the crowdfunding space. There’s a lot more competition than there used to be. You mentioned BackerKit, which used to be a post pledge apparatus, but now it’s kind of its own thing. There’s Zoop, there’s Crowdfundr, and all these other ones and beyond that have been popping up and having varying degrees of success and impact. How do you think that the expansion of the crowdfunding field has affected Kickstarter? Do you think it has forced you to evolve at all?

Sam: Absolutely. We have some new things that have come out with our late pledge functionality, our changes to our pre-launch page. I think that’s all seeing that people who have been on Kickstarter utilizing BackerKit services or going over to Zoop, trying things out because that’s their right. They want to be as successful as they can be, so they’re going to use all the tools that are available to them.

But that is something that we have taken notice of, and it’s things that I’ve heard from in the creator community that has led to some of those changes. Ultimately, we want people to see Kickstarter as this one-stop shop where they can do everything that they need to do because they think, unlike BackerKit and Zoop, we have the community more than those other folks. We’ve been around for 15 years. We’ve had a lot of success stories. And if there are changes we can make to keep people coming back to Kickstarter and utilizing all of those, we’re willing to make those changes.

One change that hit recently was pre-launch editor. I like that because one of the things that I think is tricky with this people always want to send people to their Kickstarter and sign up for updates before it launches. But you only have one chance at a first impression, and sometimes I go to those, and I have a tough time understanding what I’m even looking at. So, I’m like, “Why do I want to press this button?” Between that and the late pledges and everything else, it seems like that Kickstarter is  trying to find solutions for the experiences your campaigns are already having.

Sam: Yeah, definitely. I’m glad that the pre-launch editor resonates with you. Because you’re right. Initially, you had to really be, and you still have to be…

Succinct.

Sam: Well, it was title, subtitle and then image. And there are some people that I’ve been working with who are like, “You can kind of spin out on, ‘What image do we choose?’” You had to pay a lot of attention to that and make sure that you have the right thing. And the pressure is off the image a little bit because you have the flexibility to include contextual information, video, and other media. It’s nice to build a bit more of a story. Before, you’d launch your pre-launch page with a six tweet Twitter thread about, “Here’s what I want to do,” and you lose people in those cascading tweets. If you have a clearer story that’s inclusive on one page, then it’s just easier for people to buy in.

I imagine if you’re a creator on there, it has to be difficult. You try to plan for every situation, but every use case for a possible backer is different. I’m sure there are some people who just watch the video. I’m the person who goes through all the text on the campaign page and I imagine a lot of people read very little of it. Planning for every possibility is an impossibility, and so you just have to do your best you can and try to be as concise as possible. That’s not always easy, but it seems like that’s a focus both for campaigns and Kickstarter.

Sam: And that’s just good advice in general. You get to a point in planning where…at least the way I approach it is I have done enough work where I feel confident about putting this thing out and then staying engaged on your campaign page when you launch it and listening to your community. If they feel like they need more information, you’ll be able to make changes to that story during the course of your campaign.

If somebody needs more clarifying information, you can provide that in the updates or you can talk to them directly. There’s the element of that community engagement of “Help me, help you.” The unknown unknown that I think is a fun part of crowdfunding. That’s just my hardened project manager mind coming in and being like, “Show me where it doesn’t work.”

I think to be successful in crowdfunding, you have to accept that you can’t plan for everything, and you just got to put shit out and see what happens. That’s the only way you’re going to learn and that’s the only way you’re going to be successful.

I’m starting to get the impression that you have the right brain for this job.

Sam: I appreciate that.

In addition to crowdfunding, I’ve been a project manager in the website development and design space for 10 years, and you learn a lot doing work like that about how to manage a company’s expectations. You learn a lot about how to manage your team’s expectations, and you kind of get a good understanding of, “What do I need to be successful in a space?”

The other thing I try to encourage people to do is some deep introspective thinking into, “What am I naturally good at?” I am good at writing emails and diplomatic, proactive communication. I’m not a great narrative writer. So, I ended up making tabletop role playing games that are essentially just systems that allow people to do their own thing and tell their own stories, rather than trying to be a comic book writer and tell my own stories. I identified that, “Hey, this is what I like to do and I’m good at it.” So, I found success doing that.

But that’s trial and error and trying to make something and failing and learning from that. I think Kickstarter is a great way to try something. You’re probably going to have success. Even if you fail, you can run your campaign again and make changes from what you did before, and I’m here to help you every step of the way.

Yeah, I love that part of it, to be honest. Not that I would be excited about my campaign not funding or something like that but being able to learn from each one and figure out what people respond to and everything like that.

Sam: Oh, dude. I funded a Ultraman-inspired role-playing game last year, and I noticed that I had significantly more sales of PDFs of my older games as opposed to physical copies because I had add-ons where you could order a print-on-demand version of pre-existing games. So, my next crowdfunding campaign, I created a bundle of every game I’ve ever made, deeply discounted. It was like $70 and I sold 13 of those just sort of based on the findings from a previous campaign. I was like, “PDFs do well. Let’s just put them all together and see what happens.”

And I made a good chunk of money off that. It was more successful than I thought it was going to be. You just try shit. I listened to your episode with Steve Anderson at Third Eye (Comics), and he’s got the right attitude too. Just try shit, measure it, see what happens, and then try something else or do another flavor of that, and I think that’s the pathway to success.

That’s true for publishers and creators, I imagine.

Sam: Totally.

This is obviously something that preceded you, but one of the big moments from the past few years was Kickstarter’s announcement that it would be moving the platform to the blockchain. That didn’t happen. It was something that a lot of people in the comics community spoke out against. And I think that that’s one of the things that’s interesting about all this. A lot of what we’re talking about is listening. Listening to your audience, listening to your community, listening to everyone, and just trying to find the right answers from there. How important is it for you and Kickstarter to listen to what the creators are saying as you’re developing what’s next?

Sam: Very important. That’s where a lot of the changes that we’ve talked about have come from with the late pledges and the pre-launch editor. We’ve talked a lot about how I just have conversations. The outcome of that is that with the creator’s permission — obviously I asked to make sure things are okay to share — I share their feedback with the company. I talk to people about the concerns that they have and changes that we can make.

I can’t promise that everything’s going to come through or it makes business sense because ultimately Kickstarter is a public benefit corporation. Any changes that we make impact all the categories on the website. But what I can promise you is I will hear you and I can communicate what I think is appropriate back to the company. And it’s all just a conversation from there. If it doesn’t seem like a good idea, we can talk about that, and I can let you know why. But ultimately, listening is a big part of my job and communicating back to the company and finding ways to make the platform better.

That’s the only way you can do it. It’s a macro version of the micro thing of creators making changes as they move along. 

I’m prepping for a couple interviews that I think are going to be a little bit more industry-centric, and it is interesting to think about where crowdfunding fits in all that. Whether it could have an outsized impact going forward, just because of increased uncertainty in the direct market and overall comic industry makes finding a way to make your own thing happen even more appealing. It’s going to be interesting to see where it fits within that shifting landscape because it feels like there’s a change on, and a lot of people are noticing the opportunity there.

Sam: Well, and to that end, some of the work that I want to start having more of a focus on is, “How do I work more closely with retailers to get them involved in projects on Kickstarter?” Are there ways to have those books come into stores? You have your audience on Kickstarter, but I always like to say there’s going to be somebody who is the unknown unknown customer who looks at a project that is on your shelf and says, “Wow, cool. That’s 100% my shit.” And they don’t know it was funded on Kickstarter.

There’s got to be ways to bridge the interesting stuff that is being funded and created on Kickstarter that is not necessarily publisher specific, created by independent creators, and bringing them into the direct market. We’re all in the same playing field. We’re all in one big system. I just want to find a way to better connect those worlds. Because it’s supplemental. It’s additive. I think retailers just need to be specific and thoughtful about what they order.

There’s a lot of change going on. We talked about a lot of it. There are a lot of interesting things happening. Obviously, you can’t spoil some of your plans for what’s happening next, but where do you think Kickstarter is heading in its relationship with comics? Where do you think are the opportunities for development from here?

Sam: Here’s what I can share. I am trying to focus on some more pointed communications and highlighting of the category. I think there has been some good stuff on that in the past. There are great articles from Brian Pulido that are on The Creative Independent site. I did one with James Tynion. I want to spend some time highlighting more of those creators and just making sure that the independent and diverse voices on Kickstarter are uplifted because I think there’s just a little bit of a lack of that from the Kickstarter side.

Comics haven’t been celebrated as much as it should be. Or we are celebrating some of the higher performing projects, which is great, and we want to celebrate those. But I also want to make sure that the independent creators and the smaller creators get the same amount of shine because they don’t have the same channels.

I have also started a comic specific newsletter that goes out the third Saturday of every month. We’re treating it as like a Saturday morning cartoon newsletter kind of thing.

I like it.

Sam: It’s different than the Projects We Love newsletter or the New and Trending newsletter we have that is comic specific. So, it’s six projects that I like and a highlight from a creator or a backer. Here’s a project that I’m really excited about that’s currently live. I take a look at news and happenings around or other blog posts, things that I think are really cool in this space. And it’s like, “Here’s what Sam at Kickstarter is thinking about comics.”

And so, you have more of that direct line of I am, again, that person at the company, and we’re having that one-on-one relationship. Here are ways for you to get in touch with me or where I’m going to be. It’s just opening that line of communication for folks. So that’s what I’m focused on. Highlighting people you may not already know about and then making sure that I’m having a consistent dialogue and open conversation with you about what I think is cool, but also allowing you to get in touch with me if you need to.

Thanks for reading this interview with Kickstarter’s Senior Outreach Lead for Comics, Sam Kusek. If you enjoyed the conversation and would like to read more like it, consider subscribing to SKTCHD to do just that and support the work that I do.