Er..so my Kickstarter funded in 2 days and doubled in 7. Now what?
December 10, 2013 1:50 PM Subscribe
I began a Kickstarter last week and it exploded, reaching its funding goals in 2 days, 6 hours. I've started adding stretch goals like mad, but I'd like to use the overwhelming response to get some media attention. How do I do that?
So far, I've been going through a list of the top 40 tech sites at Blorge.com, searching for authors who have written articles about Kickstarters and contacting them one by one, but I haven't gotten anyone to jump on it. What else can I do?
So far, I've been going through a list of the top 40 tech sites at Blorge.com, searching for authors who have written articles about Kickstarters and contacting them one by one, but I haven't gotten anyone to jump on it. What else can I do?
Best answer: It looks like you have 396 backers, which is awesome. But not newsworthy. I assume there is such a thing as a blogging community for the learn-a-new-language enthusiasts out there -- maybe that's where you want to reach out?
posted by kmennie at 1:58 PM on December 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by kmennie at 1:58 PM on December 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
Yeah, basically what kmennie said. You exceeded your goal and that's AMAZING and a big deal to you, but... as Kickstarters go, that's not a large fund and not a large number of backers and not an exciting product, so...
posted by DarlingBri at 2:05 PM on December 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by DarlingBri at 2:05 PM on December 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
Are you on reddit at all? Have you posted to /r/languagelearning?
posted by ocherdraco at 2:45 PM on December 10, 2013
posted by ocherdraco at 2:45 PM on December 10, 2013
Careful with your stretch goals. In your hurry, you do not want to promise things that would be expensive or impractical to deliver on.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:49 PM on December 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:49 PM on December 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
Yup, I agree with kmennie and DarlingBri. Congratulations on exceeding your goal, but the Kickstarter media stories that I've seen make the news when it comes to funding are more along the lines of Double Fine's scale.
Media stories about Kickstarter tend to fall info a few groups: giant $ raised (1 M+), "scams" and failures where no backers got anything for their money, and how popular products made it to the marketplace after an initial Kickstarter (often citing a KS campaign that was in the distant past).
posted by quince at 2:50 PM on December 10, 2013
Media stories about Kickstarter tend to fall info a few groups: giant $ raised (1 M+), "scams" and failures where no backers got anything for their money, and how popular products made it to the marketplace after an initial Kickstarter (often citing a KS campaign that was in the distant past).
posted by quince at 2:50 PM on December 10, 2013
Best answer: i get what everyone is saying about that not being the biggest deal in the scheme of things, but buzzfeed did just do a piece on huge percentage wins at kickstarter and some of those projects are at "127,000% funded!" by asking for things like $1 and making $1,270 - so bloggers write about all sorts of stuff and your big personal win might be interesting to someone.
with that in mind, focus your attention on the proper subreddits and other social networking stuff. are there celebrities in the field? people with lots of followers who like to retweet things? find them, tell them why you think they'd care. don't spam them, don't constantly @ them, just make them aware. you might peek into how the tabletop gaming kickstarters get the word out - there's a lot of talking amongst each other and promoting alongside. are there other current language kickstarters that are doing well that you guys can pool some of your efforts?
posted by nadawi at 2:57 PM on December 10, 2013
with that in mind, focus your attention on the proper subreddits and other social networking stuff. are there celebrities in the field? people with lots of followers who like to retweet things? find them, tell them why you think they'd care. don't spam them, don't constantly @ them, just make them aware. you might peek into how the tabletop gaming kickstarters get the word out - there's a lot of talking amongst each other and promoting alongside. are there other current language kickstarters that are doing well that you guys can pool some of your efforts?
posted by nadawi at 2:57 PM on December 10, 2013
Best answer: You should go through channels of people who write about the thing your kickstarter is about, not people who write about kickstarter in general. Someone reaching their goal in two days or doubling a modest goal is not really newsworthy in the grand scheme of kickstarter, but it is newsworthy to people who might be excited to hear about your game, album, movie, invention, or whatever it is.
Most "yay this kickstarter is funded!" news items I read are about how the funding guarantees that an interesting thing is eventually going to get made. For instance this recent article on The Mary Sue about a Jane Austen MMO that recently got funded.
As to how to get press like that? Reach out to the relevant people with a well-written press release and hope for the best.
That said, your campaign might be interesting to someone who writes just about kickstarter if you did something really unprecedented. If you were asking for a typical amount of money for a type of project that is fairly standard for kickstarter, with a typical number of backers, through the typical campaign model that most projects use, that's not really news. If you just came completely out of nowhere with no audience and got 200% funding via a million backers for a $10,000,000 board game in 24 hours thanks to an unusual approach, that would be newsworthy.
posted by Sara C. at 3:09 PM on December 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
Most "yay this kickstarter is funded!" news items I read are about how the funding guarantees that an interesting thing is eventually going to get made. For instance this recent article on The Mary Sue about a Jane Austen MMO that recently got funded.
As to how to get press like that? Reach out to the relevant people with a well-written press release and hope for the best.
That said, your campaign might be interesting to someone who writes just about kickstarter if you did something really unprecedented. If you were asking for a typical amount of money for a type of project that is fairly standard for kickstarter, with a typical number of backers, through the typical campaign model that most projects use, that's not really news. If you just came completely out of nowhere with no audience and got 200% funding via a million backers for a $10,000,000 board game in 24 hours thanks to an unusual approach, that would be newsworthy.
posted by Sara C. at 3:09 PM on December 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
maybe get it posted to mefi? we probably like you already! ;D
posted by raihan_ at 4:07 PM on December 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by raihan_ at 4:07 PM on December 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
Look up the press release format and send it off to every features editor you can google.
posted by sammyo at 6:09 PM on December 10, 2013
posted by sammyo at 6:09 PM on December 10, 2013
« Older Should I apologize to my girlfriends parents for... | How to be content again and pick myself up once... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Kololo at 1:57 PM on December 10, 2013