Guess That Answers That
I’ve been wondering when the first really big Strip Search-related splash would be made and last night Lexxy Douglas launched a Kickstarter to get her webcomic started. In the order that they occur to me:
- Less than 90 minutes after launch (and about an hour after the first public tweet), Douglas had cleared her US$7500 goal.
- Reading the campaign pitch the money raised is to let Douglas turn down otherwise-paying work so she has the time to launch the comic; this stands in contrast to most [web]comics-related Kickstarters that are going to succeed, in that a request to make something that nobody’s seen yet generally doesn’t do as well as a request to merchandise something that already has an audience.
- Douglas, of course, has an audience (via social media) and is well integrated with webcomics creators, not to mention the fans she’s garnered in her time on Strip Search. Last night I thought she’d timed the launch of this KS campaign well, given that she was still seeing an uptick in attention from people that felt her elimination from the show was a travesty. #TeamLexxy will be all over this.
- This morning, I think that her timing is absolute fucking genius [A/V mixed with a liberal dose of holy crap!]; seriously Lexxy, that is some Khoo-level strategy you pulled right there. Bravo.
- As of this writing, Ms Douglas is
on the cusp ofjust north of US$21,000 and the Gary’s First Law of Kicktraq Projections has her finishing in the US$50K – 100K range. - Stretch goals are presently defined up to 50K; better think up a couple more and ones that don’t require physical production/shipping, on account of you’ve already got a couple hundred packages to mail.
- It appears that George helped Of course he did.
Speaking of Kickstarts, what may be the most logistically-challenging [web]comics Kickstart in history¹ is making progress, and dropped some references to a pledge-management system² called BackerKit, which you may as well get used to seeing, as I suspect it will be a standard part of Make That Thing campaigns.
I can’t give you a comparison with the previously-mentioned After The Crowd as I don’t have access yet, but the screencaps and video make it seem roughly equivalent. The one key differentiator that I noticed is that BackerKit appears to give you continuous access to manage your pledge/information, where After The Crowd gave you a time-limited, one-shot access (with the ability to request re-access later if needed).
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¹ Fulfillment will involve the wrangling of literal dozens of webcomickers, wood craftsmen, printers, translators, musicians, delicious adorable kittens, and more.
² It’s only a matter of time before the enterprise software industry reduces that to “PMS”.
Another thing worth noting, that I’m sure you missed as a consequence of Tyrell’s First Law of the Internet: if you brave the comments from Tuesday’s episode, you’ll find that Ms. Douglas actually did the Magic challenge. Her engagement with fans of this series has been superb.
By Matthew I on 04.12.13 11:37 am
It’s worth noting that Lexxy already has a huge, huge following from her work on Homestuck and inside the Homestuck fan community. I wouldn’t attribute the whole of her success to Strip Search, any more than I would attribute (say) Erika Moen’s future success to Strip Search. It helps, yes, but both of them already have not-insignificant audiences.
By Ben Lehman on 04.15.13 7:37 am
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