Anatomy of a Failed Kickstarter

What I learned, what you can learn, too, and what's next.

The recent Kickstarter for The Dragon and the Raven failed. That’s not the worst news in the world, though I would have liked it to succeed. I now know the demand isn’t there for a deluxe hardcover, and it didn’t cost me an arm and my second-born child to figure that out.

I now have a 2-2 record on Kickstarter, the most recent win being a children’s book for The Rainbow Knight. Ironically, I feel like I was better prepared for the one that just failed because you learn new things all the time.

In that spirit, I wanted to highlight some of the numbers, which I hope will provide insights and lightbulb moments for anyone considering a crowdfunding campaign.

What Kickstarter Provided

We came close. 114 backers and 76% funded. We reached 40% after the first week, which boded well for the eventual success.

• $6,851 total pledged

• $60.10 average pledge size

• $1,491 pledged via Kickstarter

• $5,360 pledged from external referrers, which meant direct from marketing efforts.

That “via Kickstarter” number is a little deceiving. Much of that was also from external marketing efforts, but instead of clicking a link, they went to Kickstarter and searched for the project by name. It’s impossible to know the actual number.

However, we can estimate based on the “discovery” referrals, which means pledges from other projects’ thank you pages, Kickstarter recommendations, emails sent based on backers they followed, and more.

That number comes to $817. Eleven backers. So Kickstarter contributed to about 12% of the total pledges. That’s the platform bonus. This project didn’t get a “Project We Love” tag, but even if it did, that number probably wouldn’t have been much higher. Certainly a tiny boost, but not enough to make the final difference.

If you plan on running a campaign, 10% coming from Kickstarter is a good conservative estimate when running your calculations. Don’t count on more than 15%. Other platforms, like IndiGoGo, might have a different baseline.

The upshot is that backers coming directly from Kickstarter tend to pledge higher amounts. Their average was $74.

The Early Signup Page

I spent about a month directing people to an early signup page. This funneled people onto a mailing list and tagged them appropriately.

165 signed up for notification when the campaign launched out of 677 visits, a 24.37% conversion rate. All organic traffic. Out of those 165, 26 ended up backing the project, which is a 15% conversion rate from the list itself, accounting for at least $1,469.00 in pledges. Not a bad number, though in retrospect, the total numbers needed to be higher for it to really make the project a success. Ideally, you get at least 50% of your funding goal from your early signups.

Build your own list. MailerLite has a free tier that includes all you need and erases all excuses. Don’t rely on the Kickstarter pre-launch page. For two big reasons:

1. Kickstarter only sends one email out to anyone following the project.

2. You have no idea who has signed up and no way to communicate with them in the future, unless they back the project.

I sent a total of three emails to this list. If I had only sent them to the Kickstarter pre-launch page, I would have only received 14 backers instead of 26. An added bonus from having my own sign-up page is that I can send relevant content to this mini-list in the future.

The Other Numbers

Where did the rest of the backers come from?

• 14 from Study the Great Books. My plan was to include a version of that study guide in the book, and

  Jacob Allee
  was kind enough to promote the campaign.

• 16 from Twitter/X. There were no true viral posts during the time of the campaign, so I’m happy with this number despite its minuscule size in comparison to my followers. It could have been much better, of course, but the X algorithm is tempermental.

• 9 from Substack Notes.

• 4 from this very substack.

• 3 from the Foundation Father substack.

• 1 from Facebook. Yay.

All of these numbers were much lower than for The Rainbow Knight, which is probably a lesson in product/audience fit. For example, The Rainbow Knight had 50 pledges from Twitter/X and 33 from Foundation Father. The selling proposition of selling my own book was certainly a lot more personal, with a higher perceived value, than a reprint of a public domain work.

We need at least 40 more backers to succeed at the minimum, and the minimum is not what I wanted anyway. I wanted more illustrations and more maps, and to do that, we needed at least 100 more backers.

Oh well. It was good test and I had fun trying. Plus, when you are trying to create something, you tend to meet more people than you would have otherwise, and have more interesting conversations. Life rewards those who move, and as long as you aren’t moving directly into a ditch or carreening toward a cliff, it doesn’t matter which direction you’re going. You can’t steer a parked car.

What’s Next?

I plan on launching a campaign for my middle-grade adventure novel. It will have a more modest funding goal, though I think the project will be more ambitious. The story was the thesis for my MFA program, and I had a lot of fun writing it. Many people have already had fun reading it.

Look for campaign sometime in March 2025. The latest news will be posted here, so be sure to subscribe.