September 1, 2021
I believe I mentioned something in a previous newsletter about plans and how they never seem to go the way they were intended. At least, not for me, anyway.
And so here we are again.
I had planned on launching a crowdfunding campaign for the next project (GunEngine Zero) in September/October but the more that I considered it and researched it, it didn’t seem like a good idea.
The reason is that crowdfunders in the last part of the year don’t traditionally do very well. And, for GEZ, I’ll need to raise about $4,000 just to pay for the artwork. Considering that I’ve had a hard time even reaching $600 in my previous campaigns, getting to that goal is going to be a tall order.
So, to give the project the best chance at success, I’ll instead launch it in the spring of 2022, when people are more in the mood for backing projects. This will also give me more time to build hype for it.
For September, what I will be doing instead is launching an “A La Carte” campaign on Indiegogo. This will be to sell-thru the books and merch that I have on-hand and to try to reach more people.
Because it appears that there is a large contingent that restrict their crowdfunding to either Kickstarter or Indiegogo. So I would like to go over to IGG and test the waters there.
Also, there are several things about KS that I have problems with. Mostly it has to do with (what seems like) trolls who pledge to a campaign then pull out, as some odd form of sabotage. There are examples that I could give that have happened in both of my campaigns but, suffice it to say, I do believe this is what’s happening and I don’t appreciate it.
And, even if people weren’t trying to intentionally sabotage my campaign — and it was just a simple matter of people realizing they didn’t have the money to honor their pledge — this is still a problem. For someone like me that only has a handful of backers, every dollar counts. So when people pull their funds, it can literally destroy the entire campaign.
So, as they like to say on Shark Tank, “For those reasons, I’m out!”
~ Michael T Gonzalez
Substack (are these buttermilk?)
You may have noticed that this newsletter came to you through Substack instead of Mail Chimp, which I used previously. I just figured I’d give this service a shot and see how things go.
The thing with Substack though, is that its standard functionality is more like a monetized blog than as a way to disseminate newsletters through email, which is all I really want.
The purpose of this newsletter is for me to provide you with exclusive, behind-the-scenes info that you can’t get anywhere else. Or, at least, to be the first ones to get it.
So, to make that happen, what I have to do is publish each newsletter on Substack which will also send the newsletter out to email subscribers like you. Then I will unpublish the newsletter so that it’s not available to the general public at the same time that it is available to you. Then, once a new newsletter goes out, I may make the old newsletter available to the general public just to show people what they’re missing and entice them to sign up.
I think that’s the only way to make it work the way I want it to because I have no intention or interest in trying to monetize a newsletter/blog. Again, this is just an extra thing I want to do to repay your support.
Hopefully, this works out the way I want it to or else I’ll just switch back to using Mail Chimp.
Here’s a funny thing: When I type in Substack, the auto spell check underlines the word “substack”, as if it’s an unrecognized/misspelled word. You would think they would have added their own name to their spell check dictionary.
Book of Legend debrief!
The Book of Legend Kickstarter campaign launched on July 7th, 2021 and ended successfully on August 6th. KS deposited the funds into my account on August 23rd and I sent out digital rewards at that time. 75 copies of the book were printed with Comix Well Spring and I received them on August 27th. The books were packed well and there was no damage that I could see. I shipped out all physical rewards on August 30th to those that had responded to the survey I had sent out via KS.
Those with physical rewards also got an ashcan preview of “GunEngine Zero”, which you can read more about below.
Comic Books for Kids!
As part of the Book of Legend campaign, I decided to match every copy of my daughter’s “Agents of S.H.H.” that was pledged for and donate them to the Comic Books for Kids! charity. There were 9 books pledged for but I decided to send 15 since I already had some printed.
I also sent 5 copies of Neotheric that will go to the troops.
And I plan on continuing to support CB4K in future campaigns.
Speaking of which, Agents of S.H.H. book 2 has been completed. Books 1 and 2 will be available as a set in the “A La Carte” Indiegogo campaign for $5.
GunEngine Zero pushed back!
As I mentioned in the opening statement, I’ve decided to push back the launch of the GEZ campaign to spring, 2022.
The artwork for the cover and the first 6 pages has already been completed by Ian Waryanto and Anton Bandi but I don’t have enough funds to pay them to do the entire issue. (At least, not yet. If the “A La Carte” campaign is successful, I may be able to use that money to get GEZ #1 done ahead of the campaign launch.)
In the months leading up to the campaign, I will be including behind-the-scenes info about this project here in this newsletter. This concept has been in the works for about 6 years so I have a lot of pre-production material I can share.
I’ll also be including an ashcan preview with every physical perk in the “A La Carte” campaign.
It’s a-go-go!
Sometime in September, I will be launching a campaign on Indiegogo where I will be offering the books and merchandise that I have on hand. Because Indiegogo allows me to “lock” a person’s pledge, I can ship out the items the next day and not have to worry about backers canceling or defaulting on their pledges as has happened on KS.
The only caveat is that the campaign must first reach the minimum $500 goal before I can start shipping out items because IGG won’t collect any funds until that point.
Since I will only be offering the items I already have ready to go, supply will be very limited so it’ll be first-come, first-served.
Also note that this campaign will be the first time that I will be offering a PDF of the Neotheric graphic novel.
SHAREWARE
When I was younger I used to doodle a lot because I had delusions of becoming a professional artist. So, this is basically the graveyard of my dreams. Enjoy!
T-SHIRTS ON STORE FRONTIER
Click the image above to go directly to the store!
I’ve uploaded a bunch of t-shirt designs to Store Frontier that you might want to check out. I’ve tried Red Bubble, Teepublic and Teespring but they always had problems. Either the shirts weren’t printed correctly or the quality of the shirts were poor. I ordered one of the “Rainy Road logo” shirts for myself and the printing looks good and the fabric is nice. And they have sizes up to 3XL. If you have particular designs or colors (because they only allow me to set 3 colors per design) you’d like to see offered, hit me up and I can see what I can do.
GIVEAWAYS!
If we can reach 100 subscribers to this newsletter, I’ll start giving away random stuff, like comics (or sets of comics), posters, sticker sets, artwork (Oh, my!)
So tell your family, your friends, your enemies, your pets, your pet’s enemies and your social media followers to visit rainyroadmedia.com and sign up for the newsletter.
The more the merrier!