Is Kickstarter the #2 Graphic Novel Publisher?

[Top100EbooksRank]

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...ublisher-.html

On a gross revenue basis for the three month period of February 2012 to April 2012, the top 5 publishers are ranked as follows:

1. Marvel, $6,911,068.88
2. DC, $4,296,916.96
3. Image, $2,976,007.95
4. Kickstarter, $2,209,342.00
5. Dark Horse $1,061,354.83


Depending on the size of the pledge, Kickstarter will keep 8%-10%, with 90-92% going to the creators/publisher. For a “regular” publisher, Diamond will require a 60% discount with the publisher keeping 40% of the list price. The top four publishers above are part of Diamond’s “Premiere” program and will have a brokerage relationship with the distributor. It will be a slightly better deal that a regular publisher gets. For the purpose of comparing ballpark net revenue flows to the publisher, the publisher totals were multiplied by 40% and the Kickstarter total by 90%, which yields:

1. Marvel, $2,764,427.55
2. Kickstarter, $1,988,407.80
3. DC, $1,718,766.78
4. Image, $1,190,403.18
5. Dark Horse $424,541.93

In terms of fairness, those publishers will have more titles sold on a given month than are listed in the Top 300. They’ll have a little better revenue percentage than 40%. Not all of Kickstarter’s comics projects are graphic novels, but the majority are. Even with these caveats, Kickstarter is in the conversation for the #2 publisher of graphic novels. Clearly, crowdfunding is making a huge impact in the graphic novel market.

[RainingLemur]

That's pretty surprising. I didn't think that all the graphic novel stuff I've seen on there would add up to be THAT much.

[Top100EbooksRank]

Kickstarter is a beast:

Last year, users pledged $100 million to projects and by May of this year, the platform had received $250 million in pledges overall.

and a new tv game console ($99) just went live on Kickstarter today (Ouya)

$200,000 pledge in just a few hours.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...o-game-console

[RainingLemur]

I heard about the Ouya. That has piqued my interest greatly.

[Scott Nicholson]

Nice that people are getting behind paying the people who actually MAKE the stuff instead of a bunch of corporate assholes.

[charlesatan]

Well, you also have to put it into perspective.

Of the $2 Million published by Kickstarter, $1 Million went to Order of the Stick (one of my favorite web comics from way back when D&D 3.5 debuted). And from the article:

7 projects beat $40K and 25 of the 115 successfully funded projects have earned 5 figures.

Also, the Kickstarter amount raised is to fund the project. There are still production costs involved. In the case of Order of the Stick, the comic needs to be reprinted, board games reprinted, and then those items shipped to the funders.

That's not to say the creators aren't making a significant profit from it, but there can also be problems along the way. Mur Lafferty's Kickstarter for example earned beyond its goal, but she ran into some printing errors so had to reprint them, so her expenses rose beyond her initial estimates.

It's still a good thing, mind you, but Kickstarter isn't this volume publisher of comics (although it's published A LOT of smaller comic projects), and since these tend to be print projects (although digital-only projects also have their fair share of costs to develop, depending on the project), are lot of the raised money goes into production. In many ways, Kickstarter is simply a more efficient and popular pre-ordering tool.

P.S. The Ouya broke the $1 Million barrier already I think.

[sabredog]

I joined the Traveller SF-RPG 5 Kickstarter project right at the onset. Marc Miller raised nearly $300K to get the new rule set published.

[Top100EbooksRank]

Originally Posted by charlesatan

P.S. The Ouya broke the $1 Million barrier already I think.

It is on track to raise $2.5 million within its first 24 hours (FASTEST EVER!!!)

It's at $2.22 mil right now.

[tubemonkey]

OUYA now at $3 million...

[HarryT]

How does this actually work? Do people promise to pay in advance for something if it's published?

[tubemonkey]

Don't know how it works. Kind of interesting, though - funding from the masses.

[JeremyR]

Originally Posted by HarryT

How does this actually work? Do people promise to pay in advance for something if it's published?

They set a goal, X amount of money raised by a certain amount of time.

If the goal is reached when the time is up, then pledgers get charged through Amazon for the amount that they pledged

So basically, the people running the project get the money (if they meet the goal, minus the Amazon and KS fee, which comes to about 12-13% total) once it's over.

Then, if you pledged, you have to hope the project you pledged to actually goes through and fulfills it. So you're taking a risk. There have been some (few) cases of the person taking the money and running, and one case where the project people ran out of money and had to start another kickstarter to finish.


But as it's mostly used for things that can't get backing elsewhere, it's a way of putting your money where your mouth is.

It's been used a lot recently to fund games by developers who were once popular, in game genres that were once popular. But not anymore, so publishers won't fund games. Wasteland 2 most notably, a sequel to a game that came out 25 years ago, and a handful of adventure games from people who used to work for Sierra Online.

[charlesatan]

Originally Posted by HarryT

How does this actually work? Do people promise to pay in advance for something if it's published?

JeremyR explains it but here's the simpler one:

It's a pledge. If you meet the financial goal of the project, the pledged amount is deducted from your account. If it doesn't meet the goal, no money is spent.

Usually there's a reward tier to give incentive people to contribute.

Depending on the project, I've seen them not meet its goal, while others have.

Also worth noting it has derivatives like Peerbackers and IndieGoGo. Mainly these alternatives because Kickstarter is a) limited to the US (you can't create a Kickstarter w/o being a US resident, and b) requires a US credit card (through an Amazon account).

I myself benefited from Peerbackers last year (World SF Travel fund) but others outside of the US swear by IndieGoGo.

[HarryT]

Thanks for explaining it.

[Top100EbooksRank]

according to Kickstarter, 44% of the projects meet the goal and therefore amount deducted from pledger's accounts.

Which mean 56% don't get enough backing.


I believe Kickstarter has raised over $300 million now. It was at $260 million back in April.