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I'm not entirely sure that people realize there is a difference between liking and sharing. Or maybe they don't know how to do it? (Being so difficult to identify the link that says "share" and clicking on it.) :-) That was a great frustration for me. I personally messaged several of my friends specifically asking them to share the link on their timeline and was put out when some of them didn't. Almost to the point of unfriending them, but eventually I thought better of it and some of them came through later on. I think in the end, there was only one who didn't and I just figured she was too busy saving lives to find time to do it. The first time 'round, when I wasn't asking for that much and met my goal so easily, it was all fun. Each new backer was a bonus. This time, it was exhausting and stressful and I may have had several years shaved off of my life expectancy. :-)

Since my KS succeeded, I've got incentives to work on! I've added a poll to the top of this thread. Please only answer it if you backed the project at a reward level.

Looking good! That's the greatest part of these threads! Especially for the creator. Proof you've actually been working on it. :-)

Well, another reason why it would be beneficial to go lower at first with your goal and try to meet the goal early. Clearly you don't want people giving for the wrong reason. You want people who are excited about your project and want what you're selling. That person that gets bitten by betting you wouldn't make it isn't likely going to help you the next time around ...and if they don't honor the donation, then they end up short-changing the project, which can jeopardize the creator's ability to finish it. You also don't want to feel like you are pressuring people to fund you. I'm hoping I didn't do that with my campaign. I tried to keep most of the messaging in the phrasing of "help me get the word out" until the final push, and then I tried to include "if you can" in my verbiage. I didn't directly approach anyone and say, I need you to do this. In fact, the generous backer that got me over my goal came out of the blue (even though it was someone I knew) and voluntarily upped their pledge a couple of times to get it over. I was actually just frozen with fear, watching the seconds tick down and thinking how much it was going to suck to have it fail so close to the goal. :-)

Well, that's enough looking back ...I've got a 30 minute movie to make! :-) I just wanted to put down my thoughts in case I ever go this route again. To be honest, with as many favors as I've called in, I might not have this as an option again. :-) If anyone else finds them handy, you're welcome to them. I think all cases are different, so take it with a grain of salt. Nobody knows what the masses are going to like and attach themselves to. For now, though... it's a success! I get to make my puppet zombie masterpiece!

Some thoughts from my POV: 1) I think a feature, although an impressive accomplishment, is unwise for a small, indy production with no budget. The only way to really make money on it is to sell it to a distributor, but it's most likely not going to have that appeal. It's going to lack celebrity and high-end production values. An indy, no-budget feature would be better suited to film festivals, where shorts are just (if not more) acceptable. Alternatively, if you wanted to show it online, internet users are less likely to invest the time in watching a feature-length film they stumbled across than a short. 2) When I was desperately looking for a project to latch onto, I threw out a ton of group project ideas and they were almost always ignored, dismissed out of hand, or suggested as great ...if I did them myself. :-) I think, even with group projects in mind, people still have their own ideas about what they want to do and finding an idea that appeals to that many people equally is probably impossible. 3) Even a short needs a director There has to be decisions made and somebody needs to be the final word. Sure, there's stuff like vision, intent, etc. but bottom line is somebody needs to be that go-to guy. It requires a benevolent dictator ...and those ain't easy to find. 4) Collaboration works best when the collaborators aren't competitive. I've sought out help from people in the forums before and I've almost universally found that if the person helping is doing something I'm not particularly good at, it's easy and great. If they are doing something I can do, then I unconsciously start to become judgmental. If they are doing something I love to do, I become jealous and wonder why they are getting to do the fun stuff I want to do.

More on the do-over thinking: >I'd have spent the preceding months building audience. Let's face it, Kickstarter brings in some people, but your success is tied to how many people *you* bring in. Attempting to buddy-up with fansites at the last minute with a "Hello ---pay for my project!" doesn't work very well. I had more success on the Star Trek sites by reaching out to the blogs when I had the Paunk Show pilot to show than I did when the Kickstarter was in play. I should have concentrated on doing the web series first. That could have potentially built up audience, too. >Consider the day and time that I launched the campaign with thought to when it would end. I got excited and launched the campaign as soon as I got home and saw it had been approved. I don't think that was smart. For one thing, it was very close to the end of the day and the tracking sites viewed the 15 minutes as a day and showed that I got zero pledges. This impacted their projections in a negative way. It didn't matter that I had $870 in the first 24 hours, it divided that by two for the first two days. Again, I think there's some psychology that causes people to say, hey, this isn't tracking like it's going to be successful, I'll look for a sure thing. That said, on my first campaign, I launched it first thing in the morning and so my last hours were in the wee hours of the morning, where you're not going to have much traffic and you can't call somebody an ask for help. I'm thinking I would aim for it starting and ending maybe mid-day. That way you get that initial burst of traffic for the tracking sites plus it ends when people are awake. I'd also want it to end on a Friday, preferably just after the first of the month. People get paid on Fridays or at the beginning or end of the month.

If I had a do-over, this is what I would do: >I'd have set my goal at a more attainable point to start. I think psychologically, folks are more predisposed to bet on a winning horse. On Stalled Trek, I reached my goal in a day and yet continued to get backers right up to the end, getting to 367%. I think people who wanted the DVD were more likely to do it when they knew it was a sure-thing that it would be finished. Anecdotely, I was told by several people that they were getting the DVD as a gift for a Trek fan they knew. I'm not sure they would have bid on a gift that might not be made. I received $2300 in bids for Stalled Trek. If I'd set the goal at $2K, i think I would have had a better chance of reaching the goal early on. I could have done this by limiting the final piece. Offering up a 15 minute animation to start with. Then, when that goal was reached, I could have offered a stretch reward, expanding the film to 30 minutes if it reached $5K. I think that would have worked much better. Being so far away from my goal for so long surely soiled people on pledging, because they couldn't see it being successful.

Had a long trip back today and was collecting my thoughts. I'll expand on these later, but here are some things I learned from my second Kickstarter campaign: 1) Miracles can happen 2) Raising $5,000 is much harder than raising $600 3) It's much more stressful when you reach your goal on the last day rather than the first day 4) Don't give up (see #1)

I'm excited, Will! I'm going to wait a few days before I share it on Facebook. After the last few days, I think if I post another Kickstarter request everyone is going to unfriend me. :-)

Color me super-surprised! I have some really great friends and family that stepped up at the end to push me over!

Time to make it officially official! The Wobbling Dead is in production for an October release! Thanks to all of you for making it happen!

You would have called 911!

I almost had a heart attack! I still can't believe it!

Minutes to go and I'm only $661 to go! The stress is killing me!

Last chance (for me!) Please help! I only have 2 1/2 hours left and I'm only 30% away! Please do what you can! If I don't reach my goal, I get nothing and the project gets cancelled. Thanks, everyone!

Heading into the last day of the Kickstarter! It could still make it, but that's going to take a lot of folks helping out. Hope you'll consider saving this project and bringing it to wobbling life! Don't forget about these added incentives! Thanks to all of you who have supported this! I greatly appreciate it! This is going to be a very long day for me.

Even if you don't add any footage to your video, I'd embed some of your YouTube videos into the story section.

A lot of people do $10. It depends on what you are shipping. For DVDs, it cost me less than $6 for first class to anywhere. But then you have the mailer, address labels, making several trips to the post office. Most of that cost goes into domestic, too.

Hey-yo, I've updated my Storenvy store with digital versions of The Wannabe Pirates comics! Issues #1-3 are available in PDF format and you can even get the Curse of Greyhawk Island graphic novel for waaay cheaper than the print version! The print version of issue #3 will be available soon (just sent the files to the printer tonight.) Also, both of the Greyhawk graphic novels will be available soon! They are almost ready to go to the printers. Just some last minute decisions about the back covers and they'll be out of there! We're hoping to bring the digital versions to the Comixology app through their Submit initiative, but that takes time and we're not sure if they'll accept the books yet. If we do get the go ahead, I plan on bringing as many issues of The Wannabe Pirates as I have material to do, that will include the Amulet of the Apes stuff. And of course, you can still order the Stalled Trek DVD at the store!

I want to put up one last plea for help for my Kickstarter project. I still have four days left, but a family emergency is taking me out of town tomorrow morning and I won't be back before the end of it. I also likely will only have internet access via my phone. Every little bit helps get closer to that goal, and remember I'm offering those bonus incentives for Hash users. Hoping for a last-minute miracle, Thanks to all of you who have helped, believe me, it is very appreciated!

Thanks! You know, it's funny that I don't think I really ever thought about the fact that most of the Mad Magazine parodies I read growing up were of movies or TV shows I'd never seen. Didn't stop me from enjoying them.

Thanks. By far, my goal on this new model was to make him as simple as possible. The simpler he is, the easier he is to model, rig, etc. As to the original project, I think it was another one of those times people were scratching around for some kind of group project and I was throwing out ideas. I thought it would be beneficial to have a kind of Project Pack with all kinds of props and stuff for an easy to create character so that new users could start making their own movies right out of the box. The Extras DVD is a great resource, but it's like looking around a garage sale for matching salt and pepper shakers. This way, everything would be the same scale and be designed & rigged to work with the customizable character. Didn't seem to interest folks, though. :-) Thank goodness I finally latched onto doing Stalled Trek. I was bouncing off of the walls before that.

Nope. There was obviously not an outpouring of enthusiasm for the idea. :-) This idea did manifest itself in the puppet idea, though. This idea of being able to take a basic character and make all of your other characters from him. To be honest, I'd completely forgotten this existed, so no, this model is not the simple model I'm working with now. Speaking of which, you want to talk economy of splines, do a compare with the new one. :-)

sQcHDlEzA68 Sticking this on the page now that I've figured out how to embed YouTube videos.