Your Kickstarter campaign is doomed

[Autumnal]

Y'know, I keep seeing this take floating around, that Kickstarter success is in some way false, and I just don't get it. Are we saying there's a material (greater than 10%) portion of the Kobold Press Kickstarter that's fake?

Several things.

@Whizbang Dustyboots was talking about one Kickstarter with all those qualities.

Very few things guarantee by themselves that a Kickstarter are doomed. Several things are common causes of failure and raise the risks, often not because of any failure of goodwill or willingness to work hard on creators’ part. It’s just that they’re known by copious experience to make it harder to find an audience or to complete projects that succeed in the first part.

There’s a saying that every safety regulation in blood - that is, they started as a response to some actual disaster. These rules of thumb aren’t written in blood, but they are written in money and sweat waited and lost. People don’t recommend them because they’re abstractly nice or something, but because they e been found in experience to make the difference between success and failure. One can follow them all and still blow it, or blow off several and still failure, but they’re both increasingly unlikely.

So this isn’t about celebrating or criticizing success, but about people setting themselves up for failure. A bunch of us read the OP and winced and thought something like “Oh honey no.”

 

[FitzTheRuke]

All things are doomed.

Wow. And you're the positive attitude around these parts!

 

[Parmandur]

Wow. And you're the positive attitude around these parts!

Tolkien called history a "long defeat," and while I'm a positive person, it's trhiugh a sort of "Memento Mori" via Negativa. Darkness and ruin await, so life is good.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Y'know, I keep seeing this take floating around, that Kickstarter success is in some way false, and I just don't get it. Are we saying there's a material (greater than 10%) portion of the Kobold Press Kickstarter that's fake?

What? That is not what I'm talking about at all.

There's no metaphor here -- I'm talking about a disastrous campaign making all the classic mistakes in one go.

 

[TerraDave]

Anyone can do it. Hence.

I am still much more surprised by all the successful ones there have been, including recently, including now.

 

[Sparky McDibben]

What? That is not what I'm talking about at all.

There's no metaphor here -- I'm talking about a disastrous campaign making all the classic mistakes in one go.

In that case, I apologize for misreading your intent. Sorry for the confusion and thank you for setting me straight so politely!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

What? That is not what I'm talking about at all.

There's no metaphor here -- I'm talking about a disastrous campaign making all the classic mistakes in one go.

Your post makes perfect sense to me, but it surprisingly seems to have missed the mark somehow. Seems to be a lot of misunderstanding its message.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Tolkien called history a "long defeat," and while I'm a positive person, it's trhiugh a sort of "Memento Mori" via Negativa. Darkness and ruin await, so life is good.

That makes a lot of sense to me too. Still, I think I might be the opposite: I find myself complaining all the time because I really don't think that it has to be like this. People are making the world the way it is, and all it would take for it to be better would be for them to CUT THAT OUT.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Your post makes perfect sense to me, but it surprisingly seems to have missed the mark somehow. Seems to be a lot of misunderstanding its message.

I think of my sarcasm as being crystal clear, but it's clearly not, especially online.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I think of my sarcasm as being crystal clear, but it's clearly not, especially online.

I had to change the tone of my posts because I'm naturally tongue-in-cheek snarky (I swear that it's funny when I do it in real life!). No one read it as funny and I just sounded cranky. I still slip up sometimes, but you really can't get away with saying "But, I was kidding! Well, I mean, I was also not-kidding at the same time! It's funny dammit!"

I made a pact with myself, too: I always try to read other people's posts giving them the biggest benefit-of-the-doubt. It's what I'd like people to do for me, and Mamma-the-Ruke always taught me, "Do unto others..." (And she was a lapsed catholic!)

It works some of the time.