Hi!
My crowdfunding successfully ended in February and the first tome went into production a couple of hours ago so I can hopefully give you some pointers!
You can have a look at my crowdfunding stuff here:
It's in French and also on Ulule so it's disposed a bit differently, but you'll be able to get the gist from the visuals.
I looked over your campaign and it seems good, it just needs fine tuning and some maths work. On Ulule you get a personal "manager" from the company who helps you do that and checks over your campaign before launch so I had rhedeg pointers too.
Things I noticed:
- the goal
The first thing I noticed was your goal number, 7020€ around £6000. For self publishing, especially for a paperback that is a massive amount to ask for. I saw it said it's a flexible goal and I'm not familiar with indigogo so maybe that varies, but you said your base goal was £6000 so I'll be working with that number.
Most successful first-time self publishing ventures start small, with about 200-300 copies of a paperback asking for around 1500-2000€ (so around £1200-1800) and then have stretch goals for things like hardback, extra trimmings, extra merch etc... And then work their way up to larger quantities and better quality as their audience grows. A £6000 floor for first time self publishing unless you already have a very large audience is going to be extremely difficult.
So if you can find a way to work out the finances so that your floor is lower, that'll help. It does require murdering some darlings though.
- the pitch order
Generally it's a good idea to lead with the product in a way that gets people invested in the story. You've lead with a short paragraph about the genre which is useful, but then you go straight into you and your process. That can be good when people know you, but you've not given enough detail about the story yet when you hop into your journey.
It's hard to swallow but people aren't going to buy the book for your journey, they're going to go for the story. The author being an interesting person is at most going to be a footnote that gives them the final push. And knowing the story is inspired by this or that isn't effective either other than vibes. Lead with general info (type of story, length, genre, age range) and then STRAIGHT into a well worked plot summary. Sell the story, sell your characters, sell what the people are going to buy.
- Transparency in funding
Give a sense of where the money is going, what percentage is going to the artists? What's going to the printers? What's going to go to postage fees? What about listing your book with the appropriate copyright offices and others and the fees associated with that? 6000 is a MASSIVE number especially in this economy, so if you're going to go that high, we need to know you've done your homework and you know what's going where. This would be a good section to plop just after the pitch for the story. Author journey and story is good to go after that.
- Related to the money
Idk what indiegogo's policy is but if it's "any money you give is gone, whether the goal is achieved or not" is going to put people off, especially at £6000, because they know the goal is unlikely to be achieved. Ulule has a system where the money is locked until 100% of the goal, so people who contributed know they are getting something or they're getting their money back. That can really help reassure donors, and they're more likely to donate, so if your current platform doesn't do that, I'd advise moving.
- the premise is less common
Most campaigns of this nature are "the comic is done, let's print it" rather than "the comic is not appreciated because of x, let's fix x and then print it". A more cynical person could argue "you're using the lack of colour as an excuse for your lack of attention when there are other problems". Colour comics do get more attention, but manga is a massive market too, so why is your comic different? You have to show people why, using what you already have.
- Time frame
Successful first time campaigns often last between 25-35 days, with a clear roadmap of what a normal schedule post financing will look like (i.e. "work with the artists until June, consulting with printers until late July, start prod in August, shipping in late August -early September"). Just so people have an idea what to expect and then you update them with any delays.
I know this can be hard to hear and I wrote fast because wifi's going to die in a sec, I hope you have success with your crowdfunding soon
Edit after getting wifi back: the 25-35 day limit is good to get people to act, I saw the previous post mention that indiegogo doesn't say how long the campaign goes for, and that doesn't give people the sense of "time pressure" that's often needed to help online sales. "You need to get it now because in a week it's gone" is a very effective way to stop people who would like to contribute from putting it off (and usually subsequently forgetting).
Also
Social media
I can't speak to how well you're doing this because I didn't look too far but generally you'll want to post about your campaign personally on as many platforms as you have fairly regularly. It might feel like massive overkill to you to post on 3-4 platforms twice a week for a month, and then every day in the week run up to the end, but bear in mind most people will only see one or two posts. It's not over kill to them, it's a reminder.
I'd also advise if you're part of communities that like comics or are generally indie-artist oriented (fandoms for things that you were inspired by for your comic for example, you mentionned final fantasy) you could ask the mods if it's ok for you to advertise your campaign over there. It's also a lot more likely to work if it's a community that you've been in for leisure for a while, not one just for shilling. Personnally I've been a member of a discord fandom for a french comic for YEARS and it's essentially a community of local artists and art fans at this point and I've made a lot of friends there, so when I asked the mods if I could advertise the campaign respectfully and post updates for people on the server, a lot of them either bought a pack or had some sci-fi loving friends they could recommend it to, and they were more likely to do it because they're not transactional, they're my friends, they'd still be my friends if they hadn't donated and I'm still just as active in the server as before. Having that network of kindhearted people was a huge part of the degree of success the campaign got.
A lot of this is based off of not only my personal campaign, but also the pointers the Ulule help worker gave me and my research on crowdfunding I did prior to my campaign, so it's kind of an aggregate of a lot of stuff.