Kickstarter Speculation?

mwhitt80

This was posted by Rebis in the kickstarter thread and I thought it might be a worthy topic to actually discuss. It's something I've thought about.

rebis said:

Not to hijack the thread, but I had a thought that I wanted to share with everyone. Forgive me if this has been brought up before.

It seems to me that when you factor in incentives, low print run, big name creators, & niche material/subject matter, Kickstarter could become the place where speculators go to make their "investments".
I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. Is there something within Kickstarter that could keep this from happening? Do creators or buyers care if this started happening? I can imagine that some creators wouldn't have a problem with someone picking up 100 copies of their product.

rebis

@mwhitt80 Thanks for making this a unique thread.

mwhitt80

I love preordering books from kickstarter, but I pretty much only buy from guys (and ladies) that I know from the CGS community. However the speculation aspect of kickstarter is an added bonus. I don't see anything wrong with speculating on project; Kickstarter is basically a giant amazon storefront for preorders so why not?

If Kevin and Stan ever get a SubCulture cartoon on adultswim I'm cashing in on my hardcover quick.

Torchsong

Generally I look at the project, final product, who's doing it, and extras (if any). I also take the approach of "Is this a fair price for what I'm getting?" I just canceled an order for a first issue of a comic because it was going to be $10 and I caught myself - shipping aside I won't pay $10 for a single 22-30 page issue of a comic (unless there's serious extras involved).

As to speculating - that's pretty much what it is, particularly if there's a kickstarter exclusive that won't be available anywhere else. If x property gets amazingly popular, then you have something that nobody else has, and can either horde or sell it accordingly.

rebis

Torchsong said:

Generally I look at the project, final product, who's doing it, and extras (if any). I also take the approach of "Is this a fair price for what I'm getting?" I just canceled an order for a first issue of a comic because it was going to be $10 and I caught myself - shipping aside I won't pay $10 for a single 22-30 page issue of a comic (unless there's serious extras involved).

As to speculating - that's pretty much what it is, particularly if there's a kickstarter exclusive that won't be available anywhere else. If x property gets amazingly popular, then you have something that nobody else has, and can either horde or sell it accordingly.

Does Kickstarter give the buyer the option of purchasing multiple copies?

mwhitt80

Torchsong said:

Generally I look at the project, final product, who's doing it, and extras (if any). I also take the approach of "Is this a fair price for what I'm getting?" I just canceled an order for a first issue of a comic because it was going to be $10 and I caught myself - shipping aside I won't pay $10 for a single 22-30 page issue of a comic (unless there's serious extras involved).

I that's one thing I'm 100% in agreement with. I've not backed (for lack of a better word) projects that I felt the item and extras were not worth what they were asking. I'm willing to pay a little more for kickstarters because they are special (and rarer), but it can't be outrageous like a $10.00, 30 page comic.

Torchsong

Cheap Plug: https://comicspectrum.com/Crowdsourcing.html

The site I review for has a handy-dandy guide to crowdsourcing I co-authored.

Torchsong

rebis said:

Does Kickstarter give the buyer the option of purchasing multiple copies?

It does - but in limited quantities. Most will have a "Dealer" tier or something along those lines where you can buy in multiples of 5, 10, etc. Others will offer extra books as long as your pledge equates to that. (ie. "Bid at the $30 level to get your first book, but put $90 in the pledge amount, and when we send out your survey, let us know the extra $60 is for 2 extra books").

There was some controversy over this awhile back, but it seems to have resolved itself. I think Kickstarter was saying there couldn't be multiple volume tiers, and enough people said there should be, and why, and they backed off of it.