To Kickstart or not to Kickstart

While my personal experience with Kickstarter hasn't been the greatest (two failed projects in less than 6 months), I would be lying if I said I haven't considered using it again. A man with as many ideas as me needs all the help he can get when trying to turn those ideas into reality, and between Round 10, Zimildran, Dreams of a Dying God, and a certain other, unnamed gaming project, I have a lot of opportunities for help. Namely in the illustration department.


I am a bit of an artist, though I haven't done anything in at least a year other than quick sketches every month or so. I know that if I got back into the practice of drawing every day, I could very easily start to illustrate my own projects, as long as I had someone to do some digital touch-ups. However, being the sole writer/developer for at least three projects is time-consuming enough. I have been lucky enough to have the wonderful Ramon Bunge doing the majority of the artwork for Round 10 so far, and I look forward to partnering with him when these other projects close in on their production. Yet I cannot ask Ramon, or anyone else, to start illustrations now. As much time as it would save, I simply do not have the funds to devote to such work.

Kickstarter would help mitigate that cost, assuming the project(s) are successful. Yet after failing twice, I'm afraid to try again. I hate letting an emotion like fear dictate my actions, but there's no way around this. If I create a project solely for Zimildran and publish it on Kickstarter, if it doesn't successfully fund, I'm afraid of how I would regard the project from then on.

On the other hand, if it does fund successfully, who's to say that I could stay focused enough to finish it in a timely fashion? Especially when I have other projects working their way through my over-crowded brain? It's sort of a catch-22.

Perhaps I'll try again with Kickstarter in the future. For Zimildran? Probably not. At least not until I at least have a finished manuscript. But it is a definite option that runs through my head every so often.