$1 goal kickstarts were certainly a thing. They make a lot of sense; if you get even a single backer, you are guaranteed to succeed. If you work how I do, self-fund everything and then recoup, and reinvest previous earnings into the next project, then the real goal is kind of moot. You will reinvest what you have, not plan for some theoretical goal that you don’t know if you will hit or not.
As an indie publisher, you will probably end up with a vast library of stock art that you can use, modify and edit, so art budgets are flexible. I don’t use AI art, but I am guessing that it will become normalized in the not-too-distant future.
The absolute key to making more money on Kickstarter is an audience. Kickstarter can bring you some people, but you are expected to bring most of your audience.
Kickstarter allows you to email all your backers once after your project.
You can reach out to your backers and ask them if they want to be on a mailing list for your future kickstarters.
In my first Kickstarter, 71% of people said yet to that question.
If that was not unusual, then you can rinse and repeat small goal kickstarters to build an ever bigger mailing list and reach ever bigger funding goals.
Having more money coming in is almost a secondary benefit for these early projects because they could fund for $1, $5, $50, or thousands. That is out of your control.
What is true is that your funding should increase with your audience size, if you continue to appeal to that same niche.
So, that was my goal.
I set everything up, and Kickstarter came back and said “no!”. They do not allow $1 goals anymore. They didn’t explicitly say that, but I was told that my $1 goal goes against the spirit of Kickstarter and to revisit my goal, or they won’t approve the project.
I should find out in 2 days if $50, and the explanation that I am trying to recoup costs will be sufficient.
We will see….