One recent trend which has been growing in popularity to the point of a veritable deluge is the Kickstarter project. Hardly a day goes by without hearing about a new Kickstarter in our little niche industry - and that's only counting the ones I notice. There are undoubtedly countless more.
To put it into a bit of perspective, EN World has reported on 24 Kickstarter projects so far in July, and since we started reporting them in anything other than an occasional capacity, we've had a similar number every month. 22 in June, 27 in May, 25 in April; that's nearly a hundred of them, or an average of a new one every day excluding weekends - so many that I span off a separate site for them all (although they feed over to EN World's news automatically). They are, by far, the most common type of news item that has appeared on EN World in recent months: and this shows that many projects and products which would have normally been reported as more traditional projects are now being reported as Kickstarters.
It's almost like it's the "go-to" default publishing method for small press now, and isn't exactly unheard of in much larger companies. And, one assumes, it lowers the barrier for entry into the industry while simultaneously removing any level of risk.
Of course, I've used the system myself. In fact, I'm not embarrassed to use this topic as an opportunity to promote TO SLAY A DRAGON, my own Kickstarter for an old-style adventure.
So nearly 100 items in three months seemed to be a good landmark to ask: is this too many? Is it yet reaching the point where you see the title and think "Oh, not another Kickstarter...."? Or is that spirit of opportunity and entrepreneurism still appealing? And is there a point at which our little industry is going to be "tapped out" - where people will just be unwilling to donate to more projects? After all, it's not like we have the wide market of, say, iPhone accessories or video games.
It'd be interesting to hear your thoughts on the number of Kickstarter projects being launched at present, so please do feel free to post a response below.
To put it into a bit of perspective, EN World has reported on 24 Kickstarter projects so far in July, and since we started reporting them in anything other than an occasional capacity, we've had a similar number every month. 22 in June, 27 in May, 25 in April; that's nearly a hundred of them, or an average of a new one every day excluding weekends - so many that I span off a separate site for them all (although they feed over to EN World's news automatically). They are, by far, the most common type of news item that has appeared on EN World in recent months: and this shows that many projects and products which would have normally been reported as more traditional projects are now being reported as Kickstarters.
It's almost like it's the "go-to" default publishing method for small press now, and isn't exactly unheard of in much larger companies. And, one assumes, it lowers the barrier for entry into the industry while simultaneously removing any level of risk.
Of course, I've used the system myself. In fact, I'm not embarrassed to use this topic as an opportunity to promote TO SLAY A DRAGON, my own Kickstarter for an old-style adventure.
So nearly 100 items in three months seemed to be a good landmark to ask: is this too many? Is it yet reaching the point where you see the title and think "Oh, not another Kickstarter...."? Or is that spirit of opportunity and entrepreneurism still appealing? And is there a point at which our little industry is going to be "tapped out" - where people will just be unwilling to donate to more projects? After all, it's not like we have the wide market of, say, iPhone accessories or video games.
It'd be interesting to hear your thoughts on the number of Kickstarter projects being launched at present, so please do feel free to post a response below.
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