How To Draw Black People Kickstarter Update #3

We came up short!

Now that the campaign is over, I feel less constricted to talk about the difficulties. There's this phrase, "you never know what you've done until you stop doing it." Going on, four years ago, when I launched the first Kickstarter, I worked myself to the bone. I have written about all the stuff that went down back then; I'm not going to rehash it. This campaign was different because I didn't have the same platform or support. Honestly, I was doing everything myself. I was falling back into old habits, and my anxiety was neck level. I kept saying that I wasn't doing enough and that I needed to post more and engage people. I stayed up late cutting new promo videos and editing mock-ups. Towards the end of the second week, I completely crashed. I came down with dehydration sickness because I stopped drinking water and eating food. There are all types of names of the kind of focus I put into projects like this, and none of them are good. The time I needed to recover was precious and ultimately costly.

While I was lying around in bed, cursing myself and wondering if I was going to live, it struck me that Kickstarter success wasn't that important. I needed rest, and if that meant letting my social media go dark during the most crucial period, so be it. It was hard to accept, but I've learned that pushing myself beyond my limits is a zero-sum game.

There are many things that I could've done to assure success that is only clear now in retrospect. But I was already aiming at half the cost, plus the budget became inflated due to the 37% owed in both taxes and Kickstarter processing fees. It may have looked like overconfidence, but 24k was wise given the costs.

By that same token, if I can somehow convince the 200 or so people that pledged on Kickstarter to complete their transactions on my website, then it really wouldn't make a difference.

We'll see.

It was stressful being back online and interacting with people again. I feel lost most of the time. Facebook has changed so much; it's almost unusable on PC. Instagram is different too, but way more like tik tok than I care for. I gained so many new followers while promoting the Kickstarter, too, so that's cool. Still, it's nice to be able to slink away to the shadows and plot and scheme some more. My following books will be narrative-driven, and I will be looking for collaborators when the time is right. In the meantime, I will be focusing on advertising and raising awareness about How to Draw Black People Volume 2. I will make an effort to update my blog more frequently, but my ASD makes it difficult to put any confidence behind such a claim. Either way, I am sure we'll hear from each other soon. Take care.

w