{"id":287,"date":"2014-11-28T10:11:20","date_gmt":"2014-11-28T10:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rachel.we-are-low-profile.com\/?p=287"},"modified":"2018-02-13T16:07:01","modified_gmt":"2018-02-13T16:07:01","slug":"use-kickstarter-as-a-distribution-model-a-tool-to-gauge-interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rachel.we-are-low-profile.com\/blog\/use-kickstarter-as-a-distribution-model-a-tool-to-gauge-interest\/","title":{"rendered":"Use Kickstarter as a distribution model & a tool to gauge interest"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is part of a series ‘7 Things Artists Could Learn From Board Game Kickstarters<\/a>‘ where I highlight some of the lessons artists and arts organisations could learn from the world of crowd-funded boardgames…<\/p>\n

\"KICKSTARTER_FOR_ARTISTS_Mousetrap_Patent\"<\/p>\n

<< INTRO:<\/strong> 7 Things Artists Could Learn From Board Game Kickstarters<\/a><\/p>\n

Kickstarter as a distribution model<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Boardgame producers are faced with a set of challenges – they want to produce a physical object that their audience need to have in their hands to engage with, face-to-face with a group of people they know. These people are likely to live somewhere else in the world (ie not in the direct locale of the boardgame producer) and the type of boardgame that indie publishers want to produce is not likely to be a mass-appeal product (ie not everyone is going to be interested). There is also a high up-front cost to producing a new boardgame (circa \u00a315K minimum), the challenge of marketing the finished product to a widely geographically dispersed audience and the financial risk that no-one might be interested in buying your game in the end.<\/p>\n

In traditional boardgame publishing, large companies would have taken on the financial risk, investing only in ‘safe bet’, mass-appeal games (think Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit) and use established distribution chains (retailers and the distributors that supply them) to get their products to its audience. Using Kickstarter allows indie publishers (and more recently quite established publishers too!) to by-pass this traditional distribution model, offer new \/ innovative \/ ‘risky’ \/ niche-appeal games and connect directly with their audience (the people who want to play new boardgames).<\/p>\n

There are many parallels here for artists, so what can we learn from the way in which boardgame publishers approach Kickstarter as a mode for distribution?<\/p>\n

\"KICKSTARTER_FOR_ARTISTS_artwork-audience\"<\/h3>\n

Getting your work out into the world<\/strong><\/h3>\n

As an artist, what are your challenges when getting your work to an interested audience? What is the established distribution model for the types of work you are interested in making? How can you use a crowdfunding platform to by-pass that distribution model to reach an audience that would be interested in your work?<\/p>\n

You might not want to think about what you make as a ‘product’, but if you are going to make use of Kickstarter as a mode of distribution you really should re-consider your stance. You are asking strangers to give you money in exchange for something and you are creating something that you hope will hold value for other people – this is most definitely the world of products!<\/p>\n

Here are some straightforward ways you could use Kickstarter to distribute your work:<\/p>\n