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Webcomic artist Li Chen shares how she harnessed her online international fan base and US crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to turn her popular webcomic series Extra Ordinary Comics into book collections.

"People back you because they like what you are doing so ultimately you get to make all the decisions in your project and you get to produce something that is true to you."

Li Chen was born in Beijing, China and moved to New Zealand with her parents at age 5. Li started Extra Ordinary Comics while job hunting after graduating from the University of Auckland with a degree in architecture in 2009. Since then the site has grown steadily and now receives over 45,000 visitors a week.

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What were you crowdfunding for?

To publish two book collections of my webcomic.

How much research, strategic thinking, and time went into the campaign?

We spent about 2 - 3 weeks researching other projects and structuring our own project.

Why did you crowd fund instead of using other sources?

Because we're an online comic our readers are all over the world, so it made sense for us to use an internet based funding system. Over half of our fans are from America and only a small portion are New Zealanders.

Was it part of a wider marketing and business strategy?

No, it was just to raise enough money so that we could publish our books.

Why did you use the platform? What were the pros and cons?

We used Kickstarter because it is the most well known crowdfunding website and therefore many of our readers would probably already be familiar with it. The main downside to Kickstarter is that you have to be a U.S citizen to start a project, so we couldn't use it without having a US partner. I think Kickstarter is looking to change their current requirements though.

What ‘rewards’ did you offer? Which were the most popular?

The main rewards were digital and physical copies of the two comic book volumes. Every backer who pledged over US$9 also got their name printed in the Thank You pages of the books.

We also offered some high end rewards that included special one-off drawings and prints. Our two most expensive rewards were for the original cover artwork of the books. They were US$1,000 each and we were really pleased that both of them sold out.

Our most popular reward was for physical copies of both books, which was US$65. Almost half of all our backers went for this reward.

How long did it take to set up and manage the campaign? Was it cost effective?

Preparation for the Kickstarter campaign took 2-3 weeks and it was online for a month. I'm currently still working on the rewards. We almost got double our target so it should be cost effective.

What channels, online and offline, did you use to engage with your fans during the campaign?

We spread the word through our Facebook fan page and twitter but most of our backers heard about the project directly from the our comic site.

What have you discovered are the pros and cons of crowdfunding?

I've only ever had one campaign but I really enjoyed the whole experience and there weren't really any cons. People back you because they like what you are doing so ultimately you get to make all the decisions in your project and you get to produce something that is true to you. There are no strings that come with the funds so you don't need to make compromises. I like the freedom that crowdfunding gave me to do what I wanted.

What feedback have you received?

I've received lots of supportive messages and emails from backers who are excited to be part of my project. They also give me suggestions and feedback on what to include in the books as I update them on my progress. It's really awesome to be able to interact with my backers in that way.

Would you do it again? What would you change?

I would definitely look into using Kickstarter again if I have other project ideas in the future. It's not something that I would do regularly though, it doesn't really work like that.

Any tips for others wanting to try crowdfunding?

It's a really good idea to do some research before you start and look at similar projects to yours that were successful to get ideas for rewards, targets, etc.
Good promotion is also really important, you want to get the momentum going as soon as you launch your project.

How successful was your campaign?

Our project was quite successful. The target was US$35,000 and at the end we got US$66,580. At the time we were the fourth most funded comics project in the history of Kickstarter.