By Zack Quaintance — I’m going to be blunt with you all here today: I’m running on fumes. I’ve been promoting this Kickstarter now for what feels like several months, and it’s getting harder to maintain the same level of enthusiasm with which I started. I look at the campaign page, and I see 8 DAYS TO GO, and It hurts, folks.

Yet, one thing I’ve learned throughout this long process has been that you have to keep the enthusiasm level for your project and your promoting high. My de facto mode on social media is a little detached, a little sardonic, and a lot self-deprecating. I think I have a self-aware presence on there, oscillating between earnest and poking fun at my own proclivities. One thing I’ve learned, however, is that that tone doesn’t necessarily play well when you’re promoting your own work and asking folks to invest financially in your work. You need to be enthusiastic about your work, because if you’re not, no one else will be either.

At the same time, you also have to maintain your enthusiasm for the platform in general, supporting the other projects that like your own are working so hard to find a supportive audience. We’ve talked about the value of co-promotion in the past, and I’m mentioning it again because it really can’t be overstated. But, again, that kind of work also takes steady and sustained enthusiasm. This all brings to today’s…

ACTIONABLE KICKSTARTER COMICS TIP: Work hard to stay enthusiastic about your own project, as well as Kickstarter in general, and project that enthusiasm in genuine ways across all your social media platforms as well as directly to your backers. If you’re not feeling enthusiastic about your work, potential backers definitely won’t be feeling that way either. The best way I’ve found to do this is to remember that this is a short-term project, that your window for doing this is a relatively short one, and that you’ve worked for many many months to get your work in front of people in the first place.

Now for something that it’s very very easy for me to be enthusiastic about…join us back on this blog tomorrow for an interview with our project’s letterer, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou!

Back Next Door on Kickstarter now!

Check out the rest of our Kickstarter Comics Tips blog!

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.