By Zack Quaintance — As I write this, I’m sitting here getting ready to record another podcast appearance, my third in the past seven days. It’s going to be fun, I’m going to enjoy talking to the podcast host (who is another person who does what they do simply for the love of comics), and then when it’s done, I’m going to be absolutely exhausted. In fact, at this point in my campaign (day nine!), exhaustion is my cruising speed. And you know why?

The comics PR hustle is hard, very hard, and we should all respect it.

I’ve written about comics for a few years now, both on this site (with little to no pressure, especially in the early days) and for my favorite industry news blog, The Beat (with considerably more pressure, especially during big Cons when it feels like everyone everywhere is reading it). As such, I’ve interacted often with PR staffers, both for big publishers as well as for individual creators who need work promoted on their behalf. I’ve read their press releases, I’ve fielded their emails, and I’ve listened to their pitches.

And at times, I must admit, I’ve dismissed them out of hand as a hassle. A lot of times for me, a comics PR email was mostly just an invitation to do more work (nobody around here is getting rich or famous from comics journalism). A lot of times also, that email has been in reference to worthy projects, very much deserving by this site or by The Beat, where I’m also a staff writer. This all brings me to the real point of today…

ACTIONABLE KICKSTARTER COMICS TIP: Respect the comics PR hustle, and this is actionable in my mind because it means you should make a central part of your campaign (especially in the pre-launch days) assessing what you see that works and might also work for you. Respecting the comics PR hustle can be as simple as watching a number of promo videos for other Kickstarter campaigns to figure out what you have to say in yours. It can mean paying attention to how successful Kickstarter creators use social media…or, sometimes, how they don’t…there’s no real correlation to my eyes between social media followings and giant success.

Whatever the case, you should respect the hustle to the point that you take it seriously, that you realize how vital it will be to your campaign (before, during, and even at the end), and that you have at least some semblance of a plan in place when you get started.

Phew. Anyway, tomorrow’s topic will be matching the tone of the campaign page to the tone of your project, which, yes, I realize was supposed to be the topic today…but hey, that’s another teachable moment — stay flexible!

Back Next Door on Kickstarter now!

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