By Zack Quaintance — I waited a long time to launch my first Kickstarter campaign. In some ways, the roots of it go back about three years, if not longer, to long before I ever started collaborating on the book with my friend, artist Pat Skott. See, I may be a newcomer to writing comics, but I’ve been writing fiction since I was a teen, off and on as college and career ate into time to do so.

I got really serious about writing fiction — specifically short stories — in my twenties, and I even flirted with attending an MFA program (getting accepted with a full ride to one out west, but ultimately declining because I’d just met my wife). In the world of literary short fiction, I spent roughly a decade attending workshops, meeting other writers, volunteering my time to read for nonprofit literary journals, and putting in butt-in-chair time daily. Eventually, I started to get my stories published, with one of my favorites being picked up by The Stockholm Review of Literature. Then in 2016, a lot happened…and by the time the dust settled, I’d decided to shift my focus to writing for comics, a medium that had always made me happy, feeling like much more of a rewarding escape as well as a more welcoming, if flawed, community of fans.

But I didn’t want to just show up and start asking folks who’d been creating in that medium for years to embrace me and my work. I felt that I had dues to pay, that in order to be welcomed, I had to contribute what I could to the medium first. And that’s why I started my website as I began to network, analyze comics more seriously, and practice scripting on my own. This was all doubly beneficial: I feel like I was able to contribute in a positive way to comics awareness and discourse, using my skills as a professional journalist to build a platform; while at the same time meeting potential collaborators and studying the industry side of the medium.

This all brings me to today’s…

ACTIONABLE KICKSTARTER COMICS TIP: Try to focus on the long game, with special attention on giving more from the community than you take…which, let’s be honest here, is just generally correct life advice we would all do better to remember in these trying times. I think it’s especially true of sharing stories in an industry and community as small and thoroughly built upon personal relationships as comics. It’s the difference between attending a large stuffy party and a small intimate gathering — at the latter, being a good guest and showing up with snacks goes a much longer way.

Check back with this blog tomorrow for a special interview with the mastermind behind the comics analysis magazine, PanelxPanel, and the letterer of Next Door, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou!

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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.