Author Archives

Y Press Games

How our Yaoi Bara Visual Novel Kickstarter Made Almost $50,000

By on • ( 2 Comments )

This is Yamila, owner of Y Press Games.  When I decided to make a massive Kickstarter project for our game To Trust an Incubus I looked at similar Kickstarters and used them to estimate how much we might make.  This is a flawed method because you have no idea what creators had in place before they launched.

I really wish someone had bared their soul about a Kickstarter similar to mine so I could have had realistic expectations about our potential.  I’ll leave this here for other people who are starting yaoi, bara, or visual novel Kickstarters and are thirsty for knowledge on how to make their efforts at least as successful as ours.

Here is what we had for the To Trust an Incubus Kickstarter, which ended today, April 21, 2018, with $47,212.

Before We Launched:

  • We researched which ideas would be the most viable and profitable and tweaked our concept to emulate an extremely successful similar Kickstarter.  (Just Yaoi wasn’t going to get us the money we needed–bara was more marketable and something I’m just as passionate about.)
  • We built the Kickstarter page as soon as we had the main game image, which was just our sprites on a background design, 4 months before we launched.  It was incomplete, but showed the art and story.  We continued to build it more and more as we got ready to launch.  I started to promote and build buzz for the Kickstarter, getting comments and followers on Kickstarter.
    • Advance Discovery got us 7% of our funds, or $3,303.00
  • We built a web site for our company and game.
    • We got $2,986 direct from our WordPress web site.
  • We made a long demo comprising 30% of the game and ended on a cliffhanger.
  • We had a professional, enticing, and beautiful game trailer with animation and characters’ voices.
  • We teased that the Kickstarter was coming through our social media.
  • We booked advertising on Starfighter.com for $340.
    • This ad got us $1,578.  It was a much poorer return than I expected.
  • We sent out press releases a month in advance, but it seems like a few days in advance would have been better because most venues were online and didn’t need such a long lead.  Boy Culture, Stevivor.com, TwoHappyCats, Queer SciFi, Doujins.com, and LewdGamer ran the story out of the dozens we contacted.
    • Queer SciFi got us $1100
    • Lewd Gamer got us $75
    • Others may have got us sales too, but were not in the referrers

After We Launched:

  • We posted on forums all over the place.
    • LemmaSoft got us $207
    • Aarin Fantasy got us $150
    • 4Chan got us $25
    • Fireden got us $25
    • Reddit got us $25
    • Others may have got us sales too, but were not in the referrers
  • We blasted our social media regularly.  I have a SUBSTANTIAL social media presence after building up Yaoi Press since 2004.  Most of the sales that came from social media didn’t show in referrers.  I know it was helpful, however, because I always saw new backers after I did a social media blitz.  Here’s what I had in my arsenal for this Kickstarter:
    • The Yaoi a Go Go Facebook of 146,000 Followers run by a kind friend who helped me.
    • The Yaoi Press Facebook of 10,000 Followers
    • The Yaoi Prose Facebook of 2,400 Followers
    • My Author Page with 700 Followers
    • The Y Press Games Facebook with 600 Followers
    • My Facebook Author Group with 193 Members
    • Assorted relevant groups open to promotion.
      • Facebook got us $2573
    • The Yaoi Press Twitter with 9,000 Followers
    • The Yaoi Prose Twitter with 3,250 Followers
    • The Y Press Games Twitter with 400 Followers
      • Twitter got us $1202
    • The Yaoi Press Tumblr with 1,600 Followers
    • The Yaoimila Web Comic Tumblr with 500 Followers
    • The Y Press Games Tumblr with 200 Followers
      • Tumblr got us $532
    • The Yaoi Press Google Plus with 3,300 Followers
    • The Y Press Games Instagram with 200 Followers
    • The Yaoi Press Pinterest with 550 Followers
    • The Gaijin Manga Deviant Art with 61 Watchers
  • I sent three newsletters.  I have over 5,000 Subscribers.
  • I did a Thunderclap
  • I posted the demo on Itch.io.
    • I saw $50 in backers referring directly from there.
  • I was featured on the Top to Botm Podcast
  • We ran the Kickstarter for 60 days and made $25,663 in the first 30 days and $21,549 in the last 30 days.  (Don’t go for shorter Kickstarters if your project is viable and is expected to be a winner.  Just being present on Kickstarter will get you 35% of your funding.  People search for stuff to back on this platform, so the longer you’re there the better.)
  • We spent a total of $1,900 on advertising, including Facebook, Starfighter, Twitter, Google Adwords, and $75 on two of those scammers who email you after you start a Kickstarter, buying one of your perks to make you like them, taking your money and doing nothing for you.  Don’t respond to any direct marketing, even if they buy a perk. They’re just going to refund it later.
  • We encouraged people to promote our social media by offering to strip chibis of four of our characters.
  • We commented frequently and had 30 updates, building a rapport with backers.  Many of them stepped up to help with promotion because they got to know us.  (We introduced our team in Kickstarter updates).  We also did not lose many backers when we ran into a problem that jeopardized the project.  Being honest and having a good rapport saved us.
  • We had bitchin’ rewards, including the chance to marry one of the characters for $1000 (this sold out).
  • We Promo swapped with the Lovenuts Patreon.  I promoted their Patreon in a Kickstarter update and they promoted my Kickstarter in an update on their old Kickstarter for Sentimental Trickster.  (Doing this also helped me find a very knowledgeable new friend.)
  • I promo swapped with a popular Bara deviant artist.  He promoted our Kickstarter and I will be promoting his Patreon soon.  (This gave us at least a $2000 boost)
  • I contacted YouTubers to get them to play our demo.  Many did!  Some backers told us they were sent by YouTubers.
  • I contacted YouTubers to share our Trailer.  One of them did.
  • Our most sought after Stretch Goal, Full Voice Acting, was the next one to get on the last 2 days of our Kickstarter.  People upped their pledges and helped us get backers to hit this goal.  We went up $9,000 in the last 48 hours.  I’ve included our pledge chart below.

I think that’s all we did, but I’ll update if I remember something else.  Here’s our top 20 Kickstarter referrers:

referrers

Here’s our pledge chart:

pledgechart

 

 

Only 10 Days Left to Support To Trust an Incubus!

By on • ( Leave a comment )

Thanks to all the backers who’ve helped make this project a reality.  For everyone else–time is running out!  Please back us today before it’s too late!

We’ve met these stretch goals!

We still have a chance to make these stretch goals!

  • All Characters Versatile!  Would you like to see Vald bottom or Saji top?  This is the stretch goal that makes it happen!  We’re only $3000 from this awesome achievement!
  • Someone Gets a Sexy Spanking!  Okay–the someone is Arata and the person giving the consensual spanking is Vald.  Wouldn’t you love to see that?!  Let’s hit this goal!
  • Full Voice Acting!  We might just hit this goal in the time left!  Get full voices for every scene!

Thanks to everyone who helped spread the word!

We got 300+ followers on our Facebook, which got our Harsi Chibi half naked!

We got 200 Followers to our Twitter and 100 Retweets of This Tweet, which made Chibi Vald strip all the way!  Behold his GARGANTUAN chibi peen!!

We got 200 followers on our Tumblr which made Saji strip half-way!!

We only need 38 more followers to our Instagram and Chibi Devi will strip all the way!! Let’s get this last goal before we’re done.

He wants to be naked so bad!
He wants to be naked so bad!

We’ve had an incredible campaign, but it’s not over!  Let’s push to hit all these final goals!  And Support our Kickstarter Here!

Youtubers Show Their Love!

By on • ( Leave a comment )

Hi Everyone!

As part of our promotional efforts we’ve emailed a lot of YouTubers hoping they’d produce videos based on our humble demo.  To our shock and delight–many have done just that!  (This is for our Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/702614894/to-trust-an-incubus-bara-yaoi-bl-gay-dating-sim-vi/ )

Here are some lovely videos of the demo.  These videos really help out the campaign.  I hope you’ll like, comment, or subscribe (but like at the very least) to help the algorithm and get these videos seen by more people!

Fresh Today!

This YouTuber has gotten over 1,000 views in less than 24 hours.  He only did the first part of the demo, so give him some love so he’ll actually get to the sexy-times!  He’s very funny and does good voices too!  Thanks AwesomePerfection1!  Leave him a like or comment here:  https://youtu.be/0APGatyngsc

We love MeowieCakes because of the way she censors!  It’s worth watching just for the shocked penis cats.  She also meows when she doesn’t want to read sexy-stuff.  PURE GOLD!!  Leave her some love here:  https://youtu.be/vk55MPY-6OU

ArcadeStarJosten wins the uke-voice contest!  He also has a great way of censoring and tends to scream when he sees luscious man-bodies.  Make sure you give him lots of love here:  https://youtu.be/MGvPhLuurJ0  (We love his video intro too!!)

Fudanshi Life censors with screaming anime characters!!  It’s a hoot.  He was the first to make a video for TTAI so he gets mad props for that!  Show your love here:  https://youtu.be/Bbd6jsGV0V0

Did we miss any?  Give us links in the comments!  This is a FANTASTIC thing for YouTubers to do for our campaign.  It takes a lot of time and effort and they get paid in views–so watch!!

Wanna Be an NPC?

By on • ( Leave a comment )

We haven’t sold any of these VIP perks, and that’s okay. We made it to goal without needing them. But still…so much potential is being overlooked.

Not only do you get to give input on your character’s image and lines in the game, not only do you get autographed art of your character, not only do you get all the Cuddly Incubus rewards, you can also do the voice of your character in the game if you want! There’s so many awesome NPCs to be as!  Here’s a few ideas (but not all):

• The Nosy Reporter! Be that reporter who ticked off Chiyoko. Do you sneak into the quarantine to stick a mic in Vald’s face, or do you pretend you’re Kenta showing up for the temp job outside the institute? Or do you just show up on a TV screen somewhere to blather conspiracy theories about the incubi?

• The Linguist! You know, that linguist knew what the incubi needed but they wouldn’t to tell the Professor. Are they a total prude, or were they trying to save an incubus for themself? We could put their sprite on a computer terminal so they can have a talk with an incubus.

• A Protestor! You’re outside the institute with a big sign! What does it say? Is it ‘Share The Aliens With the Rest of Us’ or ‘There’s No Such Thing as Aliens – Prove Me Wrong!’

• A Cartoon Character! The incubi have computers in their rooms. They watch stuff on it that frankly messes with their heads! Will you be that creepy pasta YouTube monster that effs Harsi up? Or will you be Madam Puffalump from the Land o’ Lollipops to make Devi cheer with glee!

• A Fluffball! A fluffball pops through the interdimentional portal while Raiden’s working on it. Why is this fluffball here? What does it have to say? Is it trying to be the obligatory cute anime character? Is he there to cheer Kenta up? Is this Vald’s pet fluffball looking for him? Or is it something Raiden will toss back in the portal immediately because the damn things multiply tribble-style?

• A Hallucination! The incubi are messing with certain characters, but who knows how humans respond to incubi powers. They may end up seeing something strange, like a giant talking wang, or a furry version of one of the incubi. Like, seriously, this is fairly wide open. It’s a great chance to be a naked character.

• A Half-Human Half-Inch Worm! Because Raiden is using the privacy of the quarantine to work on some seriously gnarly projects, ‘yo—or it may be one of the Olimites, the visitor from the other dimension who warned of the incubi coming! When you go to talk to him and he stuffs the suspicious looking thing in his pocket you’re kind of annoyed. Like…it’s talking and stuff.

• Kenta’s Inspirational Anime Character in a Locket! It can’t be anything copywritten unless it’s a pretty obvious parody, like Yuri with Lice or something. Kenta opens the locket to get motivation when he’s down, and Locket Character always has something awesome to say!

• Something else! Seriously, if you’re thinking about this perk just pitch me your idea and I’ll tell you how we can work it in. If you’re not a backer yet, then reach me through Facebook!

Back our Kickstarter at the NPC Tier and get you some! 

Please Help Thunderclap us!

By on • ( Leave a comment )

Hi everyone!

We’re at the hump of the Kickstarter bell curve right now.  Things have slowed down drastically, as they always do in the middle of a campaign.  This is understandable, but still not great when we have so many stretch goals to uncover.

One way to get back on track is for you to take part in our Thunderclap.  Many of you have already signed up to clap us.  Thank you so much!!  If you haven’t signed up, I hope you’ll consider helping out.

Thunderclap is an app that gets people to agree to tweet, post on Facebook, post on a Facebook Page, or post on Tumblr about our campaign.  We’ve been taking sign-ups for weeks and on March 20th a huge clap will go out all at once, telling people about the Kickstarter.

Please go to this link:

https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/68426-help-our-bara-yaoi-kickstarter

Then click the buttons to promote us on your Facebooks, Twitter, and Tumblrs.  Please do every Facebook Page, Facebook account, Twitter, and Tumblr that you can!

When you do, this message and this image will appear on your accounts, helping to promote us!

“To Trust an Incubus – a Yaoi/Bara Visual Novel! Play the demo and support our Kickstarter. 18+ Sci-Fi Gay PC Game!!! http://thndr.me/hiF21g”

We put a shirt on Vald to make sure the censors don't accidentally block us
We put a shirt on Vald to make sure the censors don’t accidentally block us

Of course, don’t participate if posting about an adult gay game will cause trouble for you!  But if you’re free to post whatever you want, we’d really appreciate your support–and that’s to everyone who signed up to support us already!!

%d bloggers like this: