Kickstarter - the Spam Begins!

I don't need to tell you lot that the Precinct Omega Zero Dark Miniatures Kickstarter has launched, of course. And I'm not going to bother this community with details. If you're interested, you'll already either be subscribing to the newsletter or backing the project.

However, I thought you would be interested in the behind-the-scenes stuff that I don't talk about elsewhere. And the first of these topics to crop up is: OMG, the spam!!

As I run an independent business on Wix, I'm used to getting spam messages from people telling me they can "drive business my way" with SEO or whatever. I just ignore and/or block them depending on how they contact me. Occasionally, when they look like an actual human, I will reply and my reply is always "I don't deal with randos" (but more polite than that). If I want SEO (and, I won't lie, at some point I might well want a professional to deal with it, at about the same time as I have someone actually competent build me a decent website full stop) then I will go out and find it.

But with Kickstarter, the spam reaches a whole new level.

Everyone and their dog wants to help me "get noticed", or to help me ensure a smooth fulfilment process.

And don't get me wrong: I want to get noticed and I also want smooth fulfilment. But I'm also intensely aware that my funding targets are really very modest indeed. My absolute "am I dreaming?" target is £10k - a point at which many project only begin and which for others is barely a tenth of what they need to get off the ground. I'm aware that this spam is all bot-generated and it just goes out to everyone who launches a Kickstarter. I don't know whether this spam generates enough business from the gullible that it's worthwhile, but I appreciate that sending everyone these messages is probably easier than tailoring the messages so they only go to projects that are worth it.

All the same, if someone is looking to raise £100k+ on Kickstarter, doesn't it seem likely that they'll already have a marketing plan?

Does anyone follow up on this stuff?

The gullible. Right. Yes, I already said that, didn't I?

Anyway, I read a lot of pre-launch advice. Most of it was either irrelevant to my project, vague enough that I could work it out for myself or outdated because the Kickstarter platform has moved on since it was written. But no one mentioned the spam, so I thought it was worth telling you guys.

If you ever do a Kickstarter, expect the spam.