Urgent Update On Kickstarter Campaign
Posted 6/4/26 at 10:18 a.m. EDT
Good morning, Backers.
Today, we have made the painful decision to end this campaign effort for Nightmares In Neverland early. Please take a moment to watch the video above for more details, or simply read on to our statement below.
First, I want to extend my deepest and warmest thanks to our Backers for your willingness to trust us with this project and your financial support. I promise you, we are nowhere near done, and we have a plan to rework and reshape this campaign effort into something everyone will feel comfortable and confident supporting.
While we successfully drove thousands (3.6k unique visitors) of prospective Backers to our page in the first 24 hours, and generated nearly 1,000 unique pre-launch followers through our lead up campaign, we simply did not generate the conversions we needed on day one. This is something that was obvious to us in the first few hours.
While the reasons could be many, the only feedback we received were multiple comments about concerns that our product was AI-generated. We attempted to make efforts to clarify and prove that we in fact were not, but it seems the damage was already done. We simply did not anticipate triggering so many questions about the validity of our chosen art style for this book and that of our creative team. While this is unfortunate, we hear you and we understand.
So, where do we go from here? We have been working with the team at Backerkit for about 2-3 weeks now to bring our project over to them for the relaunch. The primary reason is that Backerkit does not allow for any AI-generated artwork to be used in any project listed on their site. Kickstarter does allow it and while we hoped to take advantage of their unmatched and robust organic algorithms, it is clear that the greater import is to list ourselves on a site that bans the use of AI imagery and therefore garner more faith in our project as Backers will know that we have been rigorously reviewed and cleared for launch.
Additionally, we need to put in the work to gain your trust organically through our social precence. We foolishly believed that we could develop this project in a silo over the past two years and launch aggressively to an excited audience. This was a grave error on my part. In this area there can be no shortcuts, and we promise to never take one again. We love being a part of this community, and we welcome the opportunity to truly and properly re-introduce ourselves and our product to you all.
Next comes timing. Our initial thought was to work with Backerkit to retool and relaunch this effort by September 1st, as much longer would push us into Q4 and thereby require us to wait until early 2027 due to the holiday slow down season. That said, while we believe this to be potentially doable, we are also concerned that it simply isn't enough time. We are working closely with our partners at Backerkit to define a timeline that we all feel will result in the highest liklihood of success. I wish I had a more concrete schedule today, but what I can say for now is that we will either relaunch in the coming weeks, or settle into the work of building and relaunch early next year.
While we work to finalize those details, we hope that you will continue to follow us and stay active with us on our social sites. We will be updating everyone weekly on this project from now until launch and we want to make sure you don't miss our next effort. Additionally, we are working over the next few days and the coming weekend to develop a plan for how to best continue to build our audience and trust through ongoing content. So please do stay tuned and engaged, because we have no intentions of fading away, if anything you're only going to see more of us.
Of course, no one goes into this hoping to fail. I do not see this as a failure. I see this as a lesson learned. I'm smart enough to know when something isn't working and humble enough to course correct. We will always strive to ensure that our fans and followers always feel heard and know that we are here to deliver amazing content for you.
Thank you all again, and see you on socials while we wait for the next at bat. I promise you, we are worth the wait.