Special Announcement: Backer-Exclusive Discount

As a "Thank-you" to everyone who backs our campaign at ANY level, we will give you a backer-exclusive discount code for 15% off or more, if we can achieve certain funding milestones:

$750: All Backers who donate $1 or more will get a 15% off coupon code valid towards all geekigrams orders placed before July 31, 2014

$1500: The 15% off coupon will be valid until Jan 31, 2015

$2,750: The Coupon will be increased to 20% off

$5000: The backer discount will be increased to 25% off.

There will be no other %-off discounts available during the first year of launch, and this discount will be backer-exclusive. 

And now to return to your regularly scheduled campaign pitch: 

One day, I was browsing through the greeting card racks at a local store, looking for a birthday card for a good friend of mine, when I realized that most of the cards were just tragically boring. The whole point of picking out a greeting card is finding one that's a perfect match for the person you intend to give it to; but the problem is that in order to maximize profits, the major greeting card companies try to make cards they can sell to as many people as humanly possible. This results in a lot of really bland, generic cards that we all know will go straight into the trash.

We need something different. Something... nerdy.

Geekigrams are a line of greeting cards inspired by the games, anime, comics, books, and films that have captured the imaginations of myself, my friends, and geeks/nerds/otaku/gamers/label-of-your-choice-s everywhere. They will have language, references and jokes made for people with geeky hobbies, and use artstyles you wouldn’t typically see on your grocery store greeting card rack. Rather than make generic greeting cards that are just 'acceptable' to most of the population, I want to make ones that will be loved by specific groups of people. 

Cards that tell someone you appreciate them and the interests and hobbies that make them a unique person, 

Cards that will be a worthy addition to a collection of convention art prints, anime figurines, video game artbooks and other kinds of geeky memorabilia, 

Cards like these:

And I need your help to make it happen.

Who you're dealing with:

I'm a musician, designer, photographer, and above all, a computer nerd. A few years ago, my friends and I started selling some of our crafts and artwork at anime and comic conventions at artist's alley tables, (and even the dealers room, in one case). In fact, if you've been to Anime Boston, Connecticon, or Otakon during these past three years you might have even already met us. 

Here's a sample of some of our past work:

It's been a lot of fun so far, but to continue doing these kinds of things, I need to turn it from a hobby to a legitimate business. We need to expand into a new line up of products.

The idea to make greeting cards was one we actually toyed around with before. The problem is that for greeting cards to be a practical offering, you need a very wide variety of designs for cards so that people can get that one perfect card for that special someone. A mere 10 or so different card designs with just our own artstyles wouldn't be enough for our card idea to take off. We need hundreds of designs, with all kinds of artstyles and themes. That is way more than our small group of artists can make alone, so we scrapped the idea. But we're now realizing that what was once a limitation is actually an opportunity to build something really big, in what will be my most ambitious project to date.

Geekigrams the company

I realized that all I really need to do to get this greeting card line off the ground is the participation of more artists, and some start-up cash to do the initial print runs. I've already begun recruiting artists for this project and I'm getting a very positive reception so far.

Our only main advantage over “traditional” card companies is going to be the work of our awesome artists, so the artists come first. If Geekigrams is successful, I want every artist who participates to share that success. But as a freelancer myself, I know that clients that pull the “well, you might be paid if we actually make any money” trick are terrible to work with. So, our artists will get paid an upfront commission fee according to their standard freelance rates, AND they will also be offered a royalty payment based on the number of cards produced.

All artists are treated as partners. They keep all rights to their original artwork and Geekigrams only licenses it. Geekigrams will collaborate with artists to produce and market finished card designs such as the ones you can buy in stores now, just cooler.

I want all potential Geekigrams customers to know that when you buy our cards, you will be supporting the independent artists who help to make them.

What your contributions will do:

So here's where the crowdfunding campaign money is going:

Fees: Indiegogo fees, Paypal fees. Credit card processing fees, Taxes. All that stuff. Fun.

Print Costs: For greeting card printing to be cost truly cost effective, it needs to be done in bulk. With enough starting cash, we can print hundreds or even thousands of cards at once which would not only make them more profitable for us and let the business become sustainable, but would also allow for us to offer the cards to retailers at wholesale rates so you may be able to buy them at your local comic, anime or game shop.

Artist's Commission fees and royalty payments: We won't be able to get art from the best artists if we only offer some wishy-washy payment scheme of “well... you might possibly get paid one day if this all works out” So we pay all of our artists with upfront payments, AND offer a royalty fee for the cards produced with their art. We need a starting pool of money for those payments before the cards begin selling and it becomes a self-sustaining system.

Stock: A very small amount of the budget will go towards things like commercial licenses for fonts and typefaces and other design elements to accompany the art.

Marketing: Yeah, we know. Advertisements suck. You hate commercials and ads, we hate commercials and ads, and we all love adblock. Probably the last thing you want to hear is that ANY of your money is going towards any sort of marketing budget. That said, we will have a very small marketing budget, and not a single cent of it will go towards annoying or obtrusive adds we know you're going to ignore and block anyway. Most of the advertisement budget will go towards people that actually need it, like ads on websites for independent webcomics, and once the budget grows big enough to allow it, things like convention sponsorships. Once we grow enough for a wholesale program some will be put towards reaching out to retailers to join the reseller's program.

Business administration stuff: Includes the costs incurred just from running a small business. One of the most important parts of this will be running the online shop. At the beginning we can make pages on existing storefronts, but once the catalog is bigger, our own custom storefront my be necessary. It would allow for better search and sorting options on cards, among other things. The Geekigrams business model revolves around freelancers, independent artists and contractors, so these costs will be relatively small compared to other companies.

Budget Milestones:

So, here are some fund-raising milestones to give you an idea of what we'll be able to accomplish with a given starting budget:

$1000 and less: A small selection of cards (you're looking at about 15-25 designs, tops) will be be printed in very small print runs and sold through an online marketplace like Etsy, Ebay, or Storenvy. This is a very slow start, and the business would have a hard time taking off from this level. But it's a start. This is where we are now.

$2750 and less: About the same as above, but with more copies of more card designs. This level allows us to hire more freelance artists to allow for a much better variety of artwork.

$2750-$10,000- Once the fund-raising goal is exceeded then the project has enough to really get rolling. There will be enough to get about 40-50 unique card designs and print them in small-to midsize short runs. (50-200 copies of each card) This will be just enough for Geekigrams to hopefully be able to generate enough profit to grow itself and continue building up a library of awesome card designs. The the higher we get above our initial $2750 goal, the more card designs we can release sooner. For example, with $6000 we'd have over 100 unique cards available by this summer! 

Above $10,000: Getting this much to start with would be a dream! This would allow us to go right into “phase two” of the business plan, and would allow us to do print runs in larger quantities. (over 500 copies of each design) What that would allow us to do, is offer a much lower wholesale rate to businesses and vendors. What this means for customers, is that you may be much more likely to pick up a Geekigrams card from a local retailer or from a vendor at your local convention. That doesn't mean you should expect to see them at a grocery store anytime soon, but we believe small independent game, comic, and anime shops may be interested in stocking our cards since we have the same exact target audience. (and on that note, if you have such a shop, are a vendor at comic/anime conventions, or are otherwise interested in reselling Geekigram cards, please don't hesitate to contact me. We'll put you in our contacts list and you'll be among the first to know about our wholesale and reseller's plans once they become available)

Beyond that: The most obvious answer is more money=more card designs, the more we can raise, and earn, the better the selection will be. But after we reach $10,000, whether we manage to raise it right now or build up to it later, we will have some more options on what directions to go in.

One is that we'll be able to start offering cards with more unique features. They'll still be covered with awesome art, of course, but having a large budget will allow us to make cards with gimmicks like unique sizes or shapes; use special printing like foil stamping or glow-in-the-dark-ink; pop-up cards; cards that play music and sounds and other things like that. Also once the company becomes big enough we can pursue licensing deals to use officially-licensed characters from some of your favorite anime, games and other series for special cards. We may be able to consider translating some cards and producing cards in other languages than just English.

The Rewards:

Of course, we have goodies for everyone who helps to back us! Most tiers include everything in the previous tiers unless otherwise noted. Let me walk you through the tiers and perks:

$1- A digital thank you card sent to your E-mail address. It'll likely be Holiday/New Years themed so we'll try to send them out a little early before the campaign actually ends so you can get those warm, fuzzy new years feelings on time.

$5- Once the first batches of cards go up for sale on our online store, we'll send you a $5 gift card/voucher than you can use to order a card through it. If there isn't anything in the initial batch that really speaks to you, you can hang on to your voucher until you're ready to use it. More designs will be available with time, though the speed at which they are released will depend on the success of this campaign. There will be a bare minimum of 15 designs available at launch, even if this campaign does not make it's goal. Expect to get your voucher by the end of February, though we're aiming for the beginning of it in case you want to get a Valentine's Day card. Please be aware that the $5 voucher may not cover your shipping costs, especially if you are located outside the U.S.A. so you may need to spend a small amount of additional money to actually receive your card when you choose to redeem it. 

$10- A physical personally hand-signed thank you card from us, mailed to your address. They'll be among the first ever Geekigrams cards printed. It's just a more personal way of thanking you for helping make this project a success. Also includes the digital stuff. All tiers that include shipping physical goods to you will include this. If we do really well, I might get some serious hand cramps, but it'll be worth it! I'll start mailing these as soon as the campaign ends. The shipping is included on this one since all I need is a stamp or two. If you get a bigger perk the card may be included in the whole package so you may get it later along with everything else. If you want it ASAP for whatever reason, let us know.

$25- 4 Card Variety pack. You'll get a list of cards you can choose from to build your own variety pack of cards. You can keep or display them yourself, or give them to friends and family. That's what they're used for, after all! Includes the $10 tier. Like with the vouchers, expect this by the end of February 2014. Please add $4 for international shipping, US shipping is included.

$50 8 card Variety pack with bonus shopping bag. Same as the $25 tier but you can make twice as many selections. We happen to have some special reusable shopping bags leftover from our last convention, so get the big pack and they'll be packaged in one of these:

These are custom designed by the Geekigrams lead designer (That'd be me). They're extra wide and the perfect size for posters and art prints, so they're great for shopping at conventions and craft fair types of events. They still work pretty well for grocery shopping and the like too. Please add $5 for international shipping, US shipping is included.

$60 And a poster! You get everything in the $50 pack above, plus an bonus 11x17 poster. You will have a choice that includes the following samples, and there are more on the way! 

$85 The “super custom” 10 card variety pack with custom 3” pins- Everything in the $50 tier with another 2 cards added to your special bag. (does not include a poster like the $60 tier) Rather than double the number of cards again, we're instead offering custom 3” pinback buttons designed by the Geekigrams main designer (again, that's me!) that can say anything you want on them. Anything. (Seriously anything, though I will honestly be disappointed in you if it's something racist or hateful to a group of people) You will get 10 copies of your custom design. The pins are something that I already make for events and things, so check out some samples:

Note that this perk is for any WORDS you want on the pin, and not any picture. I will add pictures and designs to your request text to make a more visually appealing pin. I will do the design work for you, you do not have to provide any design materials, though you can if you want to. You can request certain pictures be added and I will try to accommodate, but really complex or specific requests for images may be denied. To clarify, asking for a cat or a riceball or something is fine. Asking for Super Saiyan 4 Goku in Spartan armor beating up Megatron with a giant tuna is not. If you want to design the pin yourself and just have us manufacture it for you, you may do so. We can send you a template as a .psd, .ai or .png. Either way, I will NOT honor any requests that involve using someone else's copyrighted art without permission. If you are considering ordering this perk and are unsure if your request is acceptable under these rules, feel free to ask us about it before pledging and we'll let you know if it is. The only restriction on the text is length. I can't fit a whole novel onto a pin, after all. Also, I only have English and Japanese fonts, with a few 'international' fonts with European accent characters and such. So if you happen to want your pin to say something in a language that isn't in Latin characters or Hiragana/Katakana/Kanji; such as Russian or Arabic, I may be unable to fill that request. 

Please add $5 for international shipping, US shipping is included.

$100 Giant Variety Pack. Same as the $85 tier, but you get to add 3 posters to it. 

$1000 Early Adopter Wholesale pack. You get pretty much all of the cards. 400 cards, which is 5-10 copies each of nearly 50 unique card designs. Basically the perfect amount of cards for a retail display stand. Or enough to make a massive card fort. Math says this perk is $2.50 per card, and the suggested retail will be $5 per card. (The number of cards will be adjusted, so that if the wholesale pack contains any 'value' cards with a retail value of less then normal, we'll add extra cards to the total. We'll make sure the total suggested retail value stays at or above $2000) That is the lowest wholesale rate we can currently offer, but if you want to beef up that store display, or expand your card fort in the future, you will be eligible for special deals and discounts once we ARE able to offer a more robust wholesale program, as a way to thank you for being with us from the very beginning. This megapack will not be all sent at once, but in 2-4 installments as more cards are made. The first one should arrive in late February or March of 2014. You should receive the last one by the end of summer. Please add $35 for international shipping. Sorry to tack on costs to something that's already $1000, but shooting that much cardboard over the ocean is a little pricey. This does not include the bonuses from the smaller 'retail' priced variety packs.

Other info:

If you have any questions about any of these perks, don't hesitate to ask us. If you want some combination or amount of things that isn't available as a tier currently, ask us and we might be able to build a custom pledge for you. If we hit our goal early enough, we may be able to offer some special Geekigrams merchandise with some additional perks, but this is what we can guarantee delivery on even if the goal is not met.

FAQ:

Will I still get my rewards if the funding goal is not met?

Yes, and that is the reason it's flexible funding. The reward tiers are self funding. However, low levels of funding may delay the delivery and/or result in fewer choices of cards you can pick from early on.

What will these cards cost when they're released?

$4-5 USD retail price. Almost all of the cards will be priced within that range. You may see some $3 budget ones that are primarily text based or use only simple design elements made by the lead designer (That'd be me) that don't use licensed artworks. You might also see future cards that cost more than $5, with features like special printing, oversized cards, or things of that nature.

Why should I fund you? If I really want some geeky greeting cards I can order them from a print-on-demand service.

Well, that IS possible, but we'd like to make it better and easier. Many of those services would require you to make your own card designs, and not everyone can make top-quality designs on their own. If you simply use art that you find online, then that qualifies as art theft if you don't have permission. Some print on demand services will print them anyway, (if they don't catch you) but our cards will support the artists to help fund them so that can keep making awesome art. Print services that allow you to purchase designs that others have made often have the similar problems to the stores, in that the kinds of cards you would actually want might be buried among ones you don't, and some of them don't have much quality control since anyone can put their designs up. Sites that are more artist centric that have high quality art prints, such as DeviantArt or Society 6, do offer cards with some of the types of art we want to feature, but they're often sold as blank stationary cards and usually in packs. We want to collaborate with artists to create 'complete' greeting cards with text and design as well as art, and sell them individually, which is a different and more specific focus than what many of the available companies and services offer.

So, it's 'that time of year,' isn't it? Can I order some Christmas/New Years cards from you?

There will be one or two holiday cards in the initial batch of cards, but I literally mean one or two. Due to the timing of the campaign, by the time the cards are in full production, it will be mid-january and too late for the holiday season. For those that donate early enough and would prefer getting a holiday card as their “thank you card” I'll try to send those a little early before the campaign actually ends, but I can't guarantee you'll receive anything in time for Christmas/New Years.

Besides that, since we're just getting started, we're going to avoid making many holiday cards during our first year; instead focusing on cards that sell year round like birthday cards, thank you cards, sympathy cards, etc. This is because if we were to make a lot of cards for something like Valentine's Day, then any of the cards we don't manage to sell in time for the holiday will be unsellable for a whole year until it rolls around again. As a new company just getting off the ground, we can't afford to sit on a large pile of unsellable stock (yet) Once we achieve more stable sales, then we can afford to produce a better selection of 'limited time' cards. That said, we will still have a small selection for upcoming holidays, so when you cash in your perks that include cards, there will be a few choices for Valentine's day cards you can pick. I can guarantee at least one since we already have a Valentine's day card in the sample pictures on this very campaign.

I'm an artist and I am interested in making cards with you. How can I apply/join?

Just shoot us an email or message expressing your interest with a link to an online gallery or portfolio of your work, or check out our job posting on the DeviantArt and ConceptArt job forums. We are hiring on a freelance/contract basis and will pay you per piece of art. We will consider every genre of art, both digital and traditional, and they don't necessarily have to be anime/comic/game styles of art, especially if you have a unique style that isn't the kind of thing you'd see on the 'generic' greeting cards at stores. We will also consider writers who are interested in writing for cards.

We are already hiring right now, even as the campaign is running. Artists will be selected based on the quality of their work and professionalism. Initially we are aiming for a diverse line-up of cards so priority will go towards recruiting artists with a very wide variety of styles, and we will continually hire more artists as the budget expands.

I'm a retailer and want to sell your cards at my store/booth. How can I become a re-seller?

Send us an e-mail and we can try to negotiate an arrangement that works for you. We don't have a full re-seller's program or set wholesale prices yet. The “early adopter” wholesale perks are currently the lowest wholesale prices we can safely promise at our current level, but if we are able to exceed stretch goals we may be able to lower it further thanks to bulk printing. If you get in early and we're able to lower the price later, we'll try to cut you some kind of special discount or deal (like timed exclusive cards or something similar) to thank you for sticking with us right from the beginning!

As a customer, where will I be able to buy these cards?

We will be opening an online store, where anyone in the world can order Geekigrams cards to be shipped to them. In addition, since the people behind Geekigrams already travel around the East Coast convention circuit, we will get dealer's room booths at conventions such as Anime Boston, Otakon, Katsucon, Connecticon, AnimeNext, etc. We would also like to form partnerships with retailers, so it's possible that you may one day be able to buy them at your local comic or hobby store, but at this stage that is not a promise we can guarantee.

What is the deal with this 'resale' program you keep mentioning? It's sounding awfully 'big business' of you.

The only reason I'm so enthusiastic about it, is that getting such a resale program in place could make it possible for you to walk into your local store and buy one of our cards right then and there, without having to deal with shipping fees and wait times. Honestly, we'll make more profit off selling cards directly, but greeting cards are often things that are bought on impulse or at the last minute, so we'd love to make that a possibility. That goes doubly if we get international partners who can do all the importing and save you from the international shipping costs. That's all there is to it.

I have this really great idea for a card! Can I submit it to you?

For legal reasons, I would recommend you do not, unless you've already worked out some kind of contract/agreement with us as writer/artist. We will not accept unsolicited card ideas because if we take a suggestion and wind up using it or something similar, and the person later tries to claim copyright on it, then that creates a legal dispute. That said, that applies to specific card ideas. If you have general suggestions like “I want more cards with anime styled art” or “Way too many cards have anime style art, more western comic art please!” or “My best friend is a huge fan of _______, can you make some cards about _________?” we are always open to general feedback.

Specifically, what subject matter will your cards deal with? Will you have cards about [your hobby or geeky interest goes here]? I don't see anything like that on the samples on this page.

Keep in mind, the few samples on this page were done on a VERY limited budget, (hence the need for this campaign) so they don't cover anything close to all the subjects and styles I would ultimately like to cover. Anime, Sci-fi, Comics, Games, Fantasy, Books, D&D, Steampunk, Internet, Math/Science, Role-playing, Pixel art, and pretty much everything of geeky/nerdy interest. And like I said in the previous answer, we're wide open to feedback so let us know what you'd like to see and we'll look into getting it done for you.

So, are these cards ONLY for geeky/nerdy people?

Not at all, and most definitely yes. That is squarely my target audience, but it's not like you're going to have to take some kind of “geek cred” test to buy them. With the growing popularity of things that fall under a geeky domain, even if you're not a self labeled 'geek,' I still think you'll be able to find something that will appeal to you or a loved one. Have you ever enjoyed movies/shows like The Avengers, Game of Thrones, Star Wars/Trek or Lord of the Rings? Read Harry Potter? Played pretty much any video game ever? I'm sure we'll have something you can appreciate.

It doesn't necessarily take a 'geek' to appreciate a 'The Walking Dead' reference or a zombie joke like the card above. A fan of tv dramas or a horror movie buff will do. 

To borrow an example of another business with “geek” in the name, go check out ThinkGeek's online store. They also have a geeky target audience, but they also have plenty of cool random gadgets and gifts that non geeky people would still appreciate. I believe Geekigrams will be similar in that regard.

[Disclaimer: At the time of picking this as an example ThinkGeek.com has in no way whatsoever sponsored Geekigrams in any way. This is an unsolicited shout-out, and not any kind of paid advertisement. If anyone on the ThinkGeek team just so happens to toss us a pledge or mention us on social media or something that would be incredibly awesome of them, but there's no 'bribery' going on with that endorsement]

Conclusion, And How You Can Help:

If any of this sounds good to you, please help us make the world just slightly more awesome with the addition of some particularly interesting greeting cards. Your contributions may help to brighten many a geek's day in the years to come.

If you don't have the cash to spare to make a donation, you can still be a big help. There's the usual stuff, like spreading the word through your social media site of choice, which would be awesome of you! Favorite us, like us, retweet us, follow us etc.

If you know any artists who are looking for work that may be interested in working on a project like this, the please encourage them to check us out and apply as an artist. If you ARE an artist looking for work then I'm encouraging you to apply right now. You should apply. The same goes if you know any (or are an) independent store owners who might be interested in carrying our cards. We're also interested in cross-promo and character licensing deals with indie game developers and comic artists who would like to see greeting cards produced using characters from their series.  If you need to contact us directly through e-mail, you can reach the campaign manager at mj@radiantcadenza.com

Thank you for your support!