ZineQuest Follow-up Interview: 3, 2, 1 . . . ! Action

John McGuire of 3, 2, 1 . . . ! Action was kind enough to answer some follow-up questions for their project, The Devil in New Jersey. This post is being published in the middle of the holiday sale season, so if you have been enjoying the interviews I've been doing, and want to support independent creators, it would be great if you check out the selection of books that I have on sale, including a wide selection of zines and new and used books.

Question. First off, did your project fund?

Answer. It was funded within the first hour, thankfully. It is always wild to me how much running a Kickstarter is like being in a band putting on a show. The similarities are uncanny, because no matter how much you promote, you always have that moment where you are like "Is anybody going to show up?" People did, and now we are able to make another totally awesome book.

Q. Is there anything you'd do differently with the next Kickstarter? Anything that worked out really well?

A. Geo and I are super pumped with how the Devil Kickstarter turned out. We are definitely really pleased with the response and turn out, and the fact that we got to run a two week campaign was a lot less stressful than running a monthlong. With that said, we had a different book we wanted to Kickstart in October and decided to pivot at the last moment because ZQ4 popped up so we went with The Devil In New Jersey which would have been our February Zine Quest book. It all worked out great in the end but if there was anything we could have done differently it would have been having more promotional material and art ready, but time did not allow it.

Q. Will you be planning on running another ZineQuest project, regardless of what form it takes?

A. Yes, absolutely. We are super pumped to launch another Zine for ZineQuest 5 in February. We've got a really cool concept, and while I can't talk about it yet, it is a genre that we haven't covered yet and is perfect for 3,2,1...Action!

Q. What, in your opinion, can the ttrpg community do to support the efforts of indie publishers, especially as it relates to ZineQuest?

A. While I love going on podcasts and running actual plays of our adventures, I will say that nothing is as powerful as word of mouth. If you love 3,2,1...Action! and want to show some support, please don't be shy about telling your friends how excited you are about our adventures and why you think it's cool. Positivity is infectious and I know that whenever I had a friend tell me about a game/movie/show or whatever, I was so much more likely to check it out because I saw how psyched they were about it. With that being said, Geo and I are so grateful for all the podcasts and shows that had us on, and the people who posted about us or retweeted, all of that helped so much. So thanks.