Thanks Inane! I appreciate the more welcome welcome.
So yeah, Kickstarter taught me a helluva lot about self promotion. At first I really did just post the proposal, put it on Twitter and Facebook, and went back to my normal routine, figuring it would take care of itself. This was a huge mistake.
It was only earlier this month (I had opted for the maximum funding window of 3 months) that I woke up and realized:
1) It wasn't going to happen on its own
2) I really wanted it to happen
So that's when I started my huge self-promotion campaign. And it took a ton of work. I spent about 2 hours a day just contacting people, blogs, etc. I definitely got the best results I think from contacting individual friends directly and asking them to spread the word to their friends. Especially if you know people who have blogs that are actually read, or that are influential personalities in some way.
I think Kickstarter does help expose you to new people, but mostly at the end of your pledge drive (because your project is then on the front page of the "Ending Soon" section). I know I got a bunch of $7 pledges just from random Kickstarter watchers.
If you have a project that the Kickstarter people decide is awesome and they make it a project of the day, then you're really rolling. I think that's hard to do as a game, because I think the Kickstarter folks aren't into games (to be honest). But they do like things that feel very heartfelt, and they like things that are getting impressive results on their site. I think that's the best way to get their attention.
So my biggest advice to anyone who wants to fund a project through Kickstarter is to keep up the self-promotion from the very beginning. Set aside 1 hour a day or something just to focus on that.
Oh and the other thing I think really helped was that towards the end I was posting updates to my project (blog posts) every day. It helped keep the backers excited, which in turn sent them out to get more support for the project.
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