Thoughts from a first-time self-publisher Part 19: Lessons Continued.

Welcome back!

Best Part of my week (so far): It’s been nice to get back to actual game design and especially some other games besides Super Snipers! I’m also really excited that one of my friends, Emily, has a game up on Kickstarter now that includes games from 12 other designers - including me- that use the same components. Check out Bah Humbug! if you’re curious.

Most stressful part: Setting up the Backerkit pledge manager and late pledge/ pre-order store has been a bit of a challenge. I was hoping to have it completed this week, but that is looking unlikely as I won’t have much time after today to work on it.

Updates:
Before I get back to my “lessons learned”, I wanted to update on a couple of things:

1) My Kickstarter funds came in: They came in exactly 14 days after the close of the campaign. So what did I actually get out of that $17,236? $15,292.15. Here’s the breakdown:

Dropped Pledges: $532 - these were people that KS wasn’t able to charge their cards. This included one $300 backer and 9 other pledges. The good news (if there is any) is that this is subtracted before the KS fees are assessed.

KS Fee (5%): $835.20

Payment Processing Fee: $576.65

2) In last week’s blog, I neglected to mention that when my manufacturer informed me about the estimate error, they also said that they would work with me to make it right and they have been fantastic about doing that so far.

3) I sent out a survey to my backers and have determined that offering an upgrade pack of acrylic polyominoes as an add-on would be a popular enough option to justify at least a minimum print run of them and I’m super excited that I will be able to offer this in a way that doesn’t tank the project (might even make some money on this one).

Lessons Continued….

First, two more “What I did right” that I missed last week:

I offered a PnP tier for $6: I ended with 50 backers at this level ($300). These are all folks that will get an invite to the pledge manager and may still upgrade (and many did purchase other items that were available digitally). Ignoring PnP leaves money and - way more importantly - backers on the table and I think every campaign should offer a low cost PnP.

I invested money in my backers: It took me a little while into the campaign to figure this out, but I added a backer count goal where I would pick two people at each milestone to get a $15 credit in the pledge manager. This did a couple of things: it made the winners really happy and grateful; it gave me something to announce at regular intervals that was positive and motivating; it gave extra incentive to increase your pledge to a physical delivery level (to be eligible for the prize). Ultimately, I will end up spending $300 on this and it was worth every penny. Will absolutely do something similar next time.

Where I made Mistakes:

My perceived product value and price point didn’t match up: You’ve probably heard plenty about this already if you’ve been following the blog. I considered a number of factors in coming to my initial price point of $48: Box size, component count and quality, manufacturing costs, and the margins I would need to make retail and distribution profitable. What I neglected was to think about what my game’s perceived competition was. My “fast, puzzly, 2 player dueling game” competes with games like Patchwork, or Jetpack Joyride, both of which retail under $30. While I am offering much more of a “boutique” product in terms of components, and the depth of the offering should make it stand out, ultimately my price point was a huge handicap to the success of the campaign and it cost me. I will never know for sure, but I believe my campaign could have had 2 to 3x’s the success if I could have launched with what I changed my offering to mid-campaign.

I focused a little too much on the “possibilities”: Someone needs to let first-time creators know that while much of the advice that is out there may pertain to you, some of it will not. The 6X landed cost formula for instance, makes a lot of sense for protecting your margins in retail, distribution, and licensing, as well as cushion should things go wrong with freight and shipping estimates. For a first-time creator though, there is a cart-before-the-horse thing going on here if you are not careful. Retailers, distribution, and licensing only follow from success. To borrow game design language for a moment, crowdfunding has a real “win more” problem, where success breeds success. If you let your preparation for success undermine your products ability to be as successful as it might be (see my first mistake) well…irony, anyone?

On this same topic, I mentally invested a little too heavily in the campaign doing better than it did and had my “final product” (that would justify the price) near the end of the stretch goals (which would bring the costs in line because of the manufacturing numbers I would be able to justify). When the pace slowed down and the stretch goals were just hanging out there, I wasn’t sure what to do. At the point that I brought a bunch of them into the product (and separated others into an add-on), the campaign came alive again.

Ultimately, my goals all along should have been: 1) to get as many happy KS backers as possible, 2) Lose as little money as possible. And I should have determined my price points and offerings focused on that without worrying so much about retail and distribution. With those goals, I can get by with around a 4x landed cost formula and any extra success in the lands of retail, distribution, and licensing would just be gravy (even if it’s less gravy than 6x would have gotten me).

Previewers: This isn’t a huge one but I think I had too many previews land before the KS was live and that they probably weren’t as effective as a result. I had so many lined up (another mistake, I could have lived with 3-5 fewer easily) that I was worried about spreading them out enough. I was also a little too focused on the big first day splash. Additionally, some “free previews” ended up costing me quite a bit with nothing or little to show for it. I still have one prototype for a preview that never happened that may not be getting returned.

Contests and Social Stretch Goals (and lack thereof): While the people who did participate in the contests while the KS was live had a lot of fun and have become some of my most die-hard fans, the participation overall was really poor. Since my contests both required TTS, I was alienating a lot of folks who would have liked to participate. I also didn’t start the campaign with social stretch goals and only added them later.

I spent too much money: I’m not going to single out everywhere that I did this (some will be revealed in my “What I will do next time” section) but suffice to say that I have spent in a way that would not be sustainable for a publisher that wants to potentially turn a profit. As I’ve said, I look at much of this as an investment in my future success and as an opportunity to experiment and learn what works and what doesn’t. In that sense, it is money well spent. But I will have to change a lot of things for the next KS if I want to survive as a self-publisher going forward.

I didn’t set healthy limits and practices during the Kickstarter: I got really sucked into this whole rollercoaster ride and it stressed me out (read all about it in the previous entries). I was completely absorbed in my computer and phone, spent crazy amounts of time on this, and kind of drove myself nuts. If I am to do this even once a year, I have to do it differently next time. For context, my day job is as a psychotherapist and I have great tools and normally practice good enough self-care. I was not prepared for this.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Thanks so much for reading! Let me know what you’d like to see covered in these blogs.

Galen.