The Valley of Lune, Kickstarter Debrief
We do these things for fun, because there's sure not much profit!
If you missed the Kickstarter, you can pick up a physical copy of The Valley of Lune from The Cairn Store
PDFs coming soon.
The Valley of Lune is my first solo Kickstarter. It had a modest initial goal of $500, with the aim to secure some more professional cover art [achieved!], put a finished and high-quality zine out into the world [achieved!], and maybe make a little bit of a profit [technically achieved!].
So it's a success, right!?
Yes, definitely, but not one without hiccups.
Let's break it down a bit.
Nothing to Something
Lune began with two essential impetuses. Impeti? Anyway.
SunderedWorldDM wrote me a blog post, and around the same time, Primeumaton threw down the gauntlet.
Handed the ball so neatly, what could I do but run?
The Process of Adventure Design
It began with ideas. Huge clockwork cities, forests full of strange folk, a castle built from dreams.
I planted the dreams around a map, and began to describe what those things look like from the players' perspective, and what they find if they dig a little deeper. Then there was play-testing, illustration, proof-reading, editing, the lot.
I owe a great debt to several friends for reading through this book and finding every inconsistency and misplaced hyphen, but most of all to my wife (a professional copy-editor, those don't come cheaply) and Sundered, who consistently found time to offer honest, useful, and precise feedback on game design.
At last, I had a book in hand!
Now what?
Deciding to Kickstart
It wasn't a hard or challenging decision. I simply thought, "Other people do this, why can't I?" I really did want to dress the book in some nice art, as well as get high-quality copies into peoples' hands.
I chose the goal of $500, expecting to make about $100 after expenses.
Here were some of those early calculations:
- $5 PDF Copy, no expenses on my part, 100% profit. (This saved me.)
- $12 Zine Copy, ~$3 to print (if ordered in bulk), ~$3 to ship domestically or ~$12 to ship internationally (HA! Foolishness). Shipping was added on to the cost of the zine, but for some reason also factored toward total funds raised for the Kickstarter, which threw some numbers off.
- $60 for 10 Zines, vendor deal. Honestly I wish I had connected with more vendors. Yochai picked some up, and has been great to work with. I think the benefit here would be lasting connections for future projects, but calling people is not my strong-suit, and most vendors want to wait until your project is 100% done and verified before giving you money. That's entirely fair.
The main trouble I ran into was secondary costs, things like mailers, shipping with tracking, proof copies, ISBN registration, and so on.
Let's See the Final Numbers
| Reward Tier | Pledge Amount | Backers | Total Pledged |
|---|---|---|---|
| $5 | 29 | $145 | |
| Zine + PDF | $12 | 53 | $636 |
| Retailer | $60 | 1 | $60 |
Total sales: $841
The total collected for shipping: $326
Final Amount Raised: $1167
Now the Costs:
- Kickstarter Fees: $116
- Proof Copy: $25
- Printing 100 Zines: $238.50 (63 from Kickstarter, plus extra to sell at cons. Much cheaper to buy in bulk.)
- Cover Art: $85 (By the incredible Locheil)
- ISBN: $30 (Bought in a 10 pack for $300 though, so bear that in mind.)
- Packaging: $30
- International Shipping: $223.00 (10 zines were shipped internationally)
- Domestic Shipping: $153.20 (40 zines were shipped domestically, and due to cost I could not offer package tracking. This figure also includes a box for the retail zine order.)
- TOTAL COSTS: $900.50
Final Profits: $266.50 (But technically that went to ISBNs already, as I hope to continue publishing books.)
As an additional point of clarity, I have sold a few other books at cons and some to vendors. This final figure does not include profits from things that happened because of the Kickstarter, but weren't directly part of it. Authors should keep this in mind (so they hopefully avoid losing their minds). While the Kickstarter itself doesn't always earn money, it does hopefully end with a book that will continue to be sold and earn money without too much additional effort from the author. That said, you should keep talking about your book.
Lessons Learned, or What I Would Do Differently
I'd like to do this segment by pretending to set up another Kickstarter.
Let's start with the same goals: better cover art and a print run.
Start by finding the cost for those two things. Envision the final product, what will it cost to get it to that state?
- I know my artist's fee is $85.
- I went to Mixam and calculated the cost to print 100 zines: $238.50
- I count the cost for 100 zine shippers Like These: $26
- I know a proof-copy will run me about $25
- I want to throw in some cool stickers: ~$30
- I know Kickstarter takes about 10%
- Total expected expenses before shipping: $404.50
ESSENTIAL ASIDE: Make sure Kickstarter is not counting shipping toward your goal. This will throw off numbers by a lot.
Now I'm going set up my tiers, imagining backers only take the deal that is worst for me.
For example, in the Lune Kickstarter above, the worst deal for me turned out to be International Backers (my fault, not theirs). It cost me a total of $25.10 to send out each of those zines, including printing and shipping, and those backers paid a total of $24 for their zine. I lost $1.10 for each international backer. Still, I'm thrilled Lune made it as far as Australia and the Netherlands!
For this Kickstarter, we'll say the most expensive zine for me is the following:
- Zine+PDF:
- Printing: $2.38
- Shipper: $0.26
- Sticker: $0.25
- Total Cost to Me: ~$3.00 (not including hours spent writing)
Now, how much to charge? Let's say it's ~48-60 pages, worthy of a short campaign. People often pay about $20 for physical copies of these (before shipping) on places like DriveThruRPG, so we'll aim for that figure as well.
- Cost to Backer: $20.00 (before shipping)
- Profit: $17.00
Here's the thing though, Kickstarter isn't going to count the cost to me when they check to see if a project has reached its goal, they only look at what backers have pledged.
So, if I want to make $404.50 to fund a print run of 100 zines plus art, how many backers do I need?
Step One: Goal / Profit Per Backer = Backer Count
$404.50 / $17 = ~23.79 (We'll call it 24)
Step Two: Backer Count * Pledge Cost = Stated Goal
24 * $20 = $480
Step Three: Stated Goal / 0.9 = Goal Including Kickstarter's Cut
$480 / 0.9 = $533.33
Step Four: Round Up ~$100 for Unexpected Costs
$533.33 -> $650
Where does that money go?
- Kickstarter takes 10%: $65
- We pay our artist: $85
- We order a proof copy: $25
- We print 100 zines: $238.50
- We buy 100 shippers: $26
- We order 100 Cool Stickers: $30
- Total Costs: $469.50
And if we actually shipped 24 zines, we're left with:
- $180.50 (less unexpected costs)
- 76 zines ready to ship as future orders arrive, or drag around to cons.
- Theoretically, if we sold all these zines for $20/each, we could make up to an additional $1,520, but that will take time and marketing. You can also try to sell them to vendors for 50% MSRP ($10 each).
Since we've found our goal by calculating the number of backers that will be most expensive to us—those who want physical zines—we can also include a PDF tier that costs us nothing. That tier did a lot of work to keep Lune above water during its Kickstarter.
So how much to charge for PDFs?
This figure is all over the place, but don't undersell your work. PDF zines similar to Lune sell on DTRPG for $15-20, and since this is a Kickstarter, we may want to incentivize an "Early Supporter" deal. $10-$15 would be entirely appropriate. I charged $5, but do as you will.
Stretch Goals?
No. You're already going to be exhausted from everything else, and the random things that life throws at you that you aren't expecting.
That said, there's something nice about unexpected extras. Throw in a sticker. (But remember stickers mean your shipping doesn't qualify as Media Mail.)
I am still working on converting Lune to OSE, it's coming, I promise.
Thank You!
I would like to send a massive thanks to everyone who participated in the Kickstarter. I am not suddenly incredibly wealthy, but I had fun, improved the look of my zine, and got it out there into the world.
Huge thanks to SunderedWorldDM, Primeumaton, and Yochai Gal as well for giving me the support to get this project going and pull through to the finish line.
And thank you to my son, who happily spent an hour with me applying dozens and dozens of stamps to envelope after envelope. Love you, bud.