My First Kickstarter Eve
Less than 24 hours until launch!
14 hours from now (as of this writing), I will be hitting launch on my very first crowdfunding campaign: THE BLOODFIELDS AT BLACKSTAR STATION! It’s been a loooooong road just getting to this point, and in some ways, it hasn’t even started yet!
I first started laying out initial notes for the Bloodfields in early September of last year, not long after releasing PIRAD ONE. From there, I started buiding a rough timeline leading towards a February Zinequest Month launch, like many of my favorite projects from the last few years. It’s been a long, winding path, and I already feel like I have learned so much from giving myself deadlines (and sticking to them), working with artists on commissioning a zine-worth of art (thanks Roque!), hiring my first professional editor (Thanks Vi!), and learning the complexities of the Kickstarter backend, fulfillment solutions, and more.
Follow The Bloodfields HERE to get notified when it goes live at 10 am EST on February 1st (tomorrow)!
For the purpose of this FINAL pre-launch Missive, I figured I would dig into my funding goal, how I landed at that number, and where I am hoping to land beyond that goal if I am lucky enough to get the support from folks during this absolutely packed month of wonderful zines.
My funding goal for THE BLOODFIELDS AT BLACKSTAR STATION is $750. That may seem fairly low as far as Kickstarters go, so let’s dig into the why behind that number.
In order to get the project as far along as it is (manuscript complete, copyediting and refining dev pass happening now, majority of necessary art already complete), I have already spent a significant chunk of money (nearly $1000).
There are (as far as I’ve seen) two rough schools of thought to Kickstarter funding goals:
Cover all of your existing AND planned expenses - essentially set a goal in which you hitting it means you will break even (or even profit) on the project overall.
Cover planned upcoming expenses (in my case - the print run, shipping and fulfillment) because if the Kickstarter doesn’t fund you are already out of your existing expenses either way.
I took the latter plan. Simply put, I want Bloodfields to happen. A lower goal makes ordering a print run and getting it into folks’ hands that much more of a reality, especially given my newcomer status in the space. I have no past experiences to gauge what kind of support I may see ($ amount-wise). Anything over my goal of $750 will start to eat away at my existing expenses as well - bringing me closer towards a profit (AKA starting to pay myself for all the past and future work I have done on the project).
As you can see above, $750 (after KS fees and such) is enough for me to order a solid initial print run. In this case, 300 copies plus shipping. At that level, I’d likely have around 50 physical backers at most which means I can use the remaining 250 copies to reach out to retailers for wholesale and work towards recuperating that initial sunk cost of $1k.
Essentially, my goal covers the next substantial cost (printing) and puts me in a place to, at the very least, bring the book into the physical world and start me on the path towards paying for what I have already spent to bring the project to its Kickstarter ready state.
If you’ve ever seen a funding goal you though was strangely low for a project, its creators are probably using this rationale for their goal. It’s the best way to go for projects that the creators are going to make happen one way or the other, but the crowdfunding helps them happen fast and better than they could otherwise.
For more info on my tiering and such (which may change slightly by my launch - not pricing of existing tiers but other details), check out this Twitter thread I recently did.
All of that said, I am really happy with the current state of the project, with the campaign I’ve created and with the tremendous support I’ve already seen. Everything so far has truly exceeded my expectations so I am very excited (if not also a bit nervous/anxious) for tomorrow’s launch! I think it’s going to be great!
MY OTHER PROJECT: Orbital Debris!
ORBITAL DEBRIS, a massive hexcrawl on a traveling moon made of pure weirdo space junk, also goes live tomorrow! It’s a strange locale your crew may be called to visit by a rumored artifact or you may find yourself crash landing there unexpectedly while coming out of hyperspace. It’s filled with bizarre denizens of trash. Roadside Picnic meets Fallout meets something even weirder! I’m so excited to run my table through it all once it’s done!
I am a writer and editor on this large collaborative project between myself and 12 other Mothership creators. This has been another awesome learning experience in working remotely with others, writing and creating in a more group setting, and more. It’s been very helpful to have more experienced creators in place with a history of project management, deadlines, Trello boards, and all that good stuff.
I am so excited for this one. Like Bloodfields, it’s essentially writing complete and pretty far along into editing. Art is coming in more and more and same early layout has started as well. Like my personal project, I feel really confident in where Orbital Debris is at now and how successfully we’ll be able to accomplish what we’ve set out to do.
Follow the project HERE to get notified when it launches tomorrow!
The gang over at Geek’s Cant was kind enough to have three of us (myself, Marco Serrano, and Greenspore) on to chat a bit about the project. It was fun to dig into some of the nitty gritty structure side of how we went about doing all this work writing and collaborating entirely remotely. This was only the second time any of us had chatted on voice/video! CLICK HERE to check it out! We are on right at the 6 hour and 30 second mark!
TIME’S RUNNING OUT
As much as I could just keep writing on and on about all the other projects I’m excited for, along with a few I’ve already had the pleasure of reading or may be contributing to for stretch goals and the like, I actually do still need to make some final tweaks to my campaign page and make sure I’m reasonably well rested for an exciting day tomorrow!
If you are reading this, I am so overjoyed with your continued support. The indie TTRPG space has been so extremely kind to me in the 6 months or so since I’ve been an active part of it and it really just continues to blow me away. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you in Zine Month!
