Sandy's Soapbox
But what if you want something more 'insider'? To get RPGs that haven't even been released yet, there's Kickstarter.
From the point of view of the person creating the book, the difference between writing for a publisher and self-publishing used to be an issue of risk. A publisher would pay 3-4 cents/word, so you'd net $1200-2400 for an RPG sourcebook-- whether it sold well or not. The publisher was assuming the risk-- fronting money for a print run, estimating how many copies to print, and hoping they sold enough to net a profit after paying for the whole run. To them went the lion's share of the risk, and the lion's share of any revenue.
With ePublishing, the risk lowered. If you went through a publisher, 50/50 splits on revenue were common in the earlier days. A good publisher gave you editing, marketing, and a wider existing audience; an ePub meant they didn't have to front for printing so they could offer a higher royalty.
Somewhere along the line, ePublishers started lowering their royalty... to 25%, some down to 10%. Crazy low-- you don't say "since my costs are lower, I'm going to stiff the writer too". Since the ease of ePublishing had many creators self-publishing already, lower royalties just made that shift happen further. More creator-owned works appeared-- a natural progression whenever the publisher/creator balance goes out of wack.
This is key because, when I was doing print sourcebooks, a typical 3rd-tier book could expect to sell 2,000 copies. Now, an equivalent seller hits around 400 copies. 400 copies? Worse, you have to either go with a higher per-unit cost using print-on-demand, or gaze into your crystal ball to decide whether to risk overprinting (in hopes you get a hit) versus the risk of underprinting if you get a hit and are unprepared. You can end up eating all your print costs if the book doesn't even get picked up anywhere. It's hard to make a living with low print runs.
Kickstarter entered to provide a new wrinkle to these print/ePub formulas. On Kickstarter, you get pledges to fund a project that isn't yet created. If you reach your funding goal-- stated up front-- in 30 or 45 days, you get the money and must create the work. If you don't reach your goal, the project is unfunded and no money is collected, but you don't owe anyone anything.
Suddenly, you can do a print run without risk. You get pre-buys of the book... get enough of them to justify your print run by making your Kickstarter funding goal, and you are set. Best of all, since you can go over your funding goal, you can sell more than expected without risk of under- or over-printing. Since you only print after the funding period closes, you get the luxury of only printing exactly the number of copies you need. No excess inventory means you maximize your profit.
The downside of Kickstarter is you typically have only 1 month to make your 'sales'. A Kickstarter runs for 30-60 days, your choice, specified at the start. However, once you realize a typical print RPG had a sales window of, at most, 3 months, these time limits are less a hinderance and more a reflection of what already happens in the book-buying market anyway.
Kickstarter projects live and die by social media marketing-- Facebook, tweets, friends passing it along, 'going viral' (a synonym for 'friends passing it along' to the Nth degree). However, that's also how most RPGs sell. If you're not D&D or Games Workshop, you're probably relying on word of mouth rather than mass market draw already.
So how do the numbers play out for Kickstarter RPG projects? We can idealistically start with the big success stories. Gareth-Michael Skarka was a name (and an ionoclast) in the conventional RPG industry, and build up a strong ePublishing reputation and business. His first foray into Kickstarter for "Far West" still exceeded expectations, netting $49K on an original $5K goal-- in 45 days.
"Far West" received 717 backers in total, all of whom (with a $10 minimum buy-in) received at least the PDF of the game. 460 of them ponied up to buy the print edition. A similar success story, Dan Solis's "Pilgrims of the Flying Temple", made $24K on an initial $3K goal. 'Pilgrims' essentially pre-sold the book at, initially, $40 a copy, then dropped the price to $25/copy by the end. Of 552 backers, 410 pre-bought the print edition or fancier, while 125 bought just the PDF.
All in 45 days, mind you. That was Solis's second kickstarter and, much as with GMS's "Far West", he had existing marketing saavy and an existing audience. Solis had not only his previous work, but of Evil Hat (and by association, Indie Press Revolution) in his corner. Their goal was to fund a print run of 500 copies of the limited edition hardcover.
Gaming personality and established writer Greg Stolze has run 15 Kickstarter projects, with goals ranging from $100 to $2600, one pegging $7.8K in final take. He uses a 'ransom' model-- if the project gets its funding, the work gets released freely to the entire world. Miss the funding mark, and no one benefits. It's a neat wrinkle on the model, different from pre-printing, but it works-- for him.
Will it work for everyone? Are we in the promised age when money for game creators falls from the heavens like manna? Hell no. I said I'd start with the successes. Now let's look at the full picture. A search for 'RPG' on Kickstarter reveals 128 projects. Of those, 50 were 'funding unsuccessful' and 17 were still seeking their funding. Of the ones seeking funding, 11 of them showed in the initial search 'featured projects', while the others required you click and hunt in the boring 'see all searches'.
That means, for projects that are currently active and seeking funding, only 11 of 17 really are getting any attention. That means 1/3rd of the projects are handicapped from the start. Of the projects whose funding periods have ended (111), 50 of them did not reach their funding goals.
Remember, with Kickstarter, if you don't reach your funding goal, you get nothing. $0. The project is dead. And almost half of all RPG projects met this fate. A look at the Kickstarter FAQ points out that half of all Kickstarter projects fail. The reasons given are many and some can be corrected for (unrealistic funding goals, poorly defined project, bad marketing).
From the creator's point of view, though, this points out that Kickstarter is not a guaranteed fortune. Your odds of not reaching your most minimum level of funding are high. The projects that make the most money are those which already have an active fan base, so they are the projects that would succeed even if they didn't use Kickstarter. What Kickstarter did was open up new possibilities, not guarantee a revenue stream.
Kickstarter is a channel, a method, a weird pre-pay storefront. It is awesome, but it is only part of what you need to make a living in the RPG industry. You still need to market yourself and your projects, create and nurture a fan base, and be connected with the various industry websites and portals and review sites. You must be deft at both game creation and social media. To steal Guy Kawalski's words, you have to 'create like a god, command like a king, and work like a slave'.
Kickstarter is not throwing out the rules of good business, but rather enhancing them. If you are an awesome creator who has mastered the rules of business, Kickstarter is a venue where you can more effectively capitalize on your talents. It can bring in more money while allowing customers to better connect with the creator. In short, it helps good creators connect with hungry gamers in a way that makes everyone happier. And who can complain about that?
Until next month,Sandy
sandy at rpg.net
