Well, gentle readers, I am somehow involved in a disaster. A grandiose disaster, of epic proportions. Specifically, this disaster is literally called a A Grandiose Disaster, and is Mike Young's newest LARP book/system, "a scenario-driven live action roleplaying game of disaster movie drama. You can't stop the disaster, but you can decide who survives!"

"But wait!", you cry-- presumably, I'm not actually listening in-- "are you just shilling for yet another kickstarter here?" Ho ho, no, gentle hypothetical crier, this is a column about the game industry, not my own private soapbox... err, well, okay, it is titled 'Sandy's Soapbox'. But that's not my point. My point (somewhere) is this is about the inside scoop on gaming, the behind-the-scenes info on how things get done. So let's get to it.

I am a stretch goal. A living, human stretch goal for this campaign. Specifically, if the kickstarter reaches a certain point, I will (a) write a scenario for it that (b) goes out as free additional content to all backers while (c) I get paid to write it.

There are, I believe, 5 of us lined up as stretch goal writers. We already wrote our pitches and basic outlines, and are eagerly hoping that we get the actual gig. We already made the cut, it's now up to whether the campaign gets enough revenue to bring us on board.

In essence, our stretch goals are like mini-kickstarters inside a kickstarter. If the premise of this kickstarter is 'fund Mike to and he will deliver the work', ours is "fund Mike even more and he'll fund us so we can deliver the work". It's like an inception of funding.

As a writer, it's also an excellent model. Old school writing involved a lot of front-end pre-paid costs and effort with no real clue whether it would succeed. The publisher assumed the risk and potential reward, while the writer was guaranteed a low but fairly risk-free flat rate (regardless of whether it failed, did okay, or was huge).

The old-school high risk publishing model

1. Publisher puts out call for book pitches,
2. Writers write pitches and samples,
3. Publisher agrees on choice of writer and promises to pay,
4. Publisher somehow comes up with money to get this started,
5. Writer writes, and gets paid their guaranteed fee,
6. Publisher keeps any/all profit-- or eats the loss if it doesn't sell.

For a while, self-publishing took over. This model was riskier but potentially more lucrative for the writer, who assumed both risk and reward.

The self-publishing model

1. Writer writes whatever the hell they want,
2. Writer somehow comes up with money to get this started,
3. Writer publishes it and hopes it sells,
4. writer keeps any/all profit-- or eats the loss if it doesn't sell.

The joy of kickstarting is it resolves both the ambiguity of 'will it sell' and the ability to get the startup money, greatly reducing risk while maximizing reward.

The new Kickstarter publishing model

1. Team comes up with idea and pitch,
2. Team puts out kickstarter,
3. If Kickstarter fails, team has only lost a little time and trouble, while...
4. If Kickstarter succeeds, team has money to get this started and keeps all the profit.

Economically, Kickstarter means creation is more aligned to market needs. It's a more efficient process for everyone involved-- creator and consumer. Instead of tossing out products in hopes there is a market, Kickstarter pre-surveys that market and then prints to order.

In old-school, by the time the market speaks, the publisher is already committed with a pre-paid warehouse full of books. In contrast, if a kickstarter fails, that means the market has spoken prior to significant personal cost. Kickstarter speaks at a time early in the process, where initial costs and labor are less than in the old-school publishing method. And if the Kickstarter succeeds, the demand and supply is already established and the only remaining task is the execution of the product.

As a first summary, that's how kickstarter works for publishing. As a far more important and personally (slightly) lucrative summary, if you wish to execute me as a product as part of Mike's "A Grandiose Disaster", know that I am a human stretch goal.

Until next month,
Sandy (sandy@rpg.net, freelance)