Thoughts from a first time self-publisher before the Kickstarter Part 10: Shipping, stress, and the big push.

October 4th

Welcome back! 2 weeks to go until the Kickstarter launch!

Best Part of my week (so far): Oh man. Where to start? There’s a ton of cool stuff that has happened over the last week, but I guess the highlight was Saturday at CuseCon. CuseCon is a local (to me) gaming convention in Syracuse, NY. I bought a table space and ran Super Snipers demos all weekend. I met a ton of cool people and got amazing feedback on the game. On Saturday night I attended a panel of designers and publishers. I was very surprised when I was invited to sit on the panel and field questions from the MC and the audience. While I have come to proudly call myself a designer, I don’t think of myself as belonging on the same side of that room as Jonathan Gilmour (who was there and is super cool). It was a super validating and meaningful experience and I felt I really added to the conversation. There are a lot of other cool things but that’s not really the focus of this blog. Follow along with Super Snipers on Facebook if you want to hear more!

Most stressful part: The time crunch. There is so much more to do, and lots of it involves other people/ is not entirely under my control. I also feel these massive swings between feeling elated and hopeful and imagining all of this being a big success, and worries that it won’t take off.

The Numbers: As of Wednesday at 2:00 pm compared to last week at the same time.

The Big Number: About to spend another $200 for advertising, plus another $14 in shipping. Total number: : $22,613

FB page- 155 likes 195 Followers 164 likes (+9) 204 Followers (+9)

Public Group- 107 109 (+2)

Private - 68 No Change

Pre-launch- 278 464 (+186!)

Email list- 778 818 (+40)

Discord- 60 No Change

TTS- 143 146 (+3)

YouTube- 22 23 (+1)

Galen’s Games FB page: 172 followers 195 followers (+23)

There we go! Email list is still at a slower growth pace than what is ideal, but those pre-launch numbers are looking more promising! Jump is probably most attributable to:
1) ads re-targeting people who showed interest and directing them right to the pre-launch page.
2) Email blast doing the same
3) Outreach at CuseCon
4) Showing up in a couple of “KS in October videos”
5) Releasing the KS video
6) Most recently: starting a launch event with Board Game Revolution.

At this point, I think I may realistically arrive at launch day with 600 following and an email list of 1,000. It’s not perfect, but it is good enough! When I started this blog on July 28th (just 2.5 months ago), my email list was 34 and my followers on the KS pre-launch were 47. That’s a lot of growth and hopefully demonstrates the power of getting some help with your marketing.

Shipping: There are better places to get your information about shipping so please do your own research and check out the Pine Island, Prometheus Games, Jamey Stagmeir blogs or talk to the very accessible folks at Bridge Distribution (as I am).

That said, I will provide a little bit of insight into what I’m currently going through with this:
I connected with Bridge Distribution (who will be handling my US and EU fulfillment) and have been working with them to figure out my shipping estimates for Super Snipers. It is pretty common practice to provide shipping estimates on the Kickstarter page but wait to charge actual shipping in the Pledge Manager.

Why? Because shipping rates can change between the time you start your campaign and the time you fulfill (in case anyone hasn’t noticed over the last two years, lol). Those changes may be good or bad for you and/ or your customers and you are both better served pushing off that decision to a bit later.

Additionally, as a first time creator, I have no idea whatsoever about how well I will do in other countries. Why does this matter? Because there’s a minimum amount of stock that would justify seeking out a fulfillment partner and shipping of a large volume of games in another country. If you can meet or exceed that threshold, you can get folks in that country a better rate. If you don’t, you are stuck - in my case - fulfilling from a US or EU based warehouse at increased costs. It is better to underpromise and overdeliver. Nothing frustrates backers more than feeling suckered by low estimates and then seeing the shipping costs jacked up when it comes time for the pledge manager (looking at you, CMON).

So what goes into making these estimates? I will only provide a US example (as that is as far as I’ve gotten). I received a list of shipping costs that breaks up the US into 7 different regions relative to where the fulfillment warehouse is. These range from about $14 a game to $18 a game depending on the region and that cost includes what the Fulfillment center charges for their services. I was also provided with data about the average percentage of customers you will get from each of the zones.

Now, I could charge actual shipping by zone in the pledge manager, but I don’t think that’s the right thing to do. Backers expect their “region” to be their country, and I think that’s fair. This means I need to come up with a number that I am comfortable with knowing that I will be subsidizing some shipping costs and making small profits off of others. And then hope that I don’t get most of my backers from Montana or Alaska! (joking!). I believe I have settled on $15, but I may also go the route of adding to the base game cost to make that shipping number lower and add up to a nice round total. Tough decisions!

Stress:
I’ve mentioned this before, but I am a psychotherapist. I specialize in trauma treatment and help folks in really, really difficult situations. One thing that I think a lot of people don’t get is that the hardest things aren’t the big “T” Traumas, but rather the cumulative effects of lots of little “t” traumas and stress over sustained periods of time. While I have tools that help with trauma resolution, and they are super important and often life-changing, the majority of my effective work is about helping people manage day to day stress and anxiety and stepping out of the patterns that were created in response to the cumulative stresses and “small” traumas. Speaking for my own benefit, and maybe for someone reading, here’s what’s important:

1. Are you eating? Eating well?

2. Are you getting outside and/ or getting any type of physical exercise?

3. Are you engaging socially? Communicating with people who are important to you and make you feel loved?

4. Are you sleeping enough? Even if you laugh at this one, can you at least make some time to disengage and rest? Any amount is better than none.

These are the basics. It doesn’t solve the “problems” but it helps you get to the baseline where you can best try to solve those problems.

I am a mixture of stressed and elated, and trying my best to follow my own advice.

The Big Push: With two weeks to go, I have a pretty packed schedule of stuff to really try to get the hype train rolling for launch day. I can’t stress enough that everything that is happening now is the result of seeds I took the effort to plant months ago, and everything that will happen in the future will be the result of seeds I am sowing now (even while I don’t feel I can find the time to do it). Anyone venturing into this: give yourself plenty of time and make sure that you have things in place for this part of the journey and for after the launch.

Got to go for now. Thanks as always! Let me know what else you want to know about!

-Galen-