Thoughts from a first-time self-publisher part 13: The mid-campaign slump.

Week 1 of the campaign is down and week 2 has started. Welcome back!

Best Part of my week (so far): Since the last blog Super Snipers funded!! It went over the $10K mark just before hitting 36 hours on the second day. James Hudson gave a shout out for the campaign in his update to the 7,000+ backers of Wonderland’s War and minutes later, the campaign jumped from about $8,800 to $10,100. It was an awesome display of generosity to give me access to his audience and it made the difference. It was very exciting and very relieving to know both that Super Snipers will be getting made and that I got funded in that crucial first 2 days.

Most stressful part: Kind of everything since then. Growth was still pretty decent on the third day, putting it over the $11K mark, but between then and now it’s only at $12,132 (down from a high of $12,288). Every influx of backers seems to get undercut by a slight ly lower number of people dropping their pledges. Also, Tuesday was my birthday and I came down with COVID on that day. I’ve been isolated in my attic since then and talking with my 2-year old via Facetime for dinners. Bright side? Lots of time to work on the campaign and get some solo gaming in.

The Numbers: I’ll do the numbers a little differently during the campaign. As of Thursday, 10/27 at 11:30am.
Funds Raised: $12,182

Number of Backers: 289

$1 Pledges: 41

PnP Backers: 33

Super Saver (reduced cost $25): 20 (sold out for now)

Retail Backers: 2

Super Snipers KS Game: 183

Sharpshooter (prototype and game) $300: 2 of 8

Elite (make your own Super Sniper) $1500: 1 of 2.

If you are curious about the campaign growth (and lack of) Kicktraq tracks a number of useful stats. I’m also happy to hear what you’d be interested in hearing more about.

Follow up on the Super Savers Pledge: Since the last blog, I had enough additional support from backers to release 10 more of the reduced cost games. I gave a heads up in the groups and in the Update. All 10 sold but, interestingly, 4 people moved from the dollar pledge to this level, 3 dropped from the $48 level to this level, and 3 new backers came in. I only know the story of one person that dropped their level and they would have had to drop entirely otherwise.

The Slump:
The mid-campaign slump is a fairly predictable occurrence. The longer the campaign (mine is 30 days) the longer the slump. There are tons of resources out there with great advice on how to make the most of it. Let me talk about what I am doing and how it seems to be working out so far.

Facebook Ads: I am running ads and having them managed. Great returns on Days 1 and 2. Less so on 3. Kind of Crickets since then. I’m creating new content for the ads (unboxing, new art releases, etc) but nothing seems to be hitting right now.

Campaign Events: I am running both a weekly puzzle challenge and a Super Snipers Tournament with prizes. I’ve put effort into them, put them in the Updates, posted to the community groups, and have had a very minimal responses so far.

Reviews and Previews: I continue to have reviews and previews coming out across multiple social media sites. A few have stalled but will be coming out soon. These seem to help get a few more people in at a time. Overall, my reviews have been very positive.

Live Playthrough Event: On Monday night, Gloryhoundd did a Live Playthrough Event for Super Snipers that was an absolute blast! I encourage you to check it out! There were 51 people watching live and it has 278 views by now.

Organic Coverage: Super Snipers received some positive coverage in both BoardGameCo’s weekly “To back or not to Back” and Liege of Games “Crowdfunding Explosion”. Alex wonders aloud why the campaign isn’t doing as well as he would have expected and posits that it may be the price point (and maybe it is?). I’ve also had some fellow creators shout out the campaign in their updates and fans sharing stuff on social media. This has had a small effect, netting me a handful of backers.

Looking into additional languages: At this point, there is probably very little hope of licensing (it needed to make a bigger splash than it did; around 1000 backers is when licensing offers start popping up). So I am in talks about getting translations of the rulebook. I may only be able to offer these as PDF’s, but am hoping that it will broaden the appeal.

Staying active: I’m trying to post on Facebook, Instagram, even Twitter regularly and in multiple groups. Trying to keep conversations going in Discord and in the KS comments. Staying on top of this blog. Honestly, if I weren’t home sick with COVID right now, I wouldn’t be able to do 75% of what I’m doing and it doesn’t seem to be paying any dividends. At least right now.

What’s going wrong?

Maybe nothing? There is a ton of amazing stuff out on Crowdfunding right now and a lot of us Indy publishers are really struggling and finding our numbers way below expectations. Maybe there’s just too much noise out there?

Maybe it is my price point? I am confident that folks will get more than their $48 worth of entertainment and quality out of Super Snipers, but it is a bit of a high price for a 2-player game and Patchwork may have ruined people for expecting polyomino games to be be low priced.

Maybe it’s the length of the campaign? With everything out there right now, I could see folks seeing that it has funded and just figure they will come back to it if they are still interested later. I wish I knew!

This is a tougher part of the experience than I imagined. I knew the slump would happen, but I also put a ton of focus and investment into hitting the funding goal in the first two days so that the campaign would be successful overall. To meet that first goal but to not see it have the impact I expected is a bit disheartening. Hoping for better news next week!!

And please check out the campaign!

-Galen-