Thoughts from a first-time self-publisher Part 17: Funded! Now What?

Welcome back! Heads up that I have a ton to do with the holiday this week so this will be a slightly shorter blog post than usual.

Best Part of my week (so far): Super Snipers finished its campaign with $17,236 and 432 Backers! There was a sizable rally in the last two days that was really enjoyable to experience. This was the first time I’d watched the final minutes of a Kickstarter and man, watching the seconds count down in red while people get in their last minute pledges, followed by that confetti burst at the end? Good stuff!

Most stressful part: I now fully and completely comprehend why you see so many of those post-campaign updates say something to the effect of: “I will be offline for the next two weeks”. I also get why I’ve seen so many creators, especially those with pre-existing mental health struggles, run straight into a depressive episode after a “successful” campaign. You really need a kind of detox after the drug of an active Kickstarter is taken away from you. I feel like I’ve stepped off a 30-day rollercoaster and I’m having a hard time finding my balance again. That said, it was challenging but so important to set this all down for a little bit. I did get the first great night of sleep in a long time after the campaign ended.

Numbers are from last week Wednesday at 1:30pm to the wrap up of the campaign on Thursday, 11/17/22 at 9am EST

Funds Raised: 15,723 17,236 (+1513)

Number of Backers: 381 432 (+51)

$1 Pledges: 46 59(+13)

PnP Backers: 43. 50 (+7)

Super Saver (reduced cost $25): 30 29 (-1) One person dropped in the last seconds.

Retail Backers: 8 No Change

(NEW) Take your Shot $35 Level: 43 62(+19)

Super Snipers KS Game: 196 209(+13)

Sharpshooter (prototype and game) $300: 4 of 8 No Change

Elite (make your own Super Sniper) $1500: 1 of 2. No Change

Costs: Another $35 in return shipping costs
The final 48 hours did indeed bring in a new wave of backers and funds, though it didn’t match the first 48 hours. For anyone who is curious, I converted followers of the page at 20% by the end of the campaign.

What Now? I had a funny conversation with Dave Beck l(Distilled) last night where I described my getting off the rollercoaster metaphor for the end of the campaign. He added to the metaphor saying that you step off in your state of imbalance directly into a bathroom that you now have to get clean, and it is not nearly as fun as the rollercoaster :). Here’s how my “bathroom” is looking:

• Finish getting the translations I have imported into the rules documents (incredibly time consuming) AND create the final rulebook (Hwa will be helping a lot with this). Adding German soon!

• Set up the pledge manager in BackerKit

• Continue play testing all the unlocked material (I’ve been doing this right along, but now I need to accelerate it)

• Finish the backstories and powers wording for the unlocked characters.

• Make some big decisions around the final physical version of the game and investing in a potential “upgrade pack” as an add-on

• Finish licensing negotiations with a Chinese publisher (yay!)

• Talk to my accountant about what all of this means for my taxes this year

• Update my website and socials

• Research how and when to move forward with the retailer backers I have

• Create a visual timeline that will be regularly updated for my backers

• In the near future: PnP, Updating TTS and Tabletopia, figuring out my ad strategy for the Late Pledges, much more.

  Hwa’s to-do list is significant as well, but I know how fast he works. I think we are in good shape to stay well ahead of all our projected goals.
  
  One thing that I didn’t put on the list, but is important, is growing my community and keeping them engaged. I didn’t realize just how much a Kickstarter campaign can engender a sense of community; it creates a new “us” with some truly powerful excitement and good will. I had a good number of supporters and a handful of fans when I started this. Now I have a sizable number of fans that are really excited about being a part of this game’s creation and - more importantly - the brith of Galen’s Games as a legitimate publisher. It absolutely sits in that “great power equals great responsibility” thing.
  
  As someone who has backed a lot of Kickstarter campaigns, I am always a little disappointed when the publisher seems to disappear after riding that huge wave of energy and excitement with them during the campaign. Now that I am on the other side, I get why that happens, but still don’t want to repeat that for my followers. It is impossible/ unhealthy to try to maintain the same level of excitement and involvement, but I will try to find the right balance.
  
  One of the major accomplishments of the campaign is that 432 backer number. That’s a number that I can build on if I take care of it.
  
  Next Week: I plan on taking the time to try to break down the campaign into:

• Things I learned

• Mistakes I made

• What I would do differently next time

• And how the folk wisdom of what to expect for crowdfunding held up in this particular case and in 2022.

  As always, thanks for reading and let me know what else you’d like to know about!
  
  
  Happy Thanksgiving!
  
  Galen