Update 3
over 7 years ago
– Fri, Dec 09, 2016 at 07:54:49 PM
Here’s what I’ve been up to:
- Released the playtest of the 5th Edition Version of Tarrasque Touched Mutation Supplement (still not completely happy with that title): I’ve already started receiving feedback, and I should have the Pathfinder version drafted and released shortly.
- Collected the edited draft of Design Notes – this essay collection will be the first Salt in Wounds Kickstarter book we release -and it should be on time according to my proposed schedule- that is, distributed later this month.
-Collected a complete draft of Alchemy of the Blood and Body from the supplement’s co-author Jesse Brake. This will have some substantial rewrites (and need a conversion/redesign for 5th Edition) but is on track for scheduled release in February.
- Collected an (awesome) Encounter/Location Assignment from collaborator Doug Easterly.
- Completed a draft contract for Salt in Wounds collaborators.
- Brainstormed and sketched my set of 12 Iconic Characters and initial thoughts about all the Salt in Wounds character class customizations; these characters will be popping up in all the Salt in Wounds books.
Some Work in my Immediate Future:
- Finalizing Incorporation & Business Accounts (the current lack of incorporation is causing a bit hesitation when it comes to disbursing funds and once this is done several thousand dollars is going to rush out at once for art, writers, backerkit, and so on).
- Pathfinder Version of Tarrasque Touched…
-Rewrite and send back for additional rewrite Blood and Body…
- Drafting the 12 5e Class Customizations, and using these to stat the iconic characters at various levels (I'll probably request comments on these soon).
- Finalizing my 2017 Convention schedule with my wife.
- Contracts for all collaborators collected & filed.
-Collecting cover art & text layout for Design Notes.
- Setting up and distributing Design Notes via RPGnow
- Submitting art orders for all the 12 iconic characters, some ‘intestinal’ art (think potions, weapons, etc.… though this might be stock art) & 25 of the Salt in Wounds monsters (I’ll need art for all 50 of the monsters eventually, but I’m still drafting/brainstorming them and I think some of the ones I have in mind now will be cut so I'll only be requesting art for the ones I *know* I want.
In general, November (and a portion of December) was lighter on the writing/designing and was more about doing the foundational work that will make all later work possible/flow better. This includes things like incorporation, contracts (so much of my work in the past has been handshake deals which worked but ultimately isn’t the right way to conduct business), collaborator review and communication, style guides for writers/editors/artists, setting up communication channels in a way that will work for me, outlining, planning, and so on.
The truth of the matter is… I’d rather be writing/drafting; I’d rather see word counts expanding and the text polish increasing: that's the sort of work makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something. All the administrative style work doesn’t *feel* like I’m being productive. But this fixation on the foundation is absolutely the right way I should have been spending these last few weeks, even it means stretching and growing and challenging myself in ways I don’t have as much experience with.
Anyway, here’s some ‘fan art’ (soon to be purchased art) from Jeffrey Chen – shared with permission.
Also! Several of the artists I’m working with do live streams/share work early. I think this is fabulous, and have encouraged/given permission for them to share commissioned Salt in Wounds art this way. If you’re interested in seeing super sneak peaks Salt in Wounds art as it is made, I’ll get you those links as they bubble up. (You’re free to ignore if you want to experience the art first in cool book form).
As an aside, I’ll be recording another episode of DM Nastics via the Dungeon Master's Block podcast tonight (which doesn’t have anything to do with Salt in Wounds, but I imagine all ya’ll gaming geeks might like it) and I’ll share the link when it’s ready to go.
Anyway, hope all is well with you and yours. There will be one more update before Christmas, but I hope you and those you love have a lovely holiday season and the happiest New Year.
Forward, Always
-John aka J.M. Perkins
Update Schedule, After Campaign Pledges, Working on Salt in Wounds, and the Kickstarter After Action Report
over 7 years ago
– Mon, Nov 07, 2016 at 04:31:38 AM
First a couple of updates:
Updated Schedule
I've decided to commit to a bi-monthly update schedule, with an scheduled update every 1st and 15th of the month (and other updates like this when appropriate).
After-Campaign Pledges
If you want to back/pre-order but missed the campaign, email me john [at] jmperkins.com *probably* can't offer a straight up backing option the same as during the KS (as I want to incentivize backing Kickstarter) but I *definitely* want to take your money. But yeah, email me and we'll work something out (until I settle on the 'official' preorder status as I get the spotlight page setup).
Working on Salt in Wounds
Are you an artist, cartographer, writer, designer, editor, or other and you want to work on Salt in Wounds or do you know someone like that? Email me john [at] jmperkins.com with your resume/work history, work sample, and what you're especially interested in. I can't promise that I'll hire you, but I'll definitely take you under consideration.
Finally, here's the after action report:
Kickstarter After Action Report
After a Kickstarter, I like to discuss what went well, what could have gone better, and what I learned. First, however, a caveat; I firmly believe in the cliché that (oftentimes) success is a *terrible* teacher. Certain things just ‘work’ and it’s always tempting to over attribute that success to one’s own efforts (when it very often has to do with capricious forces outside of one’s control). As such, take everything I write with a grain of salt (heh)- this is what *I* think worked and didn’t.
Defining ‘Massive Success’ for J.M. Perkins
The Salt in Wounds Kickstarter was a massive success by my standards. In 24 hours, I’d raised more money than in my previous 16 years of writing. By the time the campaign was done, I’d raised more (gross) than my annual salary. I was comfortable doing the project for $5000 and my personal ‘great job’ benchmark was $20,000. The fact that we more than doubled that is incredible, daunting, and something for which I am so, so grateful for.
Stat Breakdown
$20192 (or 34%) was pledged via Kickstarter $37515 was pledged via external sources.
The top ten referral sources for money (representing just shy of 80% of the funds raised) according to Kickstarter internal analytics were:
- Direct (19.93%) (Basically think ‘catchall’ that wasn’t sorted into a different category)
- Reddit (15.75%)
- Tabletop Games - Discover (8.74%)
- Google (6.58%)
- Erfworld (5.83%)
- Search (5.07%)
- 48 Hour Reminder email (4.83)
- Facebook (4.56%)
- Advanced Discover (4.29%)
- Profile Starred (4.28%)
As far as where raw traffic was coming from, google analytics monitored 27346 sessions and the top five sources (which represents about 86% of the traffic directed to the site) were:
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Direct (11953 sessions)
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Reddit + Reddit mobile (4793 sessions)
- Facebook + facebook mobile (3326 sessions)
- Google (1942 Sessions)
- Erfworld (1724 Sessions)
What Did I do Well/What Went Well
Massive pre-kickstarter campaign I think the thing that differentiates the Salt in Wounds Kickstarter from most gaming Kickstarters is that I’ve been publishing this material, for free, and promoting it for almost two years. In that time, I developed a readership in the 10s of thousands. I did interviews, actual plays, and more. I had a lot of people who were interested in the project and ready to share/promote it when the project launched. I even went so far as to turn down paying work in order to keep up with Salt in Wounds. My basic philosophy is that people need to see something 3 times before they’re willing to act on it (in this case, pledging for the Salt in Wounds Kickstarter) and I’ve to do the best job possible for people to have already ‘seen’ Salt in Wounds twice before they saw the Kickstarter (most especially, since I as a game designer have less name recognition than a lot of the awesome creators putting out stuff on KS)
Elevator Pitch Second, one of the things that made Salt in Wounds work (while other RPG setting and books didn’t fund/didn’t fund as well) is that Salt in Wounds has a core ‘elevator pitch’ that implies the unique gameplay that can be achieved with it. Story games and stand alone RPGs are good at this, people making expansionary material for 5e and Pathfinder don’t always have such a good command of this. Making a pitch of ‘this setting is just like what you’re familiar with - - but better!’ is a hard sell; tell me –in a sentence or two- what makes *your* work unique. I wrote an essay about this that I’m including in the ‘Design Notes’ book.
(Sub)Reddit Fueled Third, I’m extremely grateful my stuff was a hit with the the reddit rpg communities. They’ve been the primary vehicle for promoting my work and we the biggest single source of traffic and pledges. Other than that, I *did* promote well on twitter, facebook, and via traditional things like guest blogging, podcasts and more – but I bet big on reddit and it worked. It’s my belief that, though they aren’t perfect, the big reddit communities offers a creator their *best* chance to get quality work seen by the biggest numbers of people (as their algorithms seem to be the most ‘fair’ while note being as temporally spastic as twitter say).
Erfworld for the Win! Erfworld is a fantastic webcomic with a tremendous community (you should totally read it if you aren’t already). Rob (the author) generously giving access for Kickstarter promotion (it’s part of his ‘kicking it forward ethic) has been *huge* for both the Adequate Commoner (my last KS) and this one.
Eye Catching Design The Salt in Wounds Kickstarter campaign is not the most art heavy campaign I’ve seen, but I think I did a good job as art project manager and designer creating and setting up design elements that caught backers’ eyes, and communicated that the caliber of professionalism that will be put into the project. I’ve worked hard in the last year to develop some basic design skills & design sensisbility, and I think this paid off.
Cool Rewards, Good Stretch Goals, and Good Pledge Level Design I pretty much accomplished my goals for backer level designs; with people backing an average of over $50, I gave people a compelling reason to give me a bunch of money.
Things I Could Improve On
Mastering Advertising I didn’t advertise Salt in Wounds at all. And while I don’t think a Kickstarter campaign built primarily on advertising is a good idea, getting it right can definitely add more than it takes away. There’s so many tools out there, that there *are* good options; like with most things, it’s finding that options that add value rather than annoy/detract. After this project, hopefully I have some capital to try some varying advertising strategies.
Improving the Video The project video is… not great (especially compared to the last video I did for Adequate Commoner). Scheduling more time to produce the video (and securing professional grade equipment and assistance) will be important for any future projects.
Learning More About Analytics Improving my understanding of analytics and tracking will help propel me into the larger leagues of publishers. As I mentioned above, *most* pledges and *most traffic came ‘direct’ (aka Miscellaneous) so it’s nice to know that what I did worked and have info on a couple stand-out sources (reddit, erfworld) but not have more information on where over $11000 came from.
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And that’s pretty much it. There’s part of me that thinks I could have *maybe* set some additional stretch goals to push for, but ultimately I aligned the goals in a way that was both reasonable for me to produce and exciting. For my life right now, to ‘scale up’ from here would mean to do less writing to focus on managing a team/publishing, and while I’m happy to ‘play those games’ I still want Salt in Wounds to be *mine* - I want my fingerprints to be all over this, and my words and sensibilities, and aesthetics to comprise most of it.
I'm fairly confident that in terms of pledge rewards, timelines, and stretch goals I've been reasonable in my design; but we'll determine how well I drafted that aspect of the campaign in the months to come when my plans make first contact with reality.
Basically, I’ve succeeded in my role as writer, and (with this project at least) my role as fundraiser. Now, I get to practice the role of publisher (with all the subdivisions, complications, and rewards that entails).
