D&D 5E A Dozen Frightening Rumors: Phil Reed's Latest Kickstarter

Back in the early 2000s, Phil Reed used to release a new PDF for D&D 3E every couple of days. Each was small and inexpensive, and they sold like hot cakes. Now he's doing the same for 5th Edition -- but on Kickstarter!



Throughout the year, Phil has been launching a new Kickstarter campaign every few weeks. Each one is a short campaign, and each is for a small PDF (such as A Dozen Frightening Rumors) for $1 (though there are options to spend more on print copies). Just like in the early 2000s, they're selling in thousands. Just this year he has run successful Kickstarters for:

• The Book of Dungeon Encounters
• Fantasy City Scenes & Sites
• Fantasy City Sites & Scenes II
• Dungeon Crafter's Sketch Book
• A Dozen Troubling Rumors
• A Dozen Similar Rumors

Each Kickstarter is quickly fulfilled before he moves on to the next, and with each one he gets more and more backers as previous backers return and new backers join, each now raising in the region of $10K.

The current campaign, which only has a week left to run (these tend to be very short campaigns) is a PDF of rumours; plus additional content in the form of earlier PDFs, making 360 page of content for about a dollar. He's basically doing Patreon, but on Kickstarter -- and it's working!



You can find the current Kickstarter here. And if you miss this one, there will almost certainly be another one next month!

 

[Rhianni32]

I havent seen a content creator go the kickstarter route for low priced PDFs like this. What do you think the advantage of doing a low priced kickstarter vs selling them on DriveThruRPG or doing a Patreon. Perhaps the communities are different in how much they are willing to pay for a product?

 

[dave2008]

I havent seen a content creator go the kickstarter route for low priced PDFs like this. What do you think the advantage of doing a low priced kickstarter vs selling them on DriveThruRPG or doing a Patreon. Perhaps the communities are different in how much they are willing to pay for a product?

Well, he has already made $7000+ vs his $500 goal so maybe that is the reason. It would be very hard to make that much on DMsGuild or DriveThru at $1 a pop.

 

[Morrus]

I havent seen a content creator go the kickstarter route for low priced PDFs like this. What do you think the advantage of doing a low priced kickstarter vs selling them on DriveThruRPG or doing a Patreon. Perhaps the communities are different in how much they are willing to pay for a product?

Kickstarter is by far the most effective platform to sell tabletop RPG materials and has been for quite some time now. (And probably other things, but I only know about tabletop RPG materials). It's marketing and pre-orders all rolled into one, and it works.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Kickstarter is by far the most effective platform to sell tabletop RPG materials and has been for quite some time now. (And probably other things, but I only know about tabletop RPG materials). It's marketing and pre-orders all rolled into one, and it works.

This. My friends will often alert me to stuff on KS, and even, mostly as players, back random RPG projects. I often see RPG products on KS promoted on Facebook or the like (not sure how that works, whether you pay KS to promote them on FB, or pay FB directly, or whatever, but it's happening). Whereas with DM's Guild or Drivethru, I only ever go there because I heard about something, usually already out for a while, that I might want, and I never get emails promoting hot new books or whatever and my friends sure don't see them.

 

[Morrus]

This. My friends will often alert me to stuff on KS, and even, mostly as players, back random RPG projects. I often see RPG products on KS promoted on Facebook or the like (not sure how that works, whether you pay KS to promote them on FB, or pay FB directly, or whatever, but it's happening). Whereas with DM's Guild or Drivethru, I only ever go there because I heard about something, usually already out for a while, that I might want, and I never get emails promoting hot new books or whatever and my friends sure don't see them.

It’s at the point where I think there’s no point releasing in me releasing a small press RPG book without a KS campaign first. Other publishers will vary of course, depending on their reach and distribution, but for me, if I just release a book (on DTRPG or into distribution) I’ll sell a fraction of what I’ll sell on KS.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yeah, I suspect you're correct on that. Whilst I've technically spent more on DTRPG and DM's Guild over the last year, than KS, it's mostly been on either older products, or products I would have backed if they were on KS, and certainly the "impulse buy" factor is much higher on KS - I'm much more likely to instantly spend $1-$25 to get your cool-sounding RPG or RPG product on KS than DTRPG, where I may well simply add it to my wishlist and forget about it. At $30 and above I find it becomes a little more complicated, but it's still more likely that I'll "buy now" on KS, as it were.

This may sound weird, but I think part of it is simply the UX and flow of the customer experience. KS is a fast, very responsive website that feels fun to be be on, and backing something is a small number of quick clicks. Also information about the product is in big text and images in the middle of your screen and there are no distractions. DTRPG and DM's Guild feel like websites from the early 2000s. They're slow, clunky, and buying something is downright annoying, and all the screens are extremely cluttered and feel faintly oppressive with dark colours, a lot of red, and virtually no white space. Plus the ability to browse or discover new stuff is virtually non-existent (and the search ain't great either). If they could make them fun and modern, I genuinely think it would help sales, and help people to recommend them. I'm always faintly embarrassed to point someone to them.

 

[philreed]

Thank you for the post!!! This was a very nice surprise. At the moment, the project has over 1,200 backers and everyone is getting nine new PDFs as a part of their rewards. Each is 14-pages, but only a dozen of the pages in each PDF is the content. The other two are an introduction/cover (which is, to be honest, unnecessary) as well as an anatomy page (again, unnecessary).

 

[philreed]

I havent seen a content creator go the kickstarter route for low priced PDFs like this. What do you think the advantage of doing a low priced kickstarter vs selling them on DriveThruRPG or doing a Patreon.

I cannot speak for others, but for me:

* Kickstarter is a marketing tool and helps raise awareness of my work.

* As a part of the above, the $1 reward is as much about funding as it is promotion. You can follow others on Kickstarter and, when you do, you will receive an email from Kickstarter when that person backs a project. So every person who backs my project -- even at a buck -- helps telegraph the campaign to anyone who follows them.

* In many projects, where I offer stretch goals, I try to design everything so that the more dollars that come in, the better the project gets for all backers. It isn't always possible, but it is what I aim for.

* I don't use Patreon because I cannot commit to the schedule. With Kickstarter, I can plan campaigns with start/end dates that align with my other responsibilities.

* As to DTRPG, it's an excellent tool for many and I would never suggest that someone skip it. Kickstarter, though, is working much better for me.

 

[philreed]

It’s at the point where I think there’s no point releasing in me releasing a small press RPG book without a KS campaign first.

This aligns with my own thinking. Even if I were to create something outside of Kickstarter, I'd likely make plans to offer it as part of a different Kickstarter campaign.