Philip Reed: Phil's First Ransom

[philreed]

They're simply giving the impression of significantly larger products. Meatbot Massacre is 10 pages long, ...in Space is 15 pages long, and Asylum sounds like it will be under 30 pages. Aside from those and Phil's, what other ransom projects are there?

Exactly correct on lengths. 6 Free Starship Cargos will be just under 10-pages long with a ransom of $250 (not to mention the bonus PDF for contributors). ...In Space, by comparison, had a ransom amount of $750 and is roughly 15-pages long.

 

[philreed]

You might want to try this with a larger product. Doesn't fundable set a limit of a minimum of $10 per person?

That's what I thought but when I looked this morning I saw $5 and $7.50 increments so something must have changed.

 

[philreed]

You know I'm a fan, Phil, but I think I'd spend my $ on Campaign Planner Deluxe, which I absolutely know I would get use out of. I would like to check out some of your future pdfs, but as was mentioned above, don't the Future pdfs normally sell for a few bucks each?

Yes. I entered this expecting it to fail -- I was shocked to see $60 donated in the first few hours -- so that I can judge the interest in smaller, D20-related projects.

So far Greg Stolze and Dennis Detweiler have had success with ransoming short, stand-alone games. I considered ransoming a larger project but realized that it's very likely that with the amount of D20 material on the market there's a very good chance a ransom for $750, $1,000, or more would never be raised.

A small, $250 project is a simple way to test the market -- if a $250 ransom can't be raised then that's pretty much a guarantee that I could never raise enough for a larger D20 project.

 

[Bobitron]

Well, I think I will hold off on this one. I will say that a similar ransom with a product that I'm interested in would get my cash.

 

[philreed]

Well, I think I will hold off on this one. I will say that a similar ransom with a product that I'm interested in would get my cash.

I'll keep that in mind.

 

[Setanta]

A small, $250 project is a simple way to test the market -- if a $250 ransom can't be raised then that's pretty much a guarantee that I could never raise enough for a larger D20 project.

I don't know about that. I have no interest in this particular product (or anything D20 Future/Modern/Past/AnythingButFantasy), but I would definitely contribute to a ransom for a product I was interested in, especially if it was a larger project.

 

[Roger]

On the snail mail donation thing:

If the person mails you a cheque, you could just hold but not cash it, but still add it to the money raised. If the ransom is met, cash the cheque. If not, tear it up.

Just an idea, anyway.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[D_Sinclair]

Yes. I entered this expecting it to fail -- I was shocked to see $60 donated in the first few hours -- so that I can judge the interest in smaller, D20-related projects.

So far Greg Stolze and Dennis Detweiler have had success with ransoming short, stand-alone games. I considered ransoming a larger project but realized that it's very likely that with the amount of D20 material on the market there's a very good chance a ransom for $750, $1,000, or more would never be raised.

A small, $250 project is a simple way to test the market -- if a $250 ransom can't be raised then that's pretty much a guarantee that I could never raise enough for a larger D20 project.

As I was telling my boss a few days ago, I think failure will be due to the bad sales pitch. Offering no more details than a title and promise of an ambiguous bonus really aren't going to draw in any investment. With that sales pitch, you're not really testing the overall d20 market or even the overall d20 Future market. It only tests the market segment consisting of buyers of your previous starship cargo books. And that's probably a horribly small target market for the amount you seek to raise.

Personally, if I were doing it, I'd have at least poked fun at the distribution model and called it "Future: 6 Ransomed Starship Cargos" and tossed in a couple extra pages involving a scenario of interstellar piracy. And I'd present my sales pitch of the ransom product with at least 2-3 paragraphs of details. If you want to revise your project with that idea, feel free to do so.

One thing the ransom model really needs is an analysis of unique visitors vs. # of donations received. What is the ratio, anyway? 1 donation per every ten visitors or one for every hundred? What if its horribly bad, say something like one donation per every 8,000 visitors?

The fundables model also has a downside, since it fails to allow continued donations. Inevitably, the ransom projects will underperform in the long run compared to most for-profit projects. Maybe placing a paypal donation link in the finished project would be a smart idea, allowing those who still want to pony up some cash long after the ransom is met to do so. IIRC, Meatbot Massacre actually managed to exceed the ransom with several late donations.

 

[Committed Hero]

The fundables model also has a downside, since it fails to allow continued donations. Inevitably, the ransom projects will underperform in the long run compared to most for-profit projects. Maybe placing a paypal donation link in the finished project would be a smart idea, allowing those who still want to pony up some cash long after the ransom is met to do so. IIRC, Meatbot Massacre actually managed to exceed the ransom with several late donations.

I would think a proven authorial track record and the likelihood of contiuous stream of material would mitigate the problems you point out. I will get Dennis' DG material sight unseen based on these two factors.

 

[D_Sinclair]

I would think a proven authorial track record and the likelihood of contiuous stream of material would mitigate the problems you point out. I will get Dennis' DG material sight unseen based on these two factors.

You miss the entire point by looking at it from the consumer's point of view, rather than the publisher's. And neither of your factors actually addresses the inherent limitations of the ransom model, either. Both simply mean a string of ransom projects, rather than a single ransom project exceeding financial expectations.

The ransom model, particularly when organized through fundables, puts a finite value on earnable income from a specific project. Ransom is met, fundables terminates collections, publisher generates no further income.

In that perspective, the fact that a cheap sub-$3 PDF can sell for years and years, constantly increasing the total earned income, for-profit projects have a significant potential to surpass the financial value of the ransom distribution model, particularly if the sales/visits ratio on sales turns out to be significantly lower than the donations/visits ratio.

A lot more analysis needs to be done on the ransom distribution to actually decide if it is successful. The fact that individual ransom goals have been met several times should not be veiwed as the exclusive mitigating factor for success. It may very well end up that the ransom model simply works, but is less successful that discount pricing, for example.