Costs of a kickstarter project (transparency)

[Art Waring]

I have to concur with the cost estimates, I can't remember the original post, but somewhere on the forums a while back someone else posted their own estimates and they were much lower (5k$ for art budget, 12.5k$ for a writer and i think 2k for an editor), and your estimates are much closer to the mark for a full color hardcover book.

I tried my best to create a budget to cover my initial costs before thinking about going into a kickstarter, while I am doing all the writing and layout myself. The art really is much more expensive if you work with a professional artist, but hey you get what you pay for.

ATM, in order to complete the "core" project it will likely have to be a kickstarter, because I still need at least 10-15k$ for art (rough estimate, with the estimated number of pieces at around 50, which is still a low number, core big tent books have 70-100+ illustrations), unless I choose to go with a more affordable artist. I've invested a lot of years, blood, sweat, and tears into the project, but game design is my passion so I accept the cost and the risk myself.

I also do not plan to do to a kickstarter until the project is as near to completion as is possible with the time and resources available. And no stretch goals, I just want a finished book without unneeded delays. At this point I am looking just to break even so I can keep creating.

In the meantime, I can use the art I already have from the last freelancer I worked with (and plenty that I made myself), and I am thinking of releasing some or all of my ten new core classes individually on dtrpg, perhaps as a preview for the core book. Not quite sure yet, but at least there are options.

 

[Yora]

I'm of two minds about this. As a customer, I don't really care about transparency. Your business is your business, and I don't have any reason to know how much you spend and how much you're profiting. I'm going to buy your product based on the perceived value to me rather than how it affects you. But, as a human being who likes learning new things, I appreciate you sharing this with us. It's neat to see how the sausage is made.

Transparency only becomes interesting once it's been years and still nobody has seen any product.
I don't think anyone cares about the profit margin or the total profits made by the creators as long as the product arrives and it is what it was supposed be. It's when the product doesn't arrive that people ask where all the money went.

 

[Committed Hero]

ATM, in order to complete the "core" project it will likely have to be a kickstarter, because I still need at least 10-15k$ for art (rough estimate, with the estimated number of pieces at around 50, which is still a low number, core big tent books have 70-100+ illustrations), unless I choose to go with a more affordable artist. I've invested a lot of years, blood, sweat, and tears into the project, but game design is my passion so I accept the cost and the risk myself.

Question: would you offer a Kickstarter tier at which you could submit a headshot for a character portrait? As in, you could open the book and point to a picture of yourself in a piece of art?

 

[Sacrosanct]

Transparency only becomes interesting once it's been years and still nobody has seen any product.
I don't think anyone cares about the profit margin or the total profits made by the creators as long as the product arrives and it is what it was supposed be. It's when the product doesn't arrive that people ask where all the money went.

Not necessarily. As I said in my OP, most people probably won't have an interest. But I'm betting many if not most people who are also creators and have/or will be using KS in the future will have an interest. I sure wish I had this information when I started way back when. I get questions on probably a weekly basis from people asking for advice or inside knowledge on how to run a project.

 

[Morrus]

Transparency only becomes interesting once it's been years and still nobody has seen any product.
I don't think anyone cares about the profit margin or the total profits made by the creators as long as the product arrives and it is what it was supposed be. It's when the product doesn't arrive that people ask where all the money went.

It’s interesting to other publishers or potential publishers.

If it’s not interesting to you, there are thousands of other threads here which might be more to your tastes.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I have to concur with the cost estimates, I can't remember the original post, but somewhere on the forums a while back someone else posted their own estimates and they were much lower (5k$ for art budget, 12.5k$ for a writer and i think 2k for an editor), and your estimates are much closer to the mark for a full color hardcover book.

For clarity, my art budget above was for individual non-exclusive commissions for this book for about 75% of the art. I still ended up using stock art for about 25%. I just ran out of art money lol. Granted, with a monster book there is probably more art than most books, but a book like this could easily have a budget of $40,000 for art. I'd be curious to know what it was for the A5E books, but I suspect it was closer to $40,000 per book than $20,000 (maybe, as I can't recall the image count in those books for a comparison).

 

[Art Waring]

Question: would you offer a Kickstarter tier at which you could submit a headshot for a character portrait? As in, you could open the book and point to a picture of yourself in a piece of art?

I have seen several kickstarters offer this option, and some charged a few hundred (200 and up I think), while others somehow charge up to a grand for custom characters made by the artist to fit the genre and setting.

However, these are for standalone character portraits, I have yet to see one that says it includes the custom art of your character in the book itself. It's not a bad idea.

I don't know if I would include a tier for custom characters, mainly because of the process it takes to create a fully developed and fleshed out character.

From my experience, detailed custom characters require a lot of back and forth dialogue between you and the artist, especially for characters from non-fantasy genres with a lot of details that are unique (like most of my character concepts). You might not be able to convey the concept in the best way with words or references on the first try, and you will likely need revisions working with the artist if you are detail oriented like me.

This means that if you simply submit your character concept and call it a day, you might not get back what you expected 100%, this is just a realistic assessment of my personal experience working with illustrators.

As a customer, how much creative control would you want to have over the finished piece?

 

[Yora]

It’s interesting to other publishers or potential publishers.

If it’s not interesting to you, there are thousands of other threads here which might be more to your tastes.

Of course. This whole thread is about informing other creators about the process. It's not to inform the backers of the particular book used as the example (as the term "transparency" might mistakenly imply.)

Please don't misunderstand my words but i have never understood the KS logic: it is clear to me that you go with it in order to maximize the sale volumes... it is clear also that with extras you reduce your earnings (incomes will grow but costs will grow even more)...
Is there anhthing i miss? Is it a fact of marketing: if you don't go with KS you won't succeed or you can't offer the dragonscale leather bound exclusive book?
This is exetremely fascinating to my eyes...

The logic goes as follows:

• Creating a book and advertising it costs me $10,000.
• Printing and shipping one book to one customer costs me $10.
• I get 1,000 backers with a total funding of $20,000.
• Printing and shipping a book for every backer will take $10,000 of the funds. The other $10,000 of the funds cover my initial investments to create the book. I'm now breaking even.

• Now if I get another 500 backers who bring in another $10,000 of funding, my printing and shipping costs go up by another $5,000. The remaining $5,000 go straight into my pocket. (Assuming a world with no taxes and cut for KS.)
• I can try luring in more backers by saying "If we reach $30,000 in funding, I throw in an extra that costs me $100 in initial investment cost and $1 per book printed and shipped. That means $10,100 in investment costs and $16,500 for printing and shipping. That's a total cost of $26,600 and I can pocket the remaining $3,700.
• If instead of luring in 500 additional backers with the extras, I actually have the 1,000 original backers pledge $30 each on average, the cost for printing and shipping only increases to $11,000 for a total cost of $21,100 and I can pocket $8,900.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Of course. This whole thread is about informing other creators about the process. It's not to inform the backers of the particular book used as the example (as the term "transparency" might mistakenly imply.)

This thread is about informing anyone who might have an interest, which is probably creators, but also backers and anyone else in general. Based on comments I've received on the KS page, several backers were also very interested.

 

[Art Waring]

For clarity, my art budget above was for individual non-exclusive commissions for this book for about 75% of the art. I still ended up using stock art for about 25%. I just ran out of art money lol. Granted, with a monster book there is probably more art than most books, but a book like this could easily have a budget of $40,000 for art. I'd be curious to know what it was for the A5E books, but I suspect it was closer to $40,000 per book than $20,000 (maybe, as I can't recall the image count in those books for a comparison).

Yeah I did think about that, stock art is easier to find for some genres more than others, which can help pad out your art count. Some books use less art, but once yet get into 300+ pages you start to get walls of text, and images help to break this up, making it easier for readers, just a thought for those new to RPG's.

A lot of independent publishers in the 90's did not have the art budgets for a full-color book throughout, especially for independent publishers before things like kickstarter existed. Lots of 90's rpg's had a nice color cover, and all the interior art was black & white lineart. Some still publish this way. Its really the big tent games that push the full-color art throughout the book, but most people try to live up to that standard because it has become ubiquitous within the undustry as of late.

The 70-100+ full-color art count is primarily for core books, like 3.0, PF 1e, and 5e PHB, but its also really not the best idea to try and compete directly with the big guys, I just use it as part of my comparative analysis across core books and their design choices.

Some games from the 90's like Underground RPG, have 92 full-color pieces, mixed with a bunch of color diagrams, tables, and colored icons and images for mutations/ powers, and then some. But you can tell these books took years to develop.