Kickstarter: Gauging Your Novel’s Chances

2228832-2203520_kickstarter_badge_fundedI’ve seen a lot of Kickstarters succeed, but even more of them fail. One of the reasons is that the people running them don’t bother to do basic research about the category in which their project belongs. If you’ve never run a project before and you set a goal that would require you to break all records in that category, for instance, you’re setting yourself up for some bitter disappointment.

Without full access to Kickstarter’s data broken down by category, there’s no way to figure out what the average final number is in any given category, but even if you could calculate it, the result wouldn’t be all that useful. The totals skew hard based on reputations of the people involved, polish of the pitch page, and lots of other hard-to-quantify criteria. However, with a little bit of study, you can figure out what aligns with your project well and give yourself at least an upper boundary against which you can hope to smack your head.

I’ve run four Kickstarters for novels so far, and my next one may well be for a novel too – although perhaps a single book rather than a trilogy – so let’s take a look at that category. Kickstarter kindly provides a page for each category and subcategory that shows the “Most Funded” projects. So let’s check out Discover/Publishing/Fiction/Most Funded.

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Top Ten Tabletop Kickstarters: How They Do It

2228832-2203520_kickstarter_badge_fundedOver at ICv2, they’ve posted a list of the top ten tabletop gaming Kickstarters of all time (um, four years now, in Kickstarter terms). They don’t offer up much in the way of analysis there, though, other than to say “tabletop game projects are among Kickstarter’s most successful categories, with five projects at over $1 million, and three over $2 million.”

All true, but why is that? Why are tabletop games outdoing even video games, which are far more popular in general?

It has to do with the economies of scale of plastic miniatures.

(If that sentence put you to sleep, move on. Now. I’m going deep here.)

Every one of those games on ICv2’s list is a game or product that features lots and lots of plastic figures or terrain. Most of them started out with a decent amount of plastic in their boxes, but as each Kickstarter grew, the producers tossed in more and more plastic bits until the drives went from “cool stuff” to “awesome bargain on cool stuff!”

The Reaper drive for their Bones figures line is a perfect example of this – and was also the top-grossing drive, raking in more than $3.4 million. Their most popular reward came if you backed them at their $100 Vampire level. At the start of the drive, that got you a total of 67 figures. By the end, you racked up 240 figures, plus a number of other neat things, like a copy of my Hard Times in Dragon City novel, which unlocked at the $3 million mark.

So how did Reaper manage to nearly quadruple the number of figures they offered while keeping the price the same? The secret’s in the plastic.

Casting metal miniatures is a labor-intensive process that involves pouring molten metal into a spin-casting machine that distributes the metal into hollow cavities cut into a vulcanized rubber mold. The molds wear out after a while, and you have to make new ones. The metal’s a little pricey, but the rubber’s cheap, so it’s a great way to make miniatures if you’re making a few thousand or less.

However, if you can sell more than that many miniatures, you should make your figures in plastic instead, as the molds for these last virtually forever and the figures only cost pennies apiece. The trouble is that the injection molds for plastic figures are cut from steel, a process that costs thousands of dollars per figure rather than dozens. A small company can’t afford to make hundreds of these molds at once, at least not without a huge cash influx.

And that’s where Kickstarter comes in. If you can get your backers to pledge enough money to cover your steel molds, then you can give them lots of figures for their money. Better yet, if you bust through your initial funding goals, you can set stretch goals for new figures and toss them into the mix for either little cost (as low-cost add-on options) or bundle them in for free.

When the Reaper drive started, the per-figure price of their Vampire level was $1.49 each, shipped to your door. That’s a phenomenal bargain when you consider that most metal fantasy gaming figures cost around $5 each – or much more if you’re into a game like Warhammer. By the time the drive was over, the per-figure price fell to under 42¢ each.

Every time Reaper’s backers broke another stretch goal, the bargain got better and better for them. That gave them lots of incentive to tell their friends about the deal and rope them into joining the drive, and the effect snowballed with each stretch goal knocked down. By the time the drive ended, it was such a fantastic deal for anyone who’d ever pushed figures around a table that it became nearly irresistible.

All of the other miniatures-based triumphs follow this same kind of model. The recent Dwarven Forge Game Tiles drive, for instance, (on which I did a little consulting) followed this to the letter, and it brought in over $1.9 million.

Most other types of Kickstarter ventures cannot pull this sort of thing off. If you’re Kickstarting a novel, for instance, it’s hard to offer lots more novels in a time frame that makes sense for most readers. Evil Hat managed something close to this by bringing in lots of authors for its Spirit of the Century novel line Kickstarter, and the strategy made that the #5 fiction drive ever. (By my count, it’s actually the #1 straight novel drive, but that’s a separate post.)

The nature of minis, though, means you want to have as many of them to play with as once as you can manage, and with enough money a producer can manage this in a reasonable amount of time. It makes it a natural niche for a top Kickstarter – if it’s run well. It’s not something just any company can pull off though. There’s a lot of hard-won knowledge, skill, and expertise that goes into running and producing a successful line of plastic figures, and Kickstarter makes for the perfect way for the people who have that particular combination of things to capitalize on it.

Kickstarter Tally

2228832-2203520_kickstarter_badge_fundedWith the announcement earlier today that I may (and hope to) write an Exalted novel as a stretch goal for the Exalted Third Edition Kickstarter, it’s time to tally up the list that shows I’m becoming the unofficial king of stretch goals (a title I never aspired to as a child). So far, the following full dozen Kickstarter drives have successfully added my work as a stretch goal:

I’m also involved with a few Kickstarters still in the works:

On top of all this, I’ve consulted on a number of drives behind the scenes, helping my friends build proper drives and execute them well. Note that not every stretch goal my work has been put up for has been reached, although the successes vastly outnumber the failures. In all cases, I’m sure the basic drive contributed a lot more to the successes of those Kickstarters than my offerings, but I’m always thrilled to be a part of so much fun. If you supported any of these Kickstarters – or my own 12 for ’12 drives – thanks for giving me the chance to do that.

Kindle Worlds = Worlds Burning?

kindleworldslogo._V383881373_Amazon just announced a new program called Kindle Worlds that allows writers to sign up for no-mess licenses for established fictional worlds to self-publish stories in them. In essence, they’re letting fan-fic writers (amateurs who write such stories for fun) make money off their work. As a writer who’s made a good chunk of money writing official stories for such things, this is a brain-busting concept. So let’s break this down a bit.

So far, they only have a few worlds available – Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries, all from Warner Bros. – but let’s assume they have more in the wings. Also, if any of this takes off, we can expect a deluge of such licenses.

As a writer, I can write whatever I want in these worlds, within certain limits: no pornography (no Fifty Shades of Gossip!), no excessive violence (interesting to see vampires get around that), no crossovers (Patton Oswalt won’t get his Avengers/Star Wars/X-Men crossover this way – yet), etc. For longer works (10,000 words or more), I get 35%, half what Amazon normally pays for books priced between $2.99 and $9.99. For short stories (which will be priced under $1), I get 20%, which is more than half of the standard 35%. The licensor (owner of the original world) gets the rest of the royalty – whatever that is. Amazon doesn’t say.

As a writer, it feels like splitting the royalty on the book with the owners, which seems fair. Standard royalties on work-for-hire tie-in novels range from 8% all the way down to nada. Of course, those contracts come with an advance, which Kindle Worlds (like all self-published Kindle books) doesn’t offer.

There are some catches:

  • The books are exclusive to Amazon, which owns all publishing rights. Seems like a fair tradeoff for getting the licenses set up. When you write official tie-in books, the owners of the world get those rights anyhow, and that’s probably what Amazon is sealing up here. 
  • Royalties are based on what Amazon gets for the books, which is standard for self-publishing but not traditional books. Fine.
  • Other writers can build on your material just as much as on the original material. That’s fair.

The real kickers:

  • “We will also give the World Licensor a license to use your new elements and incorporate them into other works without further compensation to you.” Which means you give up all future rights to your work. If you come up with the basis of the next film set in that world, thanks. Hope your book sells a lot more because of it. Still, this is the same arrangement as with traditional tie-in work.
  • “Amazon Publishing will set the price for Kindle Worlds stories. Most will be priced from $0.99 through $3.99.” This takes a bit of the control out of the writer’s hands. You can’t charge a premium, and you might wind up getting paid a quarter of what you’re hoping for.
  • They can also nix books for things like copyright or trademark violations, excessive use of brands (which they likely mean from outside the world in question), and “poor customer experience” (which means badly made ebooks, but could be broadly interpreted).

So what’s all that mean? To me at the moment, nothing. I don’t have any interest in writing for the worlds they’ve lined up so far. They’ve promised a lot more of them to come, but we’ll have to see who signs up for such things. At the moment, it looks like they’ve convinced Warner Bros. to dip their toe into the pool, but it may be that other creators/owners will want to wait to see what happens before they jump in too.

For the publishing industry, it could mean a lot of things.

Is it the death of tie-in novels? Maybe. For owners interested in conscientious and purposeful brand extensions (like Blizzard is with the StarCraft story I wrote), I don’t see them wanting to dive into this. Developing the official version of their universe is far too important to them for them to leave it to writers given (mostly) free reign.

However, for owners of worlds that lay fallow, this could make a lot of sense. One of the biggest reasons that companies don’t hand out licenses for fiction is that it takes too much time to hassle with approvals. Someone has to actually read the stories, make sure they fit the brand, don’t offend anyone involved, and so on. With Kindle Worlds, none of the stories would be official canon for the worlds, and Amazon will do all the heavy lifting for approvals. All the owner has to do is collect the checks and be happy that the fans are out there continuing to have fun with the world in question.

In the long run, we could see some interesting developments. What if one of the stories takes off and becomes the next (non-pornographic) Fifty Shades of Gray (which famously began its life as Twilight fan-fic)? I suspect Amazon will put out a dead-tree version of it through a new publishing imprint – or through the most appropriate of their already existing imprints. They might even have the owner give the book the official stamp of approval and enter such a bestseller into canon.

In this sense, Kindle Worlds could allow owners of popular fictional brands to crowdsource content. If the experiment succeeds, they can skim the cream off the top – as defined by the sales numbers Amazon can give them – and proclaim it as their own, which it is in every legal sense. If it fails, they’ve put enough space between themselves and the Kindle Worlds material that they can deny every bit of it as non-canon fluff.

The real winners then are:

  • Amazon (who makes money off every sale either way)
  • The owners of those worlds (who make money too, and may wind up with some real prizes)
  • Fan-fic writers (who have been writing this material anyway and may now find both money and recognition for their work)

Who loses? Potentially professional tie-in writers, who may find that no one wants to pay them to do this kind of work when others will do it for free. On the other hand, There’s nothing to stop such people from diving into Kindle Worlds hard. They give up advances, sure, but they stand to make a lot more on royalties – if their stories take off.

Honestly, the advances for most tie-in novels are lousy. It’s one reason I don’t write many of them any more. (I sometimes make exceptions for friends, properties I love, and publishers with large checks. If all three come together, it’s nerd-vana.) If writers have to forgo a $5,000 advance to gain a 3500% increase in royalties, it might well be worth it.

Movie novelizations will survive, I think, if only because they require advance access to the script and timing that allows them to come out at the same time the film’s released.

The other potential loser? Traditional publishers who bring standard tie-ins to market might have a hard time of it, especially if their books aren’t considered to be part of the world’s canon. Why should a reader care about one of those books more than a Kindle Worlds book? Sure, professional writers and editors may usually do a better job of it than gifted amateurs, but what happens when those same pros dive into the Kindle Worlds market?

I might do so myself, if and when Kindle Worlds lines up the right property. Hell, I might be able to run a Kickstarter to get the advance lined up for me, deliver the book through Amazon, and then rake in 35% royalties for my trouble. That’s a tempting deal.

So that’s the kicker right now. If Amazon can persuade enough other owners to sign on, this will be more than a bold new experiment. It’ll redefine tie-ins from square one.

 

 

New Novel on Kickstarter: Exalted!

d4bc023eb13864ab79b42925626355a0_largeMy pals at the Onyx Path have had a hell of a run with their Kickstarters. They’re a bunch of ex-White Wolf employees who’ve licensed the White Wolf tabletop roleplaying games from their current owner – CCP of EVE Online fame – and are busy producing new editions of classic games like Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse. For their current Kickstarter drive, they tackled the third edition of Exalted, a fantasy RPG with roots in pulp, classical epics, and modern manga and anime. (They explain it all in this “What Is Exalted?” piece.)

They’ve blown the doors off this one. At the moment, they’ve raised almost $440,000, and they still have 17 days to go. With any luck at all, this should shatter the Kickstarter record for tabletop RPGs that Monte Cook’s Numenera set at $517,255 last summer. As you might imagine, they’ve been adding lots of great stretch goals as they go, and their latest one involves me.

80f686faf645a16cdbbdc0553605bd5f_largeIf and when the Exalted Kickstarter reaches $485,000, I’ll write a story for the already unlocked Exalted fiction anthology, and then I’ll write an Exalted novel to go with it. I’ll be following in the footsteps of my friends Richard Dansky, Jess Hartley, Tim Waggoner, and Aaron Rosenberg, all of whom have written Exalted novels in the past.

I’ve been planning to run another Kickstarter for a novel of my own, but I’ve didn’t want to do that before I got all the 12 for ’12 books into my backers’ hands. If this Exalted novel goes through (as I think it will), I’ll have plenty of writing work to keep me busy and my family fed until well past when the last 12 for ’12 book is out, and then I can jump into my own Kickstarter sometime this fall.

So: WOOT!

My Gen Con Events – So Far

The event registration for Gen Con 2013 at noon Eastern Time today. I don’t have all of my events slated yet – the Industry Insider Guest of Honor schedule isn’t quite ready – but my Writer’s Symposium events are set. If you’d like to see me at the show, be sure to check out:

Either way, I hope to see you at Gen Con!

My StarCraft II Story

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Yesterday, Blizzard posted a story I wrote for them for StarCraft II, the latest installment of the best-selling real-time strategy (RTS) of all time. It’s called “Lost Vikings,” and its about a unit of terran pilots who try to save their adopted planet by fighting off an alien (zerg) invasion, hoping to delay the attackers long enough for their friends and family to escape. They fly convertible starcraft called Vikings, which can serve double duty as both aerial fighters and ground-combat troops.

Sharp-eyed readers with long memories may recognize that The Lost Vikings was also the title of one of Blizzard’s first video games, a side-scroller that came out for the Super Nintendo (SNES) back in 1992. The story features a number of callbacks to that piece of gaming history. Even so, I’m not the first person working with StarCraft to do something like this. If you wander into the cantina of Jim Raynor’s ship Hyperion in StarCraft II, you can even find a standup arcade console in which you can play a video game called The Lost Viking.

I had a great time with the story, even though it involved one of the most rigorous editorial processes I’ve ever had my work run through. The Blizzard folks – especially James Waugh, Cameron Dayton, and Cate Gary – know their craft and their audience, and I appreciated every bit of the help. When millions of eyes may read a story like this, it pays to be both thorough and patient.

You can read the story for free on the StarCraft II website, along with other great tales by James and Cameron and Micky Neilson, plus SF luminaries like David Gerrold, Antony Johnston, and Alex Irvine. From the story’s page, you can also download a free, 32-page PDF of the tale and even a set of wallpapers featuring the story’s cover illustration.

It’s a great package for a fun tale, and I hope you enjoy it.

The Gamers & Dangerous Games

DG-HTP-3DSharp-eyed readers and hardcore gamers who pick up Dangerous Games: How to Play (my new thriller novel set at Gen Con) may recognize a man by the name of Leo Lamb. Leo is one of the characters from The Gamers series of fantastic and funny films created by Ben Dobyns, Matt Vancil, Don Early, and the rest of the crew at Zombie Orpheus Productions and Dead Gentlemen Productions.

Leo debuted in The Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising as the owner of the gaming store at which the friends in the film play their games. He also appears in the upcoming sequel The Gamers 3: Hands of Fate. Scott C Brown does a fantastic job of playing both Leo and his alter-ego in the crew’s roleplaying game, an ill-fated bard known as Flynn the Fine. Scott also plays the orc professor Strong Like Bull in Zombie Orpheus’s web series, JourneyQuest.

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Gen Con and Me

DG-HTP-3DThis piece appears in the back of Dangerous Games: How to Play, but I want you to be able to read it whether you have the book or not. 

In case it doesn’t glow right through the pages of this book, let me make one thing clear. I love Gen Con. I’ve been going to the convention every summer since 1985, when my dad packed me and my friends into a van – a 1976 Dodge extended conversion rig we called the Magic Bus – and drove us over to the University of Wisconsin–Parkside campus, set in the middle of nowhere between Racine and Kenosha.

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Dangerous Games: How to Play Releases Today!

DG-How-to-Play-Newsletter

Woot! Dangerous Games: How to Play launches as an ebook today. If you backed the Dangerous Games Kickstarter drive, you should already have a copy, of course, but if you weren’t one of those lucky people – or if you know someone else who might like the book – here’s your chance to grab a copy for only $4.99.

Dangerous Games: How to Play is the first in my trilogy of thrillers set at Gen Con, the largest tabletop gaming convention in America. I’ve been going to Gen Con for more than thirty years and have been a guest of honor there for the last ten years running. I know and love it like no other event in my year.

In the book, aspiring young game designer Liam Parker leaves the Diana Jones Award party with gaming legend Ken Hite and stumbles across the body of world-famous game designer Allen Varney (who volunteered for the role!). Shocked at the tragedy and hired by Gen Con as its liaison with the Indianapolis police, Liam makes it his mission to figure out who killed Allen and why. His investigations drag him deep into the world of tabletop games and thrust him into the center of a mystery he must solve fast – or become the latest victim in this dangerous game.

I had a fantastic time writing this story, and I think it shows. Early reviews have been glowing, and if you enjoy games and stories as much as me, I think you’ll love it too.

As of today, the ebook is available at:

I’m mailing out printed copies of the book to my Kickstarter backers this week. The standard print edition should go on sale a few weeks later. If you like ebooks though, there’s no reason to wait. Go grab yours now.

Thanks for your support!