After the War - Budget Breakdown and Critical Analysis
almost 5 years ago
– Sun, Dec 29, 2019 at 11:26:23 PM
As the end of 2019 approaches and most backers have received their copies of After the War, it’s time for a retrospective of the project from a publishing perspective. This isn’t an easy update to prepare, and I appreciate that you are taking the time to read it.
During every kickstarter campaign, we make a habit of doing a full budget breakdown so that our backers can see where all of their hard-won pledges were spent. This campaign is no different, and it’s a treat to dig into the campaign results. All values are in Canadian dollars and rounded up, for consistency’s sake. As a reminder, the campaign had 457 backers who pledged $15,823 (Canadian Dollars) to help bring this project to life.
Executive Summary (TLDR)
The project was an artistic success, but a combination of scope creep and a lower backer count than forecast led to a significant budget shortfall. I am working hard to recover by encouraging post-campaign sales to individuals and retail stores.
Kickstarter Overview
The campaign had a total of 467 backers and raised a total of $15,823. More than half of backers supported the campaign at one of the two digital tiers (Proud Belter or Industrious Martian). The remaining kind backers have acquired 195 physical copies of the book. Those fine freelance contributors who wrote, illustrated for, or edited the book were also owed complimentary copies of the book, which came to another 20 copies.
Our campaign included some efforts to specifically support retail backers, which was very helpful. We sent out 61 additional physical copies of the book to retailers, raising an approximately an additional $1200.
We also used Backerkit for some additional pledges after the campaign ended, which sold an additional 11 hardcopies and 13 digital copies, along with some extra PDF sales. This raised a total of $1,655.
When all of these are combined, we raised a total of $18,678 and sent out 287 copies of the book into the world. In addition to the base goal, we reached the following stretch goals.
- Strange Gifts (a section in the book describing psionics, magic, cybernetics, songcraft and mutations)
- AI Song Archives (a human-curated and artificially generated soundtrack)
- The Covenant Yard Adventure by Jacqueline Bryk (Chapter 11)
- The Precursors Expansion (a section in the book describing ancient alien archeology )
- Recordings from Earth (recorded tutorial/instructions, in development_
- Polvan Cartographer (a series of illustrated, isometric settlement maps)
- Offworld Setttlements (three additional settlements)
Total Project Income($17,130)
The income was respectable for the project overall, but it’s on the lower end of my forecasts. I had expected to raise closer to $20,000 on the project, but had not factored issues such as the disappearance of Google Plus (as a marketing platform) or other disruptive events.
- Net Kickstarter: $14,365 after kickstarter and payment processor fees.
- Net Backerkit: $1,285
- Net Retail: $1,200
- After the war PDF Sales: $280
Total External Development Costs ($12,250)
This is the largest project that we have produced to date, with over 25 unique contributors. We have also made it a priority to pay our freelancers above average rates, with a minimum per-word rate of 6 cents USD/word for the bulk of the writing and higher rates (20 cents USD/word) for the small Survivor Stories in Chapter 2.
The stretch goals also increased the total budget requirements in an incremental fashion by requiring additional art, editing, and commissioned writing. These factors led to some significant development costs for the project.
The total editing budget appears relatively low due to the fact that I bartered my layout services with John Adamus for his project “Noir World” in exchange for his editing for “After the War.” Any internal development costs in terms of labour by Jason are excluded from these numbers, which we discuss later.
- Total Writing Budget: $5,109
- Total Editing Budget: $719
- Total Illustration: $6,422
- Total Layout: $0 (Jason’s Sweat Equity)
Total Production & Fulfillment Costs ($15,364)
There was significant scope creep on the project, which was made evident when we went through the layout process. Our original estimates for print quotes were based on a 240-page book which ballooned to 356 pages at the end of the day. Because of that expansion, we changed to a domestic Canadian printer and bindery. This allowed me to rent a cargo van to pick up the books, then manually export 450 of them into the USA for domestic mailing costs. This involved learning the ins and outs of brokerage, but saved a significant amount on total fulfillment costs.
While we could have worked with a printer overseas, we were concerned about the potential tariff implications and the significant risk to our timelines. We were happy to have gotten competitive quotes from our Canadian book printer and bindery.
- Book Printing Costs: $7,472
- Book Binding Costs: $3,724
- Brokerage & Customs: $860
- Van Rental: $250
- Shipping Costs: $3,058
- Total Production and Fulfillment Costs: $15,364
Inventory Value ($14k-$39k)
Due to the economics associated with printing, I was obliged to print a minimum of 1000 copies of the book, which increased to 1075 after the “overages” that standard parts of the printing process.
Each unit has a manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of $50 CAD, so we can put a dollar value associated with each unit. If we sell a copy directly, we receive the value of the MSRP. If we sell directly into retail, we receive 50% of MSRP, and via distribution we receive 36%.
- Originally Printed: 1075 Units
- Kickstarter Copies Sent: 287 Units
- Remaining Inventory: 788 Units
- Remaining Inventory Value: Between $14k and $39k depending on sales channels.
Net Kickstarter Income
As you have probably determined already, the project is currently in the red. While the campaign has resulted in a significant value worth of inventory, those books have yet to be sold. Genesis of Legend Publishing has invested revenues from our earlier publications along with some personal contributions by Jason.
- Income: $17,130
- External Development: -$12,250
- Production and Fulfillment: -$15,364
- Net Income: -$10,484
- Inventory Value: Between $14k and $39k
Critical Analysis
Now it’s time to unpack this. Every project that we release needs to reach three objectives in order to be deemed a success internally.
Did we deliver a quality product to backers? This is an unqualified success in our views. The book is beautiful, substantive, and gives a wealth of useful resources for games. We are confident that you fine folks have gotten value for your money, and hope that the book enables compelling stories in the years to come.
Did we compensate the workers fairly? Despite the rather dismal financial picture, we still managed to pay our contributors equal to or exceeding the market rate. We were proud to pay the writers of the survivor’s story at a rate of 20 cents/word for their small pieces. The only failing on this criterion is that, due to budget shortfalls, I have been unable to take compensation for my writing, editing, game design, or layout work. I hope that some form of compensation will be possible after some of the inventory has been sold.
Did we behave in a sustainable fashion? No, we did not do so. Our significant cost overruns on this project required us to invest much of the company’s revenues towards patching the hole, and Jason also invested some of his personal funds into fulfilling these obligations.
The key concern on this factor is that this kind of unsustainable product development is only available to those with financial privilege. Jason’s day-job is stable and well compensated, which means that he was able to share his art in the form of this book. Creatives from more marginalized backgrounds or who suffer from poverty could not subsidize their own works to the same extent. Our projects should be at least self-funding and should ideally require no subsidization by the creator.
Next Steps
We are incredibly proud of our work on After the War, and feel that the game was a critical success. We have sent copies off to our distributors (Indie Press Revolution and ACD Distribution), and look forward to seeing out book in many friendly local game stores.
We are restructuring our approach for future games to be more sustainable. We are obliged to have a much stronger control over the scope of our project. Our next Kickstarter project, Palanquin, will be a small game in zine-format in February with trivial production costs by comparison.
You can Help!
I would like to ask for your help in raising awareness of the game so we can sell come of those copies and break even on the project. If you folks are anything like me, you probably have a stack of games on your to-read pile. If you would be willing to take fifteen minutes to read Chapter 1 about the book and talk about your first impressions online, you could make an incredible impact.
Thank you for your time and attention . If you have any comments or questions, Please let me know in the comments, and I will be happy to share more information!
Jason Pitre, Genesis of Legend Publishing
