Costs

One thing about Hall of Judgment is that it was, obviously, a conversion of Lost Hall of Tyr. Plus a significant expansion. So the costs of the conversion do not reflect the cost to create a new book from nothing. Bear that in mind as we decide if the project has been successful (spoiler: I think it was), and to what extent (spoiler: pretty good).

• The expenses for the project:
• Writing and Editing: $1350
• New Art: $1850
• Backerkit Fees: $475
• Printing: $3,000
• Shipping and Fulfillment: $3,500
• License Fees: Classified

So, in this particular case, it cost more to move the books from hither to yon than it did to create them in the first place. I’ll have to look into that.

Total expenses were about $10,200 plus license fees to Steve Jackson Games, and printing and shipping was the lion’s share of that, perhaps 65%.  The new artwork and editing was the next chunk.

The book was 128 pages as delivered, plus the cover. The total print run was about 500 books. So one can look at the development and printing costs as $80 per page or about $20 per book. Shipping is deceptive, though: it’s a pass through. I do my best to break even on it, and this time I was relatively successful there, perhaps losing about a dollar per book on shipping overall.

Revenue

For a “just the books” Kickstarter, this one was the most successful for me yet. Fully 1/3 of the backers of the Dungeon Fantasy RPG itself jumped in for the Kickstarter, plus more since.

• Kickstarter Net Revenue: $14,350
• Backerkit and Pre-Order: $3,825
• Post-KS Sales: $500

So total revenue has been $18,675. Backerkit and Post-KS sales numbers both include shipping dollars.

On a project-only basis, this means it’s been profitable, by about $8,500 less licensing fees. Note that it did take about four months from Kickstarter to final deliveries, so even without fees, the INCOME of the project would average $2,000 per month.

That’s nice, but it’s not “quit your day job” for me levels by a long shot. Oh, and also . . .

Lost Hall of Tyr

Don’t forget that Lost Hall of Tyr was a bit of a net loss: perhaps $1,100. So there is that.

Of Lengi las Ekki

Too long, didn’t read? Well, Hall of Judgment is done, and has been a success as a one-off. It was profitable, and I still have roughly 100 books left to sell, which would increase the take if they get cleared out by about $2,000.

That’s not bad! What it won’t do, though, is pay easily for a second print run. The fact that it cost me more to fulfill the KS than it did to print the books is alarming. Not surprising, given the state of international shipping. No matter what, domestic USPS cost about a grand, and getting international books fulfilled was another $1,000 (for about 100+ books, so really not bad at $10 each), and getting the books to the USA accounted for about $1,000. The rest was supplies and hardware (label printer, boxes, tape, etc).

So there’s good news and bad news here. The good news is that overall, I think Hall of Judgment is a great book, attractive and solid, and the first print run will certainly be depleted over time. PDF sales will continue.

The bad news is that it’ll be quite a risk to reprint the book, and it’s not really sustainable using the same pathways I used before if continue to only use Warehouse 23 (though we’ll see about that; physical sales will start there in a few weeks, and they have much better reach than I do).

Hall of Judgment was able to take ridiculous advantage of being the fourth book I’ve produced. I had page after page of grappling-inspired art from Dungeon Grappling. I had enough viking-style art that fit in perfectly with HoJ from the production over the last two years of Dragon Heresy, which probably cost a total of $30-40K to produce, and of that $12K was the print run and a heck of a lot of that was pure art expense. Hundreds of high-quality images. Plus Lost Hall of Tyr itself was not art-light, either.

So the while the expected cost of making this book would usually have been $100-150 per page, plus the print run of $6,500 for a total of $19,000 on the low end to as much as $26,000 on the high end for a “from nothing” book, including paying the writer, layout guy, etc (that would be me) for work done . . . all of the “money spent” above are actual checks paid to others. The money brought in above would have been just enough to support the $100 per page plus printing level. If a second Kickstarter happened, from scratch, I’d have to keep that in mind and plan accordingly.

Back to good news, though: I’ve realized that the economics of success very much favor the low end of offset print. So from here on out, the only real question in my mind is “between 1,000 and 3,000 copies of [future product], how many will I order?”

Because at those levels, especially for the printer overseas, whatever I don’t sell in the KS can go into distribution, and Studio 2 will take the product to conventions, get it into stores, etc. The take is quite low as a percentage of cover price, but when you do offset, you can still go into distribution, pay for the line to be evergreen, and throw off some income to fund future work.

So no matter what: I consider this both a financial and educational success.

That’s the tale of the tape. Thanks for listening!

Douglas Cole
Gaming Ballistic, LLC
Sept 20, 2018