Ballistic’s Report for Week Ending Feb 12
Gaming Ballistic Patreon
To help with ongoing funding of art and speed eventual time to delivery, Gaming Ballistic started a Patreon in January 2021. Here’s the weekly update on Patreon status.
- Membership status: 38 patrons and $262 per month
- Special Content: Patrons received a preview of the complete Character Collection 2 volume; so have proofreaders
- The funds from the Patreon are 100% going to be reinvested in the business for advance work. Pre-visualization and early-stage art for projects prior to launch is going to be the most likely sink for the funds. Some of these can turn directly into products; others have a longer lead time.
- Art Direction and solicitation for the images has begun. I’ve already got four folks definitely interested in participating. Three confirmed and working!
New Releases
New projects available for retail sale.
- Gaming Ballistic Website: none this week.
- Gaming Ballistic on Warehouse 23: none this week
- DriveThruRPG: none this week. I’ll be taking a look at what’s there in PDF format and updating. Probably mid-Feb.
Product Announcements
- No announcements this week
Currently Fulfilling/Shipping
Project where hardcopies and PDFs are going out, or scheduled to do so.
- Fulfillment has begun on More Perilous Journeys. All of the “odd” orders have been shipped. Pick, pack, and ship of about 250 boxes of “MPJ” or “All 10 books” is scheduled to complete this weekend.
- International orders start fulfillment next week as well: the reprints arrived from MixamUK intact, so there are more than enough pristine books to fill the orders.
- Pledges and pre-orders for More Perilous Journeys are currently closed.
At the Printer
The last stage of production. Following PDF finalization print orders get placed, then take anywhere from 10 days to several months to print and arrive at the shipping center, which is basically my house.
- Nothing currently at the printer
Crowdfunding
Announced or active campaigns.
TFT Character Collection (see splash page image leading off this post!)
Aiming for February 19. Please follow the campaign pre-announcement on Kickstarter if you’re interested. This helps me gauge how likely we are to hit the stretch goals.
Stretch goals for this campaign are all based on backer counts, not dollars. It’s all about how many of you there are!
The campaign announcement was featured on TheFantasyTrip.game on Feburary 10!
I am also working up card decks and counters for More Perilous Journeys. The key bit of this particular project is that most of the hardcopy materials are going to be made available as add-ons, as (much like the GURPS 2020 PDF Challenge and the Pyramid Scheme) stretch goals increase the number of PDF books you get for your pledge, but it is unwise to do physical goods this way.
In Development
Writing and content creation for announced projects. Some of this may be cryptic.
- Character Collection 3: Bandits and Outlaws is complete except for the art; I expect to have all the art
- Character Collection 2: Rookies got all done. I really banged these out, by virtue of setting a countdown timer. As soon as each artist finishes CC3, they’ll start immediately on CC2 and even retroactively putting art (for cards and counters) to CC1
- Signed a contract with Kevin Smyth for a new Dungeon Fantasy RPG book. No title for a bit . . . but I think folks will like this one.
- Work is beginning to pick up on the Nordlond Bestiary. So. Many. Monsters.
Friction
Bits of news and items that put a monkey in the wrench.
- Still need to move some of my titles to DriveThruRPG
- I’m still looking at ways to get books over the UK/EU to make international shipping suck less…but it’s really still awful no matter what.
- I did the 2020 financial analysis for Gaming Ballistic, and it was pretty much as dreadful as one could hope. There were lessons learned, hard goings, and a few bright spots. A more detailed post shall follow next week.
- I really need a better supply chain for my counters/tokens for things. I have some options, but I really want one where I’m just thrilled to work with them, much like the cards and printing with Mixam.
Fair Winds
Information about things that move GB forward.
- Nothing in particular. I have been hitting my stride in getting stuff done. Shipping is going well. Writing of Character Collections is going well. I am no longer burning the candle at both ends just to tread water.
- I can’t tell you what a relief it is to be so close to the end of More Perilous Journeys. This was without a doubt a successful project, but it went long. My next one is going to be much more tightly managed.
- Looking forward to branching out in the coming weeks into more than just “all TFT, all the time.”
