I’m moving the updates to Thursday going forward to sychronize better with Dr Kromm’s weekly updates. Also, Thursday has always been GURPSDay, so it seems fitting.

It’s been a rough two weeks since the last update, if I must be honest. But we shall keep the chin tucked and soldier on. What’s been going on?

• Still haven’t been invoiced by Kixto; I think they’re on some sort of billing schedule that isn’t “as soon as we’re finished.” That bugs me because I like to get debt out of the way immediately.
• I received a first draft of Inns and Taverns, wrote up extensive feedback, and sent it back to Marshall. We’re going to have a conference call today as well, to level-set, make new deadlines, etc. It’s not ready to go into the ‘accepted’ stage yet, but based on what’s there, it will be.
• Nothing on Two Warring Houses these last two weeks, and only scant work on Bestiary.
• Tower of the Moon launched on Backerkit on September 3 and closed on September 30. I got 322 orders total, which is down by 40% to what TFT projects usually get, though it’s “only” down 25% if one accounts for the fact that 25% of my orders frequently are international, and dropping international shipment resulted in “no-buy” rather than “PDF” for many. That’s understandable.
• The experiment of direct-to-Backerkit, then, was not successful overall. Pros and cons detailed below.
• One thing that was successful about it, though, is that it’s already done. 100% of orders were in the mail something like two days after the launch closed. That’s pretty good, and it’s what “pay the moment you order” allows, that plus having the product done ahead of time.
• GMShadow dropped the first session actual play episode of his podcast: This is Nordlond! It was a fun listen, and shows some good ways to introduce characters to the setting, naturally with a fight.
• I turned 50. Got a sous vide kit and made All The Protein, including some of the best steaks I’ve ever tasted. Highly Recommended (sous vide). The turning 50 part, less so.
• Went to Tabletop Marketplace in Minneapolis and didn’t sell a single book. That was super-depressing.

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: 54 patrons and $361 per month.
• Special Content: Nothing was released in September of note, and that needs to stop happening.

Patron ranks fell off by one but plussed up by one, leaving total patrons constant.

Currently Manufacturing/Fulfilling/Shipping

Projects where hardcopies and PDFs are going out or scheduled to do so.

• Tower of the Moon: All Tower of the Moon orders have gone out, with the campaign being 100% fulfilled within a few days of closure (I got a few orders the final day which went out the next mailing day). That’s a new record.
• Delvers to Grow: All PDFs delivered. Started to get reports of international packages in hand as far away as Australia and New Zealand. International shipping is still a colossal mess so no telling when this will actually be done, but everything that needed to go out went out a long time ago.

Crowdfunding and Product Launches

Tower of the Moon (Launched on Backerkit on September 3 at 9am Central Time, ended Sept 30, 6pm Central)

• 322 orders total were placed, and the campaign resulted in just over $9600 in revenue. Average pledge plus shipping was thus $29.81.
• In truth, I was hoping to at least hit the usual 500, with the upper end/best ever of 620 being unlikely but notionally reachable.
• The pros of the Backerkit method were the immediacy of the revenue, I kept a bit more of it, and I got a lot of good feedback on how quickly the orders showed (I used 2-day and 3-day mail almost exclusively).
• The cons were that most of the notification emails remained unopened, mostly unread and unclicked. Whereas one opts in to Kickstarter notifications and seems to participate eagerly, Backerkit Launch and Constant Contact and blog/website updates are simply not community builders the way Kickstarter is. I cannot afford (literally, to use an over-used word hopefully correctly) to not capture 25-40% of my potential customers on a launch.
• One feature that was successful, though in a deliberately limited way, was the setting of a “stretch goal” for the TFT print add-on. It was a minimum of 20 copies sold to justify the print run, and I moved 32 in the end. This method shall be used in a very limited “UK to UK” trial to see if I can work within a country for international shipments. If it does work, I’ll try AUS-NZ, and by that time, maybe New Energy will go live with their short-run print plans. I’m committed to trying to serve the international market, but there are a lot of barriers.

Product Announcements

The full Product Catalog got revised to account for the ready availability of Delvers to Grow.

Tower of the Moon shall be listed on the GB website Real Soon Now.

In Development

Writing and content creation for announced projects. Some of this may be cryptic.

• Inns and Taverns, by Marshall LaPira. Systemless. First draft submitted, feedback returned, progress meeting Sept 7.
• Two Warring Houses, by Douglas Cole. Systemless. Outline stage and writing.
• Nordlondr Bestiary, Books 1 and 2, by Douglas Cole. Dungeon Fantasy RPG. Outline stage and writing.

Friction

Bits of news and items that put a monkey in the wrench.

• The pros and cons of the Backerkit launch seem to be leaning towards “not enough visibility, not enough sales” at this time. I’m likely not going to venture this again for a product launch.
• I didn’t get nearly enough done this last week again. I had a bad case of insomnia and spent much of the week had more kid issues, plus a bit of “is this ever going to work?” after the total zero at the Tabletop Marketplace event.
• Trying to upgrade my SSD (because it’s almost full) has been a ridiculous comedy of stupid. Between the device, Best Buy’s “Total Tech Support” wanting three days of “we keep your computer” for a one-hour job, and the 970 Evo plus not shipping with M.2 screws…that actually wasted almost a full day.
• Made a few unforced personal errors that are costing me a lot emotionally and socially. Self-inflicted wounds are the worst.

 

Fair Winds

Information about things that move GB forward.

• As noted, a rough week, but yesterday I got a lot of feedback to Marshall and I’m excited about the direction the book will take on Inns and Taverns.
• I sat down energized to work for the first time in two or three weeks yesterday, and that continues. So I hope to start cranking out monsters ASAP, getting previews to my Patreon subscribers, and when that gets tiring, doing more on Two Warring Houses
• I exchanged emails with David Pulver on several topics of interest.