Moe Lane

Today I started the map-purchasing process. I’ve commissioned Robert Altbauer of Fantasy Map to do the job; he comes well-recommended, and after seeing some of his work I was happy to hire him to do the work. One more possible add-on, I think. Speaking of which: I want to see how FROZEN DREAMS is doing at the midpoint level before I decide how to do add-ons. Backerkit will make it a lot easier, but also cost money to set up and run. If I don’t get very many more backers, it may make more sense for me to run things on my own*.

This Kicktraq site looks very interesting. It’s doing trends and observations of various Kickstarter projects — including mine, which is how I found it. The breakdowns look useful, too.

Today, I had discussions, or at least a discussion and maybe started another couple. The ‘maybe’ discussions involved inquiries into map prices, and I’ll know how they went in a few days. The full discussion involved the audiobook stretch goal; I sat down with my audiobook narrator and worked out what she would do and her rates, should it fund and/or I put the money together otherwise. She’ll also be hopefully recording a blurb/sample in the next few days, which I will absolutely use to try to entice more people to back the Kickstarter.

I’m not sure how well that will work out, assuming that it funds; but every time I’ve gone I don’t think people will pay good money for that about something in this Kickstarter I’ve turned out to be wrong. Besides, if it works it’s a revenue stream worth looking into. And, honestly: I kind of like the idea in general now. Pulp detective stories lend themselves well to dramatic readings, I think.

Since the FROZEN DREAMS Kickstarter stretch goal funded, I need a city map for a fantasy book. Details as follows:

I was going to wait, but people kept telling me not to wait, and then my sister-in-law asked a pointed question, and that was pretty much it at that point. You know how it is. I don’t think a third series of signed and lettered copies of FROZEN DREAMS is in the cards, though: my back ain’t what it used to be.

Moe Lane

I spent the morning playing with spreadsheets and making suggested revisions to Chapter 1 to FROZEN DREAMS. The spreadsheets were mostly to make sure that I’m being reasonable in my stretch goals. I… seem to be? Where I’m getting hung up is that I don’t know how to budget for the city map that I’m likely going to need commissioning; I’ve been asking around about prices, but I get a lot of shrugs and ‘it depends.’ This industry needs some industry standards, tanjit.

In contrast, the revisions are straightforward: my copy-editor sent over suggested changes, I looked at them and pretty much said Yeah, and then I went and implemented them. Nice and simple and it didn’t take me long to do. I like this system.

Day 2: $1,205, 54 backers. How is that doing, against my benchmark?

At 5 PM Eastern Time: $775, 33 backers, off of a $200 target goal. Not bad. Not bad at all.

A little surprising, mind you — but, as my wife pointed out to me, I was operating under very conservative assumptions for the FROZEN DREAMS Kickstarter. And not just in terms of the pledge goal. I had worked out ahead of time what I thought I’d need, in terms of how many people would sign up for each tier; and I made the assumption that I’d get more people at the base tier than for the higher ones. In fact, I didn’t take into consideration the two highest tiers of all when calculating revenue results*. It turns out that the exact opposite happened; the two highest tiers sold out on the first day, and the base tier had the lowest total**.

Mind you, I’m not exactly upset that I funded 300% on the first day. If I have anything like a concern it’s that I don’t overcompensate for the next Kickstarter and screw that up somehow. But this has been a pleasantly educational day.

And… here… we… go:

FROZEN DREAMS.

Last-minute fiddling with the FROZEN DREAMS Kickstarter, which launches tomorrow morning AND I’M PERFECTLY FINE AND CALM ABOUT THAT. I’ve also formally gotten the copy-editing process started, and spoken with a relative about a possible stretch goal that she would actually do quite well with but I’d need to get a LOT of people to sign up for before I could run with it. Finally, I also added a blue-sky limited tier; I don’t expect it to fill, but you never know and if nobody snaps it up I’m none the worse off for it.

So, pretty much everything is ready for tomorrow. Yay! I’m sure it’ll all be fine. We’re fine. We’re all fine here now, thank you. How are you?