Facebook, is apparently deleting all the stories.. their attempt at allowing facebook users blog. I honestly don't see why this is an issue. Its a single image and a wall of text. Its a great place to store a blog, that you are comfortable people in your life reading about you, or from you.
So, in the interests of saving that page, I post it here, and hope that google doesn't ever kill blogger.
From Facebook, with Love
How this Kickstarter Worked
Last Year I saw the Make 100 project on Kickstarter,
Lets step back a bit.. Are you a Kickstarter Backer? Or Are you new to the whole Process?
Kickstarter is a platform for people to help fund projects. When it first started it was a fun little website, ask a few hundred people to give you a $1 each so you could so something like, making an album at a studio or buy the paints to draw some art, or print up some books.
The Premise is, to get just enough of the project ready, to show off, to get interest, to see if people would buy your product or project, to invest in you. Some fail because they didn’t put enough time into their kickstarter project, Some, even after funding fail, because they didn’t put in enough time to structure their project and funds, so they fell short in funding.. Some, fail because they succeeded too well, the overwhelming response meant they needed to quit jobs or take holidays to fulfill the demands, often spending more money than they raised.
But, Once a Kickstarter works, the creator, kick-starts his new life, creating that product, getting it out to the backers, and setting up their new business.. they’ve raised awareness of their brand, money for their project and advertising for the next one.
If they did it well, they might not need kickstarter for a 2nd time, but, kickstarter, the site, is a place where people are searching for interesting projects to invest in. just because one project garnered 1,000 backers, doesn’t mean they’ll all back your next one, nor should you deny your next project to the millions of backers on KS that might be interested in your next.
So What About me? What About THIS project
I’m a slow burning wildfire, I gather the knowledge and resources, then go full force with overwhelming odds, to guarantee success. So while I have several projects in the forge, I want to ensure that the timing is right and I have the right tools to make it not just a little successful, but a lot.
So I needed a project to learn kickstarter, understand its buttons, its systems and how to run a campaign. but I didn’t want a runaway success, or excessive costs such as shipping and printing, so it needed to be digital, or very small.
So, When I saw the Make 100 last year, I started thinking about some potential ideas.
Make 100 is a way for kickstarter to get back to its roots, small projects for small numbers of people, like they did when they first started. not this mega million dollar deals, which dwarfs the new project creators and makes kickstarter feel like its not possible..
Make 100 is only for January, Start a new project in the Start of the year
So, I had a think about it.. a deck of cards, 100 cards, or 100 characters, 100 something.
I backed a project in the year, about Taverns. Everyone got to write up their Tavern and add it to a book. It suffered several problems, but eventually got made, but the response of people interested to add ‘their tavern’ to a potential set of taverns in other peoples roleplay worlds is what sparked this mapping idea.
Taverns are words.. and so you have to take the time to read them. But Images are instant..
I have drawn now 30 large maps. like 50cm x 30cm sized or bigger. I have maybe a few hundred smaller maps scattered through several notebooks for my roleplay world, some zoomed in to 1cm:1m, others scaled out to 1cm:1000km (and its still a A3 sized page). I started Commissioning maps 3 years ago, with the website called Simbi, Swamp goods or services that can be done electronically for Simbi and buy with Simbi.. no cash, no tax.
Games-masters and Authors wanted maps, so I drew them. Post Apocalyptic Idaho, A few Game Worlds, some game Cities, a continent or two, and a world for bugs, in a gem of a game where you roleplay as bug adventurers.
So it was obvious.. I’d draw 100 maps!
What? No.. impossible.. I have 2 kids, professionally games-master 2 nights a week and a full time job.. 100 maps would take 50 years..
I’d draw maps, with 100 “Things” in it.
So, Jan rolls around and I created a Kickstarter Page, draw up some headings and sketches of what I intend to do, and tell all my friends.
What I didn’t expect was to be as successful as I was.
I set the goal for $250, because I figured getting halfway was enough to draw a map, just a little smaller. My expectation was 50 people at $4 for a ‘location’ and 25 people who just want a copy of the map for $2.. I did it for 15 days, thinking I’d probably hit 25% in day 1, 50% more over 10 days, then push for the last 25% and maybe even 50% more for stretch goals in the last 48 hours.. which seemed reasonable.
Getting to 100% in 16 hours was.. surprising.. that’s for sure..
By the end of day 1, over 70 ‘locations’ were snapped up.. the last 30 would go in the next 24 hours, I hadn’t even started to exhaust my list.
Kickstarter is built on a computer, with algorithms, that look at certain factors, such as popularity, new to KS backers and the like, and they ‘promote’ your page if you meet criteria. One of which is regular visits and backings from new people.
I had figured that I’d tell 50% of people I knew day 1, and then 10% of people day 2, day 3, etc etc, so I’d maintain a regular flow of inbound traffic.
Now, I had more traffic to come, but no product to sell.. ack.. what to do.
So, I asked the current backers, asked friends, other kickstarter groups I participate in, would it be such a horrible idea to add a “mini” location after the fact. Its not as expensive as the full location, but its not a full location either. just some fun Easter eggs to be included.
The Bulk of people said this was a great idea.. So I went ahead and added it.
Day 2 we ran out of the 100 ‘locations’, and backers were starting to take on the ‘Easter eggs’ and just maps, but If I did this over, I think I’d have included it from the start and made the initial 100 a tad more expensive, like $5!
Day 2 we ran out of the 100 ‘locations’, and backers were starting to take on the ‘Easter eggs’ and just maps, but If I did this over, I think I’d have included it from the start and made the initial 100 a tad more expensive, like $5!
So, for 5 days or so, I rode the excitement of being a successful kickstarter project creator. There were ups and downs, 3 people decided to back out, 3! I was mortified.. but those coveted spots were snapped up in seconds.
I was adding stretch goals, people were increasing their pledges to push for the stretch goals, I began to exhaust my lists, facebook, google+, MeWe, etc. but then I realised.. The more we did, the more work I had to do.. I was at 1 main map and two digital maps, we were about to hit the goal for me to draw a 2nd map, then a 3rd map, people on the forums were encouraging each other to pledge for more map items, pushing towards the elusive $1500 goal for a colour map.. then just as I announced the next stretch goal, someone bought the map.
Maps of this size are expensive if you commission them, thousands of dollars if your going to publish, and the Original? who knows.. so selling them wasn’t likely to be part of my strategy. Yet I felt, if someone saw all the enthusiasm and thought that the actual map would be so awesome to own it. I wasn’t going to deny them. This would mean I’d need to use better materials, wrap it in protective layers each time I put it away and shipping costs would be somewhere around $100 or so. So I put in a price which was high enough to cover costs, but reasonable enough that I’d let it go.
One Backer loved the idea, so he took the map. That meant we hit out goal for a 4th map. I was so shocked, I just chucked up a stretch goal for a darker grittier map, based on the Kingdom Death Monster board game, and within minutes, another map was taken!
5 Full Maps. Original, Redrawn with Voter Theme, Sepia Toned, Colour and KDM versions.
1020% funded!
What a ride. It was exciting, for me, and those backers on the forums chatting with me.
So this Facebook page was made, and now, I’m using my spare time to get everything into the system.
To Save time, I’ve created a program, which takes the data, sorts it and puts it together with some physics (for world building). I’ll leave that for another blog post, but you can see the posts on the topic throughout this page.
But that’s my story.
Hope you enjoyed it. Its only the first step in the adventure of this project, and will consumer most of my 2019.
Welcome to Dungeon World Maps
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