[Sorcerer crowdfunding] Update and plans

[glandis]

Ron, how about this: a stretch goal and/or an extra $5-$40(ish) gets an invitation to the "Sorcerer Crowdfunding Fulfillment Party," a day filled with fun, food, drink, conversation, and forced labor - er, parcel stuffing, labeling, and etc.  I'd suspect you have enough support reasonably local to you for this to be worthwhile, and it might be a fit for something you'd think is fun as well as useful.

I think "extras" are built into the current crowdfunding mythology. It seems to me that Kickstarter (and crowdfunding generally) likes to believe that if you work hard and enthusiastically on your project, creating lots of extras and incentives for folks, OF COURSE it'll all be worth it and you'll get a ton o' money for your effort.  I expect you're right to be suspicious about that - personally, I've seen the startup-parallel to that belief play out often enough to know there are many failures for every success.  But it certainly does work that way sometimes.  The huge (HUGE) amount of work Rich Berlew ( PW article) ended up putting into his initially modest "raise money to refresh out-of-print volumes" project certainly paid off.

But even ignoring the market/audience difference between Adept and Order of the Stick, he and his team clearly got excited about the chance to create new stickers, gewgaws, and etc.  Even if you buy into the "work hard + create excitement = PROFIT!" claim ... if YOU are not excited about (e.g.) spiffy dice, that clearly won't work.  But if there is a dollar amount at which you would get excited about spiffy dice, just make sure they "unlock" (or whatever) at that dollar level.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Sorry about that, Raven; I thought that you were being jocular yourself. Hazards of non-verbal communication.

But yeah, technically all sorts of add-ons and such are obviously superfluous in crowdfunding. However, the particular site culture of these popular crowdfunding sites seems to me like it encourages a sense of carnevalism in the proceedings. Perhaps this is why a zillion and one funding levels and various stretch goals that are revealed over time like it was a phone-a-thon (well, it sort of is) are so common. We're even starting to see all sorts of minigames and graphical spectacle associated with the money-grabbing: join a team and try to beat the other team in donating money, achieve a given amount to see the next page in the donation drive comic book, and so on.

It's an interesting challenge to choose how one situates themselves against this background. The hard core of your audience will buy the stuff regardless of the set-up, of course, but what about the casual purchases, and what about grassroots publicity? The common thinking seems to be that making your crowdfunding campaign seem like the opportunity of a lifetime is good for both: the casually interested audience member will invest in your project now that it's facing its dramatic watershed moment and it's time for every fan to prove their worth, and similarly everybody will take extra care to spread the word on the project because it's so special and unprecedented. This is probably why people like to pile rewards and bonuses up as the money collection proceeds; they're stoking the fires of excitement.

(I'd like to note that even if this fever-pitch looks ludicrous in totality, it's not so much so in the small detail. Even if Kickstarter has new unprecedented special deal opportunity campaigns starting up every day, for the individual creators their Kickstarter campaigns are mostly unique events. They'll be working with the repercussions for years, and most likely won't be back for another round of crowdfunding for a good while. This is probably a big part of why Kickstarter can keep up the level of excitement consistently, as projects come and go so quickly.)

I recently went against my habits and invested money in the on-going Moon Design Guide to Glorantha crowdfunding project. (Interesting book, but you'll probably get it cheaper from the store afterwards.) The basic project is just as simple as Ron's, they're just looking to fund the production of a luxurious coffee table book about Glorantha. The attempt at making everything look SPECTACULAR is palpable when you look at the wide scope of backer levels and how the reveal of new stretch goals maintains interest over the lifetime of the project. And these are relatively level-headed people, too; most of their backer rewards and stretch goal stuff are plain common sense things they'd have been doing anyway, and the rest is there to justify big fish contributions from the people who want to give a lot of money and feel good about it, too. Maybe it could be useful to contrast with your own thoughts and see if you're going to be more or less carnevalistic than Moon Design in your own attempt.

[greyorm]

Sorry about that, Raven; I thought that you were being jocular yourself. Hazards of non-verbal communication.

No problem then, Eero. Consider it forgotten.

...technically all sorts of add-ons and such are obviously superfluous in crowdfunding...However, the particular site culture of these popular crowdfunding sites seems to me like it encourages a sense of carnevalism in the proceedings...I'd like to note that even if this fever-pitch looks ludicrous in totality...

I very much disagree on it being "carnivale"-like in nature or ludicrous-looking from the outside, or that add-ons are indeed superfluous, technically or otherwise. Consider, crowd-funding is a patronage system, except instead of one single patron providing funding you have numerous patrons who have decided your project deserves to live.

Given this, I don't think it is unusual for patrons to ask for a little more than standard for their patronage -- they are, after all, taking a risk giving you money for something sight-unseen and unknowable, that runs a risk of not having an actual pay-out -- so for rewards no one else can have, in exchange for providing the funding for that project.

This is not historically unusual under patron systems, not where the result is to be publicly shared rather than privately held (as in that case the result is the total reward). I also don't think it that unusual, or deceitful, for the individual seeking patrons to encourage buy-in with various gifts or to keep patrons excited about the project they have funded, or enticed to fund (or fund more). None of this seems particular new or "modern consumerist culture" to me, but in fact very old world.

It also seems a behavior instilled in the heart of all such modern efforts from the beginning (Stolze's ransom model, Kobold's patron system, etc), rather than a new behavior specific to this round of crowd-funding culture.

Importantly, I think this very different from the shyster/huckster vibe of a carnival, where the unscrupulous are throwing colored lights and crappy-prizes at you to entice you to spend money to play rigged games. And I think if one approaches the situation from "I don't want to be a carnie" angle rather than from the "I am an artist seeking patrons" angle, it makes a significant difference.

But, given the risk of derailing, the above thoughts are the last I will say about the subject here. I just thought it important enough to mention.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi,

Well, it looks like things are under way. This thread helped a lot, as well as a brainstorming session with Nathan.

My goals for the week are to talk with Luke, to make a first-pass video, to confirm some stuff with layout and art so I can have samples, and try it out in the "rough draft" form at the Kickstarter site. Surprising how well it suddenly came together in my mind.

So you know, initial layout for the new core book is really awesome-looking. My hope that the annotations would be on the right-hand facing page throughout has been realized. If we can get those Denmark covers for reals, this is going to be a great product.

I've altered the model yet again, turning the fancy book into a stretch goal instead of a contributor reward. So now all the stretch goals are format (including a hard-copy print run) and all the contributor rewards are gear/kitsch or social. Gordon's party idea sounds fun too actually; I'll have to see whether Forge Midwest is possible given my schedule in the upcoming year.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone. I'll post to let you know when the rough draft is up.

I can't really say this thread should be closed for good, but maybe it's better to let it rest unless you have some kind of amazing idea or comment that you think I simply must see.

Best, Ron