[Sorcerer Kickstart] Quick help with images

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

I'm almost ready to share the Kickstart page, pre-start. I even figured out how to work my webcam!

But one quick thing: the image for the shot glass and t-shirt. There are two, actually, each one being a silhouette and the logo. One's a demon hottie babe, and the other is a modern-looking guy. I need help with the latter. I found this (free) image on the net:



I only want the central image, one figure. And I need it altered to be demonic. Not Satanic necessarily, but with one or two features added that instantly say "demon!" to the viewing audience. Send your versions to my email, sorcerer@sorcerer-rpg.com. This is pro bono for-the-love work, so thanks & kisses in advance.

Best, Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Ha! And you thought I was too clueless to get this together.

All right, thing #1: the art you see at the top is NOT NOT NOT what I'll be using. I love it, but it's just somethin' I grabbed off the web (it said "free") and isn't by Thomas, so it would be misleading to use it. It's just a placeholder.

Other thing is, apparently Amazon is retooling its tax-ID software and I got screwed. So their analysts or experts or whatever are supposed to contact me on the 26th to sort it out. All of which means I'm not officially vetted yet to say "go," and can't say for sure when I will be.

AND! Everything you see is a rough draft. Check it out, but do not take some snotty tone with me as if I have done something inadequately. Make suggestions, but decently, with respect. Preview your post and decide whether you'd like someone talking to you that way. I get real sensitive at this stage of production.

I'm totally loving the webcam. The video's going to be a hoot.

Preview link!

Best, Ron

[Hans Chung-Otterson]

Hey Ron,

Your reward levels, right now, don't show any of the backers receiving the PDFs or any sort of book. Just wanted to make sure that was intentional, and not an oversight.

[Eero Tuovinen]

To clarify Hans: you will immediately get people asking questions about how exactly they can get this book. As it is, the text doesn't directly say that reward levels $25 and up get the new books in PDF (which I seem to remember was the latest plan). This sort of thing is important to get out clearly, it's going to be the exact sort of thing people want to know when they consider funding something. The normal way to say this would be to declare it once pretty early in the main body of text ("All backers at $25 and up will be getting the PDFs equally."), and then repeat it in the descriptions of each and every reward level (or reward "branch" in your case, as those rewards are not so much a continuum as a series of alternatives).

Furthermore, as I understand it, the answer to the printed-on-paper part of the question (that is, how can I get this book on paper, not just PDF) in Kickstarter-ese is going to be something like this: "Unfortunately outright printing the new book on paper won't be economically feasible right out of the gate, which is why my reward levels X to Y only involve digital PDFs. Howevever, take note of the listed stretch goal at $3000: if we reach it, I will have the means to accomplish a printed version of the book. In this case all backers will have the opportunity to increase their backing by roughly $X to receive the paper book as an add-on." This should probably be said pretty prominently in the main description, too.

In case the concept of "add-on" is not familiar, it's the Kickstarter-ese term for something backers can buy in addition to their basic level of contribution. The way this works in the software is that a Kickstarter participant can add to their commitment without switching reward levels; the backer adds money at their current backer level, and at the end of the funding period the project manager (you) sends a questionnaire to all the backers where they can specify whether they wanted to get that t-shirt or extra book or what with that extra $100 they promised. For an example of how this looks like in practice, see how Kyle Simons sold t-shirts and various other Korea-related knick-knacks in his crowdfunded project.

Some further notes and impressions follow. These are centered on "how people usually do this on Kickstarter", which is not the same as me recommending or insisting on the feature in question.

First, the "shot glass + t-shirt" pledge at $50 is twice in the reward levels listing. I took a while to notice that it's actually because of the "guy or gal" option. You might want to consider just making these a single reward level and asking the funders after the campaign which variant they want. I'll discuss the wisdom of making these spin-off products into reward levels more a few paragraphs down, so for now I'll just note that the questionnaire technique I describe above would allow you to just get everybody's gender preferences the same time you confirm their shipping addresses (which is something you'll have to be doing anyway).

Kickstarter projects usually give colorful names to the reward levels, stretch-goals and add-ons (the unholy trinity of the crowdfunding carneval :D). This serves a practical purpose as well, as you're going to have to talk about these things, and it can get ambiguous to refer to your commitments by the amount of money involved. "Does the shot glass + t-shirt level include the PDFs of both books?" is the kind of question that's easier to ask if the level has a name, whether that name is "2st reward tier" or "The Abyss".

Some of your reward levels are currently structured in a way where I would expect some of these things to become add-ons instead of separate reward levels. If I may, I'll lay out the facts as they seem to be, and how one would normally lay all this out in Kickstarter. (I'll give these elements fanciful names because I'm such a jokester, as per above.) This also helps you see whether you're being intelligible; if I misunderstood something about your set-up here, chances are your customers are going to misunderstand as well.

REWARD LEVELS:
$5 - TRUE NAME - You get acknowledged in the book.
$25 - SILENT SELF - You get the books in PDF, and the Sorcerer drinks menu gets another entry.
$50 - THE ABYSS - PDF, shot glass and t-shirt.
$100 - MASTER OF THE TEMPLE - PDF, instructional video.
$150 - MAGUS - PDF, game design consultation.
$250 - IPSISSIMUS - PDF, private scenario in Chicago.

Now, what I maybe would do is, I would drop "THE ABYSS" from the above series and make the shot glass and t-shirt into add-ons anybody at any reward level can buy. This simplifies your life, as people will be asking about this option anyway - there'll be guys who want to buy two shot glasses, or people at higher reward levels who also want the t-shirt, or people who want the t-shirt but not the shot glass. The way the semantics of Kickstarter work, this means that you don't want something everybody might or might not want to be a "reward level", because each individual backer can only be at one reward level; they can't just pay the $50 twice to get "THE ABYSS" twice, as far as I know. That's why added-on purchase options need to be literally made into "add-ons" that you describe in the main text and allow people to buy by upping their pledge above their chosen reward level.

That being said, here's how I understand your add-on structure to be, basically:

ADD-ONS:
$XX - T-shirt
$XX - Shot glass
$XX - The Sorcerer book on paper, if the stretch goal is reached
$XX - The supplements book on paper, if the stretch goal is reached

Of course nothing prevents you from keeping the shot glass + t-shirt reward level while also offering the items separately as add-ons. In fact, I think it could be a smart move to keep "THE ABYSS" in the above list and price these items to be slightly more expensive separately.

Finally, your stretch goals as I understand them:

STRETCH GOALS:
$3000 - THE GREAT WORK - The print book add-on is unlocked!
$4000 - THE DIGITAL AEON - The books will be made available in selected e-book formats. All PDF backers get these alternate editions as well. (You'll want to specify the exact formats here, by the way.)
$5000 - LIBER VENEFICORUM - The print book will receive a production quality upgrade, I understand?

Note that I refer to the amount of money in absolute terms instead of "$X past the post". This is probably clearer to your backers.

In summation, you might consider giving names to the reward and stretch goal levels, and you probably should have clear, unambiguous headers in your main text to separate the descriptions of reward levels (yes, these should be described in the main text as well, that text box in the side-bar is too small), add-ons and stretch goals from other discussion. The traditional format is to first describe your project, then describe the reward levels (what you get by giving money), then either stretch goals or add-ons depending on which is more important for the nature of your project.

One final thing before I let others have a turn on the soap-box: the Kickstarter project page is a pretty challenging communication medium, as it requires you to write up a lot of disparate information in a linear order, all the while both marketing and informing the audience. When you read the project pages for successful projects they can seem like quite a tangle, as everything from initial basic product descriptions to updates, video interviews, stretch goal reporting and so on is all piled on that one page. For example, just read that Guide to Glorantha Kickstarter page that I posted earlier: it begins as a simple description of the project, but then spins out into massive tables of complex stretch goal - add-on - reward level interactions, not to speak of the long list of interview videos they used to stoke people's interest during the funding period.

The take-away I get from the limitations of this medium is that it would be best to write very simply, and be very structured about the information on the page. What you've written so far is pretty informal, stream of consciousness - maybe it's just the draft stage and you intend to firm it up, I don't know. In your stead I would probably start the page with a clear, factual description of what Sorcerer is (you're hooking people who don't have the old book, too!), and then what this reprint project is; then I'd put in an index of the rest of the page, in fact, and finally after that the nitty-gritty details of rewards, goals and add-ons.

It occurs to me that we could work on the actual text for the page here in a crowdsourced manner, if that'd be helpful? I imagine that most people on this forum could write a compelling description of Sorcerer at this point.

[Ron Edwards]

Useful - very.

I would definitely appreciate anyone's 60-word-or-less hook for Sorcerer, to the role-playing inclined person who is completely unfamiliar with the game. My con pitch is honed to perfection, but it is an interactive technique. I find myself stalled on drafting a text version from scratch. So yes, post it here. Armed with several, I bet I can put together one I really like.

Best, Ron

[Eero Tuovinen]

Here's my 60 words on Sorcerer, as if from your viewpoint:

Sorcerer is a tabletop roleplaying game I developed in the late '90s and self-published over the following years. You might have heard of it: in the early '00s Sorcerer became the flagship of the new independent movement in roleplaying. Over the last decade Sorcerer has directly inspired and influenced an entire school of game design. The game provides reliable tools for creating dramatic stories of weird fiction concerning people both capable and willing to traverse the outer reaches to accomplish what has to be done. <Follow up with a few links to longer discussions of the game on the 'net.>

That's actually how I sell the game at conventions and such, embarrassing as it might seem from your viewpoint: the first thing I want to say about it to listeners is that it's not just another arbitrary choice out of the indie bookshelf, it's the game, and thus a no-brainer choice for anybody interested in roleplaying as a craft with history and theoretical background. I admit that this leaves the actual substance of the game to be explained only second, of course, so it's a pitch that relies on the customer being interested in roleplaying as a scene and cultural field.

I figure that it's a good idea to establish the game's long history as just about the first thing on the Kickstarter page, as otherwise it's easy to get confused about the nature of the project here: this is not a new game just out of development, but rather a new edition of a modern classic.

[glandis]

You may already have this in mind, but just in case: you probably want to put a cap on the number of rules-video, game design and game play rewards you'll fulfill.  Even if you're absolutely CERTAIN that there's no way 50 people will pay $150 for your design advice, are you prepared to deliver if they do?  And I guess there's something to be said for the marketing value of exclusivity and getting to label some rewards as "SOLD OUT" as the campaign progresses.

For the Sorcerer description, I went over to the Diana Jones website to remember what year it won, and realized there's a fair amount of text there you could selectively edit (like, get rid of "rules-light") and/or get inspiration from, probably better than I could.

[Ron Edwards]

I'm working on it, in the limited opportunities that the U.S. so-called holidays provide, and I've tried to clarify exactly what each pledge category gets you. I decided to keep each description completely self-contained: if you pledge X, you get exactly what's in the X description. It meant repeating myself regarding the PDFs, but that's OK. It also means that pledging $100, for instance, doesn't "include" lower-level $50 or $25 pledges inside it.

I've also reached one conclusion a lot of casual Kickstarter-heads aren't going to like.

Specifically: just because you pledged a certain amount, doesn't mean you get the books for free. The books are (i) a stretch goal, and (ii) composed of the actual project product. They aren't swag. I'm going to send them to pledgers if the stretch goal is reached and not for utterly free - you gotta pay for postage. Furthermore, if we do reach the stretch goal for the rad heavy metal intennnnse version, then you can get it for print-and-postage cost.

And in line with this certainly-unpopular decision, I've also decided that add-ons are simply and completely not part of this project. We've got the pledge level rewards, and the stretch goals, and that's it.

Now, all of this predicates something: can a person pledge more than once? I understand that a recently-added Kickstart rule states that a person cannot pledge the same way more than once (i.e. multiple hottie shot-glasses), which makes sense to me. But I'm asking rather, can a person pledge (say) for the hottie shot-glass and the instructional video, totaling $75 for that person via two pledges?

If not, then I have to re-structure my thinking and presentation again, to let people get (say) the two mentioned above by using the "or more" option when pledging once. So help me out.

Best, Ron

[Ron Edwards]

And responding some more to suggestions ...

Regarding naming the various pledge levels, I can only express my reaction by having you, the reader, produce the following vocal effects in precisely this order: gag, retch, vomit-noise, spew, spit, gasp gasp, oh God I'm gonna, retch, spit, retch, vomit-noise.

That said, I see the utility in naming them, for reference at the very least. I bow to the necessity of naming them something cool or funny. That'll take some thought.

I've decided to put most of the Sorcerer promo into the videos. I finally realized I can put in more videos in the body text, so there'll be the straight-up primary video in its privileged position, then various others ("about the game") as needed. I found enough embarrassing paeans of praise to myself and to the game to quote from, and doing it on video means I deliver them with the right spirit. I do like the idea of adding stuff during the pledge period, too, whether text or more videos.

Best, Ron

[Hans Chung-Otterson]

Ron,

I'm guessing this info isn't included because you don't know it yet, but people are going to want to know just how much they will have to kick in, if (once) the Narrativa-made beautiful book stretch goal is reached to get that book. Is it going to be $100 past their pledge? $150? This is the kind of thing that I and many KS-folks are going to want to know.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

It's whatever "at cost" turns out to be, or at least an estimate from Narrattiva that I can live with. I'll ask'em. And rather than "past my pledge," I'd phrase it as "at considerably and gratefully-appreciated reduced price."

Also, I realized I had it all backwards, and rephrased the more-than-one pledge concept much better. So you pledge for one, and if you want more than one, pledge the total ("or more," right?) and inform me somehow. Hans, when you pledge money to one of these things, is there a message box or anything like that? I'm hoping people can pledge, e.g., $25 for a drink to be added, but actually pledge $125 and very easily let me know they should get the instructional video made too. Otherwise I'll have to keep who knows how many emails organized.

Thomas let me know he would provide some preview work, no problem. So that's cool.

Best, Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Video's in. New graphic (very simple) is in. I like the punky image + the black-and-white video.

As soon as I get the sample artwork, I think it's ready to go! If I can just resolve the Amazon hassle.

Best, Ron

[Eero Tuovinen]

Also, I realized I had it all backwards, and rephrased the more-than-one pledge concept much better. So you pledge for one, and if you want more than one, pledge the total ("or more," right?) and inform me somehow. Hans, when you pledge money to one of these things, is there a message box or anything like that? I'm hoping people can pledge, e.g., $25 for a drink to be added, but actually pledge $125 and very easily let me know they should get the instructional video made too. Otherwise I'll have to keep who knows how many emails organized.

This is what I wrote about earlier: the normal protocol for doing something like this seems to be to call the extra stuff "paying for add-ons", and to have people add money to their pledge in excess of their chosen reward level. Then you just need to collect data about what that guy who pledged an extra $100 actually wants; this is apparently usually done by sending a query form to the backers after the funding drive through the Kickstarter internal email system. I've never organized a Kickstarter project myself, so I can't help with the details of how people do this - is there some Kickstarter program for making these queries, or is it something you need to do yourself, but either way it's not that much of a technical problem once you know to deal with it.

[Hans Chung-Otterson]

Hans, when you pledge money to one of these things, is there a message box or anything like that? I'm hoping people can pledge, e.g., $25 for a drink to be added, but actually pledge $125 and very easily let me know they should get the instructional video made too. Otherwise I'll have to keep who knows how many emails organized.

I had thought this was the case, but I went and double-checked anyway. There is no message box. I can only choose one reward level, though obviously I can pay however much I want past the minimum for that reward level. But no, no communication packaged with my pledge.

[Ron Edwards]

OK, then I guess it's a matter of asking people to email, and following up with inquiries of my own when they inevitably don't. Either that or structure the payments so that totals can only result from specific combinations, which I am pretty sure would be impossible without funky numbers and which I am completely sure is too annoying to contemplate. At least it'll only be 15 days of email input to monitor carefully.

As far as I can tell, I've hit upon a way to get the add-ons without making a third variable to contemplate, and without loopholes (e.g. getting X for less than pledging for it).

Hans, with the additions I mentioned - sample art, Sorcerer info/promo video - do you think this is looking ready? If it comes together fast, then I am thinking of sharing the preview at Story Games and editing a bit more based on feedback.

Best, Ron