Random Post Kickstarter Observations

The Kickstarter for Street Wolves wrapped up. I decided to jot down some of my thoughts about the Street Wolves Kickstarter now that it’s over, so this isn’t any kind of organized article, but I hope you can find something interesting or useful in my notes.

The Kickstarter Lull

Almost every Kickstarter has a big jump at the start, a long lull in the middle, and finally at the end another jump. That middle part was about 28 days and while I still kept getting backers, it was a long stretch.

The first two days resulted in $7,484 (43%), the middle 26 days got $6,829 (39%), and the last 48 hours were $3,145 (18%). I expected a larger bump at the end, but I did experience a surge.

I am tempted to run shorter campaigns, but when I get so much during that long middle, I’m not sure if I’d be missing out or not.

Facebook Ads

They work! You just have to be careful how much you spend. All though, I’ll admit I’m still not 100% sure of exactly what all came from Facebook, because I didn’t know what I was doing and it confused me, there was a lot of activity on my ads. And Kickstarter shows at least $963.00 came from there. Potentially more, because I was bad about tracking links.

I’ll also mention that I got a boost in ad credits from a donor who probably wants to remain anonymous, but that helped a lot in the final few days.

Drive Thru RPG Campaign Emails

I sent two emails through purchasers of Street Wolves through Drive Thru RPG. To do this, you need to contact customer service. They were very cool about it, so no complaints about that. The first email went to 431 at the start of the campaign and the second went to 434 near the end (more than likely most of the same people.)

Drive Thru had me put a unique tracker code on the email. I have the numbers:

I got a whopping 3 backers out of those emails. 140 bucks is nothing to sneeze at though, but it’s a lower rate than what I expected. I feel safe to assume though that a bunch of those backers found out about the Kickstarter through other means. And the two emails only took a few minutes to prepare, so it’s totally worth doing.

Cancelled Pledges

When running a Kickstarter people are going to cancel their pledges. It happens. It still doesn’t feel great. And it doesn’t feel great especially when a few people do it at about the same time. You gotta not take it personally and keep plugging away moving forward.

Mid Campaign Updates

At first I did a few updates to announce that we funded, and a couple during the stretch goal completions, and one with a clarification. After that I decided to pull back, I didn’t want to scare anyone away. It was this gut feeling more than anything else. I have no idea if people cancel if there are too many updates, but I have heard that people unsubscribe from the notifications, which can be a real problem when you need people to fill out their surveys.

Conversions

Going into the project I had 400+ followers. By the end there were 721 with a conversion rate of 27%. I was aiming for 25%, so this was pretty good.

Kickstarter Video

I didn’t think I’d have a video, because I’m not a video type of person. However, a bit before the campaign started I decided to put together something in Canva. I got my friend/actor Katy to record a voice over for it and was really happy with the results. I’m not sure if anyone became a backer because of it, but it’s cool to see it had 372 plays.

Total vs Other Savage Worlds Kickstarters

Before launched, I went and looked for other third party Savage Worlds Kickstarters (fellow Ace license holders) to get an idea of what kind of numbers they end up with to help plan for mine. I completely avoided looking at Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s (the makers of Savage Worlds) crowdfunding, because they get such high numbers that an Ace would be almost impossible. I had 25 of them to compare.

Post campaign I expanded the list to 49 campaigns. I mostly avoided adventures and focused on what looked like settings (I did this really fast). So it’s not all of them, but a good amount. Street Wolves ended up at #9 on this list, which is really cool and completely unexpected.

And yes, there is a game called Holy Crap.

Interviews

I did three interviews during the campaign: Savage Goose, Savage Worlds GM, and BAMPF Podcast. They were all cool folks and I’m glad I got to talk to them.

I need to say that I’m pretty picky about who I’ll do an interview with. My number one qualification is you can’t be giving a voice to the alt right. If I see a perspective interviewer has worked with certain horrible people in the community who traffic hate against people I respect (LGBT+, people of color, etc), then I’m not going to talk to them. I’m glad that these folks passed the test!

I also get antsy about saying the same thing over and over. And previous to these three interviews I had done three other ones. I know I should be able to discuss Street Wolves multiple times, but its tough for me to have the battery for it. Still, I’m hoping these are my last Street Wolves core book specific interviews. I want to talk about other stuff now.

I don’t know if the interviews moved the needle much on backers, but it was fun to connect with the interviewers and I’m grateful that they took the time and interest in my project.

Actual Plays

Mayday Roleplay was the only group that did a Street Wolves Actual Play during the campaign and I’m so thankful for that. I’ve been hoping they’d do at least one Street Wolves session for the last three years. And they did!

I’m not sure if it brought many backers in, the thing about APs is that they’re kind of evergreen for a ttrpg creator. You can always link to them/share as an example of your game in action! And in that way you help promote their work by sharing it.

Community Support

A lot of the success of the Kickstarter can be attributed to community support. One of the main reasons I released Street Wolves as a pdf first was to build up my reputation as a creator and to get people excited about it. By the time the Kickstarter was ready, I had made connections with a lot of cool people in the ttrpg community.

My advice to creators is to engage with people and support their projects if they’re a creator. But only be genuine about it. Honestly encourage others and offer help. When it’s time to do your thing, a lot of people will be there for you. Even if it’s a simple like or repost, every little bit helps.