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Ted Alspach
United States
San Jose
California
www.board2pieces.com has the latest Board 2 Pieces comics and merchandise!
If you haven't played Ultimate Werewolf, you're missing out on the best version of werewolf ever!!!
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Kickstarter project link: http://kck.st/oyK37m
Here begins my quest to have a successful boardgame kickstarter project. I’ve decided to chronicle my efforts in this blog so that others will be able to learn from the process.
As the owner of Bezier Games, I’ve been doing game publishing for a long time, since 2006. However, most of the games I’ve done have been fairly smallish games like TieBreaker and Ultimate Werewolf and of course several dozen Age of Steam/Steam expansions. The biggest game I’ve done so far was Beer & Pretzels, which had some great quality pieces, but no board. I have several games in the queue that are “too big to publish” based on the current level of my company. By “too big to publish” I’m referring primarily to the manufacturing cost of the game. Doing a $50-$60 game hasn’t been something I’ve been willing to undertake...until now. I figure that with the right game, and the right approach on Kickstarter, I can put out one of the best unpublished designs I have.
Given my record of publishing, and what I’ve learned, I’m taking a very conservative approach to this...some would say ridiculously conservative....
Instead of launching a Kickstarter campaign for the game I want to publish (which will undoubtedly be in time for next year’s (2012) Essen Spiel, I’m gong to launch a “trial” Kickstarter campaign for another, smaller project to see what I can learn first. By the time that’s finished, I’ll have experience with a Kickstarter campaign and will be able to leverage that experience to be more successful for the boardgame.
That trial kickstarter campaign is something near and dear to my heart, but not nearly as big of an undertaking as a “big box” boardgame. I’ve been wanting to put out a compendium of Board 2 Pieces (http://www.board2pieces.com) comics, and using Kickstarter, I just might be able to do that. My plan for the Board 2 Pieces comic collection is to create two books: Vol. 1 will cover years 2006-2007, while Vol. 2 will cover years 2008-2009. And these aren't just simply collections of the strips, but there is detailed commentary throughout on both the strips and the contents of the strips, as well as some interesting stats that I’ve been compiling.
I’ve already written and laid out the first four chapters (about 20 pages) of Vol. 1, and it’s looking really good. I’ll be using screenshots of this as examples in my Kickstarter video. Each Volume will be 48 or 50 pages long and contain about 200 comics each.
Yesterday (August 15th) I submitted the initial request to Kickstarter for them to approve my project. Here’s what I submitted:
Quote: Ted AlspachMonday Aug 15, 7:12am PDT Category: Comics Funding Goal: $1,000 - $5,000 Project DescriptionI'd like to offer a series of trade paperbacks that include the more than 500 comics that I've produced over the past 5+ years: Board 2 Pieces, an irreverent look at boardgames told from a "game group" of board game pieces. This project would include 2 50 page books covering the first four-or-so years of the comic. In addition to reprinting the comics (which had only been available online before), each page has commentary on the comics themselves, including interesting factoids about the games discussed, why that particular slant was taken for the comic, and a history of each of the characters in the comic. Project RewardsBase level is a choice of either book (probably at a $15 cost) including shipping.
2nd level is both books at $30 including shipping.
3rd level is both books signed by the author and a note of thanks in each of the books to the contributor. $35
4th level is both books signed, note of thanks, and a custom 4x10 signed print of the comic of their choice. $50
5th level is booth books signed, note of thanks, a giant custom 6"x16" signed print of the comic of their choice. $65
6th level is a copy of each book, note of thanks, giant custom 6"x16" signed print, and an embroidered "Leo", "Jerry" or "Holly" character baseball cap. $100
7th level is two copies of each book, note, 6x16 print, baseball cap, a new character in Board 2 Pieces named after them and a 10x10 signed print of their debut in Board 2 Pieces. $250
8th level is two copies of each book, note, 6x16 print, baseball cap, new character, 10x10 print, and the character will appear on the back cover of each book. $500 Links:
http://www.board2pieces.com
http://www.opinionatedgamers.com
Of course, the rewards listed are just ideas at this point, and I’ll be doing additional brainstorming on them.
Later that evening, I received the following response from Kickstarter:
Quote:
Kickstarter Staff
Monday Aug 15, 6:48pm PDT
Hi Ted
Thanks for writing and for sharing your ideas! While what you're doing sounds great, the scope of this project might be a bit too broad to really benefit from the Kickstarter platform. The best Kickstarter projects are those focused around a singular, creatively-based aim.
Was there a particular aspect of this event you wished to focus on?
-mike
So at this point I’m a little confused. Was my initial post not clear? Was two books really too wide of a scope? Just yesterday I had read about an irate kickstarter wannabe whose project was turned down...he blamed the site for cherry picking projects it liked, while refusing others based on some sort of unexplained editorial process. Other folks chimed in and said it was probably because he was looking to get cash to hire a copy editor for his writing project, and the guidelines for Kickstarter are about financing an entire project, not funding specific tasks (I need to review that myself, though I’m not anywhere near that sort of category). I was a little concerned that my project might be turned down.
I decided to wait until the next morning to reply:
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Ted Alspach
Tuesday Aug 16, 3:29am PDT
Hi Mike... I apologize if it didn't seem specific enough. I'm really looking to publish TWO trade paperbacks with this project:
Board 2 Pieces Vol. 1: 2006-2007
Board 2 Pieces Vol. 2: 2008-2009
Each book will be about 50 pages. I spent the day yesterday determining the exact length of the books.
Everything else listed in the Rewards section is an extra.
I hope that clarifies the scope of the project for you.
Thank you!
Ted Alspach
So now I’m thinking this will work, as I’ve clarified the request. Then (after browsing through more Kickstarter projects and funding two more...ack! It’s very addicting!), I sat down to write this first blog. As I’m writing it, I realized my profile on Kickstarter was incomplete, so I took a few minutes and added my fairly standard (non-work) blurb:
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Ted Alspach is the designer of more than 30 boardgames and expansions, including Ultimate Werewolf, TieBreaker and Beer & Pretzels. Ted is also the author of more than 35 books on graphics and publishing, and the writer of the semi-weekly comic strip Board 2 Pieces.
Initially I didn’t see where I could go to find the proposal I had submitted (other than the link in my email). There’s no link to my proposal from my Profile page or the settings pages. I clicked on the “start your project” button at the top to see if I could find anything there, and then saw the nice big “See your Proposal” button (which I believe used to read “submit your proposal” before I had submitted it). Clicking that showed me the proposal, which I then copied into this blog.
As I was copying, I re-read the initial proposal, this time looking for anything that might clue me in to why Mike thought this might be too wide in scope. Then I saw it. I use the term “comic” when talking about Board 2 Pieces to refer to a single strip. And even though I’m a big time comic BOOK collector, and I call those comics as well, I didn’t see it that way. But I bet that’s what Mike, the reviewer, was thinking. He was probably thinking to himself, “500 comic books! That’s crazy! what a giant project!” That would totally explain his scope question. So I quickly added another message to the thread:
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Ted Alspach
Tuesday Aug 16, 5:52am PDT
Rereading my original post, I think you may have assumed that by "comics" I meant comic books...I'm actually referring to comic *strips* (a big difference!!). Hopefully that further clarifies the project.
So I sent that in and settled in, waiting for a response, slightly more nervous than I should be, I think.
At this point I’ve already learned something, which is don’t assume that your reading audience is on the same page as you. And it’s possible that Mike didn’t check out the links in the link section, which would have reinforced the “strips” definition. So for the next project submission, I’ll need to be crystal clear on all terminology to ensure it doesn’t get hung up by the powers-that-be.
Just a few hours later, at 12:08pm, I received another email from Kickstarter:
Quote:
Hi Ted
Thanks for writing. Sounds like an interesting project!
Congratulations -- you’re in! In just a moment, you’ll be able to start getting your project ready. Yay!
....(lots of additional details and links and things).
So with that, I’m off! The kickstarter project that’s a precursor to my boardgame kickstarter project is ready for me to get it all set up.
This Thursday's Board 2 Pieces is actually about Kickstarter, as Alvin the board game designing meeple tries to figure out how to utilize Kickstarter to fund his latest game "Sausages."
For the next blog, I hope to have the basics in place, including the actual pricing, an end date for the project, and specifics for the rewards. I’d love to hear your feedback on the rewards I suggested until then!
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www.board2pieces.com has the latest Board 2 Pieces comics and merchandise!
