Monday, August 2, 2010

Experiment Tim! (Part 2)

Okay, since I'm not the best in the world when it comes to planning out a business model and all the costs and expenditures that must be factored in, I thought I'd throw this out to the gallery and see what comes back. Basically, I'm likely going to be trying the Kickstarter route for crowdfunding my novel release for "Midwasteland", using the mechanics in the previous posts for a tiered payment/funding model. I am planning on setting a goal for $10,000 in funding for the project. Sounds like a lot, I know, but when you consider all of the bonuses and/or benefits in the tiers in the previous post, I think it's a number that makes some sense. But feel free to provide feedback if you think I'm crazy.

But, more importantly, I took the step today to analyze and research what it will cost me in physical hard costs to do this project. I went to www.bookprintingrevolution.com to get an idea of the costs associated with printing hard copy paperback versions of the books and having them shipped to me. I also tried to factor in an estimated cost to send them out to my readers who funded me (after signing them of course). It seems to me that these two costs represent what I would need from the physical book costs portion of my plan. Anyway, here's what I came up with:

1. Setup fee through www.bookprintingrevolution.com -- $99.99
2. Cost for 200 printed paperback books -- $986.00
3. My estimate of shipping the books to my home -- $200.00
4. My estimate of shipping the books to individual readers -- $400.00
Total book printing/shipping costs -- $1685.99

So...what am I missing? Anything? The rest of the costs associated with the tiers in my past post (free eBook copy, signed paperbacks, custom written short stories, reviews/edits of others' work) don't have much if any monetary cost. The additional addons I've had since (a burned DVD w/commentary video from locations where the book is set, free PDF chapters from my work in progress, acknowledgement in the paperback, naming characters within my next work after the donator) also have little cost (namely the DVD-RWs and DVD sticker labels).

So tell me, what am I missing?

Because if the answer is nothing, then this seems clear. Adding an additional $500 for buffer and unexpected costs, that gets me to 2185.99 in total costs for this project, assuming it isn't popular enough that I have to buy more physical books (which I hope it is!). So, setting aside costs for marketing for the moment, that means that if I get 100 people to donate to my project, they would have to spend an average of $21.86 for me to break even. And that would be if I only sold half the books! To me, that is totally workable, but you're the customer. Tell me if/why I'm wrong....

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