Hey Daniel, how's business so far?

Koi pond

It's been ten months since I resigned from my full-time job, just about six months since I started selling Koi Pond as a print-on-demand product. As I covered in detail back in July, I still consider Koi Pond an early success. I thought you'd want to see a more focused listing of earnings and sales since this venture launched.

4-2013
31x Koi Pond: A Coy Card Game
$288.72 Retail
$69.80 Royalties*

5-2013
28x Koi Pond: A Coy Card Game
$399.19 Retail
$100.83 Royalties

6-2013
16x Koi Pond: A Coy Card Game 
$234.30 Retail
$58.17 Royalties

7-2013**
42x Koi Pond: A Coy Card Game 
25x Koi Pond: A Coy Card Game (Retail Version)*
80x Koi Pond: Four Walls (Promo Card 2)*
80x Koi Pond: Four Winds (Promo Card 2)*
$896.68 Retail
$162.88 Royalties

8-2013†
18x Koi Pond: A Coy Card Game 
11x Koi Pond: Four Walls (Promo Card 2)
5x Koi Pond: Four Winds (Promo Card 2)
$260.62 Retail
$68.82 Royalties

9-2013
35x Koi Pond: A Coy Card Game 
6x Koi Pond: Four Walls (Promo Card 2)
5x Koi Pond: Four Winds (Promo Card 2)
$441.36 Retail
$76.58 Royalties

10-2013 (to Date)
11x Koi Pond: A Coy Card Game 
6x Koi Pond: Four Walls (Promo Card 2)
6x Koi Pond: Four Winds (Promo Card 2)
2x Suspense: the Card Game*
$180.35 Retail
$50.05 Royalties

Grand Totals To Date
407 Products Sold
$2,701.22 Retail
$587.13 Royalties Earned*

* Low or no royalties because the orders were placed by DriveThruCards itself or by me for point-of-sale at conventions. This year I've also reinvested some of my royalties into self-orders for reviewers. Reviewers are busy people though. I think my small game tends to fall to the bottom of the list compared to big boxes with big names.

** I started doing a lot more podcast interviews starting around this time, promoting my card design class on SkillShare and the upcoming Belle of the Ball kickstarter.

† I suspect August was slow because of Gen Con. People saved up (or recovered) their funds. Either way, it was the gorilla of the month. Sales would recover well the following month, perhaps driven by a small amount of buzz?


Going Forward
For the time being, I'm sticking to this model. It's a slow start, but I expected as much. It's less than 1% of my earnings for the year, but that's not a surprise.

Fortunately, I'm still freelancing with several ongoing projects. I still offer a card design class on SkillShare that helps cover some household expenses. Belle of the Ball's kickstarter did very well, so it might earn out sooner than expected. Surprisingly, I'm also still earning royalties from Happy Birthday Robot and Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, which may continue once the Do Fate RPG comes out next year.

No single game is going to carry anyone to fame and riches in this business. Well, maybe Munchkin... and Magic... Okay, maybe a rare fraction of a percent can get lightning in a bottle, but that's no way to run a business. My plan is, and remains, to design and develop several prototype card games simultaneously, release them on a regular schedule for POD publication, and over time the overlapping royalties might become substantial enough that I can focus more of my full time on game design.

That's the dream anyway. We'll see where I stand at the end of the year.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5 Graphic Design and Typography Tips for your Card Game

Image
Chris Farrell of Illuminating Games just wrote a thorough critique of card games setting their body text to be so small that they cannot be read at arm's length, let alone across the table. Here's an excerpt, but the whole thing is worth a read for any would-be card game designers out there. (Myself included.) Break out your copy of the base set of Dominion, and look at the Chapel. This has a text box roughly 3.5cm by 4.5cm. It's got a single line of text. That line of text is 1 (one) millimeter high. 1mm! For me, it's only clearly readable at half an arm's length even in the bright light of day. (...) Compare this to a more sane game like Glory to Rome, where the font size is 2-3 times as large (text is 2mm high, keywords 3mm and usually highlighted). I can generally read Glory to Rome cards across the table, and can certainly see the important keywords. To heap insult upon injury, not only does Glory to Rome have far more legible text than Dominion it also has
Read more

Low-High Dice Game

Image
A dice game inspired by the stock market (and playing lots of Martian Dice). Roll a bunch of dice and choose which sets to keep. Choose your strategy wisely! Stuff You Need Two-to-Six PLAYERS A PENCIL and PAPER to keep score Thirteen standard six-sided DICE How to Play The shortest player takes the first turn. On your turn, first roll all thirteen dice. Several dice will have matching results. These are called SETS. (A single die result is a set, too.) You must choose a set to keep. For example, your first roll results are 111124445555 . The sets are four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, and four 5 s. After keeping a set of dice, lock them up in a row. This is called the GOOD TRACK. For example,  you could keep the set of four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, or four 5 s . You decide to keep the four 1 s and line them up in your good track. After keeping a set, you may end your turn or re-roll the remaining unlocked dice. When you re-roll, immediately set aside any results that ar
Read more

The Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge

Image
UPDATE: The submission period has closed and here are the entries. If you're an entrant, continue sending pics or vids of people playing your game. The first step to a game lasting a thousand years is for people to play it today. UPDATE 2: And here's the winner! To support games designed for longevity – that can be learned, played and shared for hundreds of years – we offer this challenge to any game designers, artists and imaginative people who also share this desire. Challenge Create a game. The game can be of any theme or genre you desire, but there is one restriction: You're creating a "new classic," like Chess, Tag or card games. So, create a game to be enjoyed by generations of players for a thousand years. Prize $1,000 to the winning entrant, to be announced and awarded January 1, 2012. Entry Deadline Entries must be submitted before midnight July August 31st, 2011. ( Update ) Entry Guidelines Enter by posting a comment below with a link
Read more