Hi everyone!

Ben here with a status report.

With seven days to go, I've seen a growing concern on the Discord as people observed the number of available Deluxe Heralds units dipping below 1000. Fans are starting to worry that we might sell out. First, the quick answer, then I'll go into detail for people who like detailed explanations.

tl;dr –

We can manufacture up to 5000 copies of Deluxe Heralds. We need to keep at least 250 books in reserve for replacing anything lost or damaged during shipping. In the very best case scenario, 4750 books are available as pledge items in this campaign.

I have just increased the unit cap on this campaign from 4000 to 4500, and I'll raise it by another 250 if absolutely necessary. This means that 1605/4750 books remain (34%). It is possible, but not likely, that we will sell out. If you're risk-averse, I would mildly recommend an earlier pledge, rather than waiting to the last minute.

If you've spent time around crowdfunding campaigns, you've probably seen various trackers that claim to project how well a campaign will perform. One of the better ones is BackerTracker. Here's the page for our campaign.

These trackers, while useful, don't have access to internal projections and metrics. For example, they don't take into account performance of past campaigns, the size of a mailing list, fan enthusiasm, or (crucially) payday cadences. It's long been my practice to end campaigns on common paydays, as a request from fans over the years who want that guarantee that funds will be available when charges process.

Let's break down the factors that affect campaign performance.

ADVERTISING

Trackers don't account for the variance between organic and paid leads, and how that ties into ad spending. I've only recently started using paid ads for campaigns, because 1) the numbers finally justified a limited ad spend, and 2) I receive SO MANY emails when campaigns end from fans who didn't know they were happening. Reaching fans who aren't already in our active fandom is exceptionally hard. Millions of people have read and loved Misty's books, but aren't connected to here anywhere online. Ads are one way to find the people who want to be found, and hopefully a way to decrease the sad "I MISSED OUT!" messages.

Our ad spending for campaigns typically is the highest at the beginning and the end. We base it on a metric called ROAS (return on ad spend), which measures how many pledge dollars each dollar spent brings in. My number one, highest priority is to maximize Misty's royalties, because the primary purpose of these campaigns is to keep her and Larry in good health, with their bills and health insurance paid, so they can focus on writing and art.

I've built a suite of custom tools for projections and campaign management over the years. Here's what it's feeding back to me:

So I could be asking our marketing partners at BackerKit to spend at a higher rate. Based on the current ROAS, that would absolutely sell more books and bring us closer to the 4750 sales limit.

Advertising is likely to push our $504,000 projection higher than expected, if we choose to approve that spend. Let's say that we approve spending to bring in around 200 more backers.


ORGANIC REACH (THE POWER OF FANDOM)

You know what's more effective than advertising? Enthusiastic word-of-mouth in the fandom. And, uh.... that's happening. A lot. What that enthusiasm indicates is that we're likely to see a rise in organic pledges over the last few days. While I can't turn observation into hard numbers, sixteen years of crowdfunding experience tells me that the tracker may be underestimating that kind of demand by $10,000-$15,000. That's another 100-150 backers.


INTERNAL STATS

The trackers also don't have access to our Backerkit Dashboard, which tells quite a story:

First, the returning backer rate isn't correct because we just migrated Misty's followers to a dedicated account in BackerKit, so that emails and updates weren't mixing the ZOE audience (like for Gamers and JourneyQuest) with all of you. As many of you who have been with us for three campaigns know, you do exist, even if the dashboard doesn't recognize it.

However, the rest of the numbers are accurate. The Existing Audience (people who did back or follow prior campaigns) has a high conversion rate of 77.1%, and that's before the campaign has even ended. That's 497 people who are extremely likely to pledge before the campaign ends, because a) you received awesome rewards before, and b) you've been around enough to know that you can apply for and receive a scholarship if your financial situation is rough this time around.

We also have a total audience of over 9000 people. This includes email list signups, campaign follows, campaign pledges, and so on. One-third of the audience has pledged so far, with two thirds of the books already reserved. Call it 503 more people. That brings us to 1000 total from the audience.

Added to our earlier numbers, that puts us at 1300 more backers for 1750 more books. Great, right?

This analysis would result in a higher-end projection of $529,690, about $25,000 above the tracker.

So based on the numbers, I can predict that we'll still have a buffer at the high end of expected performance. Everyone gets a book, and nobody misses out. In theory.

BUT... this is crowdfunding AND this is Mercedes Lackey we're talking about. Ultimately, we can guess and predict, but nobody knows what's going to happen. We might be at the end of demand and pledges will tricking in for the final week. We might be facing a huge upwards curve on the tail end of the campaign, with a Backer Train that runs overnight and everything sells out.

Please don't panic (especially scholarship recipients: I keep books set aside for every applicant, it's okay, don't worry!) However, my mild recommendation holds: if you want to be sure you get a copy, or if your own analysis suggests that we might sell out, then you might want not to wait to pledge unit the final day, purely for the peace of mind.

Okay, that's enough braining for one day. I'm heading outside for a few minutes to enjoy the sunshine and touch grass, but will be around later to answer questions in the comments.

- Ben