Pigsmoke Finances
The first I'd ever done!
This was originally published as a Kickstarter update on 29 May 2018, following the successful fulfillment of my Pigsmoke crowdfunding campaign.
I've reproduced it here in an attempt to start collecting all this stuff in one place.
I promised this several months ago and then never wrote it: the breakdown of where the money from the Pigsmoke Kickstarter went. If you're interested in that sort of thing, here it is. If not, mash the delete button and move on.
1. INCOME
After various processing companies and middlefolks took their cut, the Kickstarter netted me £7668.90. I was well pleased with this pile of cash -- thanks again backers!
Running total: £7668.90
2. ART
Jacqui Davis did all the art for Pigsmoke (except for the logo, which I put together from Noun Project icons and free graphics from the internet). I paid her for the cover before the KS started, so I'd have some art to show people: that was £525. The interior art came to £2165 -- which was why I needed a Kickstarter to cover it.
Total spent on art: £2690
Running total: £4978.90
3. WRITING AND EDITING
I paid Katherine Cross $300 to do a diversity consult on the text and write her sections on marginalisation and academia. I paid this not long after the Brexit vote hammered Sterling into the floor, so it cost me £264.85. I also paid Rebecca Curran £695.38 to edit the text.
Total spent on writing and editing: £960.23
Running total: £4018.67
4. PRINT PROOFS
I had to get a bunch of proofs printed before I could declare Pigsmoke ok to print. Those set me back £138.29. I then spent the absurd sum of £424.89 on many, many rounds of proofs for the School Spirit tier backers. This was basically a carnival of errors by yours truly, all of which can be traced back to me thinking I knew what I was doing when I really didn't. The moral of this story is 'If your books are printing funny, ask the folks at OneBookShelf to help you out because they're actually pretty good at this.'
I did not do that. Don't be like me.
Total spent on print proofs: £563.18
Running total: £3455.49
5. MISC
I sent free contributor copies to Rebecca and Katherine. (I think I also sent one to Jacqui but I don't have a record of it in the budget.) I also sent a few to various RPG awards. I also sent one freebie copy to someone setting up a university library of RPGs. It seemed appropriate?
Total spent on misc: £95.62
Running total: £3359.87
6. OOPS
Three grand seems like a nice take-home, right? Plenty of money for fancy beer and video games. Except -- and this is quite blindingly foolish -- I forgot to budget for income tax. Not in my original budget, and not when spending money post-KS. I also managed to pick the worst possible timing of receiving my funds just before the end of the tax year, but paying my artist -- the biggest expense -- just after the end of the tax year. My tax bill was £2019.80.
Total spent on SUDDEN TAXATION: £2019.80
Running total: £1340.07
Now here's the thing: I'm lucky. Thanks to you lot, I had enough KS funds to absorb that kind of impact without torpedoing the project. Even if I'd made less, my company has a decent buffer of money from previous products to cope with unexpected costs. Even if I hadn't, HMRC offers a 'payment by instalments' option which could have lightened the load. I had a whole bunch of safety nets.
But you, who may be reading this while researching for your own Kickstarter, might not be in as secure a position as me. So learn from my mistake! Budget for taxes.
7. CONCLUSION
I got to keep £1340.07, which I spent on upgrading my Dropbox account, a nice meal for my family, a PS4 for me, cover art for Bear Essentials, and generally keeping Certain Death Publishing afloat. Although that's slightly underpaying me for the work I did on writing and layout (call it ~£1500 at reasonable rates) I also get to keep all future Pigsmoke income, so I think I got a pretty sweet deal.
Thank you all one last time for indirectly enabling my Monster Hunter addiction.
Chris
