It's nice to write to creators

I got two emails today that made me feel good about this project. One was from a person asking if she could get the completion stickers I made for Doctor Esker's Notebook for people to use on their Escape Room Passports (see here for details: https://wetheenthusiasts.com/). That was neat, to see that she cared enough to memorialize the event, and that somebody actually wanted one of the stickers I made.

The other email was from a guy my age who just wanted to say that he enjoyed playing the game with his kids. Very kind thing to do - he didn't need to, but he just wanted to let me know that he liked it. This is important to remember - there's always somebody on the other side, at the creative end of whatever you're using for entertainment, and if you can let them know you got something out of it, that's always worth doing. They'll be happy all day.

Sequel is at the printer

I've got the art submitted to the printer, both for a reprint of Doctor Esker's Notebook, and for the sequel. Very exciting! Waiting on proofs.

Great review from G33K-HQ!

I got a terrific review from G33K-HQ for Doctor Esker's Notebook. Here's a link to the review:

G33K-HQ Review

Sounds like they had a great time with it. WARNING: There's a little bit of a spoiler for the first puzzle in their pictures.

Doctor Esker's Notebook project financial update

I've been doing a series of posts about the financial end of my game project, and I haven't posted an update for a while. I'm nearly to the break-even point, which is great! I'm at $-194 by my calculation, with revenues of $3,454 offsetting expenses of $3,649.

I have sold 386 games and sent out 35 as promo or reviewer copies. I have 134 in stock at Amazon, and another 525 or so at home (uh, I mean in my warehouse 😀 ). I make about $9 per game depending on the sales channel, and I am not incurring too many new expenses at this point - the major expenses were printing and development, and I don't have many ongoing costs (other than the cut Amazon and PayPal take from each sale). So, I could make up to about $4,000-$4,500 on this if I just sell out the print run and don't do anything else.

Sales have taken a little bit of a hit over summer. I'm at about two sales a day, where from February to April I was at more like three a day. I hope that's just seasonal and not a trend. Nearly all sales now are through Amazon.

Here's the info in graph form. First, expenses and revenues by category:

The picture above shows revenues (above zero, climbing) and expenses (below zero, mostly flat). Time progresses along the bottom, but not evenly - initially I was updating every day or two, but now I'm updating less frequently.

Next, net revenue (income minus expenses): 

On this one, the time axis is properly scaled. I'm almost back to zero, as you can see.

Of course, I'm not including the time I've put into this project. My hourly wage is something like negative fifty cents an hour. So, this isn't (yet) a good way to make a living, put food on the table, or pay for health insurance. It's not even a good investment relative to a good solid mutual fund, although it will be if I sell out the print run by the end of the year, which looks likely if sales pick up a little around the holidays.

Anyway, looking good. I should hit break even sometime later this month.

Daggers Highschool by Jorge Zhang

One of the guys who reviewed Doctor Esker's Notebook is a game designer himself, and he's just launched a new Kickstarter for his game. The game is Daggers Highschool, a deckbuilding game that simulates a frenetic, comedic, and tremendously stressful high school, with deckbuilding mechanics. Looks like fun!

The link to see more is here: Daggers Highschool
Boardgame Geek link is here: Daggers Highschool BGG

Development version shown below: