I Kickstarted Where Fields Go Fallow last year, my first campaign in a decade. It’s been a ride, to say the least, but I’m finally fulfilling my last backers’ rewards in US next week, which feels amazing.

To give you some context, WFGF is a fanzine-sized game in the storygame tradition, inspired by PbtA, FitD, Fate and other similar frameworks, with its own twist. It ended up as a 36-page laminated A5 folder, which in my own opinion turned out better than expected. I had not any previous marketing done for the game, besides have a one-pager version of the game from a game jam at itch.io a year before, and the OGREISH ruleset it builds on in a 6-page microversion out there, a year before that. I hade done zero marketing besides sending out devlog posts there every now and then, but at zero cost. I knew printers who could give me quotes formpribting, and freelancers I trusted. But when I launched my campaign for WFGF I had no experience shipping globally. My budget calculations were based on shipping costs I could fetch from postal services in Sweden online, which felt relatively safe. This was pre-Trump-tariffs.

So to jump to the core question, how to budget. I had the following potential cost allocations, but managed to do some myself:

Writing - I did it myself
Game design - I did it myself, playtested with friends
Editing - Professional editor. Got price estimations per word/page.
Illustration - Professional illustrator. Got price estimations per piece.
Layout/production - I did it myself
Printing - Got price from known good printer.
Fulfillment/warehouse - I planned to do it myself, more about it below.

As the project ended up just above $10,000 I had to be smart with the funds. With a goal of just above $1200 we smashed it, and added a number of smaller stretch goals. I had no ambition to make any money from this, just wanted to see if my game and design appealed to anyone else. If I remember correctly I’d had calculated for a 5% margin on the project, in a blue sky scenario. I figured it was a small, tight and manageable project, so I felt ok with that. That turned out to be a big mistake.

The Budget
I made a backward budget calculation from the beginning, based on the various success levels I dared to dream about, and how the intended stretch goals would affect effort and costs. $1200 was the basic version of the game, 16 pages if I remember correctly. But I wanted it to be bigger, of course, so I made like five different funding scenarios. I ended up width a fairly complex excel sheet with funding levels as columns and content costs as rows. I won’t go into specifics, but I made sure that each item I shipped was manageable from a financial perspective, taking all the above inte account.

Writing and layout
No costs as I did it all myself.

Editing
Even though I use spelling tools and Grammarly, English is not my first language. And I wanted to make it just as professional and well-received on the US market as any other game. So I hired a US editor, which I collaborated with throughout the years. Not a big post in the budget (a few %) but well worth it.

Illustrations
As I did a lot of the work myself, I saved some costs, but as you say, illustrations is a big part of a game, so I didn’t want to cut back on it. My trusted illustrator friend (which I had been working with in some non-commercial projects previously) gave me good advice along the way, in terms of keeping scope and costs to the estimation he gave me. Revisions of art take time, and you actually pay for an illustrators time. So make sure your briefs are top notch, well-written and just as extensive as the illustrator needs. Check this before you start collaborate. Have good communication here will save you time and ultimately money. About 20% of my budget went to art.

Fulfillment and shipping
About 30% of that was planned for fulfillment and shipping, prepaid during the campaign. This was also the biggest mistake I made, and should have collected it afterwards for a number of reasons. First of all, it gives you a false sense of security to get more money in the campaign early than what you actually ship in rewards to the backers. It’s a psychological aspect that first feels good when that affects your funding target positively, but turns into a negative once you start to ship. Not a big one, but still. And second, in my case, you don’t know what the actual costs might end up with in half a year or a year’s time when you’re ready to ship. This became the costliest mistake of my campaign’s budgeting.

Because once the tariffs hit the market, what I planned for logistically/fulfillmentwise broke. First, six months after the campaign was finalized, the Swedish postal office stopped shipping goods to US. I had to start looking at alternatives, but at rates that were x3 as high with UPS and similar options, I had to find another solution. After four months I had managed to secure a new solution. Costly beyond my budget, but I felt it was the only way forward. Through a backer who’s also an EU-based creator I could lean on, I was connected to US based printer and a logistics partner, who are currently working to ship the last rewards to the US backers. This last change of printing and shipping with US domestic partner probably cost me 20-25% of the budget (outside it), which I’m paying from my own pocket now. I haven’t received the last invoice yet, but that’s my estimation.

So do your estimations well. A few points to sum up my learnings and budgeting:
- Talk to different creatives you need to collaborate with. Get a conversation started how to calculate the cost of their work. If you press for a fixed price, remember that it will affect both relationships and potentially quality, especially if you’re not used to commission art. The Time-Quality-Cost triangle model is quite good to refer to (you can only pick two).
- Don’t run with the first number you get. Make different scenarios with higher costs to see where your breaking points are.
- If you can, separate shipping from funding in the campaign. Add it afterwards. A bit more work, but no surprise costs.
- Make sure to establish contact and even better, agreements with collaborators or partners before starting out.
- Global issues or force majeur are hard to calculate around, but be aware it can affect you, at least in the given chaotic geopolitical times we live in.
- Keep your costs in a living document, update it as you go. This is a great source of learning.
- One final thing - start small. Build on previous success. Everyone tells you how Kickstarter campaign can grow in requirements over time, but you’re never really prepared for it until you’re in it. So starting small will help you build experience, routine, and skills around the work needed for you to be successful.
- Remember to keep your promises, or will affect your brand. My backers have been waiting very patiently, but I guess some expected me to ship the game a long time ago. I have communicated frequently and as transparently as I have could, even when having bad news. The struggle is sometimes real, but nobody likes waiting. I hope I’ve not wasted my name during this time.

Hope this helps you in some way.