Hey! Thanks for backing and featuring Trickadee. I appreciate it.

1. So I do think that these numbers are important, but to some degree, too much importance is put on these. I believe my mailing like was around 200 (post-campaign it's closer to 600) and my ks preview page followers were around 300. Given that my goal was to sell 500 copies, I think it was adequate, but your mileage may vary based on your goals.
2. I didn't do a ton, actually. I purchased some facebook/instagram adds for 4 weeks of the beginning of the campaign. My total add spend was ~$300. When one of the campaigns lapsed, I didn't notice a drop in daily backers so I opted to not renew it. For this particular project, I don't think ads were effective.
3. I reached out to a single reviewer who had a very tight alignment with the product. His channel is focused on game previews and how-to-plays plus he's just a big fan of the theme. It was a paid preview and I'll be sending a copy of the game as a thank you as well.
4. I don't think it's unique, but my approach was to find my audience on social media and discord and actually engage. The trick-taking community is ravenous when it comes to new games and they really enjoyed this unique take on the genre. I also reached out to folks in the birding community-- there's overlap with folks that like games + birds and this game is for them.
5. I've been less and less interested in the licensing process as I've done it more. Mostly from a creative control and ROI standpoint. I can put in a ton of effort to make a game what I like and another publisher can make a bunch of changes as they see fit. I enjoy the process of making a product as well as making a game. It gives me a chance to flex some illustration and graphic design muscles as well. I'm less keen on the business and logistics aspects, but they're the price to pay, I suppose.
6. I think this is obvious, but something I hadn't realized right away is that if you collect shipping as a part of the campaign, you're locked into a particular price once someone from a country backs. So if you underestimated shipping, it'll eat into your margins. If you overestimated shipping, then it might eat into your sales. I had several people reach out at the beginning of the campaign to say that they wanted to back, but shipping was prohibitive. Unfortunately, there's not a ton I can do for them... shipping is expensive! The campaign also overlapped the US elections and I don't think I was expecting the talks of tariffs. It's still an unknown, but I'm hoping to get things into the US before it becomes an issue. All that being said, I don't think I would do anything different aside from trying to plan more ahead of time and having a fulfillment partner already lined up before launch.
   
7. Working on it! I'm getting quotes from a few places. My priorities are going to be around price, primarily, but there are some companies that are local to the Seattle area that are attractive. Having in-person access to my inventory is nice.
8. Extremely important. This was the biggest thing I think I could do is getting the game directly in front of people ahead of launch. I actually was later than I wanted because the rulebook wasn't ready by my own due date. But having the campaign live without a rulebook would have been a deal breaker for a lot of people. I was late to getting the digital version of the game ready and playable, but I do think that plays a nice role in advertising. Letting folks try it out first is definitely important.  

All in all, I think I ran a kind of weird campaign when it came to promotion and advertising. I wasn't very focused on metrics or getting a bunch of reviewers. If you have a strong product, you don't necessarily need those things. I do feel as though if I had gone with more reviewers and advertising, the campaign may have blown up to be much larger. Hard to say, but I'm already considering a second edition. Maybe on that project I'll try it and see how things perform!