Archive of the Odd

Despite being a multidimensional archive staffed by mycelial bodies of unknown origin, Archive of the Odd values few things more than transparency. We like spreadsheets, we like explaining what we do, and we like making sure people are happy while receiving mysterious documents from worlds they may never inhabit. We also want to make sure that the people who make those mysterious documents possible get paid.

Archive of the Odd started as a side project while I (CM Baldwin) was getting my undergraduate degree. The first Kickstarter, funded mostly by friends and family, was $500, and was enough with additional sales to get us through the first two issues. We have since grown substantially, moving from a primarily digital magazine to a full press with standalone releases, stocking on bookstore shelves, and repeat appearances at events. It has been so amazing to work with everyone to make fantastically bizarre stories come to life.

So, first things first, we are doing fine. Things can only go up from here! We are currently above water financially and are sustainable for the foreseeable future. Our priority first and foremost is sticking around to be a home for the strangest stories, in the strangest formats there are. That will not change.

We are starting this campaign because “fine” and “sustainable” are both at low token pay, $0.01/word for fiction and $30/page for art (plus royalties for both). Both are… well, fine. It feels good to send a creator that money, but it’s far below professional rates. That said, our budget leaves little room for increasing pay. Below is an approximate breakdown of our yearly expenses since our first publication, both in strict numbers and in chart form. These numbers are based on estimates and vary greatly year to year—for instance, in 2024 we are doing more conventions, and thus our table fees have increased, but we’ve also paid more for stories with the introduction of chapbooks.

Here’s a general breakdown of our current general budget:

Maintenance/Upkeep
	Website hosting	$30.00
	Big Cartel	$120.00
	Adobe Acrobat	$60.00
Creator Pay
	Writers (~50,000 words)	$500.00
	Artists (~15 pieces)	$450.00
	Royalties	$500.00
Stock
	Physical books	$800.00
	Shipping materials	$50.00
Conventions
	Table fees	$600.00
Marketing
	Advertisements	$50.00
TOTAL		$3,160.00

This also does not include taxes or incidental expenses. In the case of things like travel for cons, we pay out of our own pocket. Currently, conventions and the hard copies we sell at them are two of our largest expenses, but they are also what funds much of our work. Thus far, we have always at least broken even at in-person events, and usually make a significant profit, giving us the bandwidth to do it all over again. From there, half of our profit from books sold then go to royalties. These may be small (~2% for each contributor per sale) but they do add up over many sales.

So what does this mean for our upcoming crowdfund? Where did we get these numbers, and where is the money going?

THE MATH OF THE MATTER

(read if you like numbers!)

Let’s look at our main goal: $0.03/word for authors, $40/page for artists for 4 issues. We are not looking to fund this entirely through the sales drive, so we are calculating based on $0.02/word and $10/page in addition to what we are currently paying (and can do sustainably). That is, at roughly 20,000 words and 10 illustrations per issue, an additional $500 per issue, or $2,000 over four issues. Simple math, right? Let’s raise $2,000!

Well… not quite. We are still paying all creators royalties on the books sold, including preorders. So assuming 80% of our sales are of books (and 50%* of the profit of each goes to royalties), we will be keeping approximately 60% of what is raised—and that’s a good thing! We want to pay our creators everything we can, especially since they will not be seeing the benefit of $0.03/word or $40/page. Also, we want a 10% buffer to account for the many, many things that can go wrong in this process. So, all told, we need to raise ~$3,700 to meet our goal. This is then complicated again by the fact that not every sale brings the same amount of profit. Digital copies are nearly pure profit, whereas physical copies bring in a profit of between one-third to one-quarter of the list price. We’ll go with a third ($5 of a $15 purchase).

This is where the guesswork comes in. We don’t know what people will buy ahead of time. If people were to exclusively buy physical, we would need to sell 750 books ($3,750 profit), but would also have to print all of those books. That means people would need to buy 750 books at approximately $10/apiece (once you consider taxes and shipping to us). Once you consider shipping (about $5 to ship to people in the US), that’s $15,000 we would need to have as our goal. On the other hand, if everyone were to buy digital, we would have to sell around 1250 books to make the same amount, but would only have to set our goal to around $3,750.**

At the same time, shipping multiple books (or books and merch) at the same time is significantly cheaper than sending one at a time, further changing the numbers. Should we get enough preorders, we may be able to get bulk discounts for printing in the future, increasing margins per book. And, of course, none of this has touched the cost (or benefit!) of producing merch or bonus materials.

The goal we set is a rough estimate based on the proportion of digital/hardcopy backers we’ve seen from other press crowdfunds. We combed through successful campaigns on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Backerkit to see which tiers tended to be the most popular and set numbers from there. That said, there’s no promise that our numbers will end up the same—we may end up making more or less at the end of the day. So…

THE WHAT HAPPENS IF IT ALL GOES WRONG? 

(read if you’d like to know our backup plans)

We’ve set a very flexible goal, not just by using Indiegogo, but by having such an estimate-based goal in the first place.*** This campaign is not $0.03/word and $40/page or bust. If we end up with enough to raise to $0.02/word and $35/page, we will be happy. Or we can move to $0.015/word, or just $35/page. We can raise to our initial goal for 3 issues instead of 4, and after those issues are up figure out what we can afford in the future. Of course, we’ll also be keeping everyone posted on those decisions.

Under NO circumstances will creator pay go down, be withheld, or otherwise be dealt with dishonestly. If we say that we will be paying more, we will. Creators are what make the Archives the Archives and not just a bunch of sad, empty shelves. We owe them everything.

Thank you,

CM Baldwin

If you are an Archive of the Odd creator, supporter, or general curious busybody, and you have questions about our plan for this campaign, you are welcome to reach out to us on social media @archiveoftheodd, or email us at archiveoftheodd@gmail.com.

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* Cat Voleur’s Revenge Arc has a different royalty structure, so technically this number is not completely correct, since sales of Revenge Arc will tilt slightly more towards royalties. However, assuming roughly equal portions of sales per book, this was too small of a difference to make a major part of the calculations. It is instead something good to know for the type of people who read footnotes. Good on you, footnote reader! 

** If you’re like me, this is about the point that you start feeling a bit guilty about whichever format you were thinking of backing. I can also tell you from experience of being myself that trying to switch to another format will not alleviate that guilt, so here’s the honest answer as to what’s best for all parties involved: whatever you are most excited by and can happily afford. Really, I promise! There is no correct answer between digital, physical, merch, no merch, add-ons, no add-ons, etc. We wouldn’t offer anything we wouldn’t be glad to bring to you.

*** To be fair, all campaigns like this involve a good deal of reasonable estimations. Trying to work backwards from a needed dollar amount to variable profits from different perks is complicated even before you start trying to figure out how many people may be interested in each perk.