Publishing lessons

This week, my latest game Emberleaf started shipping all around the world — two months ahead of the fulfilment date I announced during the campaign.

Today, I want to talk a little about how I got here, and share my best tips for delivering your crowdfunding campaign on time — if not early.

The secret to delivering on time? Planning.

When it comes to hitting your fulfilment date, the secret isn’t anything magical — it’s just planning.

Not just rough planning either. You want every part of your project as prepared as possible before you set your delivery date.

Here’s how I approach it.

Game Design

I always try to make sure the design is as finished as possible. There might still be a few small tweaks or edge cases I want to test — or something I leave open to adapt during the campaign — but the core game should be solid, and the rulebook written.

If you’re still actively testing or developing major parts of the game, it’s going to be much harder to predict when you’ll be done. And that makes hitting a delivery date a real challenge.

Art & Graphics

Before launch, I want a full understanding of how much art and graphic work is left to do. I talk with my illustrator and designer ahead of time and ask them how long they need — and then I always add contingency.

Burnout and stress kill creativity. People get sick. Revisions happen. You need to build space for that into your plan, so the creative process stays healthy, and your timeline doesn’t fall apart.

Manufacturing

Before launching, I get full quotes from my manufacturer. I also send over a list of all components and highlight anything that might be unusual or complex.

Standard items — boards, cards, boxes — are no problem. But if you’ve got something unique (like meeples, metal components, or miniatures), talk about it early. I often even have samples made before launching, just to confirm things can be made and will run smoothly when I get to production.

As an example, the original meeples for The Isle of Cats took over 3 months to get right. I went through many iterations, and if I had done this after the crowdfunding campaign launched, it would easily have delayed the project.

I also ask my manufacturer for a detailed timeline — I give them a date where I will deliver the files, and they provide dates for when they’ll send different samples, and when production will complete. I block those dates out in my calendar, so the moment I get a sample, I can review it straight away with no delay.

Adding contingency here goes a long way. It only takes one hiccup to delay everything by weeks.

Freight & Fulfilment

Freight shipping is always a gamble. You book a boat, and you hope it turns up. I’ve learned to assume it’ll take longer than expected.

These days I allow:

• 8 weeks from China to the US
• 10 weeks to the UK and EU
• Australia and Asia usually arrive much faster

Before launching, I also speak to all of my fulfilment partners — to confirm timelines, pricing, and let them know the campaign is coming. Once the project is funded, I get back in touch to confirm we’re working together.

Communication is key here. The earlier they know your plans, the better.

As production wraps up, I check in again to start pencilling in fulfilment windows. In this case, our public date was August. But by January, I could already see I was ahead of schedule — so I asked if we could aim for June 2nd. I still kept August as the public date in case boats were delayed or new issues came up, but everyone was working to this new date.

That was five months’ notice — which meant I could get it booked in early and stay flexible.

Thanks to this planning — and delivering the games to fulfilment centers with plenty of time — all of my fulfilment partners started packing games on the same day.

Building Contingency

The whole point of this process is to build a buffer. If something goes wrong, you’ve got time to fix it. If nothing goes wrong, you might even ship early.

That’s exactly what happened with Emberleaf. Everything went to plan, none of my buffer was needed, and we ended up shipping early — with every fulfilment region starting on the same day.

On Monday, June 2nd, orders began shipping in Australia, the US, Asia, the UK, and across Europe — giving all of my backers a consistent experience, and setting me up to later launch into retail worldwide on the same day.

Final Thoughts

Do you have any tips or tricks you use to stay on track? I’d love to hear how you approach planning and fulfilment.

And remember:

Don’t choose the best possible delivery date for your campaign.
Choose the most realistic one.
Plan carefully. Build in contingency.
And aim to deliver efficiently — with confidence, not risk.