As you've realized, those are early bird rewards. There are only 100 available, then after that the price point rises. I feel like one of the best values is the Kid tier, personally. But you are totally right about the shipping. Fortunately, I have access to some shipping discounts through my publishing company that will help with all of that.
Other then that, did you feel like the different tiers offered a good value? Is there something that you would have liked to see in a tier that isn't there, or maybe at the wrong price point?
Are there plans to sell the CDs and vinyl's individually?
Are you talking about post kickstarter? The answer is yes...and no. Currently my plan is to only offer the physical rewards during the kickstarter. After the campaign ends, I'll sell of excess stock. I wanted to gauge interest before I decide to restock or not. The physical editions will always be somewhat of a collectors item, so they'll be priced higher than a regular CD. Probably somewhere in the $20-$30 range for a CD and $40 - $60 for a vinyl.
I think it's important to make sure I'm giving some sort of value or incentive to buy the CD or vinyl through the kickstarter, I don't want to slap all of my backers in the face to just turn around and sell the physical merch for less then it took to get them in the campaign. It's a weird balance. Thoughts?
And what if the Kickstarter goal isn't met? Then what?
Have you considered having your kickstarter itself in tiers, something like below:
Raise $50,000 - Physical CD release
Raise $75,000 - Vinyl release
Raise $150,000 - Live orchestra re-recording
That way it's not an all or nothing release. Just a thought.
Those are good ideas. I've talked with people about doing something similar and have more or less decided on the following strategy:
I'm going for broke with this campaign. Full symphonic recording, high quality art (which I just got the semi-finished file today. This art is going to be INSANE!), limited edition physical prints of all merch with a collectors quality packaging for different backer rewards, the whole shebang! In the event the campaign fails, that's not the end of the project. We'll reevaluate the project and scale back accordingly, and launch again.
Depending on what kind of interest we received in this campaign that could be anything from trying to release a fully recorded album in chunks, or simply having the midi mastered with a physical release, or maybe just pay for the licensing and digitally release the tracks as is. It just depends.
Everything I've read says that the campaign needs to be as clear and focused on one objective as possible, even in your stretch goals, so I feel like keeping this campaign specifically about realizing the story from Cross through a symphony orchestra is the best approach.