Defining Success

This entry is not about success in roleplaying games, but in the RPG industry. How do you know when you've "made it" as an RPG publisher?

So I've done some thinking and come up with a couple of milestones to guide me along the way to success.

1st) "I'm free!": 81 sales. This is the amount of sales I need to have everyone paid off that I currently owe. Publishing something as lovely as AiO is an expensive proposition and I still owe people money for helping me put it together.

2nd) Schmuck: 100 sales. There's a bit of "common knowledge" that says "Any schmuck can sell 100 of anything."

3rd) "Don't laugh, it's paid for": 237 sales. This is about the point where I have actually earned back all of the money I spent on getting the game produced. Now I can talk about getting the money back from all the marketing expenses (which I'm trying to keep low, anyway).

4th) "Made it": 300 sales. This is the point where I can declare myself a survivor of the rat race that is self-publishing. It's not a record, but a badge of honor for my experience.