[Eric Morton Presents] a progress report

[Epic Meepo]

Where I've Been

As some of you may recall, towards the end of last year, I was preparing to self-publish an amateur PDF of campaign-related house rules. You may also have noticed that I decided to shelve that project a couple weeks before distributing online content I had prepared as promotional material.

Why did I put my amateur publishing project on the back burner? I decided at the last minute that I would rather spend my time establishing a viable, professional PDF publishing business, one involving an ongoing product line that generates a growing inventory of products to populate an online storefront.

Needless to say, planning a sustained product line with a regular release schedule has required much more of my time than cranking out a one-shot PDF. Hence my reduced presence here on the boards over the past six months or so, and my lack of product releases during that time.

My apologies for the sudden change of plans, and for the much-delayed progress report.

Where I'm Going

I still have months of work to do before I am ready to say anything too concrete about my new, improved publishing plan. I can say this: I have a vision for my first product line, and I am constructing a detailed outline that spans an initial run of roughly four dozen PDF products.

I'm hoping this level of advance planning will allow me to release products at a steady rate of two PDFs per month once the necessary groundwork is in place (but no promises). Whatever the release schedule, I will make sure all forty-eight of my planned releases form a cohesive product line.

I will also make an effort to keep anyone following this thread informed of my progress (but again, no promises). If nothing else, I will make an announcement on this forum when I release the first of the offerings in the product line I am planning.

Thank you for reading. I hope to have more details for you soon.

[Ascalaphus]

Good to hear from you again!

[Darkjoy]

I don't know how big your PDFs will be in page count but please be aware that if you are a one man shop 2 per month might be too much?

Planning is good, overplanning might be bad because you need to adjust your planning to the inevitable feedback from the public.

But good luck with your company!

[Epic Meepo]

Darkjoy wrote:

I don't know how big your PDFs will be in page count but please be aware that if you are a one man shop 2 per month might be too much?

I know from prior experience that I can crank out 200 well-received monsters in 12 months. I just need to make sure each of my PDFs is no longer than a collection of 8 monster write-ups.

Most of my advance planning involves lining up artwork, preparing graphics, setting up page-layout templates, and otherwise completing as much work on my critical chain as possible. (I've identified the combined process of editing, art direction, and page layout as my critical chain; in comparison, there are relatively few constraints on my ability to write new content, distribute finished PDFs, and monitor public feedback.)

In addition, I plan on finishing two to three months worth of products in advance before releasing anything. That way, I can eat a two-month set-back without falling behind, should that become necessary.

[137ben]

Looking forwards to it, I liked your monsters on d20pfsrd!

[Darkjoy]

Epic Meepo wrote:

Most of my advance planning involves lining up artwork, preparing graphics, setting up page-layout templates, and otherwise completing as much work on my critical chain as possible. (I've identified the combined process of editing, art direction, and page layout as my critical chain; in comparison, there are relatively few constraints on my ability to write new content, distribute finished PDFs, and monitor public feedback.)

OK, smart stuff. Once I thought about doing what you are doing, but wrangling the critical chain looked like a major challenge (and it is a major challenge, make no mistake). So I settled for writing ;>

[Ascalaphus]

I'm excited about this too.

[Epic Meepo]

I've made a modest amount of progress in the past two weeks:

My cover graphics for this product line are nearly finished, as are my page borders and my page layout template. I'll need to do some tweaking before I'm done, but I have a firm grasp of where I want to go and how I'm going to get there.

Spoiler:

For cover graphics, I'm starting with a minimalist background and adding a filigree-like frame around title of each book. The title will be the predominant feature on each cover. While this scheme will appear fairly plain at full resolution, it should look relatively distinctive when displayed as a thumbnail in an online store.

For my interior, I've decided on a look similar to that found in print magazines. There will be some clean-cut border images and a few other graphic elements to add color, but the background will be plain white. This is an intentional departure from the trend I'm seeing where rulebooks increasingly use textures and watermarks as backgrounds.

Aside from the title page, I'll be using a fairly-standard, two-column page layout. I think I may center illustrations on the middle of the page, allowing text to flow around them on both sides. The text itself will utilize a relatively small selection of easy-to-read fonts.

The sticking point at the moment is interior artwork. I've spent many hours over the past two weeks sifting through thousands of public domain and stock art pictures. My goal is to find a stylistically-consistent set of illustrations to populate this product line.

As anticipated, some of the more obscure themes in my product line don't lend themselves well to public domain illustrations or stock art. I'm still holding out hope that something useful already exists, and I'll continue my search a while longer before exploring other options.

I'll post more in this thread as I make more progress.

[Ascalaphus]

Sounds good. I like your focus on readability.

[Darkjoy]

Regarding your obscure themes and finding art for it, sometimes the art could showcase something else written on the page or add a little comment to the picture to explain things.

[Epic Meepo]

That's good advice, Darkjoy, and definitely something I'll take into consideration.

[Epic Meepo]

Another month of progress, and things are going well:

To reduce the amount of artwork I will need, I have condensed the forty-eight products I was initially planning into thirty-six products which cover the same material. With twelve fewer products on the schedule, I can stretch the artwork I already have to cover more of my planned releases. This frees up time for me to concentrate on other areas of the design process.

My cover graphics are essentially finished, and I have several decent page border options to choose from. I have started designing and writing content based on the outlines I spent the past few months writing. I have identified all legal text my products will need to include, and I am deciding how best to format my title and credits page. A rough draft of my first manuscript is nearly finished.

The only parts of the product line still in the planning phase are (teaser alert!) the genealogical charts that will appear throughout. The content and layout of those charts are ready to go, but I have yet to decide on the graphics I will use to convey that information. I am leaning towards a minimalist approach, utilizing flowchart-like boxes and lines.

Once I make that last design decision, I will be relatively close to having a complete first draft.