A fellow Paizonian, on another thread, said:
"Self Publishing is a great concept, but it really is best for those that want to run a business. I don't mean to sound like I am trying to talk you out of self publishing, if that is what you want to do. I just hope to help you consider everything involved in that road. "
What are some advice/tips to someone considering 'self publishing'?
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It is only slightly easier now than it was ten years ago...I Wrote, Printed, published a Book of Poetry. I hand bound ten copies and got ISDN numbers for them simply writing to the Australian Archives Library at the time all you had to do was get their form, and send a fee of fifty dollars and they sent you an ISDN for your Book. And in return you send them a copy and one to the local state library. So i did that but it all cost me a thousand dollars (Book binding equipment, Mac, Printer inks, ect). I would do it again in a heartbeat because I know now that you can now burn your book to CD and submit it in that format but the process has been outsourced to some private sector bozo so the simple process now involves to many others...
If you are going to Self-Publish...past the Lawyers fees because you probably intend to do it about D&D the licences and legal agreements will cost you a lot.
I'm considering an 'electronic magazine' which I will make available over at Vaults of Pandius but it may be too much effort if I have to pay legal fees and sign licences with Wizards of the Coast...especially when all I realy need is a Time Machine, an UZI, and the addresses of Gary Gygax, and Dave Arneson, age 12.
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Probably the biggest problem with self-publishing is marketing--a publisher will aggressively market your book because they want to make money as badly as you want people to read your work. When you self-publish, all the marketing is up to you. Not to mention, you lose the benefit of professional editors, copyists, and critics--if the NYT doesn't know you have a book out, they're not going to review it, and it's not going to be sold at the front entrance of every B&N.
Thanks for the advice!
With the state of the current economy, would it even be a good idea to start a self-publishing venture?
Thanks for the advice!
With the state of the current economy, would it even be a good idea to start a self-publishing venture?
I would suggest looking into lulu.com if you are interested in cost-effective self-publishing or vanity press. It has the added benefit of print on demand services. I am not familiar with the licensing agreements you may need to sign to use the service, but do know a few people who have self-published as part of Nanowrimo, and are quite happy with the results. You can apply for an isbn via http://www.isbn.org/
If you are interested in just pdf products, I suggest getting comfortable with a typesetting application, such as LaTeX, which is free and cross-platform (there is a learning curve). Commercial typesetting or layout software is usually quite expensive (example, Adobe Indesign retails for about $700, US and comes with a limited number of "seats").
I have a couple friends that used lulu.com for their game they wanted to publish. They also used drivethru rpg for pdf distro. and they found that most of their sales came from drivethru. Hardly any came from lulu. Though i'll contribute most of that to lack of advertising.
I don't know if their are conflicting agreements if someone wanted to sell their pdf's on both DriveThruRPG.com and Paizo.com, but if I were to get into pdf publishing, I'd definitely want to sell at both places.
I've never used LaTeX, but I've played with Scribus a bit. It's similar to Adobe InDesign.
I'd like to get into the publishing/writing biz, but don't know if it's worth it for me at the moment. Still trying to decide. Though it's something I'd thoroughly enjoy doing, I don't know if it's viable for me to make any real income. They say "you've gotta spend money to make money", and I simply don't have any to spend. So, it seems my decision is made for me.
I was the one that wrote the quote in the OP. I spent 4 months last year working to start my own publishing company. At the end of it, I went back to freelance writing. Let me share some additional information.
Selling PDFs on Paizo You need to be registered with Alliance Distribution first. Alliance is the distributor for RPG products.
Problems with Lulu Their shipping outside of the USA is increadibly high, high enough that last year there was a thread on RPG.net where Europeans told publishers to find some other way to print their products because they will not buy it from there anymore. Plus there is no real way to just browse products they have in their database. Its easier for someone to find your book by them first going to your website and then taking the link from it to Lulu.
PDFs do not result in phenomenal sales Even though PDF sales are the fastest growing segment of the industry, they still represent a very small segment of the industry. A few quarters ago, the makers of Spirit of the Century released sales numbers on the game. The best selling indy RPG had about 75% of their sales in printed form, the remainer being PDF.
Quality Advertising is Expensive Web banners are cheap, but plenty of people just ignore them (not saying you should not use them, merely that they should not be the whole strategy). Quality Advertising (i.e. a half page ad in Knights of the Dinner Table) runs in the hundreds of dollars and must be paid several months before the ad is run.
Like before, I'm not trying to talk you out of it if that is your desire, simply trying to pass along information that I have collected so you can be aware of it and plan around it.
I'd like to get into the publishing/writing biz, but don't know if it's worth it for me at the moment.
If you want an easy, low stress way to break into the RPG market, I recommend starting off as a freelancer. I said in the other thread that you were referencing to try various PDF publishers and write for them. Once you get known for something, consider taking it to the next level as to be a publisher then. But first get your name to work for you.
Wow, thanks for that info DM! I know you're not trying to talk me out of it, but that is a lot of info! It's almost overwhelming thinking about what I need to do if I'm going to get serious about it. It's a lot to ponder. I'd prefer not to rely on lulu.com alone, if at all. Well.. Thanks to everyone for the advice so far!
Edit: I just caught your edit. Thanks for the tip! I'll do just that.
Chief Technical Officer
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Selling PDFs on Paizo You need to be registered with Alliance Distribution first. Alliance is the distributor for RPG products.
Not so! Alliance is our primary distributor, but we also deal directly with many PDF and print publishers.
We don't generally require exclusivity, either.
Selling PDFs on Paizo You need to be registered with Alliance Distribution first. Alliance is the distributor for RPG products.Not so! Alliance is our primary distributor, but we also deal directly with many PDF and print publishers.
I just went back and checked. I was told that even if I was just producing PDFs, I would need a "Company Code (usually given out by Alliance Game Distribrution)."
Wow, thanks for that info DM! I know you're not trying to talk me out of it, but that is a lot of info! It's almost overwhelming thinking about what I need to do if I'm going to get serious about it. It's a lot to ponder. I'd prefer not to rely on lulu.com alone, if at all. Well.. Thanks to everyone for the advice so far!
Edit: I just caught your edit. Thanks for the tip! I'll do just that.
No problem. Glad I can help.
Also, I can't say enough about freelancing. It really is the perfect job (ok, the pay isn't great, but besides that...)! If a project interests you, you can take it. If something does not interest you, you don't have to. If you like a certain game, you can focus on it. If you've played every RPG known to man, you can write for them. You can write for games that are closed to most publishers (anything GURPS, BRP, etc) or you can write for completely open systems (d20/pathfinder, Traveller, Fate/Fudge, MRQ, True20, etc). Your only real obligations are to write your best, meet your deadlines, and act professional.
Plus you get people that come up to you and tell you how much they love your stuff (after a while). Check out the Toolbox d20 thread to see what I mean.
Have you read 12 to midnight's guide to publishing, free download at their website?
It offers some good advice I think which lines up with DMcCoy's points.
Do you want to publish or do you want to be published? This is the central question, if it is mostly the latter then freelancing is your best bet. If it is the former then it is about running a business and you need to be prepared for that.
If it is about publishing, do you have any submission guidelines for me?
I just picked up that pdf from 12 to Midnight, and skimmed through it. It looks to be very interesting, and valuable as well. I'll have to view it after work however.
As for what I'd like to do, I still have yet to decide. It's not as easy as I thought it'd be, and I have a lot of work cut out for me. I'll need to dig deep, and think of what I really want to get out of this.
Another POD (print on demand) publisher to consider is Booklocker (www.booklocker.com). They charge significantly less than any of the other POD publishers.
I've considered publishing with them in the past, but I don't really have the money to spend either!
The only thing that I would say that would be difficult with Booklocker is that they don't really have an RPG market. They do depend on the author to self-promote, but still I don't think they would know how to market an RPG product.
But I've heard a lot of good things about them.
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Chief Technical Officer
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I just went back and checked. I was told that even if I was just producing PDFs, I would need a "Company Code (usually given out by Alliance Game Distribrution)."Selling PDFs on Paizo You need to be registered with Alliance Distribution first. Alliance is the distributor for RPG products.Not so! Alliance is our primary distributor, but we also deal directly with many PDF and print publishers.
Well, your products do need a company code, but Alliance doesn't give those out—you apparently get them from the Greater Games Industry Catalog.
Do you want to publish or do you want to be published? This is the central question, if it is mostly the latter then freelancing is your best bet. If it is the former then it is about running a business and you need to be prepared for that.
It's always easier to learn your business on someone else's dime. If you're on the fence, and don't have years of experience & contacts in the business, then really your best bet is to work for an existing publisher (either staff or freelance). Hone your writing skills, get the years of industry experience and professional contacts, and get paid to do so.
*Then* if you still want to run a business, take some business classes and get the financing together. If you're in the States, the Small Business Administration has a nifty self-assessment tool for folks who are thinking of starting a business. Even if you're in another country, it might be useful to you.
Wow! Most interesting... I'm quite interested in the same but as a free RPG stuff in PDF, yet I'm most concerned with the legal stuff (namely OGL and Paizo fan license...yet to be released).
Any advice there?
Wow! Most interesting... I'm quite interested in the same but as a free RPG stuff in PDF, yet I'm most concerned with the legal stuff (namely OGL and Paizo fan license...yet to be released).
Any advice there?
I've heard that there exists a pdf bundle that fully explains the OGL in layman's terms + other stuff, it is by the drivethru or rpgnow's company.
Have never bought or read it though, mainly because I decided that getting published is way more fun than publishing ;>
>Here's< the link to the bundle you were talking about.
Thanks a lot!
Thanks a lot!
You may also want to look at >this<
Wow, thanks again!
*walks out mumbling to himself with lots of sweet stuff to build up the evil baby project*