Looking to make some PDFs

[Wayne Jarvis]

I'm not sure who to talk to about this.

I've been playing my own homebrew game for about 15+ years now. It uses its own world and its own rule set. I've been wanting to put together a few "books" seeing if I could generate some interest in it.

I was thinking of converting it over to use the Pathfinder rule set. I'm interested in making PDFs only, no print books. I was just curious about possibly distrubuting it through Paizo.

I'm a far off from having anything done, but knowing the possibilities would help me plan.

I have both campaign (fluff stuff with some feats, spell, and equipment) and adventures (which take place in my world but could be done in any world)

If someone could help me with this it would be great.

My email is [e-mail]. Thanks.

[Seldriss]

I am not sure who to direct you to, but the staff of Paizo themselves might have sugggestions.

Many of the posters here have also some publishing experience, as contributors or creators of their own companies.
I don't want to name any, first because it's up to them to manifest themselves if they have the time for that but mainly because i wouldn't want to forget any of them.

Good luck. :)

[Wayne Jarvis]

Seldriss wrote:

I am not sure who to direct you to, but the staff of Paizo themselves might have sugggestions.

Many of the posters here have also some publishing experience, as contributors or creators of their own companies.
I don't want to name any, first because it's up to them to manifest themselves if they have the time for that but mainly because i wouldn't want to forget any of them.

Good luck. :)

Yeah, I was hoping there would be people out there. I left my email, so that if someone wanted to manifest themselves to only me, without having to worry about everyone reading this thread emailing them.

I personally love the world and I think others would too. It's different then other ones I've seen. Of course, I might be bias to it. If there’s a published out there who is interested then I’d put a lot more into it. If no one is interested then, I would take my time making it.

I’m starting work on a module that will be a good introduction to the world.

[Dale McCoy Jr]

I can tell you.

Jeff Alverez, VP Operations.

Requirements: Be listed with Alliance Game Distribution or one of the other major RPG distributors. Or something similar.

Recommendations: Distribute through RPGNow.com/DriveThruRPG.com They require nothing but signing a contract. Its alot easier.

[Lilith]

Wayne Jarvis wrote:

I've been playing my own homebrew game for about 15+ years now. It uses its own world and its own rule set. I've been wanting to put together a few "books" seeing if I could generate some interest in it.

I was thinking of converting it over to use the Pathfinder rule set. I'm interested in making PDFs only, no print books. I was just curious about possibly distributing it through Paizo.

I'm a far off from having anything done, but knowing the possibilities would help me plan.

I have both campaign (fluff stuff with some feats, spell, and equipment) and adventures (which take place in my world but could be done in any world)

If someone could help me with this it would be great.

My email is [e-mail]. Thanks.

PDF distribution requires the same level of dedication that print media does, IMHO. (If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well...)

At best, you'll need:
A Writer. You've got this part handled already, I think. :P
An Editor. Yes, you can edit your own stuff. I don't recommend it - I personally tend to get skull-blocked when reading over my own material, and don't catch a lot of errors (though I'm getting better at it). Get somebody else to read your manuscript and do the edits.
Layout Designer. Again, you can do this yourself, if you've got the skills, but a well-laid out PDF is always a treat. The industry standard is Adobe InDesign, which is a spendy piece of software, but if you're just starting out, I'm pretty confident you can do it entirely in MS Word or OpenOffice. Scribus is an open source desktop publishing program that you can download and use.

Would be nice to have:
Artist/Cartographer. Ask yourself: Do you want art in your PDF? How about maps? Is this something else you can do yourself, or do you know people who are willing to contribute?

Lastly: Time is valuable...do you know people who are willing to help you for little or no money, or are you willing to do it all yourself? If it's the second answer, be prepared for a lot of work. :)

[Wayne Jarvis]

Thank you for the ideas.

I was planning on doing PDF only was to advoid the overhead of printing and killing trees. It was more of a media thing then a quality thing. I'm hoping to put together some great products that are well done.

I have a few "English Major" friends who could do editing (one literity was an english major). But the design / artist stuff is where i'm really lacking. I'm a good drawer, but not electroniclly. So I guess I should start gathering some people. Course then money gets into it. This could get messy.

[Lilith]

Wayne Jarvis wrote:

I'm a good drawer, but not electronically.

If you're a good artist on paper, then all you need is access to a scanner. :)

[Vic Wertz]

DMcCoy1693 wrote:

I can tell you.

Jeff Alverez, VP Operations.

Requirements: Be listed with Alliance Game Distribution or one of the other major RPG distributors. Or something similar.

Recommendations: Distribute through RPGNow.com/DriveThruRPG.com They require nothing but signing a contract. Its alot easier.

There's a misunderstanding there. We require that your products have a unique industry identifier—generally, a product code with a three-letter prefix that's uniquely registered to the publisher. These codes used to be registered with Games Quarterly, but they folded a while back, and we had heard that the prefixes were now being given out by Alliance. It turns out that's not the case, but there was a brief period where we did tell people they needed to get a prefix from Alliance (not be distributed by them).

Anyway, it turns out that Alliance doesn't register the prefixes anyway, and apparently the company that does won't provide them for PDF-only publishers. Because of this, we now no longer require an "official" prefix for PDF-only publishers—instead, we assign an unofficial one.

In short, no, you don't need to be distributed by Alliance or anyone else to have PDFs on Paizo, and you never did. All you need is to have PDFs to sell. Once you get to that point, you can contact Jeff, and he can set you up. It's just as easy as RPGNow/DriveThruRPG (and we pay better than them).

[Wayne Jarvis]

Vic Wertz wrote:

There's a misunderstanding there. We require that your products have a unique industry identifier—generally, a product code with a three-letter prefix that's uniquely registered to the publisher. These codes used to be registered with Games Quarterly, but they folded a while back, and we had heard that the prefixes were now being given out by Alliance. It turns out that's not the case, but there was a brief period where we did tell people they needed to get a prefix from Alliance (not be distributed by them).

Anyway, it turns out that Alliance doesn't register the prefixes anyway, and apparently the company that does won't provide them for PDF-only publishers. Because of this, we now no longer require an "official" prefix for PDF-only publishers—instead, we assign an unofficial one.

In short, no, you don't need to be distributed by Alliance or anyone else to have PDFs on Paizo, and you never did. All you need is to have PDFs to sell. Once you get to that point, you can contact Jeff, and he can set you up. It's just as easy as RPGNow/DriveThruRPG (and we pay better than them).

Thanks. I knew Paizo couldn't have been more difficult then others. Paizo seems like they want to work with others.

Well thank you for explaining that. You just made our day. I started getting hate mail from those who want to work with me on this, after I said we might not be able to work with Paizo.

[Seldriss]

Wayne, I am glad Lilith chimed in.
She is one of the best persons you could consult for advice here, among the ones i was referring without naming them.

Once again, good luck in your enterprise.

[Dale McCoy Jr]

Vic Wertz wrote:

Because of this, we now no longer require an "official" prefix for PDF-only publishers—instead, we assign an unofficial one.

In short, no, you don't need to be distributed by Alliance or anyone else to have PDFs on Paizo, and you never did. All you need is to have PDFs to sell. Once you get to that point, you can contact Jeff, and he can set you up. It's just as easy as RPGNow/DriveThruRPG (and we pay better than them).

Ohh, cool. If I find that my customers also download at Paizo, I'll be listing them with Paizo as well. Thanks for the clarification.

[Lilith]

Seldriss wrote:

Wayne, I am glad Lilith chimed in.

She is one of the best persons you could consult for advice here, among the ones i was referring without naming them.

Once again, good luck in your enterprise.

Dawww, thank you Seldriss! ^_^

Good luck as well Wayne!

[Callous Jack]

Lilith wrote:

...The industry standard is Adobe InDesign...

I second the Indesign recommendation. A great piece of software!

[Wayne Jarvis]

Callous Jack wrote:

Lilith wrote:

...The industry standard is Adobe InDesign...

I second the Indesign recommendation. A great piece of software!

Before I go spending a lot, I tried out Scribus. Works pretty good for my level of skill.

[Lisa Stevens]

DMcCoy1693 wrote:

I can tell you.

Jeff Alverez, VP Operations.

Requirements: Be listed with Alliance Game Distribution or one of the other major RPG distributors. Or something similar.

Recommendations: Distribute through RPGNow.com/DriveThruRPG.com They require nothing but signing a contract. Its alot easier.

This isn't true. You can sell PDFs through paizo.com without having to be listed with Alliance Game Distribution. Not sure where you got that DMcCoy! And Jeff Alvarez is the guy to poke about getting things set up when you are ready.

-Lisa

[Dale McCoy Jr]

Lisa Stevens wrote:

Not sure where you got that DMcCoy!

Email Forwarded.

EDIT: Short version, it was largely due to my misunderstand of an email send ~9 months ago. My apologize. I spoke out of turn.