I haven't been on this forum in a while -- things got insane over the past couple of months for Adamant (having to re-do layout on a product after discovering that we'd been scammed with plagiarized art; re-designing our website; prepping new plans for 2010, etc.) -- so I hadn't seen this thread before.
As someone pointed out earlier on, Phil Reed and I did a PDF series called ePublishing 101, which we've since collected:
It's available in print here, from Lulu.com,
and also available as a PDF here at RPGNow.
Rather than dig back through the thread, I figured that I'd take this opportunity to open things up for anyone who has a specific question about how we handle things at Adamant Entertainment. Fire away!
Gareth-Michael Skarka
ugh...plagerized art...I still remember Hunter the Vigil and Mongoose's map fiasco, at least you were able to catch it.
On another subject back to what Lisa Stevens said about printing costs.
Guild of Blades had some nice info about Print on Demand costs vs. offset printing costs. That I wanted to share here.
As a POD printer I can tell you there is a significant cost difference between color and B&W impressions.All POD printers must print using digital presses, most of which will be under a service contract with Xerox, Konica or whomever is their supplier. Under those contracts, we pay a flat rate for a B&W impression and a different flat rate for a color page impression. That rate will vary upon your size, negotiating skill, who is the supplier and the type and size of the machine being used. So while I won't toss actual numbers out there what I can tell you that a color impression off our of press costs us a bit over 5.5 times more than a B&W page.
Additionally, color pages engage more than just the black drum on the machine, using 2 to 4 drums, which really slows down the rate of print throughput on the machine. So a part of a color page charge is compensating for the fact that a color print job will take about twice as long to print than a similar sized B&W job.
Its best not confuse digital printing which is what would be used to print lower quantities of things compared to large print runs done by offset printing, which is surely what Paizo is having done for their stuff. Two vastly differently cost structures and sets of machines doing the work.
Ryan S. Johnson
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Gareth-Michael Skarka
ugh...plagerized art...I still remember Hunter the Vigil and Mongoose's map fiasco, at least you were able to catch it.
On another subject back to what Lisa Stevens said about printing costs.
Guild of Blades had some nice info about Print on Demand costs vs. offset printing costs. That I wanted to share here.
As a POD printer I can tell you there is a significant cost difference between color and B&W impressions.<snikt>
Interesting. Thanks, Steve.
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Rather than dig back through the thread, I figured that I'd take this opportunity to open things up for anyone who has a specific question about how we handle things at Adamant Entertainment. Fire away!
How do you select which products will have a deadtree version in addition to pdf, and which ones are strictly sold as pdf?
How do you select which products will have a deadtree version in addition to pdf, and which ones are strictly sold as pdf?
Simple math, for the most part.
If it's a core book (and hence likely to be picked up by multiple players plus a GM for each interested playing group), we plan on releasing it in print, and into distribution.
If it's supplemental (and hence only likely to be picked up by the GM -- adventures, for example -- or a single player of a specific interest), then we stick to PDF.
It just doesn't make financial sense to do a full run on supplemental product.
Now, we have exceptions to that -- for example, PATHFINDER is popular, and we made the decision early on to support that in print (getting to GenCon with a compatible product). At GenCon, we saw the response which indicated that there is probably enough of an audience for continued print support (hence our forthcoming releases).
All of this, of course, is exacerbated by the fact that print releases need to be planned and solicited many months in advance (distributors need cover images, page counts, descriptions and pricing at least 3-4 months ahead of release), whereas PDF release is much more flexible and able to be trend-spotted. (If I have an idea that I think people might want, I can write it, test the rules, gather art and have it for sale within a month, if I push it.)
Plus, Sticking to PDF for supplemental stuff means that we don't have to wait until we have enough material for a print release -- we can release a short, targeted PDF which before might have been too specific to bother with. These fill the niche which used to be occupied by articles in gaming magazines -- but now you can purchase those articles "ala carte", if you will. A very large part of business is made up of this model.
For our weekly journal on our Facebook fan page, I wrote about the work involved in putting out one of our print books, from start to finish. You can read it here.
Connie Thomson
4 Winds Fantasy Gaming
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For our weekly journal on our Facebook fan page, I wrote about the work involved in putting out one of our print books, from start to finish. You can read it here.
Connie Thomson
4 Winds Fantasy Gaming
Coolio. Thanks, Ms Thomson.
If you really want to see something funny and interesting about the day in the life of a third party publisher, you might want to see the RPG Publishing Gauntlet videos...
"I got some issues" - mate you crack me up :)
Was worth the time spent watching the video - well done and good work.
I am thinking of writing up a particular idea I had - which lends itself to several subsequent publications, just need to get the angle of where to start :)
Whether to go end to end solo, or whether to collaborate and offload to existing publishers - therein lies the conundrum.
As a side note, I have had a few people ask me to write Business books as well, but thats a whole smackload of effort to go through just to put something out there - perhaps Ebook/PDF's is the way to go for that...
Shifty
My only advice is if you like being a RPG business then be a publisher if you like being an author more then don't.
Steve
Shifty
My only advice is if you like being a RPG business then be a publisher if you like being an author more then don't.
Steve
I think that could be some pretty solid advice - perhaps go the author route, and if I really get a taste for it I can always cross to the other side!
I think that could be some pretty solid advice - perhaps go the author route, and if I really get a taste for it I can always cross to the other side!Shifty
My only advice is if you like being a RPG business then be a publisher if you like being an author more then don't.
Steve
As long as you have a good business plan, a few thousand dollars to invest, are good at setting and meeting deadlines, and have a solid understanding of your market.
As long as you have a good business plan, a few thousand dollars to invest, are good at setting and meeting deadlines, and have a solid understanding of your market.
Yeah that part about understanding the market is where I'd be a bit blind at this point. However, as I am completing a Diploma in Marketing this year, perhaps I could use the Gaming Industry as my target market for my assignments and kill two birds with one stone. :)
If it looks good then I don't mind throwing some seed money at a project to see of it has legs, but only if the passion meets the intention!
Director of Game Development
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Getting involved with patronage projects, like those offered by Open Design and Rite Publishing, is a great way to see the guts of the process. I know I've learned some things about the art, development, editing, and writing parts of an RPG product from these experiences, as well as getting a glimpse into the publisher's world.
Getting involved with patronage projects, like those offered by Open Design and Rite Publishing, is a great way to see the guts of the process. I know I've learned some things about the art, development, editing, and writing parts of an RPG product from these experiences, as well as getting a glimpse into the publisher's world.
Another good pointer.
I think whether going in as an author or a publisher that what you are suggesting is a pretty good idea in that you get a bit of the flavour and the inner workings BEFORE committing a larger amount of resources into the idea :) Cheap at twice the price.
I really should have also had a go at RPG Superstar as a bit of experience, but then I had other stuff going on that precluded getting tied up in something... c'est la vie!
lyingbastard said
a few thousand dollars to invest
I disagree with this, and can point out that my best selling product Feats 101 which has sold over 200 PDF copies took an investment of exactly $30.00 for a stock art pack.
I did the layout and the writing, Mark Moreland of the PathfinderWiki was kind enough to do the editing (and a lot of the books mechanical balance is owed to him) on royalties, and a friend did the proofing.
You don't need to invest huge amounts of money to start developing cash flow, what you need is good design and word of mouth.
Steve Russell
Rite Publishing
As long as you have a good business plan, a few thousand dollars to invest, are good at setting and meeting deadlines, and have a solid understanding of your market.
My first product was done with $20. You don't need a lot of money, you just need to THINK about what you want to do and how you can do it for less or free. Having lots of money doesn't really solve problems.
I'm with the two previous posts about having money. My first PDF cost ten bucks to put out. Creativity and hard work will trump throwing money at a project.
IME, having lots of money at start up just gives the person a sense that they need to spend alot of money before making a dime. I started my business with the notion of never spending a single dollar that I haven't first made and was in my hands. The most expensive piece of art I purchased, is for a project that is delayed for ... quite a while yet. The cheapest pieces of stock art get used regularly. Shoestring budget projects tend to sell much better for me than big budget projects.
I was thinking of "publish" in terms of printed products, which can cost quite a bit of money - professional printing, editing, and so forth. I hadn't been thinking in terms of download only, which was a big oversight on my part.
The real trick is making cheap products that don't look cheap, I'm thinking.
I'm going to have to disagree about not needing money - unless you're only making small products that are almost entirely stock art or art free, things are going to start costing you money. Then of course there's just the costs of putting work into your product instead of something else - sure, it might be $10 or so if you're not counting your time or effort. But is that really the only cost?
Here's an example: I make chainmaille. I made a pair of E6-1 vambraces out of 14ga 3/8" ID bright aluminum rings. The materials cost to me was around $40. So did making those vambraces cost me $40? No, they cost me $40 plus the 50 hours I spent working on them.
That's the question of any business, really - what is your time worth? Even if your own time is considered free, other people's might not be.
I don't mean to be down on things here, but it's not dishonest to say that in terms of business, there can be significant costs to producing a quality product.
That's the question of any business, really - what is your time worth? Even if your own time is considered free, other people's might not be.
Your time is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. After the standard 40 work hours a week, anything else is "gravy". I wash the dinner dishes every night and what is my time worth when I am doing that? That is a good question.
Lying bastard
Lets say you don't have the money to invest in a print run and you have $30.00 for a decent stock art pack. You make a PDF only proudct it sells 50 copies the first 30 days (which will land you on the Rpg countdown top 10). You get paid by RpgNow/Drivethru for all those copies. You get a friend to do you a favor and editing it for free, and some more friends to proofread it for free, and its 84 pages you sell the pdf for $4.99 you make roughly $162 off that product.
You then get a printing proof B&W publisher great softback perfect bound from LULU.com and send it to $IPR 5.01 plus shipping. You get accepted you send them 40 copies (4.01 per book) of that book ($160.00 + shipping), you sell the book for $19.99 you sell all 40 of those books over the next 3 months (Indie press revolution pays Quarterly) assuming you get the minimum 44% of that $20.00 You have roughly $382.00
This is all without even considering a preorder to cover your costs, and the fact that you will continue to sell small PDFs each and every month and do a print product every month, though if your small I recommend only trying bi-monthly or quarterly untill you get a handle on your scheduling.
Selling PDFs creates continued cash flow for you to re-invest in your company. Once you have your cashflow established then you can start paying for new authors, new artist, editors, etc.
Making a print product does not guarantee sales. Heck making a 300 page hardback does not guarantee sales. I've never bought any d20 hardback made by Fast Forward, but every game store that has been around for more than 10 years that I have visited has atleast one. No one else is buying that last one.
Name recognition is valuable. Very valuable. Us 3rd party publishers that feel that we're in competition with each other are kidding ourselves. At the end of the day, we're in competition with obscurity. Just about everyone on this sight would buy anything and everything made by Paizo sight unseen if they had the money for it. Why? Because we know that it will be a good book, an interesting read, have quality art, and be playtested. The name Paizo has meaning and when we buy a Paizo book, we are buying trust more than anything else.
Us 3rd party publishers don't have that same level of trust built into the PFRPG fanbase. None of us possess a similar size fan base that will buy anything we produce sight unseen. Oh sure we all have a few dedicated fan and we love them dearly, but no where near the same scale. If any of us disappeared overnight (and we all pretty much can if things go bad), only our dedicated fans would notice much. When someone new sees one of our books, the reaction of most is more skeptical than excitement, and they will more quickly put the book down than run to the check out to buy it. Many will think of how they got burned by some 3rd party book back in the early days of d20, or worse after some hastily released supplement the day that PFRPG core book was released. A good friend of mine swore off ALL 3rd party products after seeing the work of one such product. Just one. (I'm not complaining, this is just reality for us.)
So the expense of doing a 200-300 print run is a very risky venture, far more risky than most of us care to undergo. Doing a print run does not guarantee profits. PDF publishing is much, much lower risk. And it builds name recognition.
What would be the very first step to take in order to get a PDF on an online store (like paizo) assuming the product itself is done?
Contact Paizo. Vice President of Operations Jeff Alvarez is the person you want to speak to. jeff DOT alvarez AT paizo DOT com
Here is a good question. Do any of you guys know if there are any real advantages of buying third party PDF conversion software vs just using the free downloadable add-on for MS Office?
Here is a good question. Do any of you guys know if there are any real advantages of buying third party PDF conversion software vs just using the free downloadable add-on for MS Office?
Read the end user license on the free downloadable. I am not sure it allows commercial use. If it is not, you are opening yourself up to lawsuits from microsoft.
Saving a Word Doc as a PDF file is automatically a part of 2007 rather than an external add-on.
Here is a good question. Do any of you guys know if there are any real advantages of buying third party PDF conversion software vs just using the free downloadable add-on for MS Office?Read the end user license on the free downloadable. I am not sure it allows commercial use. If it is not, you are opening yourself up to lawsuits from microsoft.
The license that applies to the Office Suite applies to the add-on. It is perfectly legal to use it to create commercial PDFs, as it is legal to use Word to create commercial docs. As a side note, I am also running the beta Office 2010, which has PDF & XPS built in as an option.
Urizen, it actually doesn't. I know a lot of schools have it installed. My copy did not come with it, and I had to get it from the MS sight.
Still would like to know if anybody knows any advantages to using 3rd software for said purpose. I have found a couple of nice ones that are pretty cheap, but free is already even cheaper.
The license that applies to the Office Suite applies to the add-on. It is perfectly legal to use it to create commercial PDFs, as it is legal to use Word to create commercial docs. As a side note, I am also running the beta Office 2010, which has PDF & XPS built in as an option.
Urizen, it actually doesn't. I know a lot of schools have it installed. My copy did not come with it, and I had to get it from the MS sight.
Still would like to know if anybody knows any advantages to using 3rd software for said purpose. I have found a couple of nice ones that are pretty cheap, but free is already even cheaper.
I bought MS-Office 2007 directly online from Microsoft; downloaded it (and also had an additional CD sent to me) and it most certainly does have PDF/XPS built in. *shrug*
I got the invite for beta Office 2010, but I haven't downloaded it yet and installed it. How is it working out for you? Any big difference?
I was thinking, the one thging I don't think we talk enough in this thread is PAY RATES! This is the big one for me. I think there are a lot of misconceptions of what people should be paid, especially in the area of artist. My views are WELL KNOWN on this topic so I wanted to get other publishers opinions on this.
While I'm not "in the industry" as a 3pp or anything, I too have wondered what are "normal" rates for art for a print or pdf product, what are common rates to pay writers, what are average rates for color vs. b&w etc. I'd just like to know and I think it would be helpful to others who might be considering trying to get their feet wet in the quasi-publishing industry.
As a contributing writer, I generally work at the standard Work For Hire rate, for a previously unpublished writer, which is $0.02/word. Small press WFH rates rarely exceed $0.06/word, going off the rates listed in the Writer's Market annual publication. Of course, there's also the option of being paid in the form of royalties. That's something a publisher and their contracted writers need to come to an agreement with before pen hits paper. Fortunately this has never been a problem between 4WFG and I, but when dealing with people you don't know well, I imagine it could be.
Wow I really need to get acquainted with legal requirements. On that note, what are the best ways to get a company registered and started? does it vary from state to state? What´s the actual investment necessary to get all the legal things out of the way before starting to worry about material?
The answer to all your questions is "varies from state to state." I know in Oregon, "Internet Publishing" is an option for your business type, and it was fairly inexpensive to register a business name.
Wow I relly need to get aquainted with legal requirements. On that note, what are the best ways to get a company registered and started? does it vary from state to state? What´s the actual investment neccesary to get all the legal things out of the way before starting to worrya about material?
I set up 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming as a DBA ("doing business as") by using LegalZoom. Saved a lot of time and headache on my part, and it was under $300. Average legal fees are usually much higher than that. It can probably be done even cheaper, I'm sure, but probably involving more headaches.
Robert
4 Winds Fantasy Gaming
The guys over at 3.5 Private Sanctuary have done some great podcast interviews with both Paizo people and 3PP's (also on their Pathfinder Know Direction podcast).
I did a DBA as well through my county office. It cost ~$30. Call the IRS to get a EIN (Employer ID Number, so you don't have to put down your SSN when doing business), free. Quick visit with a lawyer to make sure I didn't screw anything up, ~$50.
That's all I did.
Regarding the ¨DBA¨, was that all that was needed to start?
You don't even need that, technically. If you want to do business as your first and last name (no variation) and use your Social Security Number instead of an EIN, you're in business now (depending on the state, but it generally is about that). But do not skip the lawyer visit.
Louis Porter Jr. Design Inc. in a S Corp. My main reason was to seperate me (Louis Porter Jr.) and business legally. For example "my car" is legally owned by Louis Porter Jr. Design Inc., not me. That goes with my computers, RPGs and comic books sorce material. Plus there are some AMAZING advantages to being incorporated when it comes to tax time, especially if you have a home office. The whole incorporation cost was only $300 for me. Worth every sent.
(rolls through)
(rolls through)
(meanders through)
You know, one thing that's worth mentioning is product explosion. By that, I mean you have a product that seems pretty straight forward, simple, shouldn't take more than a few weeks to pull together. And instead it grows to double the time, half again the planned cost, and a third again the size of the original plan. This was a big issue in making Albion Armitage's Astounding Arsenal. The project just kept growing organically, it seemed. First it was just going to be new equipment. But to make it worthwhile, I decided it should be an adventure to get to the place where the new equipment was located. A made up a framework for the adventure and focused on the equipment. But then I needed to give players more options on ways to go with the adventure. Then I needed to provide for random encounters. That led me to work on random encounter tables. All in all, the project got a lot bigger than planned, but I'm really proud of it.
Then we started playtesting it, and that lead to two more rounds of changes based off important feedback. Without playtesting, this really would have been a somewhat disappointing module, honestly. It goes without saying that no adventure survives contact with the players intact, and this was no exception.
Your first sentence made it sound cooler than when you explained it. Cause exploding products would be cool... as long as it wasn't mine.
Well, a few of the products sold in Albion Armitage's Astounding Arsenal definitely have explosive possibilities.
@ Lying bastard which is why many publishers impose wordcount requirements, and if you go over it the Editor will hack it down to that word count. That way the product does not drive up costs or take longer than was originally planed. Now PDF only makes this requirement easy to throw out the window, but concise writing is still a valuable skill to have.
That being said Heroes of the Jade Oath is very organic and went from an estimated 200 pages to 340, and we are quite proud of it.
@ Lying bastard which is why many publishers impose wordcount requirements, and if you go over it the Editor will hack it down to that word count. That way the product does not drive up costs or take longer than was originally planed. Now PDF only makes this requirement easy to throw out the window, but concise writing is still a valuable skill to have.
That being said Heroes of the Jade Oath is very organic and went from an estimated 200 pages to 340, and we are quite proud of it.
That was the thing, the more we saw, the more we realized we needed, until finally we got to where it was finally good with us. And it will be PDF/PoD product, not a full-fledge print product, which makes it easier.
@ Lying bastard which is why many publishers impose wordcount requirements, and if you go over it the Editor will hack it down to that word count. That way the product does not drive up costs or take longer than was originally planed. Now PDF only makes this requirement easy to throw out the window, but concise writing is still a valuable skill to have.
That being said Heroes of the Jade Oath is very organic and went from an estimated 200 pages to 340, and we are quite proud of it.
Having produced material for 4 books (three released, one upcoming) with specific wordcount requirements for my contributions, I'm familiar with the concept.
This was essentially a case of "Well, this is great, but if it's going to complete, then you need to add that..." and so on. It became a case of producing a "good enough" product, or trying to make a really great product. We all agreed that it wouldn't be a 4WFG product if we settled for "good enough".
One big change from the original plan was the art. We initially figured to use almost entirely stock art for this piece, to keep costs down. But Will Rodriguez, who did a couple pieces in LLG&TS (the She-Devil Bustier and Gorget with Pauldrons on page 19) made a strong audition to work on this book and his pieces were so good we kept on adding them. So instead of basically one or two pieces of original art, the book has several, including maps. Granted, this increased the cost of production, but I think it's a worthwhile investment.
Sean
4WFG
I'll wade in with a few observations...
Art cost. Figure fifty bucks per image. Just plan on it. If you can find a good artist that will work cheaper then use him until he wises up! QUICK! If you can find an artist that does color as well, great. My first regular artist (Anthony Cournoyer) would give me the inks with a separate color layer as he worked digitally. I could use the color one for the cover and the B&W inside. (Or use a greyscale of the color image if you don't have the inks.)
Finding artist is EASY. Finding artists you can afford, or ones that will actually produce work quickly, or that don't get 'busy' with other projects; well, that's the real trick.
I have found a few artists from digitalwebbing.com and DeviantArt. The last few I hired were from CraigsList. (Yes, CraigsList!)
Back to the cost; is it worth fifty bucks per image? Yes. Worth every cent. Art is what sets you apart from every other publisher. I can make a two column page of words and tables look as good as anyone else out there. But art is where your brand identity is created. Art is where you separate yourself from the pack. Sure, there is some great stock art out there. But how many times can we all see the same pieces of Shamman's Stock Art on a cover before that product gets lost in the crowd again?
I know what your saying. "How can I pay fifty bucks per image for a book that's XX number of pages long? At one image for every three or four pages that will cost me hundreds of dollars!"
Answer: Suck it up. Sling burgers for a few hours a week. Sell that comic book collection. Stop eating out for ten bucks a day and you can a nice shiny piece of art every week. Do some short PDF's using no art or stock art to generate cash flow to pay your artists. Cancel the cable TV and take that hundred bucks a month and pay artists and writers. I think you get the idea. Find. A. Way. Or don't, I won't complain.
Business format. Skortched Urf' Studios is still a sole proprietorship. Some day I plan to incorporate, but I haven't done it yet. Do I have a bank account with the Skortched Urf' Studios name on the checks? Nope. I have a business PayPal account with that name; and that's all I ever needed. I pay writers via PayPal. I pay artists via PayPal. I get paid by OBS and Your Games Now via PayPal. Paizo sends me a check and it has my name on it so my bank takes it just fine. So for all you new guys and prospective publishers out there; don't think you have to see a lawyer or hit up an accountant to get started. You have plenty of time to do that once you are actually making some money. Get a PayPal account, put out some PDF's and start generating cash flow.
My two cents.
-Mark
Skortched Urf' Studios
Answer: Suck it up. Sling burgers for a few hours a week. Sell that comic book collection. Stop eating out for ten bucks a day and you can a nice shiny piece of art every week. Do some short PDF's using no art or stock art to generate cash flow to pay your artists. Cancel the cable TV and take that hundred bucks a month and pay artists and writers. I think you get the idea. Find. A. Way. Or don't, I won't complain.
LOL!!! I cut cable for nearly a year (and found out about bittorrent) and saved a lot of money. If you want o be successful, you are going to have to sacrifice.