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Let me preface this post by saying that after a LONG hiatus I finally got back into RPG's just last year thanks to Pathfinder. Pretty crazy because about this time one year ago is when I "discovered" that Paizo and Pathfinder even existed.
I had a homebrew setting collecting dust. I brushed it off and fleshed it out, now running an adventure set there. But I see how it could be so much more. I'm not sure there's a big market for the type of game I'm running, but I'd be proud to give it a try some day in the near future.
So I have a few questions just to get my mind going. Believe me, I realize that the amount of work this would take to pull off is probably more than I can imagine right now.
1) Are there 3 PP's out there whom I could pitch my idea to? I don't know that I'd be in the same league as their regular authors, so please don't bite.
2) If I were to attempt to set up my own company to publish my setting and "AP" it seems like Kickstarter can be a great way to raise the initial capital necessary. Can anyone share anecdotes of their own success, perhaps with links to useful information for the uninitiated (I've sadly never done Kickstarter, either as a contributor or otherwise).
There are dozens of more questions in my mind, but getting these straight firs would be a tremendous help. Thanks!
@Derek: Glad to hear you are running a game in your setting.
I would definitely pitch any and all ideas to other 3PP's to see if they are interested. You will get a quick diagnostic on whether what you have is desirable or not. Off the top of my head -
* Raging Swan Press (currently running a freelancer competition) run by Creighton Broadhurst;
* Little Red Goblin Games commanded by Scott Gladstein;
* Kobold Press ruled by Wolfgang Baur;
* Dreamscarred Press, a splinter of Jeremy Smith and Andeas Ronnquists' mind;
* Rite Publishing helmed by Steve Russell;
* Purple Duck Games overseen by a Mr Gedak (I think, sorry!!!);
* Fat Goblin Games, drawn and quartermastered by Rick Hershey;
* Jon Brazer Publishing (I think) non-eponymously run by Dale McCoy Junior;
* LPJ entrepreneured by Louis Porter Junior;
* Legendary Games (not sure who is in charge but Jason Nelson might be your man); * Rogue Genius Games, genius'd by Owen Wilson and perhaps
* d20PFSRD Publishing coded by John Reyst.
* Also try Christina Stiles (connected to Rogue Genius Games and Misfit Studios). Apologies to any I have missed or misrepresented or merely misspelled.
Also try the Wayfinder magazine (deadline for the latest issue ended yesterday) edited by Tim Nightengale, or the "when will it ever arrive?" Yggdrasil fanzine edited by... me. I am not looking for more submissions at the current time. A search on the site for any and all of these names, companies and publications should find them for you, or Google. ;)
Having said that, seeing as most 3PP's already publish their own campaign setting/s a whole new Campain Setting is not going to be that desirable for a 3PP unless it is conceptually absolutely awesome and/or from a renowned author.
As for Kickstarter, she is a capricious beast. Unless you have an awesome product that meets a niche need, and you can back up your awesome idea with equally awesome art, graphics, video (I don't actually think I've seen a great video yet, but lots of folks seem to think your KS will sink without it. I've backed a few awesome KS projects that had no video but a product I really liked) and most of all, provide excellent value. Again, if you are an unknown author, then you need to be able to clearly engage your audience and have lots of explanatory/examples content.
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Thanks for the thoughts! I've seen many of those names here and there on the boards, but having them all together sure is handy.
Now, the main thing I'm worried about right now is how to make my setting seem unique. Right now it's a pretty vanilla medieval Europe flavored setting (at least the region we're playing in right now).
I have no pretentions of being a good novelist or short story writer. However, in the Pathfinder modules that I own, they hardly include lengthy segments of prose (though I understand some AP's do).
I know a few local folks who may be able to handle the art, but I do worry that my own writing is strong technically (with graduate degrees in business and history) but not so much flavrofully.
Thanks for the thoughts! I've seen many of those names here and there on the boards, but having them all together sure is handy.
Now, the main thing I'm worried about right now is how to make my setting seem unique. Right now it's a pretty vanilla medieval Europe flavored setting (at least the region we're playing in right now).
I have no pretentions of being a good novelist or short story writer. However, in the Pathfinder modules that I own, they hardly include lengthy segments of prose (though I understand some AP's do).
I know a few local folks who may be able to handle the art, but I do worry that my own writing is strong technically (with graduate degrees in business and history) but not so much flavorfully.
Just a few fair warning from someone who is there.
It is incredibly difficult to get a setting published. Campaign settings are a lot of investment in for a company to make. The books tend to be large, they need lots of art, and often require mechanical support as well so the game can support the setting's theme. On top of this certain publishers already have their own settings which they treat like their own child and wouldn't want to compromise it with an untested idea.
So, while pitching an idea won't hurt I wouldn't expect much. Most publishers are looking for smaller ideas that are easier to push out the door and into the market. It's easier to get a return on a book you spent maybe 20 bucks to the writer for after doing the layout and cramming some stock art you had laying around in it.
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That's cool - I kind of expected that to be the case. Also, I fully realize that my own setting has little to distinguish itself at this point, anyway.
What's the market like for publishing an adventure or a module? Any good suggestions on what I could read to get a feel for something that has a generic setting, or can easily be adapted?
And what about on-demand vanity publishers? I certainly don't need to make this my livelihood. Maybe I just want to print a hundred or so books to give out as gifts.
Still just letting my thoughts percolate. Thanks for the advice!
So lets look at what makes a campaign setting and the general logistics that go into it. I will use some really big ballparked figures here but it should give you an idea of the scope of campaign setting development.
Lets say your book is 150-200 pages and lets say you average 350 words per page. That’s 52,500- 70,000 words. If you were to pay a writer at $0.01 per word (a little low) that’s about $500-700. Lets assume that a single editor (you will want more) does it at the same rate. You are looking at $1,000-1,400. Lets add art. I’ll really lowball the art amount at 1 piece of art per 10 pages then you are looking at 15-20 pieces of art. If you want some good art, and if you have some contacts, you can get it for about $65 (high quality, 1/4th page, full color) per piece. That’s another $975-1,300 which brings out running total to about $1,975-2,700. Lets assume someone is willing to format your setting at $0.01 per word so that adds another $500-700 so that’s now $2,475-3,400. So about 3k to publish a setting, assuming people are willing to work for pennies and at the bare minimum here. When you pitch a campaign setting to a publisher you need to have a pitch that will convince some savvy folks to not only invest $3,000 in your idea (rather than the “cool idea” they have in their head) but to invest hundreds of hours (across the team) in it as well.
Then again, the other option is to make your own company right? If you have never done it, and I know other owners will back me up here, it’s a tasking experience. To borrow from another thread that’s currently on the boards- 90% of us work a “real job” and then on top of that we go ahead and work on our 3pp stuff. I work 40 hours per week and then put another 20-30 hours into Little Red per week (sometimes more). That takes time and dedication that a lot of folks don’t really get before they jump into it.
Don’t do a campaign setting for your first product. Learn the ropes. Try putting out a few products to begin with. DO a few 5-10 pagers with a piece of artwork or two. You’ll find out all sorts of things you didn’t know (wait.. exporting a PDF from OpenOffice looks TERRIBLE?) and it’s a good trial run for a bigger book. My first product was the “kinslayer prestige class” and it took me a year or so before we were ready to launch our first “big” product (Legendary Levels which was STILL not as polished as I wanted it to be). If memory serves, it was about 70 pages or so?
So on Kickstarters. You are asking for strangers to trust you with a lot of money. Lets say you ask for 3k to fund your book. You now have to deliver on that. It isn’t a “well, this will be cake”. It’s a lot of pressure, emails from backers (sorry DTO folks! We are still cleaning up HoE I-III to make sure they are in tip-top shape for you!), and unforeseen “things” that come up. You can’t POSSIBLY predict them all. Look up Gary McBride & Fire Mountain Games on Kickstarter. Sorry to beat a dead horse, but a lot of backers are angry at Gary (who is a fantastic writer) about the delivery of his Kickstarter.
I don’t want to rain on your parade. Make your campaign setting. Pitch it to companies. Make your own company (please make an LLC or something) and publish wonderful material for all of us to enjoy. BUT (and I can’t capitalize that more) know what you’re getting into. It’s not a river of money, it’s not an easy task, and it’s a really really big endeavor to get something like that off the ground. Every 3-6 months or so the forums get a thread like this. I love seeing them (more fantastic content!) but part of me cringes because I know the thorny road you’ll have to walk and some of the pitfalls you’ll likely fall into. Please take this as optimistically as possible but realistically gauge your capacity to produce a campaign setting.
-Scott Gladstein
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Well, let me start by saying that this is all to some extent what I expected to hear. Not the actual figures, as I had NO idea there, but the general concepts. I didn't think the setting book would need to be quite so long (I was ballparking about half the length you outlined), but I can see why it would.
I'm a tax practitioner, so I work with small businesses all the time. I am fully aware of the importance of eliminating personal legal liability via organizing a company and conducting your business therein. I also strongly recommend the LLC to most anyone hoping to start their own business. Some good law firms will draft your articles of organization for as little as $500. It's their "loss leader", they hope to have you hire them later for contracts, consulting, etc.
I also have no pretentions of ever turning this into a "real" job. I like doing taxes. I want to do taxes for a long, long time. (So I'm also crazy). But I have thought about how rewarding it would feel to see something of mine in print.
But I'm a mediocre writer. I'd just write a novel set in my world and publish it via Lulu if I thought that I could create 80,000-120,000 words of coherent, sweeping prose. But I've tried, and don't want to go that route just yet.
I have two small kids at home, and I really don't have 20-30 extra hours per week. So maybe now is not the best time to be thinking about this. But I appreciate your responses. I tried to find prior threads, as I assumed this topic has been addressed before, but my search skills were lacking.
I was just toying with the idea of a few feats. I've seen some of these published. Any good ones you can recommend I look at to get a framework for what's involved?
So we release some of what we called "mini campaign settings". They were like 5-30 page splats that gave the REALLY condensed world history, some feats, a few races (if applicable), and rules for conversions.
As someone in production I can tell you scope creep is the biggest problem in game development (video game or p&p). Set a page count and stick to it. I'd say condense what you have down to 10 pages or less.
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Thanks again! This has all really been very informative, and I do appreciate everyone who has taken time to respond.
I'm probably going to take a long look at the products you 3rd party publishers put out. I'm sure I'll buy a few items here and there. Believe me, not to steal ideas, but to get a better feel for what's out there. I honestly have purchased or even read a 3P product, and I need to be part of the community before I begin throwing out ideas.
I have seen some feat books and NPC/villian splats that looked on the shorter side. I might have something to contribute along those lines in the nearer future.
Now the harder question: say I set up my own publishing company. I'm going to be outsourcing the actual printing of my books/pfs. Who do I use? Do you work with local printers? A chain like AlphaGraphics? Online publishers?
Thanks so much!
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Regarding print:
- DrivethruRPG have a POD (print on demand) facility.
- Louis Porter jnr has said nice things about CreateSpace if I recall.
- Oher than that, ask the other 3PPs for specific advice.
* As for checking out 3PP stuff, Rite Publishing's Pathways is FREE - more than three dozen issues of 3PP goodness. Wayfinder is FREE - 10 issues there too. The midgard Campaign Setting has a FREE preview PDF.
* As a general standard for a crunchy approach to variants to the PF Core rules, Check out Rogue Genius Games Talented line of products. So much to choose from.
* Hit endzeitgeist's website to see some thousand or so reviews of PF-compatible products...
Probably the most useful thing to do with a fairly generic setting is to use it as the implicit backdrop for an adventure or a site book. This will harness the work you've put into the setting, without making you develop and market a book that is going to have trouble standing out. Sometimes implicit settings become explicit ones, if a line of supporting products is successful.
Probably the easiest way to break into the mini-splat business is to come up with, say, twenty feats, and find some readers and playtesters to ping them off of, and publish them in a minimal format.
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Hi, I am Louis Porter Jr of LPJ Design. Maybe I can help you out:
1) Are there 3 PP's out there whom I could pitch my idea to? I don't know that I'd be in the same league as their regular authors, so please don't bite.
Yes there are. I would start with the more popular 3PP out there. See what they say and go from there.
2) If I were to attempt to set up my own company to publish my setting and "AP" it seems like Kickstarter can be a great way to raise the initial capital necessary. Can anyone share anecdotes of their own success, perhaps with links to useful information for the uninitiated (I've sadly never done Kickstarter, either as a contributor or otherwise).
I am going to be blunt so be prepared: Why would be people give money to someone who has never ever designed and release a RPG product? Would you do that? Kickstarter is really for those who can build off of their already fanbase, like Monte Cook or Wolfgang Baur. Sorry if that one was a little rough.
There are dozens of more questions in my mind, but getting these straight firs would be a tremendous help. Thanks!
There are a lot of 3PP companies who visit this board so don't be afraid to ask questions. We like to see 3PP succeed.
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Thanks you for your candor. I appreciate the perspective. I really have had no exposure to Kickstarter. It was just one of those things I threw out there. I suspected this might be the case, too.
Heck, I won't even give money to most people who ARE famous in the gaming community! The reality is, whatever I print I probably need to fund publishing myself. Right now, my working capital is nearly zero. But that could be changing in a relatively short time (still not a lot, but something!).
Do I expect publishing something, even a meager 20-feat splatbook, to be just about the hardest thing I've ever done? Yes, I do. I have no delusions of grandeur here. This would be done to satisfy my own hubris and vanity, at first. And because I think I may have something fun to contribute.