D&D 5E DM's Guild: The Advice You Didn't Ask For

[MerricB]

granted, but the funds are only held for 40 days.

DriveThruRPG allows you to set a minimum value for when funds are transferred to your PayPal account, or to only cash out manually (according to my settings).

Cheers!

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

How do people feel about British authors using British spellings? If I had written, for example,

... fifteen new manœuvres ...

would it jar on you, or would you think it was "kinda quaint"?

That's not British spelling; that's correct spelling.

Oh, and some of us who prefer real English aren't British.

It would be correct, and therefore, awesome!

Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the etymon

Huzzah!!!

 

[Mark CMG]

(. . .) and would cost me $2 to cash out

Just double checked, and mine says it costs $1 to cash out and it's been that way for the fifteen years I have been using RPGNow and subsequently all OBS sites.

 

[Gnarl45]

Fans don't have a couple hundred dollars to spend on their fan creations. Give them a break.

Some people have the ideas and others the technical skills (layouts, art, editing). Maybe we could all help each other? If you like what GM for power gamers did, I'm sure he'd be very happy to send you his draft so you can edit it.

 

[Reynard]

Fans don't have a couple hundred dollars to spend on their fan creations. Give them a break.

Some people have the ideas and others the technical skills (layouts, art, editing). Maybe we could all help each other? If you like what GM for power gamers did, I'm sure he'd be very happy to send you his draft so you can edit it.

Emphasis mine.

If they are fan creations, don't charge for them. it is really that simple. When you ask money for something, you are making a statement as to its worth. You are, in effect, promising your intended audience and customers that it is of a certain level of quality. If it isn't up to that level of quality, you should expect to get backlash and not sell your next "fan creation." But if you give it away or you make it "pay what you want" you are saying, "This is a labor of love and if you think it is good enough to compensate me, that's awesome. Thanks!"

 

[Sir Brennen]

Fans don't have a couple hundred dollars to spend on their fan creations. Give them a break.

Where are you getting that? I'm not finding anything in this thread suggesting authors do that.

I'm fine with giving fans and fan material a break, but as soon as you start charging real money, you're implying you want to be treated as a professional, and your work should reflect it.

Still, the bar isn't that high. People are just recommending authors spend a little time proof-reading and spell checking, and having someone else proof-read for you.

If you don't do at least that, your product will sink to the bottom of the pile. It's a fact. You are in a competion for other gamers dollars, and they will skip over product that doesn't look like any effort was taken in editing, let alone playtested. This thread is being offered to help new authors avoid that, and there have been offers to help people out. It doesn't take much technical skill. Heck, my browser spell-checks for me.

 

[Staffan]

granted, but the funds are only held for 40 days. I think you're overestimating how many people will buy pamphlets.

Huh? Where did you see that? The only time limit I can see is that they hold on to funds for a minimum of 60 days - I see nothing preventing you from never cashing out at all, and just leave the account to build and build and build.

 

[MerricB]

Just to clarify: Because there's the possibility of refunds, and the laws related to that, DriveThruRPG do not let you access your royalties until a couple of months later.

The cost to withdraw is $2 for affiliates and $1 for publishers; it's possibly $2 if you're uploading DM's Guild stuff and you don't have a publisher account.

 

[Gnarl45]

I'm fine with giving fans and fan material a break, but as soon as you start charging real money, you're implying you want to be treated as a professional, and your work should reflect it.

Still, the bar isn't that high. People are just recommending authors spend a little time proof-reading and spell checking, and having someone else proof-read for you.

If you don't do at least that, your product will sink to the bottom of the pile. It's a fact. You are in a competion for other gamers dollars, and they will skip over product that doesn't look like any effort was taken in editing, let alone playtested. This thread is being offered to help new authors avoid that, and there have been offers to help people out. It doesn't take much technical skill. Heck, my browser spell-checks for me.

I'm not sure cheap unfinished work qualifies as anything else than fan creations. They're made by amateurs. For me, they're like kids running their lemonade stand. You're welcome to disagree though.

But I get your point. All modern word processors notice 95% of your tipos. The only ones they miss are "it's" instead of "its" or "parley" instead of "parlay". Any friend with basic reading skills can tell you whether he had a hard time understanding what you wrote.

Anyways, I just taught some people were really hard on DM.

 

[Gnarl45]

Speaking of the DM's Guild remuneration. Can you use a personal paypal account or do you need to set up a business account to sell on the DM's Guild?