3PP Release (3rd Party Book Release) Paranormal Power: A Psionics Option for 5e and A5e, written by Steampunkette!

[Marc Radle]

I respect that you are doing that.

I personally find AI art to be pretty morally repugnant, especially in a book being offered for sale, so using the KS funds to replace it with commissioned art done by actual artists is a class move in my opinion.

 

[Steampunkette]

Don't suppose anyone here would be willing to do a Review for their website, podcast, youtube, or otherwise?

 

[WarDriveWorley]

Don't suppose anyone here would be willing to do a Review for their website, podcast, youtube, or otherwise?

I would love to do a review, but have no Social media reach.

 

[Dire Bare]

I mean... the kickstarter is for the book. I'm just going to use the proceeds for my bills because, y'know, earnings. It's not a fundraiser and I make no mention of this in the Kickstarter or anything.

As far as stretch goals... I don't know where I'd put "Get new art" at. To put it into context:

There are 40 pieces of full color art in the book. If I did $100 per piece, which is really -really- low cost, we'd need to get $4,400 that would go directly to artists without a penny going to my pocket or Josh Gentry's. For me to get the aforementioned $300 for pulling in $500, would be a $5,000. I don't anticipate this thing pulling in $5,000. And I would like to earn more than $0.01 per word... if possible.

But. I'll go ahead and do stretch goals in the $5-10k range to replace individual pieces of art until it is all replaced. I just don't expect to hit them by a wide margin.

Or, rather than -replace-, create a separate art-pack as an add-on for anyone who buys a copy. I think that would make more sense.

Respect that you decided to add commissioned art stretch goals, but . . . . you are not under any moral or ethical requirements to do so. I wouldn't worry overmuch about folks expressing crankiness over your use of AI generated art. It's fine.

AI generated art is very new, and the space has been abused by actors taking advantage of traditional artists existing work. But that doesn't mean the category as a whole is suspect, the use of AI generated art is just fine, as long as you do you due diligence and make sure that the pieces you use haven't been scraped from existing art without the artists permission.

Regarding AI art pushing out traditional artists . . . . well, that's called competition. Part of the game if you are trying to make money as a professional artist.

Personally, AI generated art can be impressive, but it doesn't yet reach the level of quality that a traditional artist can achieve. You mention this yourself as AI art feeling "off". I prefer traditional art myself, for many of the same reasons folks rant against AI generated art, but . . . . you are not somehow screwing over the fantasy art community by choosing to go with AI art in your book, and your reasons for using AI art seem solid to me.

Your stretch goals seem a nice compromise. If your product makes enough sales to justify the added expense of commissioned art, then why not update the product? If it doesn't, no worries, the existing AI art is fine.

 

[Dire Bare]

But that's the point of stretch goals. You use them to pay for the things you can't afford unless the project kicks off.

Be careful what you say on the Kickstarter page. They're pretty strict about projects raising funds for something other than the project itself. If you're raising funds to pay bills rather than produce the product, they'll take the project down if they get wind of it. It's against their ToC. I've seen projects get taken down. Best keep that quiet!

(you can include paying yourself as a project expense though)

I love armchair publishing quarterbacking.

When crowdfunding a project on Kickstarter . . . you are allowed to make a profit. And then use that profit for whatever you want, bills or what-have-you. @Steampunkette's Kickstarter will (hopefully) pay for the expenses of publishing her book, in digital and POD formats, and then hopefully will also net them a small profit, to use as they feel fit. Nothing wrong with that.

Many an amateur publishing project has been sunk by setting unrealistic and unnecessary stretch goals. Keeping a project small and modest, especially for a first-time crowdfunding project, is wise. The book doesn't need commissioned art, the use of AI art is just fine as long as the individual art pieces don't scrape the existing work of artists.

 

[Dire Bare]

$20 for the PDF from the Kickstarter. Once it hits DTRPG after the kickstarter it'll creep up to $25 'cause DTRPG takes a 35% cut.

Not sure if this is on purpose or even important, but . . . your book is already available on DriveThru.

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Personally, I'm looking for an adaptation of the traditional Psion class from classic AD&D, but I'll be backing your Kickstarter because 1) your previews look great, 2) I want to support a fellow ENWorlder, and 3) a little perverse pushback against those criticizing your use of AI generated art.

Good luck with the crowdfunding and your first adventure in self-publishing!!!

 

[Steampunkette]

Not sure if this is on purpose or even important, but . . . your book is already available on DriveThru.

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Personally, I'm looking for an adaptation of the traditional Psion class from classic AD&D, but I'll be backing your Kickstarter because 1) your previews look great, 2) I want to support a fellow ENWorlder, and 3) a little perverse pushback against those criticizing your use of AI generated art.

Good luck with the crowdfunding and your first adventure in self-publishing!!!

Thank you, very much. Also good looking out on the early release. Apparently either I messed with a lever or DTRPG did once the cover went into premedia. It's back to Private for the moment... Oofta.

 

[Retreater]

I've currently got about 40 people who have clicked the "Follow" button on this thing... and if we can get another 10 to purchase beyond that, we'll hit my $500 goal.

For some reason (I'm sure it's me) I can't follow the project. So I'll have to back it the old fashioned way.
But I'll be there.

 

[Steampunkette]

For some reason (I'm sure it's me) I can't follow the project. So I'll have to back it the old fashioned way.
But I'll be there.

I will hit you with an @, here, 10 minutes before launch tomorrow. sagenod

 

[Steampunkette]

As far as the ethics of AI Art, which is something worth discussing on its own:

1) There is no ethical dataset. Midjourney's CEO explained that every Image AI uses the same dataset of scraped images and that there's no way to intentionally exclude copyright imagery because no art has a copyright metadata component they can use to screen art out of the algorithm. Which is a good reminder for everyone that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

The only positive note is that while Midjourney has access to 250TB of art, it can only utilize 2TB at a time. Meaning it's specifically learning broad impressions from large samples of art and going from there. Loading up the most relevant portion, grabbing a rough idea of what fits for composition and subjects, and then generates within that space.

2) There probably won't be a huge governmental pushback against AI Art, even if Disney, as an example, -does- press the matter from people using scrapes of their princess gallery or the mouse himself to create new potentially copyright infringing material. Because while it could be argued to harm their business interests in that specific manner, it'll also provide MASSIVE cost benefits to other corporations across the planet... including several owned by Disney itself.

AI Art isn't the "Future" of art all by its lonesome. But it's probably not going anywhere due to the quality, and quantity, it can put out for various purposes. We may see the role of Concept Artist evaporate within the next 20 years, replaced by an AI License to start images that then get handed off to a much smaller employed art community to flesh out.

There is more I could say on the subject, but it would wind up nakedly political pretty quickly.