Amerco-Centricism

[ColonelHardisson]

Re: Another Canadian company

Speaking as another Canadian d20 publisher:

FDP decided early on to go with American-spelling and sizing (although it's mostly the same as Canadian rather than European). The reason was the immense size of the American market. Our stuff has done well outside the US -- we've heard from a number of fans in Germany (thanks to Selganor, I'm betting!) and Australia, not to mention Claudio's friends...

But the numbers we do in the US usually account for anywhere from 60% to 80% of our total. Now, this may be vastly different with PDF since it's a lot easier to get the product....

As far as Canada goes, as much as I want to support my own back yard, there just doesn't seem to be the infrastructure or demand that you can find in the US.

When we first started, we did a mailout for our third release to *Every* game or comic store in the country. We increased our Candian sales by 400%. Those numbers were still a fraction of what was done in the US with virtually no promotion. It's a population thing -- the US just has so many more people that you'll always sell 10 times as much there...

Well, that was me rambling, anyway...

- James

It doesn't hurt that you guys have produced some of the best modules for d20; word-of-mouth has got to be tremendous for you guys. I hope we'll be seeing more modules and books from you soon...

 

[Buttercup]

Spelling: here at Ambient (Canadian), we use the Queen's English. Does this bother our American friends? I never stopped to think about it, but do non-Commonwealth countries tend to use American or Queen's English?

US spelling is different from that used in the rest of the English speaking world because we had a spelling reform movement about 150 years ago or so. A man named Noah Webster (nearly all US dictionary are called 'Webster's' since the name is in the public domain) pushed for the elimination the u in words like colour, rumour, etc, as well as all the other differences you non-US folks notice. The only countries other than the US that use our spelling conventions are ones where the US had a large colonial presence. For example, I'm pretty sure that the Phillipines use US spelling (correct me if I'm wrong!) and most of South America uses it too, I think. But it's really no big deal. Pick one style, and stick with it.

Page size: this is a concern for us PDF publishers- I never knew that 21cm paper was easier to get for printers. When we assemble our printer-friendly version of our books, I think we'll consider a 21cm page width. What length should we be looking at?

Well, standard paper size in the US is 8.5 x 11 inches. I'm not sure what that translates into in metric. Legal size is 8.5 x 14, but don't use that, because most folks don't keep a stock of it around. But you don't want to get started on a discussion of metric vs. imperial measurements, do you?

 

[Cergorach]

shrink to fit isn't an ideal solution, mostly because most of the time font size gets smaller, thus not ideal for reading...

Best solution in my mind is to take a size that fits all, take the smallest width and height form A4 and letter and use that.

Letter = 8.5" x 11" = 21.59cm x 27.94cm
A4 = 8.27" x 11.69" = 21cm x 29.7cm

Pdf = 8.27" x 11" = 21cm x 27.94cm

It's a bit less space to work with, but the customer will see exactly what you wanted him to (no scaling). Those who use Letter even have a bit of extra paper on the side to bind it. A4 users just cut of the excess paper if they want to...

As for demographics for english readers in europe, you'll find that there are a lot of us out there, especially those who play RPGs (your target audience). Although both France and Germany have large markets for their own native language RPGs...

 

[jmucchiello]

Pdf = 8.27" x 11" = 21cm x 27.94cm

I haven't tried this but I can imagine it looking funny for both users. Letter-size printers will end up with a wide right side margin and A4-size printers will have a taller bottom margin. AAlthough the Auto-rotate and center pages option may mitigate this problem. I'll have to give this a try.

 

[J Lloyd]

British vs. American spellings

Dextra raises some interesting questions, not just for publishers, but for freelancers as well.

When writing for a company based in Canada or the UK, which type of spelling should be used in the writing?

I've always been fond of the Chicago Manual of Style, which notes "The practice of the University of Chicago is generally to change British spelling to American..." [6.5]. The reason given is "American compositors, American proofreaders, and American editors are far more likely to catch inconsistancies when they are departures from the normal American spellings than when they are departures from less familiar British forms."

I tend to agree, and as an editor, I change the forms to the American spellings. Let the writer write, and let the editor edit.

 

[Osseum Adam]

Distributors: I'm pretty certain Osseum doesn't even look at Canuck booktrade (let alone, say Europpean). Why not?

Actually, we do look at Canadian booktrade as a strong market (it always has been). The issues are much more logistical than anything else. Because the products we carry do NOT have a Canadian price conversion on the cover, and because the currency fluctuates rather frequently, it is more expensive to deal with the market needs. We are developing programs to push into this market, but currently a larger obstacle is that titles would need to be stickered, which marks the book up and can be generally annoying to the consumer.

Our partnerships in Canada are quite strong, and we are indeed forging forward in the book market there as well. Our goal is increasing access to the products, for the fans.

So, don't think we view the Canadian market as less relevent than the US or other international markets. Every new territory has locality issues that must be resolved before the products can flow through.

As to European book markets, we are indeed pushing there as well. The same issues apply, but because it might not be on a book store shelf at the moment, doesn't mean we aren't arranging to put the products there.

Thanks,

 

[Dextra]

Our partnerships in Canada are quite strong, and we are indeed forging forward in the book market there as well. Our goal is increasing access to the products, for the fans.

Great to hear from you Adam!
I'm ready to do my part: As an imprint of Mystic Eye Games who lives in Canada, I will volunteer my time and that of my family to do convention support across the country.
That's right... just ship us wads of product, pay our mileage (or airfare) and convention fees, and we'll represent Osseum and its publications across Canada. Come on all you publishers with Osseum, chip in, and your product can be represented at conventions across the Great White North year-round!

Green Ronin, Bad Axe, MEG, SWS, Gaslight, Bastion, etc. You've got my back, right? Chris? Doug? Jim?

Professional convention support. I could live with that!

 

[2WS-Steve]

I'm in Dex! Though I'm close enough to Canada that I wouldn't mind sneaking up there to a few conventions too.

 

[Damon Griffin]

Spelling isn't the problem

I'll leave the questions of paper sizing, product distribution and such to those more qualified to comment, and limit myself to the subject of using the Queen's English in products which are expected to sell to Americans in large numbers.

Personally, I have no problem with any spelling discrepancies; it doesn't matter whether color, rumor, and behavior are spelled with or without the 'u', the meaning of the surrounding text does not change and is not made any less clear. Nor do some slight differences in grammar cause difficulty: the Queen would say that 'the crowd are unruly', whereas the President would say 'the crowd is unruly' but again there's no confusion about what's being said. At most, such things might cause a momentary flash in the back of my head as I realize that 'Hmmm, a Brit wrote this' and my reading continues undisturbed.

Long exposure to British writing and TV have also taught me to be on the lookout for certain common words, the replacement of which has become more or less automatic for me: loo for restroom or toilet, biscuit for cookie, pram for baby stroller, knickers for...well, you get the idea. Any native speaker of AmerEnglish, who has less exposure to BritEnglish than I do, might be momentarily confused by some of these unfamiliar terms, and that is something that should be avoided where practical.

Once in a while I run across something in the Queen's English that just baffles me, either because there's a cultural reference I don't understand (someone's made a joke and I haven't a clue why it's funny) or more frequently, because unfamiliar slang is involved. Say someone posts a message saying "There is one player in our group who has a strong preference for playing spellcasters. He's quite good at it, though at higher levels he does have a tendency to bolly the fram" -- huh? Assume that's not a typo...what the heck does "bolly the fram" mean?

Okay, I made up that particular phrase, but it illustrates a point. John Bull can exhibit questionable behaviour by spreading rumours and even telling the occasional off-colour joke, and I'm fine with it. He can go to the loo, have himself a biscuit, even borrow my biro, and I'll still manage to muddle through. But the instant he starts to bolly the fram, I'm lost. PLEASE avoid slang.

It seems to me there were a couple of things that just went past me in Mongoose's "Slayers Guide to Rules Lawyers" and/or "Slayers Guide to Female Gamers", but just now I can't remember what they were (possibly because they made no sense to me at the time.)

 

[Victim]

I'm fine with British spelling and grammatical differences. Many of the books I read as youngster used those conventions. However, I'm somewhat less familar with common word substitions. Biscuits or pram would have lost me. On the other hand, such distinctions might only be of marginal importance depending on the genre. In most fantasy scenarios, such things aren't going to be mentioned.

I have a hard enough time with some parts of American slang to learn slang from other countries.