Another RPG company with financial difficulties

Here in NY, I've made a decision to stop frequenting my FLGS, The Complete Strat.
I made this decision for several reasons, one of the prime reasons is the fact that most of the companys that I purchase product from are releasing thier product as PDF's.

I know that there is a popular opinion that "hardcopy books are better" but for me that's not true. I'm a DM, so I wind up putting together most of the adventure and campaign material for both my HERO supers game and my D&D3.5 game. At home I have all of my books on a shelf packed to the brim, over the past 2 years I've donated a crapload of RPG's and suppliments to my local library because there was simply no room in the apt and I wasnt using them anyway. I might want to use them in the future, but not now so they had to go.

The other thing is that when I want ot copy something from a book or several things from a book for my adventure, it's a pain in the royal ass to copy this crap by hand. I like having everything close by and easily acessable. Multiple books with post it notes or a postit with page reference for stuff that I might have to look up during a game are also a pain-in-the-ass. PDF's for me are a way to make my life that much easier. I have PDF's of several game SRD's easily at my disposal. If I need to copy somethig for an adventure, it's cut & paste and when I'm all done print. I can make notations without worying about destroying the master hardcopy because, well THERE IS NO REAL MASTER HARDCOPY .

D00d, I love PDF's. Looooooooooove them. Now this doesnt mean that I dont buy hardcopy anymore, but now I wont absolutley HAVE TO in order to get the material. I plan on picking up ARCANA EVOLVED as both PDF and Hardcopy because I want to support Malhavoc and it actually looks like something that I'm gonna want to pull off of my shelf and read. For game stuff, I'll use the PDF. I have both hardcopy nad PDF copies of several Malhavoc books as well as copies of Tomb of ABYSTHOR and MORRIC MANSION. Now I'm actually running TOMB now and had been form my hardcopy. When DTRPG went the watermark route it was my opportunity to try the new scheme and I havent regretted it at all. Now I have acopy of the adventure that I can mark up to my hearts content, I can also cut and paste changes into a word document to alter encounters and upgrade monsters.

I just really dont get the aversion to PDF's, some of these same cats who complain that they're so hard to read are the same d00d's that spend hours upon hours reading posts on message boards like this one. And me, personally I print mine out piece by peice since I dotn do marathon sit and reads. With a 3 year old running around that's kind ofhard to do. But it's pretty handy when I'm on the train on my way in to work, or I'm in my cube on a lunch break and I need something to read. Let's not even talk about the fact that I have pretty much all the stuff that I need to run a game on my Powerbook. Which, quite frankly is a lot easier to lug around than a bunch of game books. I know I used to lug around what felt like a ton of books to gaming sessions, not anymore I tell you...
 

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I also wanted to add that another reason that I wont be giving the Strat any more of my money is the owner. Back when I first started working in the neighborhood I used to go in ther alot and I used to buy quite a bit of product, especially after the 3.0 release and the ressurection of HERO games. The store is literally 2 blocks away from where I work. After the birth of my son 3 ago my purchasing tapered off but I'd still go there frequently to peruse and browse, occaisionally I'd buy something but nowhere near my former frequency. Now I admit that Amazon was a good alternative to my WOTC fix and used them frequently but I'd still go in there and buy things like ALL FLESH MUST BE EATEN and the deluxe version of SILVER AGE SENTINELS and most of my HERO Games material mostly because I like the OTHER guys who work there.

But it got back to me that the owner was complaining that I was in there browsing but not buying anything and you know I said to myself "screw this". I'll make it simple for the both of us I wont even come in the store anymore and tempt myself to to even consider buyiing something. Because, you know, if I cnat even browse I might as well just buy my stuff online and at places like Amazon and HERO games not even pay shipping if I buy over a certain amount. So this is what I'm doing, online sales only and if I can buy directly from the company in question even better, I'd much rather give them 100% of my cash for thier product than to a store owner who I've actually given good patronage to in the past who gives me crap now. I really like the guys that work at the store but not enough to deal with the owner...
 

Kanegrundar said:
Thanks for the info, Nik. It's good to hear that at least one (I assume 2, since it sounds like Malhavoc is doing pretty good also) other company that isn't WotC or WW is doing pretty good.

Make it three, as ICE had increases in sales last year as well. Overall increases compared to the year before even though we put out less products than the previous year.
 

Rasyr said:
Make it three, as ICE had increases in sales last year as well. Overall increases compared to the year before even though we put out less products than the previous year.
That's good to hear. It's always good to hear that there are other publishers that the primaries doing good in this industry.

Kane
 

Arcane Runes Press said:
Do you run it flat fee + royalty, or reduced per word rate + royalty?

Neither. It's our standard per word rate plus a royalty that kicks in after the book exceeds a certain level of sales. We don't reduce the word rate because the average book doesn't earn out royalties. The clause is in there for the break out hits. If you write something that's so good it sells and sells and we have to reprint, we want you to share in the success.
 

Pramas said:
Neither. It's our standard per word rate plus a royalty that kicks in after the book exceeds a certain level of sales. We don't reduce the word rate because the average book doesn't earn out royalties. The clause is in there for the break out hits. If you write something that's so good it sells and sells and we have to reprint, we want you to share in the success.

Very nice.

Very nice, indeed. And a good incentive for a writer to really go for the gold with his/her work.

Very commendable.

Patrick Y.
 

I definitely don't think the poor rates for writers come from greed. I think it comes from two sources:

1) The low rates are necessary to keep the book in budget. Again, I think part of the problem is the proliferation of companies willing to publish at a loss, but a lot of it just has to do with the small scale of the typical game book.

On the other hand:

2) Some companies treat creatives like a disposible, inexhaustible resource. In a few cases, you'll have the odd company choose whether to hire someone who consistently hands in quality work on time, or someone who's cheap that they can snatch up from the fanbase.

Certainly, if an experienced writer hands in crap or late work, that's a problem, but I don't think all writers are created equal. I've written tens of thousands of words to pinch hit for new writers who've flaked out. You can't really deny that top talent is mostly moving on. This affects quality, but it also affects the climate of ideas in the industry. I think there really is a problem where you have the nth new writer whose always wanted to write a book about martial arts or elves or whatever, because there's no sense of continuity in the craft. I'm not talking about High Art; just a way to move forward and explore new ideas. Look at Malhavoc; they are successful largely because their folks *know* about the cliched topics and move past them.

(Obviously, this is context-based I wouldn't claim that my own cyberpunky Termnal Identity stuff is wholly original, but it's pretty fresh for the particular electronic D20 market I'm writing for.)

How do you know a writer's reliable? Here's some suggestions:

1) Do they have references? This reduces the "write crap, get a credit, never work for the company again" pitfall.

2) What is the *word count* of their credits? There are lots of folks with a bunch of 5K credits that look neat, but that's different than slugging home ten times that much or more.

3) Have they been the sole author of any work? Aside from the fact that extra credits sometimes mean somebody's been called in to fix a book, full manuscript contracts do indicate a certain amount of trust.

4) What did they write? Rules? Setting? Adventures? I know I try to aim for variety here. I've written more gearheaded stuff and scenarios than you might expect from a White Wolf alumnus, but I know that it only helps my profile to diversify even more. But a prospective hire has to *notice* this sort of thing.

You can never guarantee even the best writer isn't going to flake out any more than you can guarantee no publisher's going to offer penny a word nonsense*, but I do think smart behaviour from all sides can lead to better pay and better returns.




*Actually, the current record holder for "Not free, but insulting" rates I can think of is a magazine that's offering something like a fifth of a cent a word. I mean, *come on*.
 

Pramas said:
Neither. It's our standard per word rate plus a royalty that kicks in after the book exceeds a certain level of sales. We don't reduce the word rate because the average book doesn't earn out royalties. The clause is in there for the break out hits. If you write something that's so good it sells and sells and we have to reprint, we want you to share in the success.


That's fantastic. Kudos to you.
 


eyebeams said:
How do you know a writer's reliable? Here's some suggestions:

(snip bunch of smart stuff)

You can never guarantee even the best writer isn't going to flake out any more than you can guarantee no publisher's going to offer penny a word nonsense*, but I do think smart behaviour from all sides can lead to better pay and better returns.
Yeah, you know, even though I'm not looking to do this full-time anytime soon, I still take the professionalism very seriously and it's always a kick in the teeth when you are confronted with somebody who doesn't. It makes me not only not want to work with them, it makes me not want to buy from them because heck, if this is how they run things then they probably put out a lot of crap.

Whereas somebody who treats me professionally and seems to have all their ducks in a row gets my dollar because they're more likely to be putting out high-quality product.

I've gotten both ends of that stick in this industry and all you can do is keep acting professional and keep looking for publishers who know what they're doing. It's not always 100% straightforward because, as has been noted, the barrier to entry is so low that down in the small-press part of this world, it's pretty much trial and error for a writer looking for quality publishers to work with. But you can usually weed out the cowboys pretty easily...
 

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