ATTENTION: Story Hour in Print? (Authors and Readers, come in!)

[Kid Charlemagne]

I would be thrilled to have mine be in print - hey, part one is even totally completed. Money wouldn't be a significant consideration, though it would be nice. At one point one of my players thought he might be able to get my SH made into a small press comic book... The main thing for me would be retaining rights to the characters and stories. Make rights issues author-friendly, and you'll get takers.

With enough game mechanics (ie, 5% Open Content) we could even put the d20 logo on them.
Wulf

I keep pretty good notes on my NPC's and so on. I could easily annotate my SH - the second part at least. The first part wouldn't be possible to annotate since it was 2nd edition rules. Though even there, a large percentage of that stuff was updated to 3rd edition, so it could be done, I suppose

 

[Salthorae]

As an avid reader (read lurker ) of the Story Hours here I know that I would be willing to pay standard and over standard pricing to get my hands on an in pring copy of some of these SH's. I definitely understand that with the small printing runs that there would be higher costs, though I bet we'd be surprised at how many people would actually be willing to shell out money for something like that.

 

[Argent Silvermage]

This needs a bump. I'd pay anything to see my character in print. (Vanity thy name is Bolo)

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Does someone more familiar with the polls system here want to tell me why certain choices are italicized up there? Is it a record of my own vote?

I am still doing the math on this, and it's not looking great, so I am working on solutions to keep the costs down.

One solution might be to combine stories (edited down, of course) and provide several in one large anthology. Any thoughts on that?

It would help me out if various authors would do me a favor and, if you have compiled your story lately, give me a word count. (Not a page count, a word count). Since some stories are ongoing, if you can edit yourself and choose a good stopping point, give me the word count up to that point.


Wulf

 

[Joshua Randall]

I voted for "would pay more than standard price to have my favorite story in print". I would happily pay up to about $20 (roughly double the cost of a paperback novel) for a nice, printed, annotated story hour. Wouldn't it be great to have Lady Despina's Virtue as a fat book, complete with the Wyre map and all the statblocks? Or what about the Temple of Elemental Evil: 20 Years After with (contact)'s evocative illustrations? (Just a couple examples -- don't feel slighted if you aren't one of those two authors.)

I'd probably pay for a nicely formatted PDF of these, but a bound book would be so much nicer. I'm not too familiar with print-on-demand, but that might be a good compromise between PDF cheapness and paperback quality.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Does someone more familiar with the polls system here want to tell me why certain choices are italicized up there? Is it a record of my own vote?

I think your guess is right, at least that's what it appears to be in my case.

One solution might be to combine stories (edited down, of course) and provide several in one large anthology. Any thoughts on that?

Take a page from Dickens: Serialize! At least major sections of the Story Hours could be split up and put into multiple books... It could be a D20 Story Hour Magazine, almost. Just a thought.

It would help me out if various authors would do me a favor and, if you have compiled your story lately, give me a word count. (Not a page count, a word count). Since some stories are ongoing, if you can edit yourself and choose a good stopping point, give me the word count up to that point.

MSWord tells me my completed story hour is 90,644 words.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Does someone more familiar with the polls system here want to tell me why certain choices are italicized up there? Is it a record of my own vote?

That seems to be the case. I've noticed that on all recent polls the one that I voted for remains italicised.

One solution might be to combine stories (edited down, of course) and provide several in one large anthology. Any thoughts on that?

It would help me out if various authors would do me a favor and, if you have compiled your story lately, give me a word count. (Not a page count, a word count).

Mine currently runs at about 91,000 words. Yikes!

Cheers,


I think anthologies are better than single stories, in this context it helps introduce the reader to additional writers that they otherwise wouldn't have noticed.

 

[Piratecat]

Does someone more familiar with the polls system here want to tell me why certain choices are italicized up there? Is it a record of my own vote?

Exactly correct. The old boards used an asterisk, but this is a little more subtle.

One solution might be to combine stories (edited down, of course) and provide several in one large anthology. Any thoughts on that? It would help me out if various authors would do me a favor and, if you have compiled your story lately, give me a word count.

This is a neat idea. For instance, you could combine JonRog's various story hours into one volume.

My word count is currently about 284,000. This could be divided into two books if needed, and would grow somewhat as I replaced the vague older posts with more detailed entries. Does anyone know the average words per page in a paperback? If I assume 700, that gives me over 400 pages.

Ben, thanks again for researching this. Too cool.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I'd probably pay for a nicely formatted PDF of these, but a bound book would be so much nicer. I'm not too familiar with print-on-demand, but that might be a good compromise between PDF cheapness and paperback quality.

PDF is not on the table. No electronic format is even considered. If you want electronic, you're looking at it.

The only consideration is a printed book-- whether it be hardcover or softcover.

My initial line of attack is in fact print on demand, and it's not looking great, in terms of costs. The hard cost of such a book is about $5, which means you'd have to charge about $12.50 just to make sure you break even. (POD pays you the wholesale price less printing costs-- so the profit at $12.50 retail is zero.) And that's for a book at 300 pages or less-- page count goes up, cost goes up.

There are ways to work around this-- I could, for example, order books at cost, and sell them for whatever profit I like. But that means shifting the burden of shipping and handling to me, which I am not really all that keen on. One nice advantage of POD is that, armed with an ISBN number, they can print and ship directly to Amazon, Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc. But, of course, that's why you have to jack the retail price up so high-- because you'll only get paid the wholesale price less printing costs.

Regarding your ideas on maps and illustrations, I think it's a great idea. Those writers with artistic talent (contact, I'm talking to you!) have a great advantage in that regard. Ultimately, the printer doesn't care whether he's printing text, illustrations, or maps. Whatever the author cares to include will be just fine!

I am not likely to place much stock in the poll above, by the way, until there are enough votes to be statistically relevant to me. If you are an author or reader who wants to see this happen, pimp this poll.


Wulf

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

As a point of reference for those of you posting your word count, my current print projects run 700-800 words per page.

It may be more or less for a paperback work of fiction.

But both KidC and PlaneSailing, by my calculation, just crack 100 pages. That's not really a YIKES! at all. In fact, I'd say that's too small for its own book, but just about perfect for an anthology.

So now I'm thinking about a big fat hardcover-- LEATHER!-- with lots and lots of authors inside. Now see, for 1000 pages or more in hardcover, I'd pay $50 bucks or more... We're talking bookshelf quality hardcover, of course, not "Roleplaying Game" hardcover.


Wulf