Book Size Question

[mythusmage]

I case you hadn't heard, I'm doing a book on dragons. To be known as Alan's Dragons. Essentially, my take on the dragons of d20 games, based on the information provided in the SRD.

To make a long, tedious, boring, story short, it looks like the book will come out to something like 400 to 440 pages. Would you prefer a single 400 page book covering chromatic and metallic dragons, or 2 200 page books, one covering the chromatics, and the other the metallics?

I'm leaning to the separate volumes for each group myself. Because when I've added in the gem and oriental dragons that single book is going to get a tad large. (It also means I'll be able to get product out faster.)

So, should I do the Alan's Dragons project as a single huge book, or as a series?

 

[Grinning Loony]

Might depend on whether it's going to be print or pdf. If it's print I say one big one is definitely the way to go. pdf... I heard the shorter the better (within reason), but I don't know for sure. I personally would prefer one large pdf file with lots of bookmarks.

-Luke

 

[2WS-Steve]

Alan,

I also recommend asking retailers and distributors (and fulfillment house if you've got one) for their opinions; before any customers get a chance at the book these guys in the distribution chain have to okay it first.

 

[fba827]

as a matter of personal opinion i'd like one book rather than two.

that said, however, the better business decision would depend a lot on manner of publication, what costs you have associated with your publication, etc...

for example, if you are producing hard copies and low on funds, chances are you should do two books. It lowers your cost on the first set of printings and the revenues from the first can help fund the second....

that sort of thing...

(not that I am any sort of expert in publications ...)

 

[Greatwyrm]

Not that I'm at all trying to insult your writing abilities, but have you had an editor look at this yet?

WotC managed to fit most of the salient points of the Realms into 320 pages, and there's certainly no lack of stuff to write about in the Realms.

400-440 just seems a bit much when you're looking at basically 10-15 subjects.

 

[mythusmage]

To answer a few questions:

At this time Alan's Dragons will be self published as a number of PDFs, one volume per dragon group until all three (or four, depending on if the oriental dragons have been SRDed, I'll have to check and see) are done. At which time all the wyrms will go into one huge PDF containing all the information.

Money raised from the sale of the PDFs will go towards financing hard copy publishing. Which I'm planning as a series of books. As things stand, I'm thinking one 60 pager per species, with 2-4 pages of general information, 1 page per Age Category (coming to 40 pages since I'll be using the OGC from The Slayer's Guide to Dragons by Mongoose Publishing), front and back cover (that'll take care of 4 pages alone), and write-ups of dragons, at one each
for selected Age Categories.

Now, if I do the PDFs as booklets, this will change things. (I have the Post Script printer driver from Adobe. I'll be able to send the PS files to a good person (who's interested in profit sharing) for conversion to PDFs. Or (once I have the 513 page PDF manual printed out) I can do the beasts with Nisus Writer (which also does booklets) and use my own PDF distiller (PrinttoPDF) for conversion.) As booklets each 'chapter' will get done as a separate PDF which folks will be able to print out as they get them and then bind them however they wish.

Unfortunately, people do tend to view booklets as being amateur, no matter how they're done, so such would not be viable as a print product.

Now, an important thing to keep in mind is that I'm not doing a splatbook. Everybody does splatbooks. Do some crunch, add some fluff to fill out the 48 or 96 pages, and plop in a few pictures for eye candy. Not my thing.

Alan's Dragons will be a book on dragons as dragons. Not as combat monsters, as dragons. Their ways and their wiles, their habits and habitats. It will cover dragon life, dragon sex, and dragon child rearing. Dragon treasure, dragon security measures, and dragon pets (aka, 'The Staff') ("My employer uses something more powerful than Charm Person, job security."). It will go into detail.

In short, Alan's Dragons will be a book or books with lots of stuff people can use to bring dragons to life in their campaign. To make dragons people to be reckoned with, and not just critters to be mugged.

In other words, it's my book and I'll write what I want to.

Besides which, it'll be 100% OGC (minus the title and (any) art, of course), so you'll be able to use what you like in your own stuff.

That's it for this installment. I've got a chapter to re-do, then the chapter on black dragons to start. I'll return to answer questions as soon as I can.

 

[malladin]

Hey, I don't know how much general stuff you've got for the 'groups', but if you can do 200 pages on just chromatics or metalics, I'd think about doing a single pdf for each colour of dragon .

cheerio,

Ben

 

[TroyXavier]

I'd prefer a print book over a PDF especially one that big. As for 1 vs 2...just depends on the cost.