DM's Guild: One Week In - The Best & The Worst

jamesjhaeck · Jan 26, 2016

I'm releasing a big adventure (50+ pages) on DMs Guild within the next two weeks, and the cost of it is a little daunting. I'm resigned to not making money off of it... and that's okay for right now. It's the biggest single project I've ever been involved in—EN5ider notwithstanding—and I want my first foot forward to be my best foot forward.

Sir Brennen · Jan 26, 2016

warfteiner said:
To be frank, I love seeing PWYW items in the shop. Creator-owned content is ALWAYS a crapshoot[...]

Yeah, due to the nature of this being a mix of inexperienced fan material to products from professional game designers and everywhere between, it's hard to shell out money for something that might be total crap and unusable. So far the PWYW products I've gotten I've been fairly confident would be worth while due to their reviews/discussion, well-done product description in the store, or from an author I've already purchased from and liked. Fortunately, the only item so far I gave a one star review to was free.

But if I wanted to be more adventurous in checking out PWYW products, is there a way to go back and throw money at the author later if I really like his stuff? (PWYWL?)

JeffB · Jan 26, 2016

Over the Hill Gamer said:
I don't think the average person would be interested in wading through hundreds of mediocre to poor products looking for the handful of gems. I hope the rating system begins to work better as time passes. I routinely pay nothing for pay what you want products. If the publisher can't put a value on it, I won't.

I'm one who is not willing to wade through. It helps that so far almost all the Guild content is player crunch I have less than zero interest in. I hope there will be more DM type content.

I tend to be the kind of customer on Drive thru who will download a pwyw product for free first, and see if it something is worth a buck or two for, and if so, I purchased again. I imagine that would be commonplace.

Fwiw, the one Guild product I downloaded I didn't feel was worth a buck or two. So far this has been deja vu of 3.0. Lots of meh (to put it nicely). I also hope the rating system will "kick in" and help sifting through things.

dave2008 · Jan 26, 2016

MwaO said:
What I find really interesting though is that a lot of the popular PWYW items have high quality artwork. That's kind of suspicious.

I could be wrong, but I would guess (or hope) they are using the free art provided by WotC through the DM's Guild. I know this was the route the Epic Handbook used.

Unless your an artist, art is expensive (as it should be imho). I am making a little 7 creature monster collection and the quotes I got for the art (7 pieces) ranged from $500 - $3,500. I'm going with the $500 artist, but it is unlikely as a first time publisher I will ever make that back.

warfteiner · Jan 26, 2016

Sir Brennen said:
But if I wanted to be more adventurous in checking out PWYW products, is there a way to go back and throw money at the author later if I really like his stuff? (PWYWL?)

Yes, you can go back to the item listing and submit your desired payment later on.

timbannock · Jan 26, 2016

MwaO said:
What I find really interesting though is that a lot of the popular PWYW items have high quality artwork. That's kind of suspicious.

I found an artist willing to do some work especially cheap -- I mean CHEAP!!! -- and I fully expect to *still* make no money off the product. But here's the thing: I too am new to publishing, so I'm happy to offer the first few things PWYW and an upcoming adventure for a couple bucks even though it'll cost a lot of bucks to make, because it's all practice to me, and it gets my name out there.

At some point, if I want to make money off of this, I will...immediately stop doing this and get a real job ;-P #kiddingnotkidding. Gaming is a hobby, not a money farm, so PWYW and putting decent artwork into a product are really just a way of getting this stuff that I hope is cool out front of some people's faces. If they think it's cool, too, they can vote with their wallet, but honestly, I don't care about the money.

timbannock · Jan 26, 2016

warfteiner said:
Yes, you can go back to the item listing and submit your desired payment later on.

And as someone who's done exactly that, let me tell you that the content creators really appreciate it.

The Grassy Gnoll · Jan 26, 2016

Can't see the spell cards there- maybe taken down due to conflict with printed ones?

Reynard · Jan 26, 2016

dave2008 said:
I could be wrong, but I would guess (or hope) they are using the free art provided by WotC through the DM's Guild. I know this was the route the Epic Handbook used.

Unless your an artist, art is expensive (as it should be imho). I am making a little 7 creature monster collection and the quotes I got for the art (7 pieces) ranged from $500 - $3,500. I'm going with the $500 artist, but it is unlikely as a first time publisher I will ever make that back.

Commissioned art is very expensive. There is tons of high quality, inexpensive royalty-free artwork on DTRPG.

Awesome Adam · Jan 26, 2016

If you shop around long enough on www.fiverr.com you'll find someone willing to draw what you want for $5.

Often royalty free, but you should make sure first. Sometimes they'll want an additional fee. I've seen as low as $10-$40.

DM's Guild: One Week In - The Best & The Worst

jamesjhaeck

Explorer

Sir Brennen

Legend

JeffB

Legend

dave2008

Legend

warfteiner

First Post

timbannock

Hero

timbannock

Hero

The Grassy Gnoll

Explorer

Reynard

aka Ian Eller

Awesome Adam

First Post

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