ePublisher Primer

[rpghost]

Below is a very rough draft of a table of contents... I'm posting it only to get some feedback on what YOU the publishers and prospective publishers really want to see. If you can add anything let me know. If you're the owner of some interent resource and would like to be listed, let me know. Contact me at james@rpgnow.com


ePublishing Primer
==================

PREFACE
- Morrus (Natural 20 Press, ENWorld.org, Asgard Magazine...)
- James (RPGNow, RPGShop, RPGObjects, Minion Games...)
- Disclaimer


PREPERATION
- Best selling topics (d20, sourcebooks, etc)
- Love of it (don't quit your day job)
- Do the research (Legal, D20/OGL, Customer Demand, ...)
- Format (PDF, Ebook, HTML, CDROM, PRINT, POD, ...)
- Content & Page Counts (too large- split up)
- Budgeting (estimating margins, Flat Fee vs Royalty, ...)
- Expected Costs (Cover, Interior Art, Writers, Editors, Processors, Malls, ...)
- Funding (PDF to Print)


LEGAL
- Your Company (LLC, Sole-Proprietor, Corp, Partnership, None...)
- Copyrights & Trademarks
- Anti-Piracy Techniques (locking PDFs, Usenet alt.binaries.e-book.rpg)
- D20 System and OGL Licensee (Common mistakes, References, Glossary...)
- ISBN


DESIGN & LAYOUT
- Choosing a Title (search engines, trademarks, ...)
- Cover Art (what should be on it, style, value)
- Interier Art (how much, where, what, quality, ...)
- Review of Publishing Software (Indesign, Quirk, ...)
- Table of Contents
- Bookmarks and comments


PRODUCTION
- Editing (Worth the money)
- Freelancers (What to pay, Where to find, ...)
- Creating the PDF (Free links, Software, Size Reduction, Printer Friendly, Filenames, Tips, ...)


PRINT
- Print on Demand (Options, Format, Costs, ...)
- Offset Printing (Quotes, Shipping, Taxes, Setup, Formats, ...)


MARKETING
- Your website (Domain, Easy to nav, To the point, Products Index, Sales)
- Review (the importance of reviews & comment entries)
- Online Ads (effective banner ads, bid links, e-mail, yahoo groups, ...)
- Per-per-click Search Engines
- Print Ads (Dungeon, Dragon, Campaign Magazine, Games Unplugged, ...)
- Conventions
- Forums & Community
- Directories, Top Sites, WebRings (RPGGateway, RPGTopSites, d20 Publishing Companies WebRing, ...)
- Banner Exchanges (RPGHost, ...)
- News Releases (Announcements, Cover, Previews, Demos, Mortality Radio)
- Specials (discounts, bundles, sales, ...)
- e-Malls (RPGnow.com, mall.rpg.net, svgames.com, swreg.org, ...)
- Freebies (Demos, Add-ons, Character Sheets, RPGSheets.com, ...)
- e-zines ( get featured, sneek peeks/previews, ... )
- UseNet Posting (Avoiding backlash, Edicate...)
- Deleting (out of print) Stock (1 year or < 5 dl a month)
- Teaming with Publishers & Branding
- RPGNow (Customer Base, Gold Vendor, Vendor Reports, ...)


SALES & COSTS
- Royalties vs Flat Fees (When to pay, How to pay, What to pay)
- Potential Sales (Monthly Units, Longevity, ...)
(http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30179)
- Product Pricing (Don't undervalue, $1 / 10 pages above the first 10 pages)
- Processing (Paypal, Credit Card, Checks, Costs, Delivery, Bandwidth)
(limitations of only using paypal)


RESOURCES
- Website Links (review sites, publisher sites, freelancer sites, ...)
- Forums & Websites
- RPG Freelancers
- GPA / GAMMA


VENDOR SURVEY
- Results of ePublishing vendor survey



(Actually, not sure what to include in a vendor survey other then what they actually spent on things- open for ideas).

 

[annadobritt]

Wow! You'll be covering a lot of topics. Excellent!!

 

[azraphale]

As a new publisher, i would like information on dealing with other people in the industry IE signing NDAs, dealing with editors [how much they should be payed], dealing with playtesters, artists and stuff you can only figure out having worked with other people in the industry.

CSI.

 

[Arnix]

With our first products due out next month (official announcements due as soon as site is completed), I would definately be interested in something like this. It may be too late for our next products, but I have no qualms about improving quality in future releases.


Arnix (tm)
Cameron Guill
Alea Publishing Group
AleaPublishing.com

 

[rpghost]

Since this thread got a bump I thought I'd give a little update.

I have 4 chapters submitted complete and 1 that is half done and 1 that no one seems to want to do so I may have to do it I will be sure to mention how unreliable freelancers can be. I have some charts, good poll data, and recently sent out a survey to all RPGNow vendors. I've collected some contract templetes, though I'm looking for more. I welcome anyone's request for content or what they hope to get out of the book.

I fully expect this to come out later this month. I need to do an edit on the finished text and pass it off to our layout guy. The cover is being worked on and I'm still looking for some art submissions to break up the droll text.

Maybe E.N. Publishing will contribute some insites into d20 sales/issues for the book as I belive they are still going to do the d20 version (the second volume) of this book. Though I'm not positive as they just went through a lot of changes...

Monte Cook was kind enough to write the Forward. John Nephew has created a great budget/planing worksheet. Gold Rush games contributed some contract templetes. Bastion Press and many others have been very supportive. Even WOTC has agreed to give the legal stuff a quick once over.

So there you have it. In short, we're going to try to help people understand the amount of work and/or $ you're going to have to put in to release a good PDF that will actually sell versus one riddled with licensing issues and bad edits.

James
http://www.RPGNow.com

 

[Morrus]

RPGNow down?

I haven't been able to get there since yesterday morning.

 

[rpghost]

Re: RPGNow down?

I haven't been able to get there since yesterday morning.

Nope. Been up all day and is up this morning... might be a DNS issue or something? Try:

http://207.44.186.103

Not sure if that would help ... but the sites been up.
James

 

[Flyspeck23]

Any release date yet?

 

[rpghost]

Any release date yet?

When it's done

But actually I have to get it done within the next 2 weeks as I'm going to have a baby (well my wife is)...

James

 

[Mark]

...Im going to have a baby (well my wife is)...

James

Congrats James (and also to your wife)!