Looking for Industry Information for Business Plan

[Najo]

I am acting as the Creative Director for an ambitious, independant D20 project. I need some information for our business plan that I hope either ex or current WOTC employees, other RPG publishers, or any other people in the know can provide me:

1) I need estimated salary ranges for each job position of a typcial D&D book. If another company can provide their own information this is welcomed as well.

2) I need copies or information regarding the content of the R&D style guides used by WOTC for in-house design work. I am also looking for writer and graphic artist style guides for any WOTC product lines. If a WOTC employee can tell me how to attain this information it would be appreciated.

3) I need copies of standard work-for-hire contracts for each of those positions.

If anyone is willing to share this information with me or has leads as to where I can get this information, please email me at najo4(remove-this-tag-when-emailing)@comcast.net.

Thanks,

Nate

 

[DaveStebbins]

Would something like this help?

 

[Najo]

Would something like this help?

This looks very promising, I just downloaded it and will take a look at it tonight. Thanks for pointing out what looks like a great resource!

Nate

 

[DaveStebbins]

Also, specific questions about the business of publishing would probably receive more attention and responses if posted in the Publishers forum instead of General.

 

[Najo]

Also, specific questions about the business of publishing would probably receive more attention and responses if posted in the Publishers forum instead of General.

Our project is a printed product based around an intellectual property my team is developing. I put it in general because I am hoping to catch as many industry pros as possible, and was just considering bumping this thread

I am going to post over there as well, and on a few other boards. Are there any other industry boards you can recommend?

BTW, that e-publishing book is fairly good so far. Most of the business basics I know already, but there are good ideas in there, and it covers alot of information, presenting it in an easy to read format. Money well spent, thank you for the recommendation.

Nate

 

[Najo]

JUst a friendly bump to keep this near the top a little longer

 

[Najo]

Clarifying a bit

It seems people may have the wrong idea as to my intentions. I asked if a WOTC employee could tell me how to get this info, meaning who inside WOTC could I speak with about obtaining access to their styleguides legally. I am not looking to get anyone into trouble, I just want to know who I can speak with that can help us deliver the best game materials possible.

Ironically, it would seem these are materials that WOTC would want to offer serious publishers in order to support the OGL (or at least the D20 liscense). I understand that gives them a competive edge, but the whole purpose of the the D20 license is to allow a publisher to produce support material for D&D, in turn selling more PHB and D&D support material. So in theory, the better the 3rd party material is out there, the better the d20 brand as a whole looks.

With that said, how does one become an offcial liscensed product (like Kingdoms of Kalamar is)? Would a company doing that have access to the style guides? Anyrate, if someone can get me speaking to the right people, that would be very helpful.

Thanks again,

Nate

 

[jmucchiello]

Our project is a printed product based around an intellectual property my team is developing. I put it in general because I am hoping to catch as many industry pros as possible, and was just considering bumping this thread

Industry pros hang out in the publisher's forum. It's called the publisher's forum for a reason. Publishers are people who pay salaries, negotiate contracts and license products.

 

[trancejeremy]

I think Kalamar was something of a unique situation, supposedly because WOTC used KODT cartoons in the Dragon cd-rom collection w/o permission, and them giving Kenzo the rights to all the old D&D stuff for Hackmaster and the use of the D&D logo for Kalamar was part of the settlement. (So goes the rumor, anyway).

 

[tonym]

2) I need copies or information regarding the content of the R&D style guides used by WOTC for in-house design work. I am also looking for writer and graphic artist style guides for any WOTC product lines. If a WOTC employee can tell me how to attain this information it would be appreciated.


Hi, Nate. I'm not a WotC employee, but I've done some illustrating in the gaming industry and, consequently, I have seen a few style guides over the past few years... IMHO, they're not that big of a deal. They can be as simple or as detailed as you want. A few pages, a hundred pages. Bad xeroxes paperclipped together, or color photocopies in a folder. Whatever. Style guides vary from company to company. It's not like writing a screenplay, for example, with a bunch of rules about font, point size, indentations, etc. It's just a bunch of information presented in a way that is not too chaotic, so a person looking for, say, a picture of a particular nation's flag can find it quick enough.

In other words, do what everybody else does and just make it up. You can't go wrong.

Hope that helps.


Tony