Mongoose Publishing's Rep...?

[Wulf Ratbane]

I have to come to Matt's defense on this. It may be a three month solicitation to distributors, but development time of the product is a heck of a lot longer. Many books are in the development stage for 6 months to a year (sometimes more). Not only do you have the time spent writing, you also have editing, art direction, and layout. Generally, art takes about a month to assign and get back. Editing (depending on the length of the book) can be 1 to 2 months. Layout will take a couple of weeks unless that is the only project you are working on.

Basically, you'd have to cut some serious corners on writing, art, layout, and editing to get it done.

 

[DaveMage]

And, if WotC is putting out a book on dragons, I would think that the *last* thing you'd want to do as a smaller publisher is put out a similarly-themed book at the same time as an "official" one.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

And, if WotC is putting out a book on dragons, I would think that the *last* thing you'd want to do as a smaller publisher is put out a similarly-themed book at the same time as an "official" one.

Not necessarily. If WOTC gets you into the store to buy material for your Dragons game, you might be willing to pick up two books.

 

[S'mon]

Basically, you'd have to cut some serious corners on writing, art, layout, and editing to get it done.

Which we all know Mongoose would never do...

- S'mon, proud possessor of Conan: Spellb.ooks Edition

 

[Belen]

Not necessarily. If WOTC gets you into the store to buy material for your Dragons game, you might be willing to pick up two books.

Bingo! I know a lot of people that own 3-4 dragon books. Why? Just because WOTC has a book on dragons, does not mean that other people would not want a different perspective etc. I own the draconomicon, plus the slayer's guide to dragons, plus AEG Dragons.

Of course, I buy too much. Darn you Wulf, I even own your stuff. It's a conspiracy to take my money.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Of course, I buy too much. Darn you Wulf, I even own your stuff. It's a conspiracy to take my money.

And I'm blowing it all on ale and whores!

 

[Wraith Form]

This is a tough one.


I want to like Mongoose stuff. I really do. But they make it tough to appreciate their products. Admittedly, I'm a stickler for editing--the way I see it, if you're going to drop $50 on a hardcover book from any other publishing industry (novels, for ex.) you expect that book to be edited properly. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the same from game publishers. (Even if they're Brits. No, wait; especially if they're Brits....I'm speaking the red-headed stepchild of the language they created. Developed. Whatever.)

The Quint books have so-so editing, rules, etc--and that's fine. They're relatively inexpensive, so I don't have huge expectations. When the Bab5 source book preview PDF first came out, several of us pointed out that there were editing mistakes in it. Editing mistakes in the preview. Are you telling me that they didn't have time to correct those mistakes? That doesn't bode well for the rest of the book, but I'm a consumer....so I consumed....and found that the Bab5 book was riddled with silly mistakes. Even the back cover has an editing gaffe.

Ok, so that was disappointing, but we all drop the ball at some point in time or another. Eventually the Conan (1st Edition) book came out. Ouch. OK, ball-drop #2. Editing mistakes had been pointed out in other products (Steampunk, Cyberpunk, Sheoloth, more splatbooks, etc). Not looking good.

So a few weeks ago, after reading an empassioned post here on EN World by MongooseMatt, I decided that giving them a second go would be OK. I bought a majority of the Conan suppliments based solely on Matt (and other's) insistance that the products were better. (I bought them on line, so they hadn't shipped to me before this -->) Within a few days I saw posts about the Shadizar map and errata was released for Jeremiah....

So what are we supposed to think? Mongoose has some exceptionally interesting books, but some phenominally bad editing & grammatical issues. For those of us who cringe about obvious, repeated editing mistakes, Mongoose is not the publisher for you. The rest of you--let the buyer beware...

 

[Yeoman]

I had bought a couple mongoose books over the years, a couple quintessential books (Fighter, Monk, Psychic Warrior, and Samurai), the only one I regret buying was Psychic Warrior. I just hated the materials in it. I got a couple of the encyclopedia's arcane when the wizards retail stores closed. Most of the ones I have (Battle Magic, Conjuration, Demonology, and Star Magic) are eh, except for Conjuration, I did like that one. My books in the Armageddon 2089 series I did like, a lot. It's just kind of hit or miss. I've thought about looking at the Lone Wolf series, but I'm not sure, because of a lot of mixed signals I'm getting.

 

[DaveMage]

Not necessarily. If WOTC gets you into the store to buy material for your Dragons game, you might be willing to pick up two books.

Perhaps, but I thought that one of the perceived things that hurt sales of Frost & Fur (Monkey God's last book) was the announcement that WotC was coming out with Frostburn.

Also, if you put the Draconomicon side by side with Classic Play: Dragons, the comparitive production values alone depress the Classic Play book - regardless of the quality of the content. (And, since we're talking about the store setting, I would think the aesthetics would be a major factor.)

On the other hand, if you have experience as a publisher which says otherwise, then I'm hardly in a position to debate it - although it does surprise me a bit.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

On the other hand, if you have experience as a publisher which says otherwise, then I'm hardly in a position to debate it - although it does surprise me a bit.

Well, true. It may well be that my smaller, lower priced paperbacks fare better next to a full-color glossy hardback than another hardback, at the same price, with crappier production values, would fare.

In other words, I think you are ok if you release to thematically similar product, but not necessarily ok if you are also competing in the same price and format.

That's probably closer to accurate; fair enough?