PDFs with no art

[annadobritt]

Alan, information like that should be chiseled in stone!!

A lot of very excellent advice for pdfs. This should go in the epublishing handbook being worked on by RPGHost James.

 

[mythusmage]

Re: Re: Me Too

I find it interesting how many of these items I agree with and how many of them I break.

Least you have some taste. Bad, but taste.

Any… …who, it all comes down to what works. Things are laid out in professional publications as they are because it works. Sometimes doing it wrong works better than doing it right. For the effect you want. In the long run you want to attract the customer, get him into the book, and get him to stick with the book. Sometimes the subject matter will do it. But most often you need an appealing graphic design, a good title, good layout, and compelling writing. You can succeed with three of the above, but with all four you could do well indeed.

My preference runs to 1/2 inch outer and 1 inch inner margins, 36 or 48 point chapter titles (depending on font) with 18 point headers, 14 point sub-headers, and 12 point sub-sub-headers. Text in 10 Palatino (3 columns). Illustrations in the upper left corner or under the chapter title to start a chapter off. Incidental art to separate major sections, and an end-piece at the end of each chapter. A full page illo to fill an blank page between chapters.

I always start a chapter on an odd-numbered page.

Table of contents and index of course

Your mileage may vary.

It all comes down to, as long as you enjoy what you're doing, and it sells.

 

[jaerdaph]

Re: Me Too

Here, now I present my recommendations for anyone thinking of doing a PDF product.

Thank you very much for taking the time to post this, Alan - very useful, and extremely informative.

 

[Gargoyle]

No art is better than substandard art, and a few good pieces are better than lots of mediocre ones. Never put any art that you aren't completely happy with into a product, even if you've paid for it already.

Be careful with your art budget. It's easy to spend more on art than you can make with a PDF. Go with a few quality pieces.

Good luck!

 

[malladin]

I think the PDF market has moved on significantly in just the last 6 months.

When we started, Forgotten Heroes: Paladin did really well with no art, but our later products, with some if not great art content, have failed to match that, drawing comments that they need more work on the art side. Joe's Enchanters came out at a similar time and has been recieved similarly well.

The PDF marked has just plain exploded of late, with Mongoose, Mystic Eye and Wizards all coming into the field. This makes it harder for little guys like us to compete, and means that people are starting to expect a much higher standard from their PDF.

It's hard when you're on a tight budget to compete with this. Libram Equitus and Beyond Monks did very well in the early days, but you get shifted off that front screen so quickly now that your sales are not likely to be as big as these earlier products even if the quality is better.

My personal view is that us little guys need to team up together for marketting purposes and try and expand the general interest in our tier of the market, rather than trying to out compete each other.

James - what do you think about a combined Paladin sourcebook, containing material from Call to Duty and FH Paladin?

cheerio,

Ben, Malladin's Gate

 

[Drawmack]

As a huge fan of pdf's I would like to offer some comments to the publishers.

1) PDF offers you the ability to display one thing and print another. USE THIS IT'S THERE FOR A REASON. When I view your product I want each page to display on my screen without scrolling. So landscape it and make it so that at 100% it fits on an 800x600 res monitor. Also make it easily readable on my screen. 10 point font is almost never readable on the monitor when the res is cranked, however if you size it for 8x6 then I can blow it up and still have it be a page per screen and readable on screen. But print in portrait.

2) Offering printable and non-printable versions is good. Bastion does this by simply removing the page borders on the printable version. I would go even further though and recommend a high speed/printable version. The smaller a file is the quicker it opens and navigates on older machines. My at the table laptop is a p650 with 32 megs of ram. Sorry your pdf aint getting used at my table it this little baby cannot quickly zoom through it. Not getting used at my table is 6 lost sales as my players will not purchase it if I'm not going to use it.

3) taking the art out of the printable version does not mean redoing the format. Leave a blank box where the art was - it gives me a place to take notes. How many pdf publishers are gamers? How many of you take notes on your books? Just yank the picture stick a little text at the top that says notes and I'd be happy.

4) Link your friggin pdf properly. One of the major benefits of digital is that it's linked. Do not give me an index that isn't linked, do not give me a toc that isn't linked and ESPECIALLY do not give me internal cross references that are not linked. If I purchase an improperly linked pdf I will never purchase another from your company, hence why I've only purchased 1 nat20 pdf.

5) Samples. When I'm going to purchase a print book I can go to my FLGS and check it out first. I do not have that option with a pdf so you must offer a sample. This sample should be exactly what I can expect from the purchased product including multiple versions if you're providing that in the purchased product. If I purchase a pdf from you and it is significantly different from the preview I will not be purchasing another one.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Art or Visual Aids?

One thing I think is important to note that when you're talking about a book that's just text, it's not necessarily a matter of missing art that hurts it.

Saint John's College of Abjuration and Coffer of Coins come to mind. Both have places but neither have maps. A map is not art per say, but it is a visual aid that is vital in insuring that locations are easy to understand and use.

Art is also useful for cases like Battle Magic from Mongoose when you're defining you're own area of effect spells.

Monster books without art, even a PDF book, probably aren't going to do as well as those with it.