self-publishing

[olshanski]

This is going to sound like a ridiculous question: A typical pipe-dream.
Say I have a 200,000 word manuscript: a linked series of d20 fantasy adventures taking D&D characters from levels 1-16. 300 fleshed-out and fully statted encounters. Basically a complete campaign in a book.
I know I'd need to subcontract a copy-editor, a d20 content editor, a cartographer, an illustrator, a cover artist, a layout professional, and a printer.
Any ideas on how to get something like this distributed?
Should I give up on seeing it in print and try to do it through PDF?

 

[Fate Lawson]

This question to those that ask about self-publishing can NEVER be repeated enough:

Are you really interested in being a PUBLISHER or just being PUBLISHED?

9 times out of 10 the answer really is "I think I have some cool stuff and I really want to share it with the gaming world at large and see my name in the authors byline."

And if that answer matches yours, then my advice is to forget about being a publisher (especially a print publisher) and work towards getting published. Shop your manuscript around. Send samples to anyone who you think might be interested. Be prepared to take criticism, the good, the bad and the sometimes downright ugly.

However, if you do want to be a publisher then you have to be prepared for certain realities.

1. You will find your "writing time" being eaten-up by "publishing time"
2. Unless your either very lucky or very, very good you will NOT get rich from game writing.
3. Unless you have a business plan and a budget and some disposable capital before you start down the path to publishing, you WILL find your self accumulating debt REAL FAST.
4. Start up Print Publishers have a much, much greater failure rate than PDF publishers.*


*My definition of "failure" here being: Losing money, accumulating debt, not being able to pay the bills and being forced to close up shop and/or declare bankruptcy. It is NOT a measure of how many copies game XYZ may or may not have sold. (IMHO) A company that sells just 10 copies a year while remaining in the black is successful, while a company that sells 2,000 copies of game ZYX, but stiffs all of its debtors and closes shop is a failure.

 

[olshanski]

I have capital.
I have only one large MS.
I do not want to give up much control of layout or content.
I do not want to give up e-publishing rights.
I do not want to give up rights to update, port to other systems, or reprint.
I think the MS is very very good.
I want to maximize what little profit there is.

I dont think I can find a publisher to give me all of the above. I will not quit my day job in any case.

I'd still appreciate more responses/warnings/or answers to original Q.

 

[philreed]

I have capital.

Question 1: Do you have $20,000? $10,000? If the answer is no then you need to scale back your expectations. Drastically. Having a 200k word manuscript edited, getting enough (quality) art for a book of that size, and printing the book is going to consume a large amount of cash to do it right. And even then you're gonna want a substantial stack of cash to advertise what you've done.

DO NOT expect the distribution system to sell your book. You may be able to get placed with a consolidator (there are a few different ones out there, all with different terms) but there isn't a single distributor out there that will work to sell a product that isn't highly desirable or heavily marketed.

 

[Warden]

All that said about print, perhaps an initial publication in PDF can help gauge the support and potential success of a print version. At the very least, it will give you an opportunity to put something together with a lot less capital up front or even pay out in percentages, as some people do. From there, once it hits the virutal shelf, you can find out what people think of it and decide if the effort will be worth repeating for a print copy.

Taking your own product on your own, even in PDF, can have its drawbacks. Some ePublishers will grant their writers a lot of control over the projects, and possibly make them Project Managers (I know I do, if they want it). By going with an existing company, you're looking at sharing the brand with them. This makes a huge difference for consumers, as they will link your product with their product, so find somebody that seems to produce a lot of products you like or respect and give them a shot. Don't assume that you HAVE to publish it yourself, especially if you don't have determination to do it again and again.

 

[GMSkarka]

I dont think I can find a publisher to give me all of the above.

Probably not.

However, I doubt that you're really prepared for the realities of launching and operating a publishing business, either, whether print or PDF. The concerns that you've listed are the lowest-priority concerns that you'd have to be dealing with if you went into publishing, and if those are the ones that are primarily driving your decision-making process, you're simply not ready to do it.

 

[malladin]

As far as PDF publishing goes, there are a bunch of us who are out there producing decent stuff just as hobbyists. Whilst people like Ronin Arts and Adamant take the PDF industry very seriously, there are others who just put out what we can to the highest standard our budget runs to. You just have to make sure you're multiskilled yourselves.

Take us (Malladin's Gate) as an example. We started three of us writing, hoping to produce about a book a quarter, with no artists, editors, graphic designers or anything else. We've had a reasonable amount of success, certainly to a level that we're really happy with - let me explain that, most people inthe PDF business talk about 100 copies as being the benchmark for a successful product (that may have changed recently, but the last time I read a thread on the issue, it was 100 copies). All our products have now hit 100 copies. All but 1 got there in teh first couple of months. To take PDF seriously as a business you need to pump out the products at a rate of knots. We don't, but then we're hobby publishers doing it in our spare time, putting out what products we feel like we want to write.

So here's my simple quickstart business plan for the hobby publisher:
Step 1: get a shareware PDF distiller (if you look around you can get one for free)
Step 2: get a decent word processor or DTP product, but don't worry about getting anything too flashy (MS Word is fine, Word Pad is not). Make sure you've got a good level of skill with the product you choose, you;re going to be doing all your layouts in it.
Step 3: Buy up a shed load of clip art (there's a lot of great stuff on RPGNow, the Image portfolio line is particularly notable) - Make sure you buy it from various sources if you can, and don't be affraid to stretch the boundaries of the clip art's mandate (our Forgotten Heroes: Sorcerer book was largely populated with what was technically "superhero" art.
Step 4: get to work on writing and laying out your manuscript
Step 5: If you've got some kind of art package and a scanner you can propably make something of a cover using the clip art and a textured background (I've made use of a couple of leather-bound books lying around the house and even a roof slate that blew off in a storm as backgrounds for book covers). Even holiday snaps can make decent covers (look at DarkLore for an example)
Step 6: Don't spend any money on advertising, just make good use of the free marketting time you can get at sites like this (EN World is particularly good for PDF buyers)
Step 7: Get chatty on sites like this in general so that people know who you are (I bet you're all wondering who I am right now aren't you )

The golden rule: Never lose sight of the fact that you;re doing it for fun. Never get carried away with it and think you're going to be able to make a living from it. Just do it because you enjoy doing it and you get a kick out of knowing that other people like, use and respect your work. If it stops being fun, stop doing it.

When we started up it cost us next to nothing. Granted we've spent the odd $5 here and there on expanding our clip art collection, but a lot of people have the basic hardware and software when they buy their PC (although MS seems to be no longer shipping Office en-mass as it once did).

So, if you don't want the hassle of starting a company and doing it "for real", join the happy ranks of us hobby publishers. You get a real sense of satisfaction from seeing the product complete and watching your sales counter trickle over, and particularly if you're ever blessed with a 5 star review . You never no what can happen - after all, we're having Etherscope published...

Cheerio,

Ben

 

[Morrus]

Step 6: Don't spend any money on advertising, just make good use of the free marketting time you can get at sites like this (EN World is particularly good for PDF buyers)

Ahem! But make sure you read the announcement at the top of every forum here first. Using the boards as your personal free marketing tool will get make you very unpopular very quickly!

 

[jmucchiello]

I have capital.
I have only one large MS.
I do not want to give up much control of layout or content.
I do not want to give up e-publishing rights.
I do not want to give up rights to update, port to other systems, or reprint.
I think the MS is very very good.
I want to maximize what little profit there is.

I dont think I can find a publisher to give me all of the above.

TDG would but I'm stingy with associating TDG with something unless I think it's good. I'd rather let someone walk then take their rights. (I am unsure what you mean by MS above though.) Policy is to have the author retain copyright and provide a license to TDG to publish the work.

I also don't really print. And to date, no one I've worked with externally has released a PDF but I'm really close with one author.

Send an email if you like though I doubt a mega-adventure is a good PDF prospect.
Or follow Ben's advice for doing your own startup. Good Luck.

And I doubt a mega-adventure would really sell well in PDF form.

 

[Fate Lawson]

And I doubt a mega-adventure would really sell well in PDF form.

With all due respect, probably as well in PDF as Print. Especially for an unknown, and with a LOT less risk.

But since the OP seems to be intent on embarking into the thrilling and exciting world of publishing, I'll give some more specific advise on publishing. Now some of this may seem obvious and may come across as a bit pedantic, but I think it still needs to be said.

You indicate that your MS is a series of linked adventures that at 200K words would put it at about 240-280 pages. Contracting out for various editors and artists for a project that large is going to cost a good bit. So break it up into 5-8 smaller products. Get the first one out for sale in PDF and start generating feedback (Is it good? Are people talking about it? Is it worth it to continue?).

If it's a hit, then you'll start generating the capital to finance the next installment. You'll also know whether to retain the same editors and artists or start looking for new and better ones.

After the series is complete in multiple PDF's, THEN you can start thinking about putting them out into one large, combined and revised print version.

If it's that good then you'll no longer be a complete unknown and your job getting it into stores will have been made a touch easier (not easy, just easier).