Selling PDF's?

[Wik]

So, me and my brother were thinking of making (and selling) a PDF idea we've had. We've got a lot of the things lined up (roughly half the writing is done on a concept that wouldn't be much bigger than 30 pages or so, we have ten or so pieces of fairly decent art, we have Adobe Acrobat), and we're not really interested in doing this with the goal of making "ze beeg bucks".

(I intend on releasing a new core class with some support thrown in to get my feet wet; nothing major or original, really. And, yeah, it's been playtested).

I was just wondering: how do you go about doing this? What is involved in setting up a d20 company with the goal of selling small-size PDFs online via something like EN World? Also, is there a site I could go to that would help me out with the information? I'd be really curious to hear what those of you who have actually done it have to say.

 

[jmucchiello]

I wouldn't normally link offsite for this but the product you want is at RPGNow.com: The d20/OGL publishing guide. All the books in the series discuss various aspects of selling d20 product. Frankly though you shouldn't buy that. Instead you should pitch your idea to an existing publisher and work an imprint deal. It's not really work getting into publishing unless your goal is to be a publisher. If writing is your goal, write for someone who is a publisher.

Good Luck.

 

[Wik]

Cool. There's a lot of neat PDFs for sale, there... dunno if I'd pick 'em up, though. Are there any *free* links I could head off too? I'm sort of the typical "poor college student", here.

 

[francisca]

Cool. There's a lot of neat PDFs for sale, there... dunno if I'd pick 'em up, though. Are there any *free* links I could head off too? I'm sort of the typical "poor college student", here.

dtrpg.com has some free products to download.

However, if you are fishing for a warez site, you're asking in the wrong place.

 

[Voadam]

Cool. There's a lot of neat PDFs for sale, there... dunno if I'd pick 'em up, though. Are there any *free* links I could head off too? I'm sort of the typical "poor college student", here.

Keep looking around the www.rpgnow.com site, particularly the rpgnow edge portion and there should be instructions for contacting them if you have a finished pdf product for sale. They will basicly sell the pdf for you for a certain percentage of each sale.

 

[Wik]

dtrpg.com has some free products to download.

However, if you are fishing for a warez site, you're asking in the wrong place.

Yeah, the first link might help out. And, no, not really looking for Warez...my brother wanted to do that, but I told him "No frickin' way".

Has anyone around here actually done it? Got fun li'l pointers for me?

 

[jmucchiello]

Yeah, the first link might help out. And, no, not really looking for Warez...my brother wanted to do that, but I told him "No frickin' way".

Has anyone around here actually done it? Got fun li'l pointers for me?

I've done it. Lots of people here have done it. I put most of my little pointers in the book listed in my other post. (I'm only a co-author on the book and no, I don't get residuals. It was a work for hire.)

You might try the publisher's forums here and at RPGNow. But really, find someone else to sell it for you, the only reason to set yourself up for publishing is if publishing is your goal. If writing material for other gamers is your goal, let a publisher deal with the headache of getting it into gamers' hands.

Good Luck.