Let's Talk Money

I know, it's almost sacrilege to speak about that abomination called money in this field, but I'm gonna.  I know there are lot of people who are already into making their own stuff or thinking about it.  Here's what it looks like in my corner of the self-publishing world.  I've calculated the gross, the cost and net of the past month.  This gave me, I had a bit of an idea, but not really sure until I ran the numbers, of how much I made and how much was going out.  These numbers are about as accurate as I could get them.  When I send out comp copies and freebies it's difficult to track their costs.

I broke down the sales in the different categories so I could see where the money was coming in.  The bundles represent the biggest money maker, but if you look at the per issue, single issues sold for $4.03 on average.  Where the bundles included 6 issues, averaged $3.52 per item sold.  Still, $685.50 for the month is great.  But now let's look at the costs.

Some of the costs were estimated the best I could.  Such as the ink and cardstock.  I burned through 2 ink cartridges this month and into my 3rd, but since I do personal printing on the same machine I just averaged it as best I could.  And the reason the paper was $0 was because I am very good at taking advantage of Staples rebates and all the regular paper I have has cost me nothing.  All the different fees from Paypal, Lulu and RPGNow are accurate.  Paypal has a fee system I don't quite understand.  If someone sent in me in $4 for the latest Manor, I get charged  a .42 cent fee.  If someone sends in $20 for the Manor bundle Paypal charges an .88 fee.  RPGNow is a straight 35% off the top of what you charge.  Lulu, about the same.

 So after a month of sales I was able to make $333.48 to the good.  I figured out what the average gross sale price was for each unit sold, average cost of each unit and how much profit I made on each unit.  These numbers are all based off of selling 208 units this month.

These numbers can be off putting.  This doesn't include all the time I put into printing and mailing these issues.  Which is a considerable amount.  The other thing is most of my products are below the $5 mark so there isn't a lot of room for profit.  But, I do this because I enjoy it.  The profit I make allows me to buy other OSR books and populate my shelves with a few other goodies.

There are a number of folks who get pissy about people making a little money off RPGs...ignore them.  People can figure out what they want to spend their money on without the help of those few griefers.  People can vote with their money if they are interested in what you're doing.  If your interested in publishing your own thing than I say give it a go.  It's a lot of work, but good fun.  I've met a lot of great folks because of doing this and have gotten a ton of support I never expected to get.

May Numbers for GM Games

Crunching the numbers for the cost and sales for my little gaming neck of the woods.  Here is the following breakdown in sales for May.

The Manor sold 44 in print and 40 in PDF.  Knowledge Illuminates sold 5 PDF copies.

Cost of Making a Print Zine

Each zine costs 30 cents to make.  This includes an estimate of paper, card stock, ink and envelopes.  My envelopes were the highest cost at 20 cents each, but have since found some that are at 5 cents each.  Postage for the USA is 65 cents, cost to Canada is $1.30 and to the outside world I plop three creepy butterflies on costing $1.95.  I could reduce my costs slightly by going into the post office and doing each one individually, but it takes too much time and I always mess it up.  Then there are the Paypal fees, they take 40 cents from my US orders, 46 cents from the Canadian orders and 48 cents from my European orders.

Those three things are the immediate expenditures.  So here is the break down by region.
US Orders - Price $3.50 - Cost $1.35 - Profit $2.15
Canadian Orders - Price $4.00 - Cost $2.06 - Profit $1.94
European Orders - Price $4.50 - Cost $2.73 - Profit - $1.77

Here are the total sales by region.
US - 36 ($77.40)
CA - 1 ($1.94)
EU - 6 ($10.62)
Mis - 1 ($3.60) - a Matt Jackson special here.
Total - $93.56

Cost of a PDF Zine

This section is very easy because it don't matter one lick where you live.  One price for all.  And I only sell the the PDF on RPGNow and all its subsidiaries.  I am under the non-exclusive contract so they get 35% of the take and I get the remaining 65%.

Since I sold 40 in PDF at $2.50 a pop it makes the math easy.  I made $65 from the PDF version.  Oh, and throw in 5 copies of Knowledge Illuminates at $3.25, bringing the PDF total to 68.25

So combined it looks like I made $161.81.  Not shabby.  No retirement, but that will get me a pizza or two and allow me to buy a few other things people are writing out there.  But hold on one second.  The costs to produce the zine continues.  Now these costs are purely at my discretion where the ones above are almost inescapable.

Contributors Copies (or CC)
I think its good practice to send out anyone who contributed a print copy of the zine.  Or any product for that matter.  PDFs are fine, but really, a print copy should be the way to go.  I sent out copies to the artists and others who assisted with the zine, copies to my gaming group and of course one to my mom.  So when I call her she can say she got it and tell me its very good even though she doesn't understand it.  I also sent out  copies to a couple reviewers.  I sent 11 CCs.  The total cost of those 11 to send was $8.20.


Artist Costs
The OSR has a wealth of excellent artists who will to help out with your project.  The prices vary from "I'll just take a copy" on up.  I won't go into too much detail in this one because these guys were very generous, but I did want to send them something because without their help the zine isn't nearly as good.  And hey, artists like pizzas too.

Start Up Costs
Purchasing the start up gear is always going to set you back.  Plus, much of what you buy in not going to be used in the first issue, its for down the road.  So when I buy 250 red card stock covers and only send out 55 copies and I have 5 sitting that means I have 190 red card stock so it should be good for a couple of issues.  Of course I will be doing different colors so that cost will continue until the second time around.    Long arm staplers aren't cheap.  I got mine for about $30.  And buying the extra ink cartridges for printing.  Oh and I bought that cool stamper thingy.

So after all the start up costs, postage, production costs and fees I made -$108.70.  Yep, over a hundred dollars in the hole.  But no worries.  I have enough card stock for the next two issues (different colors), enough paper for a while, ink is stocked and stapler only needs purchased once I hope.  So the next issue I should peek my head out of the hole.

I want to thank everyone who ordered and hope you stick around for the second issue.  I've got some kick ass maps from Matt Jackson that will feature a cool adventure.  And if there is room, another installment of the ever strange Rural PA.

Cost of Zining (Zinning, Zineing, whatever the verb is for Zine)

I was going through all the up front costs to start this zine that barely exists in my head or in a file on my desktop.  My printer first at $91.  If you read my King of Coupons post you know I got it for a spectacular deal.  And its a ton better than any printer I've had.  Scans great, prints brilliantly and is almost as gorgeous as Whisk.

Then the second part are the supplies.  Most of which I knew I could get, but I was baffled by this creature called a long armed stapler.  Had never heard of such a thing.  In my exotic travels to the strip mall I traversed past GameStop, the Dollar Store, AT&T and Rent a Center and found Staples.  A land rumored to possess such a beast.  In my exploration I found one such creature and a little alarmed by the price.  But I had to put my big boy pants on and suck it up.  Also I needed the card stock for covers and general paper.  The other thing I was a little surprised by was the envelops.  The 6"x9" variety are not cheap.  For some reason the one that opens at the side are more expensive the the top opening envelopes.

What these pictures do not include is the price of is ink, a cartridge runs for $35 and the staples to go into my Swingline, were $5.  So let's get out the tally sheet and see how much money I invested up front just to put out a small zine.

$91 Printer
$35 Ink Cartridge
$20 Long-Arm Stapler
$  5 Staples
$20 6"x9" Envelopes
$15 Cardstock
$  5 General Purpose Paper
$191 Total

I guess if I look at it my printer would have been $200 by itself if I hadn't lucked out.  So to justify my costs I will go with that.

RPGNow vs. Lulu

I have a question, especially for non North American, overseas folks.  Both RPGNow and Lulu do the print on demand.  Which one do you prefer and which is cheaper?  Quality wise I have gotten books from both and they are comparable, good quality.  Price wise, I think RPGNow wins by a small margin.  But don't know which is cheaper for Australia, Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and even the penguins in Antarctica.  How much do charge to ship?

If you have a moment please let me know.  This is one area (I have several but let's not dwell) I am completely ignorant.  Thanks.