I got this email from Staples and they are having a contest to give a start up business up to $25,000. That's the grand prize, 1st place is $15,000, 2nd is $10,000 and there are 7, 3rd prizes for $5000. All you need to do is use a 100 words to write what your business ideas is and a list of equipment you want. Give them your name, email, and phone number. So if you have an idea give it a go. Why not? I did it a little while ago and took about 10 minutes. Just read the rules first.
Good luck!
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
PDF
Monday, February 18, 2013
Construction of a Zine
Matt Jackson posted a review of the third Manor and asked me about the card stock I use and mentions the construction of my zine. A few people during the week have contacted me about starting their own zine. I thought I'd use this post to go over the physical parts, price and putting together a zine. Along with a little advice. Before I get started let me say there are many ways to go about doing a zine, I'm just sharing my experience. Each one of you will have to find their own path, hopefully one less traveled.
Starting Equipment
Get a good printer. Don't be cheap. Get a full fledged office printer, not a home printer. There are plenty of good sales. Make sure it can do auto double sided printing or you're going to be re-feeding the pages through the printer again and that takes a lot of time. Make sure the page yield per cartridge is high. By high I mean over a 1000. Ink is expensive. You'll be burning through it quickly with dozens of copies with weird fonts and pictures.
Long-armed Stapler: I never knew the possibilities until I bought my long-armed stapler. They run about $30+ depending on the store. I have a simple black Swingline brand. It uses normal staples.
Publishing Programs: I warn you not to put together a zine in Word. Especially if it has pictures. If you want to know what the 1st circle of Hell is like, try to format your zine in Word. I went with Publisher, but there are several free programs. Just get one that works for you.
Space. You'll need some dedicated space for your zine. You're going to fall in love with cardstock colors, so have room to store extra paper, printed issues, and a well lit space to put together your zine. Make sure its clean. No Cheeto or Dorito dust, or spilled beverages. The owner has the privilege of staining the zine not you.
I'm not including any of these costs into the zine. It's the start up costs before you can even think about doing it.
Cover
The cover is typical card stock you can buy in any office supply or hobby store. Just watch the measurements because some of them are slightly smaller than a normal page. Card stock is usually 67lb paper. I'm sure it can go higher, but weight is a consideration when shipping and 67 hits a sweet spot of being sturdy and not weighting too much. For a ream of 250 sheets you can expect to pay around $15. Some of them only come in 50 or 100 packs. They seem cheaper, but when you average the price they end up being much more expensive. That said, if you have to pay a bit more to get the color you want, go for it.
Paper
The paper inside is something I went over in a previous post, Experiment of the Paper Kind. The paper I use is the typical all-purpose 20lb, 96 bright. I have paper that is 92 bright and I don't like it because the ink shows through.
My Staples runs sales, where I'd buy two reams of paper and get rebated the entire cost. Not sure how that works out for them, but for it works great for me. Normally paper should run about $4 a ream.
I recently bought 24lb/98 bright paper and holy crap is it nice. However, it costs twice as much as the 20lb. I paid $8 for the ream, and my wife almost killed me. There were other reams that went to 28lb and 30lb. I plan on buying those in the near future just so I can compare. I'll make sure I leave Ivy in the car for that purchase.
Back to the 24lb paper. While you wouldn't think such small upgrades would make a difference, it does. Feels and looks different. I plan on using it in a future issue. It may cost a little more, but I think it will be worth it.
Ink/Printer
I do all the printing in-house, which keeps my costs low. I get rebated for paper, so that helps, and card stock works out to be .06 cents a sheet.
I have a Epson WP-4530 printer. It kicks some ass. It costs $38 for a black ink cartridge, but has a yield of 2400 pages. That's just for text though. Pictures suck up a lot more ink so lets cut it by a quarter to 1800 pages. That means it costs about .2 cents to print/page. I have six pages and a cover, front and back, so at 14 printed pages costs me .28 cents in ink.
Cost of Printing Services
I could go to Staples and have them print copies of my zine. I called Staples, these prices include the printing, paper, and cardstock, at 50 copies of a 24 page zine (6 half pages printed on both sides + the cover), would cost $97.26 or $1.95 an issue. At 100 copies it costs $181.79 or $1.82 an issue. I'm going to be optimistic and use the 100 copy cost. This does not include any other costs except to get a printed issue in your hand.
I am not trying to make Staples the villain. I get most of my supplies there. Just a comparison. Staples costs me $1.82 and issue. I can print it at home for .34 cents.
Envelopes
This is a weird expense. Zines fit into a normal greeting card sized envelope, and there's a lot to choose from. Wal-Mart has a box of 100 for $11.54 (or 12 cents an envelope), top open. Staples has a box of 250 for $31.49 (or 13 cents an envelope), side open, self-adhesive envelopes.
I try to get ones that are sturdier since some of The Manor buyers are in United Kingdom, Sweden, and Australia, to name a few I recently sent out. And I want the zine to find its way there with minimal damage.
Postage
Postage recently increased. For domestic mail it went from .65 cents to .66 cents. And they made creepier butterflies for the 66 cent stamps. This is for packages 2oz or under. Should it weight over 2oz the postage leaps to 86 cent per stamp. My zine weights in at 1.7oz. I'm thinking I have enough room to add another page (which would mean 4 additional pages) into the Manor.
International shipping. Canada cost a $1.10. The rest of the world as far as I have shipped, costs $2.05. If I remember correctly the world postage was at $1.92 so it went up 13 cents.
Fees
I use Paypal for all my print sales. For USA sales I charge $3.50 and Paypal takes out a .40 cent transaction fee. International, I charge $4.50 and Paypal takes out .48 cents. So Paypal takes about 11% of what I charge for a zine. When I did subscriptions at higher amounts the percentage was lower.
Other Costs
Other costs would include the little bit of pizza money I send to the artists who draw those fantastic pictures. It's not a lot, but I like to give them something. A show of appreciation. And along with that and other contributors, I give them at least one contributor's copy or a CC. I can't figure these into the costs exactly. Since this is not a professionally run business and while I could account for all the CCs and pizza money costs, I don't. Too much math for me.
Total Costs
Here are the total costs if I had Staples do the the printing for me.
Print Costs: $1.82 + .13 envelope + .66 stamp +.40 Paypal fee = $3.01 (a .49 cent profit)
International: + $2.05 stamp + 48 Paypal fee = $.4.48 (a .02 cent profit)
I'm no business man, but that sucks. While I am not in it to make big bucks I would like to make enough profit so I can buy the next cool gaming book I see. Or upgrade the paper I want to use. Or pay for colored art for an issue (spoiler).
My costs printing it from home.
Print Costs: .34 + .13 envelope + .66 stamp + .40 Paypal fee = $1.53 (a $1.97 profit)
International: + $2.05 stamp + .48 Paypal fee = $3.00 ( a $1.50 profit)
Those are numbers I can work with. In a future post I plan on writing about what I do with the profits.
Advice
First, make sure its something you want to invest a lot of time into. It's not easy. Well not for me at least, but its something I really enjoy doing. So make sure the zine is a personal reflection of you and what you like about gaming (or whatever yours may be about). That's why people love zines because they're personal. Most of the things I include are directly from my games or stuff I think is cool.
Second, use your friends. Not in a bad way, but all my friends have different talents they bring to the table. Whether ts be a map maker, proof reader or content contributor, accept some help. You'll have a ton on your plate as is.
Third, CCs. As I mentioned above, contributors' copies are important to those who have helped. Hell, I even send a copy to my mother. Again, it is a show of appreciation for the people who have helped.
Fourth, be generous. Zines are not a money making project. If I know someone is having financial difficulties or a bad day I'll fire off an issue, gratis. If someone emails me and says they got my zine in the mail and it made their day, cool. There are a lot of good people out there that will support you if you take the time to get to know them, and show you're willing to give them hand also.
Fifth, ties to the first, have fun with it. Don't think you have to be bound by expectations or genres or conventions. You're going to spend a lot of time on that little book, you might as well enjoy it.
Conclusion
There are many ways of doing a zine. You can Google videos of people hand sewing the binding. Photo coping the content. Countless ways you can express you gaming mojo. But if you plan on doing it, get the tools to make it a little easier for yourself. I'm hoping this post gives you a sample of what it I needed to get things going. By all means give it a try. Its a blast. And if you find its something you don't enjoy then move on to your next gaming project.
If you have any questions or want to know something in more detail you can email me at elder(underscore)sensa(at)yahoo(dot)com.
 |
| Click here to get an issue. |
Get a good printer. Don't be cheap. Get a full fledged office printer, not a home printer. There are plenty of good sales. Make sure it can do auto double sided printing or you're going to be re-feeding the pages through the printer again and that takes a lot of time. Make sure the page yield per cartridge is high. By high I mean over a 1000. Ink is expensive. You'll be burning through it quickly with dozens of copies with weird fonts and pictures.
Long-armed Stapler: I never knew the possibilities until I bought my long-armed stapler. They run about $30+ depending on the store. I have a simple black Swingline brand. It uses normal staples.
Publishing Programs: I warn you not to put together a zine in Word. Especially if it has pictures. If you want to know what the 1st circle of Hell is like, try to format your zine in Word. I went with Publisher, but there are several free programs. Just get one that works for you.
Space. You'll need some dedicated space for your zine. You're going to fall in love with cardstock colors, so have room to store extra paper, printed issues, and a well lit space to put together your zine. Make sure its clean. No Cheeto or Dorito dust, or spilled beverages. The owner has the privilege of staining the zine not you.
I'm not including any of these costs into the zine. It's the start up costs before you can even think about doing it.
Cover
The cover is typical card stock you can buy in any office supply or hobby store. Just watch the measurements because some of them are slightly smaller than a normal page. Card stock is usually 67lb paper. I'm sure it can go higher, but weight is a consideration when shipping and 67 hits a sweet spot of being sturdy and not weighting too much. For a ream of 250 sheets you can expect to pay around $15. Some of them only come in 50 or 100 packs. They seem cheaper, but when you average the price they end up being much more expensive. That said, if you have to pay a bit more to get the color you want, go for it.
Paper
The paper inside is something I went over in a previous post, Experiment of the Paper Kind. The paper I use is the typical all-purpose 20lb, 96 bright. I have paper that is 92 bright and I don't like it because the ink shows through.
My Staples runs sales, where I'd buy two reams of paper and get rebated the entire cost. Not sure how that works out for them, but for it works great for me. Normally paper should run about $4 a ream.
I recently bought 24lb/98 bright paper and holy crap is it nice. However, it costs twice as much as the 20lb. I paid $8 for the ream, and my wife almost killed me. There were other reams that went to 28lb and 30lb. I plan on buying those in the near future just so I can compare. I'll make sure I leave Ivy in the car for that purchase.
Back to the 24lb paper. While you wouldn't think such small upgrades would make a difference, it does. Feels and looks different. I plan on using it in a future issue. It may cost a little more, but I think it will be worth it.
Ink/Printer
I do all the printing in-house, which keeps my costs low. I get rebated for paper, so that helps, and card stock works out to be .06 cents a sheet.
I have a Epson WP-4530 printer. It kicks some ass. It costs $38 for a black ink cartridge, but has a yield of 2400 pages. That's just for text though. Pictures suck up a lot more ink so lets cut it by a quarter to 1800 pages. That means it costs about .2 cents to print/page. I have six pages and a cover, front and back, so at 14 printed pages costs me .28 cents in ink.
Cost of Printing Services
I could go to Staples and have them print copies of my zine. I called Staples, these prices include the printing, paper, and cardstock, at 50 copies of a 24 page zine (6 half pages printed on both sides + the cover), would cost $97.26 or $1.95 an issue. At 100 copies it costs $181.79 or $1.82 an issue. I'm going to be optimistic and use the 100 copy cost. This does not include any other costs except to get a printed issue in your hand.
I am not trying to make Staples the villain. I get most of my supplies there. Just a comparison. Staples costs me $1.82 and issue. I can print it at home for .34 cents.
Envelopes
This is a weird expense. Zines fit into a normal greeting card sized envelope, and there's a lot to choose from. Wal-Mart has a box of 100 for $11.54 (or 12 cents an envelope), top open. Staples has a box of 250 for $31.49 (or 13 cents an envelope), side open, self-adhesive envelopes.
I try to get ones that are sturdier since some of The Manor buyers are in United Kingdom, Sweden, and Australia, to name a few I recently sent out. And I want the zine to find its way there with minimal damage.
Postage
Postage recently increased. For domestic mail it went from .65 cents to .66 cents. And they made creepier butterflies for the 66 cent stamps. This is for packages 2oz or under. Should it weight over 2oz the postage leaps to 86 cent per stamp. My zine weights in at 1.7oz. I'm thinking I have enough room to add another page (which would mean 4 additional pages) into the Manor.
International shipping. Canada cost a $1.10. The rest of the world as far as I have shipped, costs $2.05. If I remember correctly the world postage was at $1.92 so it went up 13 cents.
Fees
I use Paypal for all my print sales. For USA sales I charge $3.50 and Paypal takes out a .40 cent transaction fee. International, I charge $4.50 and Paypal takes out .48 cents. So Paypal takes about 11% of what I charge for a zine. When I did subscriptions at higher amounts the percentage was lower.
Other Costs
Other costs would include the little bit of pizza money I send to the artists who draw those fantastic pictures. It's not a lot, but I like to give them something. A show of appreciation. And along with that and other contributors, I give them at least one contributor's copy or a CC. I can't figure these into the costs exactly. Since this is not a professionally run business and while I could account for all the CCs and pizza money costs, I don't. Too much math for me.
Total Costs
Here are the total costs if I had Staples do the the printing for me.
Print Costs: $1.82 + .13 envelope + .66 stamp +.40 Paypal fee = $3.01 (a .49 cent profit)
International: + $2.05 stamp + 48 Paypal fee = $.4.48 (a .02 cent profit)
I'm no business man, but that sucks. While I am not in it to make big bucks I would like to make enough profit so I can buy the next cool gaming book I see. Or upgrade the paper I want to use. Or pay for colored art for an issue (spoiler).
My costs printing it from home.
Print Costs: .34 + .13 envelope + .66 stamp + .40 Paypal fee = $1.53 (a $1.97 profit)
International: + $2.05 stamp + .48 Paypal fee = $3.00 ( a $1.50 profit)
Those are numbers I can work with. In a future post I plan on writing about what I do with the profits.
Advice
First, make sure its something you want to invest a lot of time into. It's not easy. Well not for me at least, but its something I really enjoy doing. So make sure the zine is a personal reflection of you and what you like about gaming (or whatever yours may be about). That's why people love zines because they're personal. Most of the things I include are directly from my games or stuff I think is cool.
Second, use your friends. Not in a bad way, but all my friends have different talents they bring to the table. Whether ts be a map maker, proof reader or content contributor, accept some help. You'll have a ton on your plate as is.
Third, CCs. As I mentioned above, contributors' copies are important to those who have helped. Hell, I even send a copy to my mother. Again, it is a show of appreciation for the people who have helped.
Fourth, be generous. Zines are not a money making project. If I know someone is having financial difficulties or a bad day I'll fire off an issue, gratis. If someone emails me and says they got my zine in the mail and it made their day, cool. There are a lot of good people out there that will support you if you take the time to get to know them, and show you're willing to give them hand also.
Fifth, ties to the first, have fun with it. Don't think you have to be bound by expectations or genres or conventions. You're going to spend a lot of time on that little book, you might as well enjoy it.
Conclusion
There are many ways of doing a zine. You can Google videos of people hand sewing the binding. Photo coping the content. Countless ways you can express you gaming mojo. But if you plan on doing it, get the tools to make it a little easier for yourself. I'm hoping this post gives you a sample of what it I needed to get things going. By all means give it a try. Its a blast. And if you find its something you don't enjoy then move on to your next gaming project.
If you have any questions or want to know something in more detail you can email me at elder(underscore)sensa(at)yahoo(dot)com.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
What Makes You Support an OSR Product...or Not?
I've been having a discussion with a few other OSR bloggers about the reasons why someone would support an OSR product or why they wouldn't. Some of the factors that came up were:
There are tons of OSR products out there and more and more folks are getting into the game. Two of my personal favorites recently released were Weird Adventures by Trey Causey and Blasphemous Brewery of Pilz by Dylan Hartwell. It should also come to no surprise I really like both of their blogs. I can say that I bought Trey's because I've been getting samples of Weird Adventures on his blog for a while, I like the genre he selected and the art was fantastic, so my interest in his product was a done deal when it came out. As for Dylan's adventure, he released his soon after he had a discussion on his blog whether to sell it or not. I encouraged him to sell it. Did I know much about it? Nope. I bought it purely because I wanted to see his style and what kind of adventure he would create. I was not disappointed.
But there are a ton of other products which I can't list them all, but just off the top of my head, Micheal Curtis's Stonehell Dungeon and Dungeon Alphabet (Three Castles Award winner) and how could I forget Realms of Crawling Chaos. I bought Stonehell in print because at the time I wanted to check out how a mega-dungeon was built. Michael came at it from a fresh approach that I think is still one of the best ways to go. The ever changing dungeon. Dungeon Alphabet I wasn't all that interested in, but after the hype and chatter about it I got it on PDF. I like it, but haven't used it for much. Then the Realms Of Crawling Chaos, I bought on PDF and will buy in print in the future. I really enjoyed this one and will definitely use it in the future. I use Micheal's three products because most everyone knows them and the important thing, at least to the publishers, I bought all three. I like supporting Micheal's products, because so far he is given me value for my money. So when he releases his next product and I may not know many details, but because I have enjoyed his work in the past I'll probably get it. The only real decision is whether get it in PDF or print.
One of my favorite OSR publishers is Expeditious Retreat. Before I knew to much about them I bought A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe on PDF. Than I immediately bought it in print. Then I purchased several other items from Joseph Browning and crew, A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture in print, and one of my favorite bestiaries Malevolent and Benign which I lucked out and was able to purchase from the damaged bin with a few adventures. Great stuff. But his Sorcery & Super Science! has not interested me. Again, not because I think its bad, just at this time I'm not interested in mixing genres like that for my games. Hell when S3 came out and all the PCs were running around with laser guns I lost interest in the game.
Magazine wise we have Fight On!, the original OSR backed magazine. Which I like, but if I only have enough for one magazine I prefer Knockspell overall. And Christian's zine Loviatar is a favorite of mine. But if I have money for both I usually buy both. Because you really can't go wrong with any of them. I know there are other magazines out there like Land of Nod and though I am a big fan of John Stater I haven't bought any of his magazines yet. And this is due to I only have so much money to go around. And those who saw my running total for 2011 it was long, but still I have only so much I can spend on gaming. So for Land of Nod, which I still want, the only reason I haven't supported it was money.
Rob Conley had a great success with his Majestic Wilderlands. I helped him out with a small portion of it. He's been running the same campaign world forever and it shows in its depth. I got a free copy because of my help, but also bought a couple of copies to give away to others, to help support him. Rob and I have been friends for 20+ years and if he ever needs help with a project he knows he can always call on me and the reverse. But, we dropped the ball on this one a bit. Rob was giving me small segments to edit then would give me another small portion with some of the last portion that was the unedited version so our organization stank for that. Then as time wore on I got a new job that required a ton of my time and the second half of the book shows that. Because of this we changed our strategy, when he wrote Blackmarsh it was given to me as a complete manuscript, I did the edits and then we went over it together. Then we sent it out to test readers to catch things both of us had missed. Again, I bought two print copies to give away to support him.
I can't go through every product out there or the reasons why I buy or don't buy a product. I think my two main reasons why I buy is does the product fit my interest and do I have the mula. Why I don't buy a product, I admit that if I am not a fan of the person I am less likely to buy it. This rarely is the case, but it does happen. And the other reason why I don't buy a product is mainly there are so many to choose from and that you just have to pick. Doesn't mean the others aren't fantastic, but choices need to be made. We only have so much money and time. And real life demands its share. Just like now. I have to go to work.
So if you get a chance let me know what influences you to buy or not to buy a gaming product.
- cost of the product
- saturation of the product
- quality of the product
- buyer's current financial situation
- like or dislike of the author
- personal interest in the product
There are tons of OSR products out there and more and more folks are getting into the game. Two of my personal favorites recently released were Weird Adventures by Trey Causey and Blasphemous Brewery of Pilz by Dylan Hartwell. It should also come to no surprise I really like both of their blogs. I can say that I bought Trey's because I've been getting samples of Weird Adventures on his blog for a while, I like the genre he selected and the art was fantastic, so my interest in his product was a done deal when it came out. As for Dylan's adventure, he released his soon after he had a discussion on his blog whether to sell it or not. I encouraged him to sell it. Did I know much about it? Nope. I bought it purely because I wanted to see his style and what kind of adventure he would create. I was not disappointed.
But there are a ton of other products which I can't list them all, but just off the top of my head, Micheal Curtis's Stonehell Dungeon and Dungeon Alphabet (Three Castles Award winner) and how could I forget Realms of Crawling Chaos. I bought Stonehell in print because at the time I wanted to check out how a mega-dungeon was built. Michael came at it from a fresh approach that I think is still one of the best ways to go. The ever changing dungeon. Dungeon Alphabet I wasn't all that interested in, but after the hype and chatter about it I got it on PDF. I like it, but haven't used it for much. Then the Realms Of Crawling Chaos, I bought on PDF and will buy in print in the future. I really enjoyed this one and will definitely use it in the future. I use Micheal's three products because most everyone knows them and the important thing, at least to the publishers, I bought all three. I like supporting Micheal's products, because so far he is given me value for my money. So when he releases his next product and I may not know many details, but because I have enjoyed his work in the past I'll probably get it. The only real decision is whether get it in PDF or print.
One of my favorite OSR publishers is Expeditious Retreat. Before I knew to much about them I bought A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe on PDF. Than I immediately bought it in print. Then I purchased several other items from Joseph Browning and crew, A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture in print, and one of my favorite bestiaries Malevolent and Benign which I lucked out and was able to purchase from the damaged bin with a few adventures. Great stuff. But his Sorcery & Super Science! has not interested me. Again, not because I think its bad, just at this time I'm not interested in mixing genres like that for my games. Hell when S3 came out and all the PCs were running around with laser guns I lost interest in the game.
Magazine wise we have Fight On!, the original OSR backed magazine. Which I like, but if I only have enough for one magazine I prefer Knockspell overall. And Christian's zine Loviatar is a favorite of mine. But if I have money for both I usually buy both. Because you really can't go wrong with any of them. I know there are other magazines out there like Land of Nod and though I am a big fan of John Stater I haven't bought any of his magazines yet. And this is due to I only have so much money to go around. And those who saw my running total for 2011 it was long, but still I have only so much I can spend on gaming. So for Land of Nod, which I still want, the only reason I haven't supported it was money.
Rob Conley had a great success with his Majestic Wilderlands. I helped him out with a small portion of it. He's been running the same campaign world forever and it shows in its depth. I got a free copy because of my help, but also bought a couple of copies to give away to others, to help support him. Rob and I have been friends for 20+ years and if he ever needs help with a project he knows he can always call on me and the reverse. But, we dropped the ball on this one a bit. Rob was giving me small segments to edit then would give me another small portion with some of the last portion that was the unedited version so our organization stank for that. Then as time wore on I got a new job that required a ton of my time and the second half of the book shows that. Because of this we changed our strategy, when he wrote Blackmarsh it was given to me as a complete manuscript, I did the edits and then we went over it together. Then we sent it out to test readers to catch things both of us had missed. Again, I bought two print copies to give away to support him.
I can't go through every product out there or the reasons why I buy or don't buy a product. I think my two main reasons why I buy is does the product fit my interest and do I have the mula. Why I don't buy a product, I admit that if I am not a fan of the person I am less likely to buy it. This rarely is the case, but it does happen. And the other reason why I don't buy a product is mainly there are so many to choose from and that you just have to pick. Doesn't mean the others aren't fantastic, but choices need to be made. We only have so much money and time. And real life demands its share. Just like now. I have to go to work.
So if you get a chance let me know what influences you to buy or not to buy a gaming product.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Do Adventure Game Systems Matter?
To me they do. Since I am running a AD&D campaign right now I doubt I would buy a 4E module or 3.5 adventure to use. Too much conversion. But what about the retro clones and I am speaking mainly of the big three, Swords & Wizardry, OSRIC and Labyrinth Lords. When someone puts out an adventure of Labyrinth Lords, but you're play OSRIC does that matter?
Here is why I am asking. I've been working on some side projects and I am currently stating them for S&W. It would be very easy for me to release the same product for the other two systems. I'm just curious how much of a difference this makes to people out there.
Here is why I am asking. I've been working on some side projects and I am currently stating them for S&W. It would be very easy for me to release the same product for the other two systems. I'm just curious how much of a difference this makes to people out there.
Monday, December 26, 2011
PDF Pricing
I've been reading a few marketing books on my time off (do I know how to have a good time or what) and came upon the controversial subject on pricing PDFs. I know as a fiction writer the rates for writing are pretty much as they were in the late 60s, early 70s with a lot less avenues of opportunity. These days with electronic self-publishing though writers can make a decent income without the need of a magazine or publishing house. With POD we have a more control of our writing, presentation and pricing.
Knowledge Illuminates at this time has netted me $193.05. After you take out the OGL and stat blocks it is a 5400 word manuscript. That works out at .035 cents word with the ability to increase. This is about what I would make if I wrote for an RPG company and less if I were selling a short story. All of them have different rates, but the few I have seen, none go over 3 cents. Once an editor/owner/whatever the title is that controls the purse strings likes your work and you become more reliable, he will pay more. But many gaming companies are not accepting submission.
So after all the above veering off the path I want to swing this blog back to its original intent, the pricing of PDFs. Your PDFs. And back to the book I was reading. Here are the guidelines I saw for short PDFs (this was written in 2005). These numbers are coming from ePublishing 101.
Pages Base Cost
1-5 $1
6-7 $1.25
8-9 $1.50
10-11 $1.75
12-14 $2
15-17 $2.50
18-20 $3.00
Additional Factors
Appropriate Artwork +$1
Established, Respected Publisher/Writer +$1
The one thing I see now on RPGNow is there is no standard. You will see a 100 page product priced at $1 and a 32 page product sitting at $32. I know when Troll Lord Games released their Castle Keepers Guide on PDF for over $30 I was thinking it would never sell. It's a silver seller. I am Mongoose, and so can you! at $23.96 is a copper seller even though it is only 37 pages. But these guys are well established and well liked.
For me, I try to figure out how much I would like to make with each sale. With Knowledge Illuminates I wanted to make $2 after RPGNow took their cut and costs were factored in. With my upcoming Starter Adventures I would like to make $3 PDF. PDF pricing for me is much easier because all I need to do is subtract what the seller percentage which is set. No matter how big or small, cheap or expensive, RPGNow takes35% for non-exclusive sales. So I make 65 cents per dollar. To make $3 I need to sell my PDF for $5. Will that be too much? Sales will dictate if I was wrong. It will all come down to if people believe they got value for their money. And that does not mean bloat the manuscript with additional material, but to streamline and make the material as assessable to the reader as possible.
EDIT: Forgot to add my last paragraph. With production values increasing so have the prices. With LOFP recent releases and the recent release of Weird Tales the OSR is becoming more professional and proficient at producing products. And of course with that the PDFs have increased. To me you have to ask yourself three questions: How good is your product? How many you would like to sell? And is it a product that people want?
I'm done. Now go outside and play.
Knowledge Illuminates at this time has netted me $193.05. After you take out the OGL and stat blocks it is a 5400 word manuscript. That works out at .035 cents word with the ability to increase. This is about what I would make if I wrote for an RPG company and less if I were selling a short story. All of them have different rates, but the few I have seen, none go over 3 cents. Once an editor/owner/whatever the title is that controls the purse strings likes your work and you become more reliable, he will pay more. But many gaming companies are not accepting submission.
So after all the above veering off the path I want to swing this blog back to its original intent, the pricing of PDFs. Your PDFs. And back to the book I was reading. Here are the guidelines I saw for short PDFs (this was written in 2005). These numbers are coming from ePublishing 101.
Pages Base Cost
1-5 $1
6-7 $1.25
8-9 $1.50
10-11 $1.75
12-14 $2
15-17 $2.50
18-20 $3.00
Additional Factors
Appropriate Artwork +$1
Established, Respected Publisher/Writer +$1
The one thing I see now on RPGNow is there is no standard. You will see a 100 page product priced at $1 and a 32 page product sitting at $32. I know when Troll Lord Games released their Castle Keepers Guide on PDF for over $30 I was thinking it would never sell. It's a silver seller. I am Mongoose, and so can you! at $23.96 is a copper seller even though it is only 37 pages. But these guys are well established and well liked.
For me, I try to figure out how much I would like to make with each sale. With Knowledge Illuminates I wanted to make $2 after RPGNow took their cut and costs were factored in. With my upcoming Starter Adventures I would like to make $3 PDF. PDF pricing for me is much easier because all I need to do is subtract what the seller percentage which is set. No matter how big or small, cheap or expensive, RPGNow takes35% for non-exclusive sales. So I make 65 cents per dollar. To make $3 I need to sell my PDF for $5. Will that be too much? Sales will dictate if I was wrong. It will all come down to if people believe they got value for their money. And that does not mean bloat the manuscript with additional material, but to streamline and make the material as assessable to the reader as possible.
EDIT: Forgot to add my last paragraph. With production values increasing so have the prices. With LOFP recent releases and the recent release of Weird Tales the OSR is becoming more professional and proficient at producing products. And of course with that the PDFs have increased. To me you have to ask yourself three questions: How good is your product? How many you would like to sell? And is it a product that people want?
I'm done. Now go outside and play.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)