Format

[David Johansen]

Grinding on with my sf% rpg and slowly getting closer to publication I have some formats that I'd like to hear opinions on.

1. break it down into 3 48 page magazines with color covers, run off a web press on newsprint. Include a cardboard vehicle kit and try to get advertising from small miniatures companies by offering a first issue free add deal.

The playable rules would be in issue one. Support structure such as world building and equipment design would be in issue two. The setting would be built up through one and two and featured in 3, etc.

I like this one because I'd like to see a general s.f. support magazine succeed almost as much as I'd like to see my game succeed.

2. Single volume three hole drilled and loose, color "cover" a cheaper print alternative for small runs (why are 11x17s so much more expensive than two 8 & 1/2 x 11s ?)

3. 3 booklet sized (5 x 8) 96 page volumes with the content divided much like the magazine, with grey and black cardstock covers. Much like the old Traveller books. Probably divided up much like the magazine. Eventually, the books could be consolidated by making a boxed set.

4. Single saddlestitched volume with a grey and black cover 144 pages. This is the hardest one to pull off in terms of money, giving me about one sixth as many copies as option one's first issue would.

5. Finally, a single 200 page digest sized perfect bound book, like a paperback. I think the printing would run about the same as option 1, would for the three issues and the cover could be color (its a bit cheaper at this size)

In all cases, I'd be more interested in putting a color section inside the book than on the cover. (I'd rather spend the money on useful playaids)

Johansen

(I once described my game as a brick wall, and someone thought I ment it was really good where I only ment I was pounding my head against it)

( Oh yeah, do I use my sf. rules for Among the Beautiful Creatures or divise something more suitabley bizzare?)

[Samurai]

Well, I doubt the magazine format would be very sturdy or long-lasting... Trinity tried the drilled hole pages format, as did the AD&D2nd Monster books... personally, I hated them, and I wasn't alone, since both eventually switched back to book form.

Printing at a size smaller than usual is taking a chance of the book getting "lost" on the shelf next to bigger ones. It also tends to look more amatuerish. The hardcover AFMBE and Witchcraft are exceptions, but it is still a risk.

The best shot a visibility and professional appearance is the 144 page full sized book, IMO. It may cost more, but if the other ways were cheaper and worked just as well, wouldn't they be the standard instead?

Good luck, and live the dream!

[Misguided]

To paraphrase South Park:
"Saddle Stitching is BAD hmmkay?"

The reason is that when you put the book on a shelf spine out no one can tell what it is. Perfect bound would be better in this regard.

As for the page format etc. I'd consider where you want the product to be displayed and sold in stores. What other products are similar? Where do you expect people to put it in the store? If you make it a difficult product to shelve, it won't get ordered.

[David Johansen]

Hmm...good points all. The thing I see in the magazine format is that most first editions go to a second before they wear out. No amount of playtest seems to counter this .(though getting it mostly right the first time is one of my core goals) A magazine is an inexpensive format to encourage people to take a look, the hardback comes later in my thinking.

Plus, you can give away more free copies of issue one than you could of the hardback. Lots more. And I don't want to underestimate the long term benefits of freebies. (Free downloads aren't really free and don't count IMO)

I also think a magazine with good game content might work as a longer term, less up and down product. The real problem magazines tend to have is that the good stuff goes in the supplements and the magazine is basically an add. The magazine would be the place to get the good stuff first.

Plus, I can almost afford to do the magazine

Johansen

[James Wallis]

What sort of wordcount is the game going to be?

Here's my opinions:
1. The RPG-as-magazine format has been tried by those guys who revived Space Gamer, and I don't see them around any more. Your game's shelf-life would be zero; the core rules would be off sale by the time your third issue came out. Retailers aren't big on magazines unless they know they can sell them (e.g. they're tied to already-proven systems): witness the dearth of general games magazines.

2. This would be sold shrink-wrapped, right? Some retailers would be okay with that; others will hate the fact that the copy they open for display will be effectively unsaleable after a couple of weeks.

3. Why? Three booklets will be much more expensive to produce than one book.

4. Saddle-stitching something of 144 pages is asking for trouble. If your book has no spine, it disappears when shelved spine-out... which is just okay once people have bought it, but not when it's on the shelves at retailers. Put a spine on it, or die. There are many retailers who are reluctant to stock books without spines. Really.

5. Of all the options I think this is the most commercial, but why digest-sized?

5a. Putting colour inside but not on the cover is commercial suicide. Name one game since Traveller with a non-colour cover that's made any impact at all. And Traveller was 25 years ago. You might rather spend the money on play-aids, but if people don't bother to pick up the book to flip through it and see those play-aids, you've wasted your print budget.

[David Johansen]

Uhmm, wow, thanks for your response Mr. Wallis, your experience in the industry is certainly appreciated.

Still, I think part of my problem is that looking at the industry as a whole, I'm well aware that my chances of even short term success are limited. Since I'm not wealthy, and am short on wealthy friends who are stupid enough to invest in something as fly-by-night as a gaming company, I'm looking for a format I can do a reasonable run of without using credit. I have credit, but publishing my games, comics and such on credit strikes me as a bit too risky.

Let's face it, saying I can do better than Hogshead and DP9 with my limited resources is the height of hubris. I think my stuff is pretty good, I'm my biggest fan. So I'd rather work on my own ideas and lose a little money than freelance on someone elses and still not get paid and not have fun.

I look at the alternatives I can afford. For instance, a digest sized book can be produced on 8.5 x 11 at 90% of the cost of 11 x 17, and a color cover's price drops by 60%. Most of the printers I've talked to won't even touch paper that's less than 0.025 a page + printing, but for the kind of print run I can afford, Kinko's is about my best bet anyhow.

As for shelf space, I probably won't be getting things on many retailer's shelves at first anyhow, so I'll be looking for online sales. That means that price advantage is everything. Though, I dislike the whole free on the net and for sale on CD approach.

Still, I appreciate the points that have been made, and will think them over carefully, after all I have no real deadlines

Johansen

[Guildofblades]

Do NOT go the Kinkos route.

1) Your books will be *very* expensive per book. Amazingly so.

Kinkos is $.08 per copy on cheap copy paper. 144 page booklet works out to be $11.52 before you've put a cover on the book, paid for any artwork, marketing, etc. Very poor choice.

2) Saddtle Stitching. Other have told you that saddlestitch books have zero shelf presence. But then, do you plan on selling through retail stores, or are you looking for an Internet only venture? Realize if #2 that even if you are successful that you'll be lucky to sell 100-200 books over a year or two period. Most small publisher's don't generate a fraction of that sales level from online sale without also be very good at Internet marketing principles and exicution.

3) Go to www.printindustry.com. See how much it would cost you to get a 500 unit print run of just the interior pages for your game. That would simple be 72 double sided sheets of paper. See about getting them printed on 60lb paper. My bet is you'll find someone capable of doing it for about $2 to $2.50 per book.

4) While on printindustry.com also see about getting quotes for a slightly larger than 11" x 17" full color printing on 10pt cover stock with a UV coating. Odds are your first reasonable price quote will be at 1000 to 2000 units. If none of those quotes work out, I offer print consolidation services for full color printing. Suvh a cover would run $440 for 1,000 of them. Though understand that my service can sometimes be FAR from fast (1-2 Month turn around times, sometimes even a tad longer), but its an option.

5) Also grab quotes for someone to perfect bind your 500 books. You might get someone to do just a couple of hundred of them at once. Once those sell out, you can bind up more. When you've alsomost sold your first 500 you can get another set of 500 interiors printers. Worst case scenario, I offer perfect binding at a rate of $.35 per book but only for customers who run their covers thru me. That's NOT a very good rate per book, but its difficult to get good rates in small runs.

Going this route you get a full color cover for around $440 and a run of interiors would run about $1000-$1250. Binding, shipping, and misc expenses might run the total production tally upwards towards $1800. but that gets you your first 500 books printed and ready for sale, professionally done.

By contrast, just 100 books done the Kinkos way will be running you over $1,100, likely over $1,200 to $1,400. Your "per book" price the other way floats in around $3 per book as opposed to the $11+ from the Kinkos way. At $11 per book you have no margin available to offer wholesale prices to distributors or retailers (distributors tend to expect approx a 60% discount, so if you book has a retail price of $20, you sell to your distributor for $8). Hard to make money selling books at $8 and paying $11 to produce them.

6) If you have more start up capital available for printing visit www.unitedgraphics.com and get a quote from them for a 1,000 book run. A book at your page count should be coming in at or under $3,000 for 1000 books. Per book this is even cheaper than the method mentioned above, but it means you need $300 instead of $1800 to get started and you'll be sitting on more books in invetory (you have to store them somewhere). But these books will be top of the line with regards to printing quality; worlds better than anything Kinkos could do for you.

7) If you decide to saddle stitch a booklet due to doig a very small photo copied production realize that an 80 page booklet using 20lb copy paper is about the maximum limit of size you can have a hope of stapling by hand. 60 is the maximum confortable size.

We know the options you currently face, as 5 1/2 years ago we began with one little 20 page digest sized miniatures game produced 100% at staples. You do have to start somewhere, but the more professional looking "first foot foward" you present, the easier things will progress for your company when trying to establish business relationships.