Corone's tips for publishing

[Rob Lang]

Congratulations for getting that out! How long did it take to get it into a publish-able state? Have you got any gotchas or pitfalls you can pass on?

[Corone]

Cheers!
Oddly, I went through far more stress with Victoriana than Hellcats.
I think this is becasue I gave myself a very long deadline, even then I was worried I'd not make it!

Generally, the advice I'd offer for doing your own games is:

1- Write it before you do anything else.
It is easy to get sidetracked playing with graphics and pictures. Get it finished before you mess around with layout or you may find it hard to make amendments.

2- Do a colour cover
How many rpgs with a black and white cover do you own?
I think many people do judge books by their covers, so make it a good one.
I made a cover for Pie Shop with a few images nailed together in photodraw so you need not always hire an artist.

3 - proof and proof again.
Get someone else to read it as well as you will go 'word blind' to your mistakes after too many read throughs.

4 - Play the game
Playtest and run the game a lot. After all, if you arn't inspired to play it, how will anyone else be?

5 - Get it done before someone else does!
If you have a good idea you can guarentee someone else will have the same idea pretty damn soon. Make sure you get yours out there before you see someone else produce it. I had a game in my head about playing domestic cats for years, so was rather annoyed when John Wick produced Cat. When I mentioned this to him, he told me he had wanted to do a fantasy world where evil had won, and then saw Midnight get released. It happens to everyone.

6 - Remember to set the right price.
You should probably charge about twice your unit cost to the customer if you are going to sell to retail.
warehouses will buy at one price, add a bit and sell to retail. Retail will then add a bit so they can profit too.
It is easy to set a low price and realise later on you are making a loss because of the price distributers expect to pay for your product. Having said that, take a look at what everyone else is charging for the same product and use it as a benchmark.

Other than that it is suprisingly easy to produce a book.
I did my game Pie Shop entirly alone and it looked fine.
Layout in word and a few copyright free images and away I went.

Drivethrurpg are very helpful for getting your pdf online.
Lulu has a very simple website for uploading a pdf and producing a book.
IPR are also very groovy guys who'll probably distribute stuff for you
and Collective Endevour are a really solid group of guys who can really help you out if you get involved with them.
also check out Dover Images and Wiki Commons for large selections of mostly free art.

[misterecho]

Sage advice indeed! The most important thing i gleamed from your advice was "just write it you blithering idiot!"

I will remember that!

[Rob Lang]

WOW! Thanks Mr P! Much more than I was expecting. I am still working on my blog part work of how to write a free RPG. Would it be ok for me to quote from your post.

btw Victoriana 2ed is on my Christmas list, which means Mum is going to have to make a pilgrimage up the hill to Leisure Games. Just like the old days. I see you're the "line developer". Does that mean you wrote it, now responsible for it or both?

[misterecho]

Mr P and a Mr E, i'm confused, which one am i again?

[Rob Lang]

Corone's alter identity is Andrew Peregrine (who wrote the excellent Doom and Cookies 24hr RPG too).

[misterecho]

I voted for Doom and cookies in the peoples choice award, or my literate clan-mate did on my behalf.

[Corone]

You guys are fab,
I was going to apologise for getting carried away on a long post!
Glad it helped, and feel free to steal my wisdom

Victoriana is indeed my thing.
I make the creative decisions and get to pick the bits I want to write.
The new Corebook is mostly me, but a lot of it was revision when we came to the history and background.
I'm really pleased with what we came out with, and it was a hell of a fight.
The project has felt cursed, but we got there in the end.
Mixture of printing problems, errors and other nightmares.
But it has worked out really well and I love the products we've fought out there.

If I ever get time I'm definatly going to rewrite Doom and Cookies into something more involved.
I'm a huge fan of 'A Series of Unfortunate Events'.
Although it concerns me that my games listing on Drivethrurpg will be made up of Serial Killers, Schoolgirls and Children!

[misterecho]