Striking Out On My Won -- Again

[Michael Hopcroft]

Well, I've been in a corproate publishing envrionemnt for about four months now since others have taken over Seraphim Guard and there have been a lot of phiolosphical differences betweem the current management and myself.

Therefore, iI've decided to test that wtarrs on my own. I'm starting Michael Hopcroft Press, a company devoted to the publicvation of eBooks on a vaeriety of RPG and agem-related topics. I still have some outstanding writing oblications with SG, which I will fulfill, but at the moment I am concerned with keeping my foor int he door on snmaller, less-expeisnve products that will hopefully generate some income for myself.

I have a few book ideas I'm mulling over; deciding which one I'm going to do and how I'm going to do it is an open question. I'm torn between printing d20 books to put meat ont he table or pringing books in other systems that would satisfy me creatively.

I'dalso like to know if anyone has a good idea as far as inexpenive layout/composuition software and sources of royalty-free clipart that I can use to make my books look decent without cosating me very much.

Michael Hopctoft

[Simon W]

Not being nasty here, just an observation - I suggest you pay a bit more attention to your writing/proof reading - it is not a very good ad for the quality of your work.

Simon

[Michael Hopcroft]

Normally when I post to a BBS I post "on the fly". I'm not the sort of person who can open up a word processor, tyel out my message, run it through a spellcheck, and cut-and-paste it into the board. Maybe I should be, but I'm not.

Hearing this, and a couple of 0other copmments I;'ve gotten privately, are making be question the wisdom of my being a writer.

[talysman]

rather than make any criticisms, allow me to make a suggestion:

Sayz Me is a free text-to-speech program. there are probably other free text-to-speech programs as well, of varying quality.

install one of them. come to the Forge, type your message. copy your message to the clipboard, and have the program read it aloud. any word that sounds close enough, don't worry about it; any word that sounds incomprehensible, eyeball it a little and figure out a better spelling. also, slow down your typing a bit. it may help.

*don't* worry about exact spelling in an informal context; *do* worry about it in a professional context.

heck, I refuse to capitalize most words in an informal context, so I see no reason to worry a great deal about spelling.

to generalize the above advice and make it useful for publishing in general: one of the important features of good writing is that it does "sound" rushed; writer's advice columns often suggest reading your manuscript allowed to see if you run out of breath at any point -- because that's a sign of a klunky writing style. using a text-to-speech app might not be a perfect substitute for this, but it can fill the bill if, for example, you have to be quiet because you aren't alone in your house or are in a public place and feel embarassed. this way, all you need are headphones.

[Michael Hopcroft]

All this discussion over grammar and spelling have obscured the oitj\nal point. Does the content of my original message matter at all to anybody, or would you ratehr not hear about it?

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Let's get substantive.

I am concerned with keeping my foor int he door on snmaller, less-expeisnve products that will hopefully generate some income for myself.

Well, good. That's the basic idea, to make more money that one spends. I think that your most important question is venue: exactly where do you want a potential customer to see your product, and in what ways do you intend to bring them there?

I have a few book ideas I'm mulling over; deciding which one I'm going to do and how I'm going to do it is an open question. I'm torn between printing d20 books to put meat ont he table or pringing books in other systems that would satisfy me creatively.

I don't see a question in this paragraph, but if I'm doping it out correctly, you're deciding whether to use the d20 system in some capacity (d20, OGL, etc). Although I have absolutely no opinion about whether that in itself is good or bad for any particular business reason, I do think you might try examining your assumption that a d20 product automatically "puts meat on the table." Quite a few of us make tidy profits with non-d20 material and quite a few d20 publishers have failed to do so.  Again, this isn't to say "Don't use d20," but rather, make sure that you're not working from a false dichotomy of "d20 always sells, other stuff won't."

I'dalso like to know if anyone has a good idea as far as inexpenive layout/composuition software and sources of royalty-free clipart that I can use to make my books look decent without cosating me very much.

At least one recent thread in this forum revealed a number of clipart sources, and it should be pretty easily found by scrolling through titles or searching.

Best,
Ron

[madelf]

As an artist, I probably shouldn't be telling people about things like this... but //www.clipart.com is about the most affordable clip-art site I've seen. It works by subscription rather than paying per image.

I can't say how well it stacks up against the big guns like InDesign and Quark, but I've been very impressed with Serif PagePlus. The latest version(9) is only around $135 if I remember correctly. There is also an older version PagePlus5 that they offer for free download. Even PP5 is a pretty handy program. It's an actual DTP program, not a word processor.

Check it out here:
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/serif/pp/pp5/index.asp


Best of luck with your solo efforts.

[Michael Hopcroft]

I have taken the first steps towards getting my vompany functioning my getting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mphpress/ --A yahoo Group for it. I'm working on a website, which i will hopefully have once I have a way to get $25 to my potential host. mainly that involved a way to get the money into my PayPal account so I can pay it out -- which is harder than it sounds at present given the nature of my personak accounts. I don't expect donations from any quarters here, but money sent to my PayPal account would help. But I don't expect that from here, so I'm not going to hold out my hand (this isn;t the place for it anyway).

I am literally starting from scratch. At least I have a potential system licnese in hand with potentially room for more.

The question of which systems to write for has been a very real one. Do you do what you love, or what will make you cash right away? Will people buy just anything with the d20 logo on it, or should I not even try for that market and concentrate on the systems I know like the back of my hand?

Michael Hopcroft

[Simon W]

I have a few book ideas I'm mulling over; deciding which one I'm going to do and how I'm going to do it is an open question. I'm torn between printing d20 books to put meat ont he table or pringing books in other systems that would satisfy me creatively.

Michael Hopctoft

My view is that I would prefer to be satisfied that I was producing something I was happy with. However, sometimes making money out of a project can = happy, because you know that what you have produced appeals to other people.

Problem arises if you do something you are less than happy with and it doesn't sell.

So, do your best, whether that is d20 or otherwise. If what you have in mind fits the d20 system then do it. If you find that you are having to shoehorn your game into the d20 system, much of your creative time will be spent deciding how to make your idea fit and that probably isn't the best thing.

(Bear in mind that a lot of people are in jobs they are not happy doing, just to put a crust on the table. If you look at it this way, then your decision d20 or not d20 pales into insignificance. Simply working in a hobby that you love should be incentive enough - d20/not d20 shouldn't really matter)

I guess what I am saying is there is no easy answer, but I would simply get out there and do it.

There, does that help?

Simon

[Michael Hopcroft]

I have my placeholder website at http://mhpress.darkstar-eclectic.com/ This will not be the final destination but it will do until I get my own web service.

What I'm hoping is that I find people who are interested enough in visitng the website to help me raise the capital i need to get that web server (which is the main expense I have to worry about right now, as I have most of the software I need if I want to do things that aren;t particularly fancy.

[daMoose_Neo]

Heres some help:

http://fuitadnet.com - EXCELLENT host - we use it for Neo and Twilight and don't come NEAR the alloted bandwidth. $4.99 per month for the basic plan, which is killer anywho (thats also the one we use)~

http://www.dreslough.com/ - AWESOME artist if you're looking into high fantasy or dealing a lot with Dragons. All of her work is, believe it or not, free! She put it up so anyone can use it as long as they credit her as the author of the works (and you can't trademark it at all, but thats practically a given)

http://www.openphoto.net/ - Photography site, also free. I use this site for my CG, it being a modern setting and all. Also has a link to "Creative Commons", a group of artists and other people who band together to offer free content (pictures, music, writing, whatever), typically only with credit (some ask a little more but not much)

[Keith Senkowski]

Some more help:

http://store.doverpublications.com/">Dover Publications - I've found them to be a great source of art.  They sell books of the stuff that come with CD-ROMs with multiple format and in print ready sizes.  They have a ton of categories.

Being a graphic designer amongst other duties at my full time job I really can't recommend any free layout programs (I personally use InDesign).  However, I know of several people with now training in the field using Word for the layout of business proposals so that might be a viable option for you.

Hope that helps some.
Keith