Dust jackets on gamebooks?

[timfire]

Ron's point (I believe) is that Sorcerer--dust-cover and all--is in fact in distribution through Key20 (right?) and does consistently sell in brick-n-mortar stores. So absolute statements like "customers don't like dust-covers" ignores the data from things like Sorcerer's success.

[komradebob]

I didn't mean to start a row over something that at this stage is hypothetical product fellas...

I am interested in the idea though from the fact that there does seem to be a difference in perception between gamebook hardcovers ( no dustjackets, generally speaking) and mainstream hard covers ( often having dustjackets).

To give a little better idea of what I'm working on:
I'm interested in creating small games meant for gamer parents to introduce children to concepts common in full-on rpgs. I'd also like to tackle it from a starting point similar to HG Wells Floor Games. Rather than try to create a single, unified and lengthy game, I wanted to break it up into chapters of different games that introduce different concepts of play and play styles. Hopefully, the book would act as a hobby guide for people to then create their own, more personalized systems. Anyway, the idea is that I might like to get this into more than just gamer circles, and I was considering several different potential formats, one of which was a hardcover with dustjacket, perhaps of a non-rpgbook standard size.

All I was really looking for were the cost issues involved with a dust jacket as opposed to hardback with a color cover, although customer perception issues were also something that came to mind.

Thanks for all of the hints on previous threads, btw. I have found them very interesting and helpful. All further  insighte is appreciated as well.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

For that goal, I think any design that's similar to kids-and-parents books, for your target age group, is a very good idea.

The one that comes to mind, out of many possible, is a book that's wider than it's tall, with case-bound covers I can only describe as "partly puffy." A maximum of half-page of text per page, with the rest of it taken up by white space or illustration, and possibly some full pages as well. A lot of the illustrations are literally what's being described on that page or the facing one. The paper is fairly heavyweight and just a little rough-feeling.

But as I say, that's only one. I mention it because it's dramatically different from the standard game-store RPG. I'm sure you can think of exactly what kind of kids/parents book would fit your anticipated market, and my point is that you might take that as a starting point, on the basis of customer attraction, and not consider standard RPG format at all. Even thinking "standard RPG but with hard cover and dust jacket" (or whatever) is still, as I see it, starting from the wrong rock.

Best,
Ron