Looking to start a publishing division....

[kenw]

I have toyed with the idea for many long months about starting a division of Rapid POD that helps small "up-coming" companies get the ball rolling.

If I do this I will hire one person who will manage several small companies and help them get their games into the distribution system and make money.

In other words, we want design houses to supply us product that we can market and publish under our supervision. 

The design house would hand over print ready games, and we would give them around a 30% royalty.  This royalty will pay for that design houses expenses. 

Now, I only want to work with companies that can show me that they can make a quality product, with good graphic design, and good themes. 

This will be, so to speak, a portfolio review.  Many will enter, few will win.

I will print, market, distribute and fulfill each company that we pick up.  We will sign a contract to how this will all be handled and how many products will be produced. 

There is no money down, and this is not a scam, but I am going to be blatantly honest if your games don't make par.

If anyone has any questions, please post here for all to see.

Thanx,
Ken Whitman

[Josh Roby]

...you're taking a 70% cut for manufacturing, marketing, and distribution?

[Ben Lehman]

...you're taking a 70% cut for manufacturing, marketing, and distribution?

Uhm, what Joshua said.  Given that any of us can make %100 profit based on doing that small chunk of work ourselves, or hire out cheaply to other folks around for the layout, editing, etc, why would we want to work for your compnay?  What actual return are we getting for that %70 of our money?

yrs--
--Ben

[LordSmerf]

Point of clarification: When you say a 30% royalty are you talking about 30% of the cover price, or 30% of the pre-markup price.  Assuming a standard 50%~60% distributor discount, are you talking about giving the developer 30% of the big cut, or the small cut?

Thomas

[timfire]

The design house would hand over print ready games... 

Quick question---does "print ready" simply mean an edited manuscript, or do you mean a full text layed-out with art?

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Guys, what Ken is describing is emphatically not self-publishing. This is off-topic both for the forum and the site. If you want to discuss it with him, then do it another way. As advice, I suggest that you evaluate whether a service provider is reliable concerning [A] before anyone considers his offer of [A + B].

Ken, what you are describing is emphatically not self-publishing. Don't post about it here again.

This thread is totally closed. That means no more posts.

Best,
Ron

[Polaris]

...you're taking a 70% cut for manufacturing, marketing, and distribution?

Depending upon what the royalty statement means, this could be a very reasonable offer.  If the royalty is 30% of retail, then he is likely only getting 10% of retail (since distributors will typically take 60%).  If the royalty is 30% of net, then this is not very competitive with some of the other options available to small publishers.

William
ComStar

[Ron Edwards]

Hey.

Closed means closed.

Locked now.

Ron