Unsung Unleased! My Publishing Experiences So Far

[xiombarg]

It might interest some of you to know that Unsung, a game I more or less have been developing here on the Forge since, like, forever (do a search on "Unsung" and you'll see what I mean), is finally published, at least in PDF form. The print version comes later (aka soon).

What I want to talk about in this thread (to prevent this from becoming a simple advert/announcement), is my experience in trying to get it into various outlets, as the process goes on, and to answer any questions people may have. Sort of an in-depth blow-by-blow from the inside.

So, I contacted Clinton (for the Forge Bookshelf), indiepressrevolution.com, rpgnow.com, and key20.com. At the suggestion of one of my artists, I also sent an email to drivethrurpg.com and looked at the policies for Warehouse 23. (I didn't email Warehouse 23 as they had some real stern language about how my game had to be already going through distribution before they'd give a crap about me. However, looking closer at their e-division, e23, that seems a little more friendly, so I'm emailing them now.)

(As an aside, if there's an RPG/eBook/PDF outlet I've missed that someone thinks I should consider, let me know.)

So far, I've gotten fast responses from rpgnow.com, key20.com, and drivethrurpg.com... I assume I haven't heard from Clinton due to displacement that comes from the recent hurricanes. (We really need someone else tech-savvy who can be a 'surrogate Clinton' when needed... I feel kinda bad emailing him given the Katrina mess...) The Key 20 folks told me their PDFs were only for publishers that were selling physical books through them, and since I don't have physical books yet, I'm not worrying about them yet -- but their response was fast. RPGNOW.COM was the fastest to respond, and pointed me to an informative webpage on their site. I also got a quite cordial form letter from the drivethrurpg.com people, who require a sample of your work to evaluate for quality, which I've sent them and haven't gotten a response on yet. (Note, however, that the majority of the original emails went out late last night, so I got responses like, today, and then responded to them this morning or this afternoon, so I don't expect a counter-response until tommorrow.)

So, yeah, overall, I'm pretty impressed with the speed of response, tho I'm surpised I haven't heard from the IPR guys yet.

I also went to lulu.com, read the instructions, and had the stuff up and going in a couple of hours. Frankly, if you're publishing a PDF, there is no reason NOT to publish through lulu.com; it's so very, very easy.

So far I've only had a chance to set things up with RPGNOW.COM, and while their process and interface is much more baroque than lulu.com, it's very well-documented, which is cool. All I had to do was RTFM and I was on my way. My products are pending approval and I expect 'em to be visible to everyone soon. The RPGNOW.COM folks were fast, polite, and patient... Very cool. Their years of experience shows in their demeanor.

Anyhoo: Comments, questions, rude remarks?

[Kirk Mitchell]

Firstly, I want to say two things: Congratulations and finally! I was wondering when you'd get that game finished, what with its rampant awesomeness.

Secondly, I want to ask if anybody at any point asks for any sort of payment from you, or do they just take what they need when they price the book. I'm curious as to how that works and rarely listen to the propaganda.

Thanks,
Kirk

[Mike Holmes]

Strange that Kirt hasn't replied. But I'll take a stab.

Most of the services mentioned simply take their cut. Like Kirt said, Lulu just gets you up there and selling in very short order. No money changes hands there.

But there are some exceptions to this model. Obviously Key20 is more of a fulfilment house/distributor model, so things are going to work differently for them. The best thing to do is simply to read the policies and contact people.

Pricing is more complicated, and depends on quality restrictions, and how the publisher gets their cut. Generally the publisher takes a cut equal to the cost of making a book POD. That is you as the publisher could get it from them for $5 a book, so whatever you price it, they take that $5, and your account gets credited with the remainder. So, obviously that forms a minimum cost that you can charge. Above that, however, it's often simply up to you to set the price point. You can sell that $5 book for $10, $15, $20, whatever you think it'll sell for. Again, those organizations with quality controls may work with you more on setting a good pricepoint.

Mike

[Kirk Mitchell]

Thank you very much Mike. That's really helpful. I had wondered about that for a while and its nice to have it cleared up.

Kirk

[Mike Holmes]

Well, I hope that somebody can verify this. Because I've never been the up front user of any of these systems, to be honest. Though I know James at RPG Now, know how Ralph has used some of this for Universalis, got the schpiel from the Lulu rep at GenCon (she talked at Clinton's seminar on game design), etc. It would be best for somebody with first person experience to back this up, however.

Mike

[Jasper]

I used lulu and RPGNow. RPGNow requires a sign-up fee to become a vendor with them. But after that, they simply take a % from each sale (25% for "gold" vendors, which is more-or-less the norm now). Lulu works the same way, but with no initial fee. RPGNow will also sell print copies which (surprise!) they do through lulu -- though it doesn't really change the pricing mechanism. There's also RPGMall, which is a sister of RPGNow. I haven't used it, but I understand that there, you have to deposit an initial inventory of books with them. It's something like 10-20 books: mostly so they can fill orders quickly (and know that you're serious about the whole thing)..