Indie RPG publishing full-time?

[Murrquan]

I was reading some posts about sales numbers in this thread. And while they seem pretty small in terms of sales numbers per year, they sound like the kind of thing that could add up the more books you have published. The impression I get, though, is that most indie RPG publishers are doing this as a sideline; a hobby, or a part-time job.

Is anyone doing this as a full-time job? If not, why not? Is it because sales taper off, making it hard to generate consistent revenue even with five or six books on the (real or virtual) shelves? Is it because it takes awhile to build up to a liveable income, and it's still not very much even then? Or is it because most people just don't want to do this full-time? I'm guessing it's a little of all of the above, but I thought that I'd ask. Many thanks in advance.

[guildofblades]

>>Is anyone doing this as a full-time job? If not, why not? Is it because sales taper off, making it hard to generate consistent revenue even with five or six books on the (real or virtual) shelves? Is it because it takes awhile to build up to a liveable income, and it's still not very much even then? Or is it because most people just don't want to do this full-time? I'm guessing it's a little of all of the above, but I thought that I'd ask. Many thanks in advance.<<

Howdy. Yep, do it full time. For over three years now. Going on 4. However, yeah, it took us 7 years to get to that point.

Sales do taper off some. On most titles. Sometimes you get a title that just sells itself and does it better and better the longer it is on the market. But not every title can be like that. Even the best designers who design a great game every time fail to accomplish that. So what you find is that while your company is new and you have just one to a handful of titles that you are able to aggressively market and hype those titles strongly (if you are motivated anyway). But in our case, we have nearly 80 titles now, and there simply is no way to market them individually in the same manner most indie publishers market their few games.

So instead we shift to selective marketing, plugging games at release and when we get prime media tie in opportunities, etc. And otherwise we try to market brands and make sites that push customers towards product line navigation and then attempt cross promotion where it is applicable.

Additionally, if your sales volume is generated at least in part from sales through the traditionally distribution tiers, most games lose somewhere from 50-99% of the support from that tier in 3,6,9 months or so after release, so that's another force driving down persistent sales on back-list titles.

Publishing games full time certainly is possible, but no, its not nearly as simple as taking a look at your year 1 or year 2 revenues and your sales on a couple of titles and then multiplying that sum by the number of titles you can release over X amount of time.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

[iago]

I'm doing it full time, but I'm not paying myself any money for the moment.  You're right; a business has to build up a lot of momentum to even support a single salary.  But Evil Hat's only been commercial for a bit over one year, so (to follow the Guild's model, above), I've still got another five years before that can happen.  I dream of McDonald's wages someday.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Here's a thread that covers a lot of ground for this topic:

Anyone here making a living from RPGs?

Best, Ron

[Murrquan]

Many thanks, everyone! *reads with interest*