Newbie legal questions

[Trevor Curtis]

Is there anywhere, either here or on another site, where one can get basic legal publishing questions, especially regarding copyright? Im clueless on this, so some help woudl be appreciated.

Also, If someone coudl give me a rough idea of how much $$$ I'm going to need to publish  it, not counting the artists. Though if you could give me an idea of how much that might cost, let me know too.

And thank you Forge, for giving me hope I might actually publish an RPG someday.

[Adam]

Is there anywhere, either here or on another site, where one can get basic legal publishing questions, especially regarding copyright? Im clueless on this, so some help woudl be appreciated.

You should probably start at the United States Copyright Office - they have some primer articles and a very good plain language FAQ.

Also, If someone coudl give me a rough idea of how much $$$ I'm going to need to publish  it, not counting the artists. Though if you could give me an idea of how much that might cost, let me know too.

This depends a lot on what you mean by "publishing" - if you're web publishing, going the more indy route with ashcans and the like, or doing large[ish] print runs of full sized books. Without knowing what you're trying to do, it's extremely hard to give you any useful advice/numbers.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Trevor,

Adam's right; it will be a lot easier to help you if we know the medium and other basics of your product.

Here are some older Forge threads that might be helpful too, although they cannot be taken as actual legal advice.

Intellectual property and dice mechanics
Quoting lyrics
Copyrights

Best,
Ron

[Trevor Curtis]

Thanks. To wit, as far as publishing I was thinking a small run, about 300 copies at most, about 128 or so pages, color cover, b &w , 8 1/2 by 11 or so size.

That give you any idea of how much I'll need?

Trevor

[Adam]

This depends a lot on how much work you're doing yourself, and if you're paying yourself.

Writing: Industry standard rates start at 3 cents a word; you may get some people to write for less, depending on how interested they are in the project.
Editing: If you pay an editor [and good editing/proofing is perhaps even more vital than the best writing], you're looking at about 1 cent a word.
Art: Ask in the Connections forum; there's a fair number of artists here that will do basic work just for publishing credit [and probably a copy of the book...]. If you're paying for art for a print product, prices start at about $25/quarter page, and that's somewhat on the low end. You  can also use clip-art or art from fonts if you're trying to save money... obviously it won't pack the same punch as Bradstreet.
Layout: Odd ball of wax here; I've seen some 'pro' companies offering a little as a dollar or two per page for layout, but I've quoted figures several times higher than that to indy publishers and they haven't balked.

Naturally, you can avoid paying money out of pocket for these things by a) doing it yourself or b) finding someone willing to do it for free or in trade for some other goods/services. There's pitfalls to each approach, but I'm sure you can figure out most of those for yourself.

I'm not an expert on printing figures, but printing 300 copies is likely to not be cost-effective - you'll be paying a good amount more per-unit than you would be if you went up to 750 or 1000 copies. Ron and Jason and others can probably offer you some more solid figures here.

[Valamir]

FYI:  We did 100 copies perfect bound through PiP and it came to $6.10 a copy.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I can't speak in terms of recommendations, but the issue to consider most carefully is "breakpoint." That is, the point below which, you're not saving much money by printing less copies, and above which, you're getting too many additional books by printing more copies (for less money per unit).

The factors which figure into the right breakpoint (number of copies to print) include (a) your reasonable expectations of how many you can sell, (b) current issues faced by printers (paper costs, shipping issues, etc; these change); and (c) desired production value.

My first 1200-book print run of Sorcerer, a 112-page hardbound smaller-than-standard book, with embossing and a dust jack, cost me $4.10 per book - which compared to $6.10 per copy of Universalis (smaller, paperback) should show you the impact of the print run size on unit price.

As a very rough rule of thumb, below 700-800 copies, unit price is going to skyrocket.

Best,
Ron

[Patrick Sweeney]

I agree with Ron that restraining yourself from overprinting is key, but you also need to examine the breakpoint from a profitability viewpoint.

In examining my costs for Monster Island: The Game of Giant Monster Combat. I determined that I'd break even at 937 sales to distribution. (I don't factor direct sales into these types of equations. Then any direct sales I do get are added profit.) Obviously, if I'd only printed 1,000, I'd barely make anything. Other factors contributed to the decision to print 2,000, too. For one thing, I want to have copies of the core book available when the expansion, Escape from Monster Island, comes out this month without having to do a second printing. And, naturally, I looked at the response to my pre-release marketing and decided that I probably could sell 2,000 copies over a reasonable amount of time.

The other factor is your price point. After you determine your per-unit cost, as Ron has suggested, you'll need to figure out what suggested retail price will let you recoup your per-unit cost. After all, if you just break even or lose money on each book, you'll never turn a profit no matter how many you sell. Remember that for sales to distributors, you'll get 40% of SRP, minus shipping and a cut to your fulfillment house, if you have one. If you find that you're going to have to charge $30 for a 128 pp softcover to make any money at all, you're going to have a problem.

Now, it's possible that all you want to do is break even, or just get the book into print even if you lose money on it. Even so, examining your break-even point and per-unit costs can be very useful in setting a print run.