Guerilla publishing

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Reading Cameron's need to print a hard copy product, I began pondering easy ways to get something in print. I know a lot of people are satisfied with PDF distribution, but what about those independent game artists who need hard copy? What methods do they have to get a hard copy game made cheaply?

I'm looking for ideas that subvert the normal system. I'm talking about "putting your friend's address as the return address on an envelope, not putting a stamp on it, and mailing it from a public mailbox in order to mail for free". (Well, that's for distribution--but what about for publishing?)

I know Jeff Diamond printed Orbit and bound it himself for a while. What exactly did you do, Jeff, and what were the costs?

I hear Kinko's is now soft-stitching. How expensive per book is it? For that matter, does anyone know what the employee discount at Kinko's is? Can you get away with free use of the equipment after hours? How hard is it to get hired on there, and then leave in two weeks?

Has anyone used binding equipment like that found at Office Depot? How'd it work? Was it relatively cheap?

Any sort of ideas towards this goal would be greatly appreciated.

[Dav]

Kinko's info:

Hiring: not hard.  Work the night shift, you are mainly running jobs (no customers), and light oversight.

Equipment after hours: 24 hours, no afterhours.  However, past 12:00 am, only the nightshift is on, and no one cares.

Employee Discount: 40%

Little known fact:  All Kinko's employees are empowered to discount *any* sale up to 40% to insure customer satisfaction.  Thus, befriending your local Kinko's nightshift employee is a great "in".

Kinko's binding:  Velo: $1-$2
                 Coil: $1.50
                 Stitching: $3-$4
                 Plastic Spiral Thing: $1

No, I don't work at Kinko's, I just know a lot of people who do.


One final teeny fact: At the Kinko's I frequent, there is usually one computer already "signed-in" for employee use for jobs after midnight.  Find it and use it, you won't pay for time.

Also, most of the time, I have found that there are over 2000 sheets of paper in the trash due to defective packaging of the ream, or what-have-you.  This stuff is fine.  At most, you trim a quarter of an inch off the edge to smooth it out if it was dinged, then use it.  Save yourself $5.  


Dav

[Ron Edwards]

I suggest thinking about a stepping-stone stage in which this information is especially important.

The classic "ashcan" in comics is the model that some RPG authors would do well to follow, I think. In comics, this means a photocopied version of the black-and-white for the comic, stapled or spiral-bound. The art can be fairly sketchy or not-completely inked; the dialogue is either word-ballooned in or in accompanying script text, like a movie script.

For RPGs, I think an ashcan model is a great idea for the ground-floor stage - people will have (1) a playable game and (2) a tangible object that lets them feel like it's "real," and that you're working on it.

And as the game develops and feedback's coming in, you can tart up and add art, fix any text problems, fill in whatever wasn't absolutely essential to play, get some idea of the final medium you want, and so on.

I used an ashcan Sorcerer for a full year, right before it went on-line as a TXT. I screwed up a little, though, because I went DOWN in production/look from ashcan to on-line product. (Times were different, then, though; no PDF, no handy scanner, for instance.)

(Also, this thread has a good crossover with Ed's point about distribution on a sister thread in this forum.)

Best,
Ron

[Dav]

I agree with Ron on this one.  Ashcan versions (I learned a new term!) of Obsidian existed in various phases.  We felt oh-so cool when we laminated our first color cover for our terrorist (ashcan) versions.

Done up right, with some nice layout, and you can have a book that it almost as nice as a "professionally" produced book.

Print 'em on demand and sell 'em through a website.  Never need more than that if you ask me.

Dav

[He who is Q]

On 2001-05-03 18:16, Dav wrote:
Kinko's info:
Equipment after hours: 24 hours, no afterhours.  However, past 12:00 am, only the nightshift is on, and no one cares.
...
Kinko's binding:  Velo: $1-$2
...
Also, most of the time, I have found that there are over 2000 sheets of paper in the trash due to defective packaging of the ream, or what-have-you.
Dav

As an ex-kinko's graveyard employee and a co-publisher in a game zine: http://otherhands.com  I can say that they are VERY easy to use.  

I did all DTP with Page Maker (computer time is free to employees! :grin:) and and then sent it electronically to the printer so I wouldn't loose resolution ($10 or so for non-employees).  I recomend doing this PDF.

One thing that wasn't mentioned was Saddle Stitching like a pamphlet.  One fold and 2 staples are much cheeper than $1-3 bucks a hit for other bindings.  However this is only good for items under 36 pages.

Do becareful of "liberating" damaged paper- we used to toss it out because it jammed the machine terribly.  This is also caused by moisture; paper sits out too long and becomes unuseable.

If brining your own stock to Kinko's bring about and extra 10-20% extra.  This covers jams and mishapps during creation, and believe me, the machines jam. :razz:

The more you have your document finished the cheeper it will be to you.  

ALWAYS ask to see the proof.

[Damocles]

Piggybacking. Get some to include your strange little 3-page game in their massive tome where there's some blank space left. You could probably most easily pull this off with parody games (much the same way the cartoons ended up in the Call of Cthulhu rules book), but any thematic connection could give you a fighting chance.
For the really sneaky: Write a d20 adventure/supplement for any include your game as game within the game. Justify it as a pocket universe/dream sequence/virtual reality game/vision quest/stuff like that.
Just generally camouflage the game in such a way that it fits in with existing publishing concepts. Adhere to the letter of the d20 guidelines, but break the spirit on the rack. Write the game as a supplement for an existing game.
Example: Ars Magica's Fairies supplement could pretty much be played on its own with very few tweaks.
Pool resources. Think volume. How many of Hogshead's New Style adventures would fit into a book the size of your average roleplaying game?

[Ron Edwards]

Damocles,

Good suggestion. A hell of a lot of great games have appeared as a quick add-on, or even as jokes. For instance, Puppetland was originally written as a semi-serious insight piece, not with much expectation that anyone would really play it.

If I understand your d20 suggestion correctly, then we already have a good example of it (reversed, actually; with the D&D on the inside) in Jared's game Gigantocorp.

Best,
Ron

[Damocles]

If I understand your d20 suggestion correctly, then we already have a good example of it (reversed, actually; with the D&D on the inside) in Jared's game Gigantocorp.

Something like that, yes. I was thinking about something less explicit, though. Maybe this is best illustrated by example:

Say you have a D&D adventure where the heroes are sent to various private realms of gods to retrieve the Seven Shards of the Thing of Great Importance and each of the realms changes the rules in some ways.
Realm of the god of strength: All rolls are made with strength modifier.
god of peace: Forget about combat. It's just not possible.
god of chaos: Forget your character sheets. Each roll is made as 4+D20. (No need to tell the players. Let them find out for themselves.)
god of fate: Just the opposite. You don't roll any dice. Say, players get the option to either take 10, spend 5 hitpoints(or whatever) and take 15, or spend 10 hitpoints and take 20.
Presto: Instant diceless roleplaying and I'm willing to bet that most players would like it, even if they ordinarily wouldn't touch a diceless game with the proverbial 10 foot pole.

Generally, I think it would be advisable to also think beyond the standard rpg publishing routes. There really has to be some way to get Soap to soap opera fans. I am certain some (computer) gaming magazine would be willing to print Platforms. White Wolf got the goths, BESM is going actively after the anime fans. There must be some potential interest in experimental rpgs in, I don't know. Impro comedy people,
storytellers (not White Wolf 'storytellers', people who, you know, tell stories to people), who else?

[Jared A. Sorensen]

There must be some potential interest in experimental rpgs in, I don't know. Impro comedy people,
storytellers (not White Wolf 'storytellers', people who, you know, tell stories to people), who else?

My target audience is "the insane."  Actually, no. :smile:

I tend to think of experimental games as being like the concept cars that auto makers create for trade shows.  They're usually freaky as hell and bristling with mad technology, but they're probably not going to be rolling down the assembly line for many, many years (if ever).  However, those technological innovations and perhaps some of the styling might show up in next year's family sedan.

Strangely enough, it's the same in the fashion world.  I mean, who would actually wear some of those clothes (okay, besides Bjork)?  But then these hotshot designers who are trotting out the "dress made of disposable neon plastic lighters" are also creating the stuff that you see in The Gap.

- Jared

[Damocles]

Jared,

I think your analogies are flawed. Innovative/experimental cars don't get mass-produced because it would be too expensive for technical reasons. Fashion-show type fashion isn't worn because often it just isn't usable in real life. (At least that's my impression from the few glimpses I've caught from that stuff). Games however don't have these problems.
There is, of course, the issue of acceptance. People have a resistance to new ideas, that's true, but I think that is mostly superficial. People need some time to get used to new ideas and if you're used to think about all kinds of strange, new concepts then it can seem as if most people are just incredibly close-minded. I try not to think that way. That way lie stagnation.
Take Rune, for example. I vastly admire that game because on the one hand it's innovative (easily as much as anything you can find in indie rpgs), but on the other hand it tries very, very hard to be accessible both to your average gamer (and even your old-style gamer) and to a wider audience (computer rpg gamers).
Now, for a not quite completely random example, I take a look at the games on memento-mori.com and consider which of them could appeal to more people than just "the insane".
Gigantocorp: Sure. Duh. Big, big potential interest for that one.
Idoru: Not quite as obvious, but not really a problem. Scores and scores of people would like to play this if they knew about it. Would also make a wonderful PBEM/or MUD background.
Pulp Era, Octane: The appeal is probably limited to genre fans, but that still gets you a decent number of people. Pulp has a solid fan community.
Pumpkin town: A rpg for the whole family. Introduce your kids to roleplaying.
Inspectres: No problem.
Eight: I guess this one doesn't have an existing audience, but it's brilliant enough to create one. Actually, if you go about it the right way I think it has more potential than any of the others (except perhaps Idoru).
And that's just off the top of my head.
If I were a rpg publisher, I wouldn't hesitate to publish any of these (if they were more fleshed out). Hell, I would positively salivate at the thought.