How to publish this (LOGB)

[Simon W]

Ok, so I've got Lashings of Ginger Beer looking like this, so far.

http://www.geocities.com/simonwashbourne/lashingsofgingerbeer.pdf

with a character sheet like this

http://www.geocities.com/simonwashbourne/logb_char.pdf

If I want to publish for sale, then I'd have to dump some of the artwork and replace it with some of my own (I can just about draw, but that may not be good enough) or some done for me. I have also got another mystery/scenario or two.

Other than that, I'm a bit stuck. I don't even know whether its worth the bother. I've had people say 'What a great game', but as we all know, people saying it is one thing....

Any thoughts, ideas?  What is the single most important thing I need to do at this stage? Tell me not to bother if you think so - I can take it.

Gideon
http://www.geocities.com/simonwashbourne/Beyond_Belief.html

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Any thoughts, ideas?  What is the single most important thing I need to do at this stage? Tell me not to bother if you think so - I can take it.

Folks, try accessing LoGB via the HTML link to Gideon's webpage:
http://www.geocities.com/simonwashbourne/Beyond_Belief.html

Gideon,

Fantastic. :) You have some good stuff going on on that page.

The next step? You can go in one of three directions:

1. Stay as you are. Free PDF games, accessible via the web.
2. PDF Publishing. Charge a nominal fee for the games.
3. Print Publishing. The scary monster...I know nothing about this (aside from making my own books, which is an option for you as well).

The best way to go (IMO) is to start at #1 (where you iz at right now) and just keep plugging away. Get involved in web site discussions and talk about your games (don't pimp your games...just find someone with a problem/question and use your game as an example of one way to solve that problem). Put more stuff up! Even little things, ideas, whatever. That's how I started back in the day. Then, you'll have an idea of the direction you want to go and you can move on to #2 and #3...or stay put and enjoy what yer doing.

- J

[Simon W]

Thanks Jared,

Just the sort of comment that makes me think it's all worthwhile!

Gideon

[Matt Machell]

Gideon,

Jared's advice is sound. Put up stuff, advertise it on well travelled sites, get people talking about your games, get people playing them, get people linking to you. It's just reputation building. Plenty of people who frequent these forums have done it.

If you are interested in PDF publishing, you might want to mooch around rpgnow.com, which is a pretty good place to buy and sell PDFs by all accounts.

-Matt

[simon]

This is great! Or should I say, absolute wizard, old boy!

I'd love to play this game, trouble is I think you have to be English to really enjoy it to the full, or at least very conversant with English (NOT British) culture and children's literature. I am English, but unfortunately (for this game, I mean) none of my friends are. So, what about a Play-by-e-mail version? I'd even pay. A small amount, anyway.

As to its peculair Englishness, what are the English distribution chains for RPGs? What is price like on publishing? What about copyrights? I ask because I'm sure that this could be made into a profitable game given the right attention to illustration and link-up with existing literature. Have you thought about a child's verison? Ages 10-13?

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, it's ironic that as an American that my introduction to such English content was via the "Comic Strip" send up skit of such stuff called "Five Go Mad in Dorset" (IIRC).

Like the scene in which they listen to the villains from behind a bush, and the villains are saying (verbatim), "Blah, blah, blah, secret base, blah, blah, blah, hidden sub, blah, blah, blah, nuclear weapon, blah, blah, blah."

That said, I think that there are some similarities with American literature like the Hardy Boys Mysteries, Nancy Drew, and Encyclopedia Brown, etc. Perhaps someone could do a Mod for the American cognates.

Mike

[simon]

WOW!!! Five Go Mad in Dorset. That's goin' back a bit! A lot of the humour there was sort of based on the weird speech patterns of the kids in Enid Blyton and Ransom books coupled with the (then-bang-up-to-date-1980s) contemporary behavoiur of kids. Just how "English" that is, I wouldn't like to say, but I'd hazard a guess that a decent amount was definitely, peculiarly English. Like when my students ask "Why do you Brits (they mean English, though) say "the hotel room wasn't very clean" when you want to say "the hotel room was absolutely filthy", just like an Australian/American/any other native English speaker would say?. There is a humour in the way in which English people use language and this is probably more palatable to an English person... I think.

[Mike Holmes]

WOW!!! Five Go Mad in Dorset. That's goin' back a bit!

Yeah, I'd even call Jennifer Saunders young there. Am I really that old?

Anyhow, you have a point that some of the humor (as we call it) may be lost on Americans. And I'm not sure that the American cognates can be played for as much humor at all. Still, interesting.

Mike

P.S. You English have no monopoly on understatment. Ever heard of a guy named Jack Soo, or a show called Barney Miller? :-)

[talysman]

heh, a hilarious concept! I haven't read the Famous Five or any other "typically english" children's books, but I've seen parodies (isn't "Good Omens" essentially a Famous Five parody, with the antichrist as the gang leader?) and american equivalents.

That said, I think that there are some similarities with American literature like the Hardy Boys Mysteries, Nancy Drew, and Encyclopedia Brown, etc. Perhaps someone could do a Mod for the American cognates.

speaking of which, some of the older children's books of this sort are probably public domain and available through Project Gutenberg. pretty much all the Tom Swifts are, I know.

[simon]

In response to Mike's message:

Can't say that the name Jack Soo rings any bells, nor Barney Miller. Who/what are they? And what are the American equivalents of the sort of lit Gideon has made a game out of?

[Mike Holmes]

Can't say that the name Jack Soo rings any bells, nor Barney Miller. Who/what are they?

Barney Miller was a seventies sitcom about a police precinct.

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/barneymiller.html

Jack soo is the Asian guy (died of cancer during the show's run). He played his character so deadpan it was amazing. And his lines were about as understated as it gets. His tagline could well be, "Really? I thought it was the coffee."

And what are the American equivalents of the sort of lit Gideon has made a game out of?

The problem is that there are few "teams". Instead you get "rugged individualist" kids who often have a sidekick. Much more Holmes and Watson. The only example I can think of is a book called "Secret Agent's Four". That and others are mentioned along with a write up of a classic example, Encyclopedia Brown, here:

http://www.thrillingdetective.com/eyes/encyclopedia.html

There are also links on that page to Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys (both of which became TV shows, the stars of which all became fairly famous). Again, you see pairs at best.

Of course, I could be forgetting something. That all said, I'm sure that one could do a serious or spoof RPG of these books working off their own ideosyncracies.

In fact the only prominent mystery solving team that I can think of is "Scobie Doo". Which, for all I know, just might have been created as a send-up of the British literature. :-)

And there have been RPGs for that.

Mike

[Valamir]

Alfred Hitchcock's 3 Investigators was also along these lines (and of vastly superior intellect).  Peter, Jupiter...and I forget the third one..began with a T.

[clehrich]

The semi-Monty Python book Dr. Fegg's Encyclopedia of All World Knowledge included a bit entitled "The Famous Five Go Pillaging," where essentially the Enid Blyton characters wander across England running into Vikings and getting speared, if I remember correctly.  It was written in a very exact parody of the "Famous Five" prose style.  For an American take, you might consider the Bobbsey Twins.