[The Rustbelt] So this is my plan

[Marshall Burns]

The Rustbelt first edition has been a zero-budget project. This is due to the fact that I'm poor (although hopefully the game will help with that, or at least keep me in cigarettes). So, naturally, it's been problematic figuring out how all this is supposed to work. Which is primarily why it's taken me so damned long.

I'm illustrating the interior with photographs that I took myself, and doing the layout myself. At some point *soon* I'm going to have to crank out a cover, which has been hard, because I'm a good artist but not a good illustrator. I've been lucky enough to stumble upon an editor who is a huge enough fan of the game that he's given me a freebie.

So, all of that's under control. Here's the next phase of my plan:

Once I've got layout finished, I'm going to start taking preorders. People who preorder the game will get the PDF immediately, the book once I print it, and a homemade copy of Drink to Our Hell: the Rustbelt Original Soundtrack (which won't be included with the book like it was with the ashcan). I've decided on a price of $24, based primarily on the fact that DitV, Sorcerer, and Burning Wheel are in that general vicinity, and I frankly consider this game to be every bit as original, flexible, and powerful as those games (plus it's comparable in size to DitV and Sorcerer).

Once preorders are done with, I'll take the money from them to do a print run at Lulu. My plan is to do a run that exceeds the preorders by a sizable quantity, but still leaves profits from the preorder money. But we'll see how that pans out. If it's not doable, then I'll print only enough to satisfy the preorders and maybe a little more, because, due to stuff, I need liquid assets yesterday. Whichever way it goes, once the print run is exhausted I'll still sell it on-demand via Lulu until I'm financially ready to do another print run.

Concurrently with all this, the CD will also be available on-demand at Lulu. I've remastered one track and added another, so there's new stuff there for people who already have the ashcan. The CD will probably be priced at $8.

A couple questions that have come to me in the process of all this:

1. I understand that there's this Forge Bookshelf thing for online PDF sales. How does it work and how do I get in on it?

2. I'm reasonably certain this is okay, but I'm going to ask anyway: in my current version of the back-cover copy, I boldly (but accurately) claim that the game produces stories "in the vein of The Stand, The Road, and Mad Max." That's not going to cause any legal backlash, is it? I mean, it's not like I'm saying that it's The Road: the RPG. Am I gonna have to specify in the fine print somewhere that I'm not affiliated with Stephen King or Cormac McCarthy?

[Dan Maruschak]

Once preorders are done with, I'll take the money from them to do a print run at Lulu. ... once the print run is exhausted I'll still sell it on-demand via Lulu until I'm financially ready to do another print run.

Have you checked out CreateSpace? The way I read the websites, it seems like you get better printing prices at CreateSpace than at Lulu, but it seems like very few people use them. I can't tell if I'm missing something obvious, if there are other factors that make people prefer Lulu, or if it's just an issue of people not even looking into CreateSpace before deciding to use Lulu.

[Marshall Burns]

I thought about it. I've bought plenty of other people's books printed by Lulu though, and they all looked great. I haven't seen any printed by CreateSpace. I don't want to get in and then find out it doesn't look as good.

[Callan S.]

http://www.kickstarter.com/ seems to be one way of handling preorders that seems to work out (you can cruise through and see who's been funded to what extent) if you live in americaland.