How many people have actually made money from their indie-rpg?

And don't worry, I know that's not the actual purpose. It's for the fun, right?

RIGHT?

Oddly enough, considering that I haven't ever finished a game design, someone who read Shadows in the Fog decided to buy my book on Agrippa (for 87 smackers!), so I should realize about 50 cents from that.

That's cool. It's always nice to see people take interest in what you are doing without you trying to get them to take interest.

It's quite satisfying.

Anybody else?

Selling kill puppies for satan makes my hobby self-sustaining. I went to GenCon on it last year, I buy games, dice, Legos on it. But it's not like an income or anything.

-Vincent

Not yet. But then, Fastlane hasn't actually gone on sale yet. So I'm sort of the wrong person to ask. I haven't made any money yet on the stuff I've put up for free, but then, that's not the point, is it?

lumpley wrote: Selling kill puppies for satan makes my hobby self-sustaining. I went to GenCon on it last year, I buy games, dice, Legos on it. But it's not like an income or anything.

Lxndr wrote: I haven't made any money yet on the stuff I've put up for free, but then, that's not the point, is it?

One of the free things I've made, Snowball, is going to be featured in a print publication (the No Press Anthology) and, in theory, I should be making some money off that, depending on how well it sells. I forget how the whole pay-stuff is going to work for that, though. Snowball itself will remain free for download forever-and-ever, though. So I'm pretty close to making some money on an ostensibly free product. Cool, huh?

My dream, such that it is, is to allow my game-design to sustain itself as Vincent's game does - enough to go to GenCon Indy and my local convention and, hopefully, pay for webhosting each year. That's all I want, and the general feeling I get from the posts I've read here is that it's a best-case scenario.

Between Fastlane and the Snowball NPA, it's possible, but who knows if it's probable? But the nice thing is, every game AFTER this point that I develop and sell just makes it more probable.

I made money on Universalis. Sold out early to Ralph, so it wasn't big stacks of money, but I definitely came out ahead. Made for a good Christmas that year. :-)

And I intend to make a lot more, too. And not just on the NPA (which is going to sell unbelievably well).

Mike

I've once paid my car payment with my money from Donjon and Paladin, when I was unemployed and had just released it.

Since I've put Donjon into print in the last few months, PDF sales have skyrocketed. (I don't understand it either.) I sold more last month than any month besides its release. It usually ranges between beer money and a real good trip to the bookstore each month.

Clinton R. Nixon wrote: Since I've put Donjon into print in the last few months, PDF sales have skyrocketed. (I don't understand it either.)

Mike Holmes wrote: And I intend to make a lot more, too. And not just on the NPA (which is going to sell unbelievably well).

I've made pretty good money with Universalis. More than enough to pay for print run and freelancer costs.

If you factor in all of the additional expenses that I charge to Ramshead (legitimate ones like GenCon costs and promotional stuff), I'm slightly in the hole, which is exactly where I want to be for tax purposes.

I'm more in the hole now paying costs for R&R, of course.

The NPA is the "No Press Anthology", a collection of a number of free games created by the Forgoisie. Mike and I both have a game in there, along with several others. I like to try to think of it as "NPA #1", because that way it implies the later existence of sequels.

I expect the NPA to sell very well - unbelievably so, as Mike put it; what I don't know to expect is how much I'll be getting for each sale. Currently I've just got an empty space on my little number-crunching spreadsheet for the NPA, with an entry saying "spent $40 on art".

The equivalent section for Fastlane is more extensive, including projected sales prices, projected earnings per sale, etc. (Since I don't mind putting these numbers in the public eye, I need to sell 81 PDFs, 66 printed books, or some combination thereof, to break even on the costs I've outlayed on Fastlane and Twisted Confessions, including webhosting for the next 12 months; I have no idea whether or not that number is attainable, but I have reason to hope)

orbsmatt wrote: What is an NPA?

I do all right with my stuff.

Hellbound sells at a steady(ish) 5 to 10 copies each month.

Unfortunate Destinies, when I actually put effort into it, runs incredibly well, making me consider actually doing something with it again.

Obsidian. Not only is it doing swimmingly... it still does just as well even after we dropped Alliance from our distributor network (yeah, if you're reading this FUCK YOU ALLIANCE! AND FUCK YOUR LATE PAYING ASSES AND THINKING YOU CAN DEMAND CONCESSIONS FROM US! Ahem... sorry, I despise them and their inability to effectively manage what amounts to a fucking warehouse. Seriously, I could run their show at half their operating costs twice as well as they do.

The moral of the story: don't let the distributors push you around, they need you TONS more than you need them. The little regional distributors are just swell. I like them. I give them books, they give me money. Seems simple. I'll even allow returns from them. But the big guys... Diamond, Esdevium, Pegasus, Alliance, ad nauseum. They want the books in less than a wekk, and will pay in not less than thrity days. Imbalance? That's right, fuck 'em. Fuck 'em with a sharp stick.

Dav

...I'm slightly in the hole, which is exactly where I want to be for tax purposes.

Charging everything but the cost of sunlight as an expense I still ended up with taxable earnings. Next year, hopefully, I'll join you in the hole.

Paul

Can't you only declare a loss 2 out of every 3 years?

Of course, with the kinds of reviews MLwM's been getting lately, I suspect Paul's going to have a hard time losing money in '04...

Yeah. It's always easiest to be in the hole your first year. Or so it seems/feels to me. Because that year is where most of your money is spent.