Looking forward to seeing the finished product!

Layout tip no 1:
If you use Arial Tim will come to your house and slay you.

I don't know why so many of the products on RPGnow do this rather than picking an appropriate body text font, but it drives me bonkers.

/rant. Ahem.

Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk

Dom, it sounds like this is coming on nicely. How are you looking at distributing the game once it's done?

Using as much good advice from this forum as possible!

It's presently going to be a blend.

There is a real and present danger that I am going to get a lot of colour art (which can be grey scaled if necessary). Clearly this can be showcased in the PDF, but I'd also like to see it reflected in a version of the main book. I'd like to say thank you to a lot of people properly. ;-)

So, I am looking to take the CE advice that you should just get 100 printed out, bacause I'm likely to find buyers for the book. I've found one UK printer so far that has quoted what seems a very good price for 100 A4 colour cover softbacks with 30 pages of internal colours out of 160 pages.

On the basis of the price I've been given I might even look at a run of hardbacks. I'll do the maths carefully and lean on hard nosed experienced types.

There is some guessing here as Dom is layout godling, so we'll just have to see hw the template takes the 98K words and the impact of the artwork.

Distribution of these is an interesting question. Obviously I'll be hitting the UK convention circuit, either through myself or other 'agents'. I have a very supportive and savy FLGS - which might open up some other useful options for both of us.

Other than the magic 100 or so, I'll also be putting the PDF 'out there' on somewhere like rpg.now(?)

POD for black and white interior softbacks - have assumed Lulu and/or Createspace but am happy to be advised on this. I like the online calculators, you know what you are getting into.

That's current thinking - this forum has been characteristically informative and helpful throughout the process.

Graham

http://www.wordplaygames.co.uk

The best place for the pdf is most certainly rpgnow and drivethrurpg (both different facets for the same site), as I'm sure digging into some of Neil or Gregor's posts will reveal.

If you're going to go for a larger run at all (or even if you're not) then I'd recommend getting in touch with IPR. It'll certainly open your game up to a much wider market.

Finally, and it might be a bit early to start thinking about it, but make sure the lead up to release, and the release itself, is well supported - post previews, and make sure those actual play reports flow (by you at first, but then by others).

Thanks, we will do so.

Again thanks for the tip, and we will do so. I can't wait to see the text transformed from plain Open Office writer ODT format.

The core game and a couple of the Themes are to be released under a generous shareable CC licence. The core pre-edited text is already available as a free PDF download and will remain so throughout. It has already helped to create some buzz and has got people actually playing the game.

Graham

http://www.wordplaygames.co.uk

Arial? It'd be Helvetica, if I went that way as I'm somewhat wedded to the OS X platform. ;-)

At the moment, the B&W core text will probably be Palatino (or similar) and Gill Sans (or similar) for headers for a very clean look. Graham and I have spent a fair bit of time looking at what we both like. White space will be important too, so it's clean to read. Probable format will be POD 6x9, as this is aimed at people who want to print the PDF but would prepare a proper job. This is the low cost version.

The full themes version (which Graham has been talking about) is still up for grabs, as I'm waiting to see what the art starts to come in like. We've discussed 8x11 vs A4 vs Duty & Honour style at the moment. Very much in the air at the mo.

---
Dom Mooney
http://www.bits.org.uk/
http://www.powerprojection.net/

From my experience I'm confident in saying that the two main online sales channels are OneBookShelf (RPGNow and DriveThru) and Indie Press Revolution. Everything else is small fry. I'd suggest looking at both of those. IPR will sell physical books as well as PDFs, and also supplies retailers - eg Leisure Games gets its "indie" stuff from there.

You should probably set the book up on Lulu even if you don't make it publically available, as an easy way to get small quantities for yourself. That might have an effect on the format you choose, as these days the prices vary for different sizes. Which sizes are cheaper and dearer also varies between the US and UK, eg Letter and A4 are cheaper in their "home" countries. 6x9 seems to be a good choice generally.

Oh, be very wary of Lulu's price calculators accessed through the 'Publish' section, because the prices and discount levels they show are not what you'll actually get. Don't ask me why.

Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk

I should note, though, that IPR does vet what it carries. If Brennan thinks it fits with IPR then he'll carry it, and if he doesn't think that then he won't.

Being carried on IPR is good because a lot of people assume (wrongly) that it's the be-all and end-all of Indie gaming. So you are being sold next to a lot of great games. But just being on IPR does not in-and-of-itself lead to sales.

One Book Shelf is good for the reasons above and because their affiliate sites include things like ENWorld and Flames Rising. So users of those sites get access to them without having to leave their favourite site.

Good point which I forgot to mention.

However, although there might (or mght not) be some truth in the idea that IPR began as an outlet for dirty hippie games, my perception is that now that's by no means a requirement and they're happy to sell anything of decent quality that's produced by a smallish press.

Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk

It's clear I need to look at IPR as a way of getting the game 'out there'.

We'll see if it makes the grade!

OneBookShelf for the PDF.

I am in the process of registering with Lightning Source just to see how they compare.

I've had an attractive quote from www.think-ink.co.uk for colour softbacks. You can quote the number of colour pages you have. Suddenly a colour interior book seems reachable. One idea I had was to do a print run through them and use that as my Convention toting stock and complimentary give aways. Much will depend on the amount of art that comes through.

Thanks all.

Graham

http://www.wordplaygames.co.uk

I'm a bit confused by Wordplay - I can't work out who it's aimed at.

One one hand there are jokey asides about an encumbrance rules system that nobody needs (clearly aimed at old hands). On the other, there are lengthy sections on describing what roleplaying is and how to do it (clearly aimed at newcomers).

My overall impression is that Wordplay is written for people who are new to roleplaying, which (in my view) makes it slightly over-written for anyone familiar with the hobby.

That seems a slightly odd design choice, given that I would guess that less than 0.1% of customers will pick up Wordplay without knowing what roleplaying is.

Perhaps that's a wider design question - when you write your games, who do you write them for?

steve

Tales of Terror - www.talesofterror.net
Freeform Games - www.freeformgames.com

You're quite right, it is written such that the 0.1% can pick it up and play it. An unusual and, I guess, unpopular design decision, making it floridly overwritten for the majority of old hacks. I wanted something that could appeal to everyone and hoped that the old hacks would skip the opening chapter and drop straight into making characters.

It's something I hope to preserve with my editor, but we'll see if I am challenged to cut the baggage! :)

It's a good point.

Graham

http://www.wordplaygames.co.uk

Hi Steve

I'm glad that its almost schizophrenic in its talking to new comers and old hands. Too many games have given up on talking to the new comers and assume you are familiar with not just RPGing but the style of RPGing the rules support. Which often strikes me as crass and arrogant. One very famous RPG writer started off the first draft of one of his recent games by saying in the intro chapter ' If you don't know what an RPG is you should Fuck off!!' Fortunately the editor cut that bit out and the author wrote a introduction to roleplaying in the next version. He then makes another mistake in this second by saying that if you're already familiar with RPGs you can just skip the intro, which actually gives lots of clues and guidance to how this particular game works!

You also have to remember that the core rules text will be available as a download, so conceivably anyone could come across them.

As an experienced RPGer I know when to skip over the stuff not aimed at me. I would hope my peers know to do the same gracefully, aided by some sort of highlight boxes within the final version's layout.

Regards

;O)Newt
D101games -An Imaginary Company

The one part of the writing of Wordplay that stumbles me every time is the piece about quality where Graham decides to have a stab at Windows in favour of Mac stuff. Whilst I can humour the MS/OS war when needed, its something that isn't really needed in the rules of a book.

Neil

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

Of course the 'joke' is that Linux wins supreme...

Perhaps you're right. I'll reflect on this when the edited text comes back.

Cheers

Graham

http://www.wordplaygames.co.uk

Well, we're getting there with Wordplay!

If all goes well, we will have the first print edition (the one that takes the creative commons elements of the core of Wordplay) available as a 6x9 book at Furnace 2009.

I'm guessing that this may be the one that is most of interest to this forum, as it would be the core to build on if you wanted to take the system to use elsewhere.

I've had an interesting month learning InDesign in practice rather than theory, and the first proof from Lulu was quite close to what we wanted!

The glossy sexy version of the book with lots of themes for different genres and the nice artwork comes next year along with a number of supplements (and not just from Graham).

---
Dom Mooney
http://www.bits.org.uk/
http://www.powerprojection.net/

Lulu order placed, fingers and toes crossed ;-)

---
Dom Mooney
http://www.bits.org.uk/
http://www.powerprojection.net/

4 days between ordering and them arriving. Graham has posted pictures of his unboxing ;-)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gspearing/tags/unboxed/

---
Dom Mooney
http://www.bits.org.uk/
http://www.powerprojection.net/

I remember the thrill at unboxing my first game - exciting times, and a huge sense of accomplishment. Looking forward to picking one up at Furnace!