PUBLISHING YOUR OWN RPG IN THE UK ================================= (The following is a brief overview of this topic, mostly based on James Wallis's perhaps sometimes bitter experience. It is not a very serious introduction to what is, financially, a serious business. Use with care. It's your own money you'll be spending, in large quantities.) The fact is that it's very hard to make a go of a UK- or Ireland-based games company. The total UK and Irish market for RPGs is tiny compared to, say, the European or American market; and while you might be able to sell a few hundred copies of SMITHQUEST, by John Smith, published by Smith Games, your chances of becoming the next TSR, FASA, GW or WotC are severely limited by geography. However, it is possible to be British and challenge the world, as GW has proved. It's just a hell of a lot of work. The most important thing you need to think about is the scale of your operation. If you're only planning to print 300 copies of a 40-page booklet and sell them via local shops and conventions, then you'll probably do okay whoever you are. If you're planning a 200-page book and a print run of 3000 copies, then be aware that you're putting your product up against AD&D, Vampire, Rifts and Shadowrun, and you're going to have to be frighteningly businesslike and together to survive. It may not look it, but in crucial areas, the RPG industry is just as slick and professional as any other industry. It eats amateurs alive. One model that you may wish to consider is the self-publishing/computer file shareware route taken by Marcus Rowland (see Publishers.txt in this subdirectory). This will not make you rich - it isn't a full-time job for Marcus - but it will get your game published, relatively cheaply, and on your own terms, which may be what you actually want. Prospective serious games publishers need to bear the following major points in mind: 1. Games design, writing and editing Who's going to write your games for you? Are you sure you/they can write games material to a commercial standard? Do you have time to run the company and write the games as well? Do you have any experience of editing and proof-reading, or do you know someone who does? 2. Layout The days of typed RPGs are long gone: these days you need at least a high-end word processor and probably a slick DTP program to make a game look commercial. If you can't operate one, learn. If you don't have a computer that can run such a program, get access to one. 3. Artwork If you're going for the big market, your game will need professional-quality b/w art inside, and a colour cover on the outside. (Well, can you name a single successful RPG with a two-colour cover? No, neither can I.) If you really can't afford full-colour, go for black, red and white - take a look at the STOCs books produced by Wasteland Games for an example of this done well. A lot of distributors won't even look at a publication that doesn't have a full-colour cover. 4. Printers Get as many printing quotes as you can, and always ask to see examples of the company's previous work. Be aware that printing prices in the UK are high; if you're ambitious, check out printers in Spain and Italy. Or do what Hogshead does: use a printer in America, to be closer to the biggest RPG market in the world. It's cheaper, and means you can write off trips to the USA as a business expense. 5. Warehousing and shipping Don't leave these out of your calculations - and if you're doing a large print run and are planning to store the books at home, you'd better have a huge garage. Books are bulky and heavy. And remember that you may be shipping them all over the world, so make plans for that. A hint: American distributors hate importing material from Europe, but European distributors don't mind importing stuff from the USA. 6. Distribution Get in touch with games distributors at least four months before your game is due to come out. Talk to them about discounts and delivery dates, who pays shipping costs, promotional budgets, how you can help them and they can help you. Distributors will typically expect to pay about 40% of the cover price of the game. 7. Europe and America The UK games market is piddly in comparison with the two big markets: Europe and the USA - so piddly that if your business plan is based only on sales in the UK, you will go bust. We say that with total certainly. You should be thinking about how you're going to sell your game in Europe and America from Day One of planning. 8. Publicity and Support How are you going to let people know about your products? Advertisements? Press releases? WWW pages? Publicity leaflets or posters sent out to retailers? Attending conventions? Attending trade shows? Catalogues? The RPG market depends a lot on impulse purchases, but people like to be aware of a product's existence before they buy it. Have you got your release schedule mapped out? Can you be sure you can keep to it? Distributors, retailers and fans like to know that a game will be properly supported before they plonk down their cash for it. There are a gazillion other tiny fiddly little points, such as acquiring ISBN numbers, getting listed in Books In Print and so on. To find out more about them, buy copies of 'The Small Press Yearbook' (published by the Small Press Group) and 'Writers and Artists Yearbook' (published by A.C.Black), which will fill a lot of the gaps in your knowledge. Also: contact James Wallis , or any of the other British games companies. Almost everyone in the biz will be happy to give support and advice to new publishers. They all started out somewhere, and if they can help you avoid making the same mistakes they did, so much the better. Another young games company going bankrupt doesn't help anybody.