e publishing secrets

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How to Save MoneyStarting Your Own

PDF Game Company.

Industry Secrets Revealed!

In a single page, youll learn the secret

to saving thousands of dollars in startingyour own RPG publishing company.

Youll also receive a special bonus:

10 Secrets for PDF Publishing Success.ese secrets are lessons existing publishers learned the hard way, through costlyand

time-consuming trial and error! Publishers talk about these lessons privately among themselves,

but nowyou can learn the tips that publishers wish theyd known when they started.

But first, the BIG SECRET. Turn the pageto learn the greatest time- andmoney-saving secret in starting your own PDF company.

Te best way to save thousands of dollars and

hundreds of hours while starting your own PDF company is:


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12 to Midnight Page 3

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How to Save Money Starting a PDF Publishing Company

Page 4 12 to Midnight

Introductione first version of this PDF was only two pageslong.

ats right. Originally this secret tell-all was justa gag. How do you save money starting an RPG

company? Dont start one. It came from an instantmessenger conversation with one of my RPG pub-lishing partners. We both got a chuckle over it. en,as happens with all bad ideas, somewhere along theway I started taking it seriously. Now youre readingthe result. Just for the record, I do stand by the ad-vice on the previous page. e single best way to savehundreds, if not thousands, of dollars and probablyhundreds of irretrievable hours of your life is to avoidthe publishing flypaper trap.

Even though this began as a joke, the advice on the

following pages is dead serious. Im sharing with you10 pieces of advice I firmly believe every potentialpublisher should know before taking the plunge.

While the advice on thepreviouspage would saveyou a lot of time and money, we both know yourenot going to take itand I would feel bad if you did.If you are serious about publishing, then the adviceon the following pages will help you avoid certainpitfalls and set you on a path to publishing titles ofwhich you can be proud.

A History of the OGLand its Impact on the RPG Market

Before I even start on the tips, let me brief you onhow we (RPG e-publishers) arrived at this point andwhat we might expect in the near future. If you areconsidering jumping into RPG publishing, whatfollows is a short summary of the marketplace sinceinception of the Open Gaming License through thepresent (fall 2007).

Wizards of the Coast released the Open GamingLicense (OGL) in the year 2000. If you have heardof it but have not actually read it, you can down-load it from http://www.wizards.com/d20. Initiallypublishers and potential publishers viewed it with agood bit of distrust. People expected that Wizardsof the Coast was somehow using it to trick peopleinto writing content that they (Wizards) would latersteal. is turned out to be far from the truth. To

date Wizards has used almost no OGL material fromoutside sources. Over time, more writers put theirfaith in the license as they saw that no brimstone-cloaked devil appeared to collect the souls of earlyadopters.

What followed was the RPG publishing equivalent

of the Oklahoma Land Rush. As you would expect,some found success while others stumbled. Gamestores, and fans, found themselves in a situation fewhad experienced before. Roleplaying game materialwas being published faster than collectors could af-ford to buy it. Furthermore, the quality ranged fromoutstanding to cant-believe-someone-would-put-his-name-on-this, which further frustrated buyers.

Today, the land rush is mostly over. In any emerg-ing industry, the advantage goes to those who get inearly and establish a presence. 12 to Midnight got

in the publishing business more than four years ago,and we were latecomers. Today there are hundredsof e-publishers, and this in a hobby whose fans areeither 1) skeptical of PDF products, 2) ignorant thatthird-party PDF titles even exist, or 3) couldnt careless since theyve dropped tabletop gaming in favor ofWorld of Warcraft.

e market is correcting.Game-store owners andprint distributors have already been burned by theearlier flood of RPG content now collecting dust onshelves or littering dollar bins. eir response has

been to narrow their selections to publishers whohave demonstrated the ability to create titles that sell.In the PDF world, fans are demonstrating the sameinclination. ose who are regular buyers have fig-ured out which companies and authors consistentlyrelease quality titles and which ones dont. Some mayset aside extra dollars to experiment with unknowns,but others wait for buzz from positive reviews beforerisking their limited gaming dollars.

Now that you have an understanding of the cur-rent sentiment in the RPG market, lets talk about

the 800 lb. gorilla. Many e-publishers have beenspeculating over what will happen when Wizards ofthe Coast releases D&D 4th edition in 2008. ere iseven a fair chance you are reading this because youwere inspired by the new possibilities offered by 4eor the OGL. Some publishers have expressed hopethat it will act like a giant reset button that re-levelsthe playing field. Personally I cant imagine manystoresor fansunlearning the lessons from the last
http://www.wizards.com/d20http://www.wizards.com/d20


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decade. Furthermore, too many publishers have al-ready established their homesteads following the lastland rush. eyre experienced, organized, and theyhave a reputation among fans. Starting over with anew edition of a game system wont do much to erasethat advantage.

However, with changes to the D&D game systemcome changes to the trademark license. It is impor-tant to understand that there is a difference betweenthe OGL, which is a license to share game content,and the trademark license. e Wizards trademark li-cense is what allows publishers to claim compatibilitywith D&D or d20 Modern, mostly through the formof the d20 System logo. e latest word from theWizards brand manager is that with the introductionof D&D 4th edition, the d20 trademark license willgo away altogether. e next few weeks and months

will see further revelations about how far publish-ers can go in claiming compatibility with new-edi-tion Wizards products; but from early appearances,it looks like publishers will be forced to rely muchmore heavily on their own brand rather than the d20logo.

In fact, long before the official announcementfrom Wizards, some publishers (Green Ronin andRPG Objects, for example) have shown the foresightto release their own stand-alone game systems as ameans of severing their dependency on the d20 logo

and reinforcing their own identity in the market-place. Others employed alternate, open systems likeFUDGE or FATE. e award-winning Spirit of theCenturyby Evil Hat Productions is one example. Yetother publishers in the indie game scene have foundcritical acclaim with their own non-OGL games, suchas Primetime Adventuresand Dogs in the Vineyard.

Now that you have had a brief summary (full ofsweeping generalizations) of the last eight years of theRPG publishing industry, I hope you can better putmy advice in context. What follows are 10 things Ive

learned in almost five years as an RPG e-publisher.My hope is that it opens your eyes to the realities of

RPG publishing and helps prepare you to approachyour endeavor strategically, as a business venture.

10 Lessons for an RPGe-Publishing Startup

1Set your priorities. Ive observed that

many people who come to RPG forumsdoing research on starting a game com-pany are doing so afterdeciding to takethe plunge, rather than to decide if they

should do so. Lets back up a few steps and talk aboutpriorities and options. Why do you want to start aPDF publishing company?

a) Is it to make a lot of money? Although I do nothave access to sales figures, based on conversationswith others I would estimate that fewer than thetop 10% of RPG publishers on the biggest online

RPG e-book store are making any significantmoney. Furthermore, at least some the publishersin that bracket already have a reputation withfans from their print editions in game stores.

b) Is it so you can share all the hard work you putinto your adventure or setting with the rest of theworld? Give it away. Seriously. You can even createa cool companion Web site, wiki, or podcast todraw fans and generate interest.

c) Is it so your game design prowess will be knownfar and wide? See option b above, or even better,

try getting an established publisher to publishitforyou. And dont tell me youve tried two orthree and theyve turned you down. Put this essaydown right now and come back when you haveat least 20 rejection notices1.

d) Is it because you have an entrepreneurial spiritand you want to try running a small business?

Option d is certainly the best reason to start yourown PDF company, and arguably the only reason.If your goal is to be publishedrather than to publish,look to the other options at your disposal. Starting

an e-publishing company means running a busi-nessmarketing, catalog management, building andmaintaining a Website, accounting, and so on. If youjust want to see your game published there is an easierway: freelance writing.

1 Dude, if 20 or more PDF publishers have turned down

your RPG then theres probably a good reason. Ifthey dont

think it will sell, then you probably need to at least consider

option b.


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2Leverage the success of others. Okay, wehave already established that you probablyalready made the decision to be a PDFpublisher before you picked up this PDF.Right now you are probably internalizing

a way to justify why your situation is different.e

case I hear most often from new publishers is thatyou have a great idea/setting and you cant stand tosee another publisher screw it up with bad art, heavy-handed editing, etc. Okay, it is your baby. I canappreciate that.If you are going to do this, at leastapply some business savvy and take advantage ofmarketplace conditions. You dont haveto set yourselfup as a publisher and take on all the responsibilitiesthat entails. Give very serious consideration to settingyourself up as a game design studio.

What this means (in most cases) is that you take

a game all the way from concept to creation (includ-ing art and layout), but you work with another,established publisher to actually publish the title.at means you tie into their existing fan base andreputation and off-load at least some of the businessresponsibilities for things like marketing and sellingthrough online stores.

is is becoming a common practice in the RPGe-publishing industry. We refer to it as imprinting,as in Studio X is an imprint of Publisher Y. 12 toMidnight has two studios who imprint with us. ey

have complete autonomy, but they know were alwaysavailable to offer advice and help. Of course you willhave to work out the terms of your agreement withwhatever publisher you choose, but in general youcan expect the publisher to take a small percentageof sales and have a final yes/no decision on whetheror not to release a title under their umbrella. For in-stance, they probably arent going to want to damagetheir reputation by releasing a title riddled with er-rors or filled with hate speech. ey may also be ableto help with layout, art acquisition, and some degree

of marketing, and theyll certainly be responsible forlisting your title at online retail outlets, collectingpayment, and paying you on a regular basis.

For a case study in how imprinting can be win-win, take a look at Reality Deviant Publications. RDP wisely chose to become an imprint under a muchbetter-known PDF publisher. Now, after two years oflearning the ropes and establishing an identity withfans, they recently announced that they are striking

out on their own. In essence, RDP went through theequivalent of a small business incubator program.

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Ideas are worthless. People who can ac-tually deliver a complete, well-written,and well-edited manuscript are invalu-able. You will meet many people who are

wildly enthusiastic about their ideas, butonly maybe one in five will return with a finishedmanuscript.

Be someone that other people can count on tofollow through on what you promise, whether it isfinishing a manuscript or artwork, or paying on time. Always remember that your reputation is at stake.Five years from now someone could be reviewingapplications at [dream job of your choice] and passover your resume because she remembered that youdragged your feet for three months before paying her

for artwork.

4Let the X-Box controller get dusty.Whether youre writing, painting, or run-ning a game-design studio, you have to setyour priorities. If your goal is to show offyour m4d l33t g4m3r sk!1z or to master

the trivia behind all your favorite TV shows, thengo for it. However, if your goal is to have people talkabout your RPG studio or speak your name with re-spect, then you need to set boundaries on how you

spend your free time. is most likely means giv-ing up non-productive entertainment, like TV orvideo games.

If you plan to run an RPG publishing studio andyou are young and single, you can probably get bywith ignoring this advice (up to a point). If you havea significant other or spouse, go ahead and cancelyour World of Warcraft subscription for a while. Ifyou have kids too, then just plan on setting asidewhatever it is you do for entertainment altogether.ere are only so many hours in the day, and if you

want your studio to be successful then that meansspending hundreds of hours creating content and at-tending to the details. at time usually has to comeat the expense of other activities.

5Rely on the kindness of strangers after

youve done your homework. You canfind a lot of good advice on RPG pub-lisher-related forums. In particular, thee-publishing forum on ENWorld from


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2003 to 2005 carries a lot of good advice. Sometimeafter that point, either publishers stopped frequent-ing the site quite as much or most of the questionshad already been asked and answered. You shouldalso get your hands on the e-publisher bundle fromRPGNow. is is the definitive bundle of guide-

books for beginning RPG e-publishers. It includesan explanation of the Open Gaming License, how tomake your product look professional, and a generalePublisher Guide with pages of valuable informa-tion. Just be aware that some of the infoespeciallythe sales datais more than a year out of date so takeit with a grain of salt.

e RPG publishing world is pretty small. Weare all fans of the hobby (we have to be, because wecertainly arent doing it for the money), and we aregenerally willing to help out with advice when a new

e-publishing studio asks. However, it is just goodmanners to actually do your research before jumpingon a forum and asking for someone to hold you bythe hand and tell you everything you need to knowabout being a publisher. We e-publishers can usuallytell by the quality of your question whether you havebothered to read RPGNows ePublisher Guide or theold publishing-related threads. Furthermore, it justmakes more sense to use your time with experiencedpublishers wisely rather than wasting time askingquestions that you can answer yourself with 15 min-

utes of searching and reading.

6Compensate for your limitations. Unlessyoure some kind of genius, youre prob-ably not a professional artist, writer, gamedesigner, editor, webmaster, cartographer,accountant, and layout artist. Rather than

doing some of those things poorly, face your limita-tions head-on and find professionals who do well thethings that you dont. Yes, you could choose to lookat this as throwing money at a problem. However,you can also choose to look at it as investing in yourreputation as a quality publisher.

Notice that Ive used the word professionals todescribe the freelancers (or studio partners!) withwhom you should collaborate. By that, I mean peoplewho do the work in question on a regular, frequentbasis. 12 to Midnight has had success collaboratingwith people who are trying to break into the business(whatever business that may beart, editing, and soon), but the key is that they are actively pursuing that

goal and getting frequent practice at it. Your sister-in-law may have done a first-rate job of editing papersback in college, but skills like that tend to atrophywithout frequent use.

Speaking of editors, good editors are invaluable.Fans in this hobby are generously forgiving when it

comes to production quality, but expectations arerising. Good grammar and punctuation is invisibleto the reader, but bad grammar and punctuation islike a giant neon sign blinking amateur. If you onlyhave one spelling or grammatical error per page, youhave too many. Do not be the one who gives PDFsa bad name. If your editor doesnt make the manu-script bleed red on the first pass, it probably meansyou need a better editor.

7Reviews are worth their word-count ingold. Many reviewers only review print

products, and the ones who do reviewPDFs are buried in a deluge of reviewrequests. is is yet another result of too

many products and not enough fans. At one point,ENWorld PDF reviewers admitted to receiving morethan one new title a day.

Do not hang your marketing strategy on sendingyour PDF to a few reviewers and the next week hav-ing glowing reviews drive customers to your game. Itis an unfortunate reality that reviews often take morethan a month to appear after you provide a reviewer with a complimentary review copy. Speaking ofwhich, comp copies are pretty standard these daysand are not considered unethical. Offering any otherincentivesnamely anything with a cash value, suchas a coupon, discount, free t-shirt, etc.moves youinto a grey area or beyond.

I shouldnt have to tell you not to take your frus-trations with the slow review system out on reviewersthemselves. Most reviewers on Websites are unpaidvolunteers, which means they get to pick and choosewhat they review out of a pile of new titles. Loudlyclaiming some sort of entitlement on volunteers timeisnt a winning strategy.

Most reviewers do not have time to actually play-test your title. ey usually base their reviews on aread-through. Generally, the only time youll see aplaytest review is when one of your customers takesthe time to write one. Since theres absolutely no in-centive for them to do so, these are both the mostvaluable and most rare.


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In desperation, you may want to succumb to fanswho write to you or post in forums offering to reviewproducts. Tread carefully. Always ask to see links totheir previous reviews. Some will take your title andnever review it, while others, frankly, just dont writewell. Bad reviews are disappointing, but they come

with the territory. Badlywritten reviews (especiallyafteryourmanuscript was professionally edited) makeyou want to claw your eyes out. Trust me: you dont want to be kicking yourself for providing a compcopy to someone who spoils your surprise ending,completely misreads your creature description, fo-cuses only on the negative, or assumes that everyonehas the exact same likes and dislikes as he does.

Finally, at some point youll be tempted to responddirectly to a review. is is almost never a good idea.Badly written reviews mostly reflect back on the re-

viewer. Irate responses from publishers reflectverypubliclyon the publisher. If you absolutely feelcompelled to correct an error, stick to a short, simplestatement of fact. For example, say, e page countis actually 64 pages, not 46 pages as reported. Po-tential customers are going to think much better ofyou if you do not give in to your urge to express youropinion on the reviewers ability to form coherentsentences.

8Contract isnt a dirty word. Im nota lawyer and this isnt legal advice, yadayada yada. However, it isbusiness advice.At their most basic, contracts exist to avoidmisunderstandings. I put that in italics be-

cause if you walk away with nothing else from thisPDF then I hope you at least remember that. Whenyou hire a writer, artist, or layout person, or any ofthe other myriad jobs necessary to run a publishingcompany, put your expectations in writing. At thevery minimum, you should describe what you expect,when you expect it, in what format, how much yourepaying and when, and what happens if the freelancerfails to do what the contract says. Do not assumethefreelancer will do suchandsuch. It only takes anotherminute to write it out, and it could make all the dif-ference.

9Raise the bar. I mentioned it earliercus-tomer expectations are rising. Quality thatwas once acceptable just doesnt cut it any-more. Average is a rising standardas itshould be. You do RPG fans, yourself, and

the market a disservice by publishing an average

title. Before you even start down the path to pub-lishing your masterwork setting, be critical and askyourself how you plan to raise the bar above all theother settings out there. Will you invest hundreds ofdollars in high-quality art? Will you introduce newscripts, sounds, or effects to take advantage of thePDF format? Will you have well-edited text and aprofessional, easy-to-read layout? e answer doesnthave to be yes to all of the above, but if you cant finda way to raise the bar, then youd better at least befilling an empty niche.

Follow your dream. Ive usednine points to expound on whythis is going to be harder, moretime consuming, and more ex-pensive than you ever thought.Before that, I even told you not

to do it at all. Now let me give you some encourage-ment. If you really have a great idea burning in yourheart, then go for it. Be smart. Be cold and calculat-ing. Be methodical. Be persistent. You could writethe title that takes the RPG hobby by storm. If itdoesnt then maybe your next title, or the title af-ter that.

Treat your money with re-spect. (Bonus tip!) Talk to youraccountant about the best wayto handle state and federal taxes.Seek qualified advice on wheth-er your company/studio should

become a corporation or if a partnership would suityou better. Learn what is and isn't considered a tax

deductible expense, then learn what deductions arecommon flags for audits. If this doesn't sound likefun, then either find someone trustworthy who cando it for you or reconsider whether you really want tostart a business.

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CredentialsNow that you have read my adviceparticularlynumber 6let me put my money where my mouthis and share with you my background and that of mypartners.

Two friends, Jerry Blakemore and Ed Wetterman,had the same dreams of fame and fortune as mostnew PDF publishers. ey formed 12 to Midnightin late 2002, invited another friend, then me in thespring of 2003. We released our first title, Last Ritesof the Black Guard, in August of that same year. Sincethen 12 to Midnight has released dozens of titles, sup-ported two game systems, gained and lost additionalpartners, created a freely available campaign world,and been honored to support two design studios asimprints. In 2005 we incorporated, and the officers

elected me to be the president. Today the company iscomprised of the following individuals:Preston P. DuBose: ats me. I have 13 years

of experience in business communications, rangingfrom advertising and PR to desktop publishing anddesign. I also have intermediate skills as a webmaster.In addition to serving as 12 to Midnight's president,I am the art director, layout director, and co-webmas-ter. I have also been known to write and edit a thingor two.

Jerry Blakemore: Jerry is a certified public ac-

countant and also our chief financial officer. Not onlydoes Jerry file our taxes, calculate and pay royalties,and pay our bills, but he also writes and edits.

Ed Wetterman: Ed is a renaissance man, havingdone everything from running theme-park securityto improv comedy. Today he teaches in a high school,and his variety of experiences serve him well as execu-tive VP and writing machine.

TC Largent: TC is a professional draftsman. Hecould practically design a map in AutoCAD with hiseyes closed. His experience in the professional world

brings new levels of realism to our maps.Trey Gorden: Trey is a technical writer for a For-

tune 50 company. As 12 to Midnights lead editor,he has created a company style guide and documenttemplate that has improved the quality of manu-scripts 100%.

Neal Hyde: Neal just joined the company this fall,but his extensive writing experience shines throughin the quality of his writing and editing.

Brendan Quinn: Brendan also just joined thecompany this fall, but his years of experience in theIT field and Web development have already served12 to Midnight well. It is thanks to Brendan that thecompany recently opened its own online store, theMidnight Cellar.

Conclusionank you for taking a chance on something thatstarted asand which I intentionally designed tolook likea joke. By design, the advice in this PDFis fairly general. If you have more specific questionsabout running an e-publishing business or imprint-ing as a game design-studio, please feel free to stop byour company forum, the Midnight Haunt. Industrypros helped 12 to Midnight as we struggled to estab-

lish ourselves, and we believe in paying forward.Finally, I owe a big thanks to Trey Gorden for

editing this document. Any mistakes still in here wereundoubtedly introduced by me after his meticulouswork.
http://www.12tomidnight.com/forum/http://www.12tomidnight.com/forum/


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