Quote from: Zachary The FirstOh, you know it's on my list, baby.  Porter.  Semmes.  Farragut. It's gonna happen.
 
I've actually started and stopped an RPG based on the Civil War several times--maybe this will give me the oomph I need to git er done.

Interested in writing an In Harm's Way game on it?

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceInterested in writing an In Harm's Way game on it?
 
-clash

er...how about "contribute"?

Quote from: flyingmiceInterested in writing an In Harm's Way game on it?

-clash

Hey! Hands off man! He has a bunch of writing ahead as is.

Seriously, is it the kind of thing that you could reuse some of the Historical Cast or even include a copy in the Zip for the In Harms Way supplement. Kind of a supplement for the supplement. Sensitive subject but perhaps you could come up with a conversion table for the conversion Appendix?

Bill

Quote from: Zachary The Firster...how about "contribute"?

Don't worry, Zachary. I have plenty on my plate for now...

-clash

Quote from: HinterWeltHey! Hands off man! He has a bunch of writing ahead as is.

Seriously, is it the kind of thing that you could reuse some of the Historical Cast or even include a copy in the Zip for the In Harms Way supplement. Kind of a supplement for the supplement. Sensitive subject but perhaps you could come up with a conversion table for the conversion Appendix?

Bill

Possibly, but In Harm's Way is a historical military game line, not a game. If I did a US Civil War version, it would be a full game, not a supplement. It's not in the cards for the immediate future, though. There are three more IHW games in queue already.

I could certainly set up a conversion for the StarCluster System (used in In Harm's Way) for the appendix. It's be no problem. I would certainly be havily recommending the Historical Cast line for the IHW games.

-clash

Ok, so next up in the discussion: this is going to be for-profit I take it? (and I approve of that)
How will the profits (if indeed there ends up being any) be split?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditOk, so next up in the discussion: this is going to be for-profit I take it? (and I approve of that)
How will the profits (if indeed there ends up being any) be split?

RPGPundit

Well, I will share what I have heard for royalty payments. On the much more common side I have been told 20% is usual. Many small press go to 50%. I have not heard of anyone going higher.

For my part, let's list what is expected of HinterWelt and me.
1. Layout - Takin a manuscript and fitting it into book format including indexing, TOC, Credits, OGL and any other referencing.

2. Editing - Linda is tentatively on board and if not then I will find and employ a freelance editor. I know of several and have worked with a few.

3. Print brokering - Get the product printed, oversee QC and front any money needed for a print run (I do not expect to have to but you never know).

4. Enter it into distribution. Not much work here but it will require releasing product info 3 months ahead of time to the distro rags and various other promotions.

5. Cover creation - mostly done and I will be drawing heavily on other people because I suck at writing back of the book text.

From the author:
1. Research - we want an accurate manuscript with a gaming focus.

2. The Manuscript - we want the author to follow our style guide.

3. Reasonable first draft - meaning read your work. Make sure it is reasonably error free. It does not have to be perfect but it makes the process go smoother if you read through and make your own revisions/corrections before handing off to the editor.

Now, in a perfect world, I want to see Zach receive something for coming up with the idea and I expect him to earn it, somewhat, by directing the project. That means he reads every manuscript and approves them. Nothing too onerous but it is always good to get eyes on the manuscript.

So, what doe this mean. I think it would be fair to have 50% to HinterWelt, 10% to Zach and 40% to the Author of the Net of each sale, paid on a monthly basis. This is not written in stone and I am open to other's ideas on the matter.

A quick explanation of net. Net will differ depending on method of distribution. We will consider all expenses before divying up the profits. This should not be too bad as I will use my membership at Clipart.com and not charge the project. No one will draw a salary but we may need to pay freelancers. Art or Editing may come up. I will front the money if this is the case but the project will pay me back first. So, if we incur a $50 expense, the first $50 will go to paying that back.

Now, a note on the different distribution routes.
PDF at RPGNow: 65% of cover. If we charge $3 per book we make 1.95. Zach gets $.20, Author gets $.78 and .97 for HinterWelt.

PDF at YGN: 75% (perhaps less but let's take WCS) of cover. If we charge $3 per book we make 2.25. Zach gets $.23, Author gets $.90 and 1.12 for HinterWelt.

Print through Distro: 33% of cover. Selling a compilation of a period. So, a 60 page, soft cover, perfect bound, digest size book would most likely retail around $10-14. If we charge $10 per book we make 3.33. Zach gets $.33, Author gets $1.33 and 1.67 for HinterWelt.

The big difference is that an average title for us (HinterWelt) will sell around 50 PDFs. This can be larger. XRP sold 2000 of Medieval Western Society and I think this product could be comparable but I do not want to get anyone's hopes up. Through distro, HinterWelt can move about 300 of anything in around 90-120 days. Sales drop off after that but this could be an evergreen product. Again, not trying to get anyone's hopes up.

So, that is how I see it.

Thoughts? Questions?

Bill

Forgot about direct sales. I would sell it off of the HinterWelt site and there we would get just under 100% (I think it is $.30 +1.5% for Paypal). So call it 9.50 and we would split that up as above.

Bill

That sounds more than fair, Bill.  I'm all in, and would be happy to sign an agreement to the effect.  I had hoped in some capacity to lay eyes on the books--though I'll leave the editing to the pros, but I'd really like to earn my keep on this as well.

Personally, I think Pundit's Rome work will sell much better than my first Civil War bits (I'm excited to do the battles series), but there are enough eras I'm sure we can eventually have something for everyone.

I was mostly interested in the question of the "percentage of profits" (which is by definition net); and yes, I think 50/10/40 is fair enough.

Now, would someone like to e-mail or PM me a copy of that template or whatever it is that's on hinterwelt's forum? I know I'll have to sign up there eventually if I go through with this, but at the moment I'm just not in the mood to go through the whole sign-up process.

RPGPundit

My plate is completely full right now, but colour me interested.

Jong might be a good candidate to eventually work on a book on the Banda Oriental (the River Plate region during the big wars of independence and subsequent civil wars in the first half of the 19th century), if the first couple of books were successful.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditI was mostly interested in the question of the "percentage of profits" (which is by definition net); and yes, I think 50/10/40 is fair enough.

Now, would someone like to e-mail or PM me a copy of that template or whatever it is that's on hinterwelt's forum? I know I'll have to sign up there eventually if I go through with this, but at the moment I'm just not in the mood to go through the whole sign-up process.

RPGPundit

There is no template, just the outline we came up with.  Download Here.  If you follow that (I posted a PDF of the outline there) and work in Word, a Text editor or RTF, I can take it from there and format. The only formatting you need to worry about is:
1. headings - the outline main headings like General Overview, Personality and some sub headings.

2. Any tables you want should be clearly marked as such or tables already depending on the software you are using.

I imagine a lot of this will be what Zach comes up with. If you follow the outline (not restrictively but in general form) we should be good.

Clear?

Bill

Ok, the next issue is the "conversion" appendix.  We'd need someone to figure out conversion guidelines to do a conversion from the stats/attributes to whatever other systems we wanted to present.

I'd be pretty lost for that part.

RPGPundit

PS: mind you, the good news is that we'd probably only have to do it once. The same appendix could be put into every product.

Quote from: RPGPunditOk, the next issue is the "conversion" appendix. We'd need someone to figure out conversion guidelines to do a conversion from the stats/attributes to whatever other systems we wanted to present.
 
I'd be pretty lost for that part.
 
RPGPundit
 
PS: mind you, the good news is that we'd probably only have to do it once. The same appendix could be put into every product.

Precisely my thinking. I think we have, what?--d20, Iridium, FUDGE, and possibly SC2 as the systems we'll convert to, right? Higher up in this thread, we've already seen a few of them postulated. I guess we can fine-tune that as we get the m/s submissions done over at the HW forums.  Do it once, and we're home free.
 
EDIT: BTW, Pundit, if this takes off, and I'm thinking down the road here, or at least does tolerably well, I was thinking it would be cool to offer Spanish versions. We have at least 2-3 of us on board who speak Spanish (though mine has been subverted into an Andalucian mess). I think given the personnel we have, we'd have a really cool opportunity to get this into some different markets.
 
But as I said, down the road, down the road.