Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Roolipelaaja #23 has My Name on the Cover!


It's in the upper left corner. I hope the reviews are good.. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

I've got a scheduled podcast appearance happening soon as well, and I'll give more detail about that once it's recorded. I'm still waiting on a few reviews from unusual sources (one which is sure to rip me a new asshole, but that's what I signed up for).

Today is the two month mark for LotFP as an official business. My records show 420 total books sold in print and PDF form. The actual totals are a bit bigger but this is what I've been paid for so far; this month's pdf sales revenue doesn't come in until next month. It's not that impressive revenue-wise when you consider that counts six books, half of those Green Devil Faces which aren't exactly cash cows for me (I do those for the fun only), but I think that's a solid start.

(so if you're one of those stores I've contacted in the UK, Australia, Germany, or France... I can move a couple of books at least, I'm not asking you to stock shelf-rotters... :P)

Work continues as always on Insect Shrine. All the primary artwork is of course complete and you've seen the cover in dazzling cover. I still have to collect the "filler" artwork from Laura for scanning, and Aino is supposed to contribute a filler pic as well just so she's got something in there as well. I have received the first completed map from Ramsey Dow and it looks great, so if the rest look even half as good the maps will be 1000 times greater in quality than they have been.

I expect to finish off the writing before the weekend, and have my internal revising done within a week after that... and then the final version needs playtesting. I'll make announcements here calling for a Skype Squadron when it's ready.

Everything seems to take longer than it should on this project, and after having that dream about the Insect God I wonder if there's something more to it all. No matter, it will get done, and you shall all be amazed, both on the refereeing side and on the playing side.

At least you better be. ;) I'm going for broke on this one. No half-assing allowed.

And a request: For you PDF customers out there: I'd like some feedback. I've heard not a single word from you about your purchases. I'm not a PDF-user or buyer myself, so my PDF products are just pure guesswork as to what makes them useful and attractive to you. How am I doing? Are they adequate? Pretty good? Absolute shit? With no feedback, I'm just going to keep doing future PDFs the same as I did the previous ones. If there is something I should be doing that I'm not, please let me know so I can address it. I don't like flying blind.

10 comments:

  1. I bought DFD, No Dignity, and Pembrooktonshire on pdf. I'll keep this relevant to delivery and the PDF layout, as I'm sure you've already got a ton of feedback on the actual content.

    The process of getting them went very smooth and very quick; there were no wacky antics there. I did like that you put two different paper sizes in there, and separate files for player handouts and things. That's really, really nice for printing them out and keeping them in a Standard-Issue DM Binder. (Although splitting the two formats into subfolders would've been a bit less confusing at first - When I first looked at DFD, I originally thought A4 referred to a section of the dungeon or something) And the files are searchable, so that's a plus too.

    That said: it would be nice to have a complete PDF, with all the maps, art, handouts, and relevant info for the adventure compiled into a single file. It makes your PDF more easily searchable to those of us who use computerized notes to avoid table clutter. IIRC, No Dignity in Death in particular had important info scattered through a couple of files, which can make it a pain to find what you are looking for sometimes. I'd imagine having one big file would be better for working from an iPhone or Blackberry, too, but I don't actually own one, so I'm speculating on that.

    PDF bookmarks for the major sections would also be useful for the crowd that plays directly from the computer. That sort of thing lets you avoid a lot of annoying scrolling around. In particular, bookmarks hopping to major infodumps or the details of important NPCs would be extremely useful in play. Your layouts are generally pretty logical, but sometimes NPCs hide in the weirdest places.

    All in all, I was pretty happy with my PDF purchase. It wasn't perfect, but a solid 4.5/5 stars, and would - and did - buy again.

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  2. James, you're selling an average of 7 products each day? That's awesome. :D

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  3. Well a good chunk of sales comes from Noble Knight's order when I release something new. It's not that steady every day.

    And Rob, any comments about content are very welcome. :) But that info about the pdf formatting is definitely useful.

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  4. I bought Green Devil Face 1 and 2 and Death Frost Doom in pdf form. I love that your PDFs are short, readable, and easy to print if you want. The length has meant that I don't need fancy bells and whistles like bookmarks and the like, and I find them easy to read.

    Short, easy to read on the laptop, easy to print if I want, reasonably priced. All good.

    Green Devil Face didn't thrill me, but I could have guessed that going in. Well-written, enthusiastic, and not my cup of tea. Death Frost Doom was full of win, even if I'm unlikely to use it as anything but a one-shot game. I was happy content-wise with all three, and will likely buy more PDFs later on.

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  5. I'm a paper-copy guy myself, and have no qualms about paying a premium for new 0e content.

    What's with the vampire teeth on the cover of that mag?

    Word verification - cripo: an awesome name for a thief.

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  6. I've purchased Green Devil Face 1-3, Death Frost Doom, and, of course, the Random Esoteric Creature Generator. All were PDFs. I agree that one file with bookmarks would be helpful. I'm hoping to run Death Frost Doom this weekend (if we do, I'll post session notes.

    Dudes and dudettes: be sure to post reviews (even if their short and pithy) whenever possible on the rpg pdf retails sites.

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  7. >>What's with the vampire teeth on the cover of that mag?

    I have no idea. Maybe it's related to the food article they're running.

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  8. I just put my stuff up last week. 800+ downloads (my items are free) and only 4 reviews. Go figure. :D

    I'd be interested in your opinion of one of my items - Ye Olde Shoppe. It's just a collection/expansion of mundane items and services, sticking as close to D&D canon prices as possible. I wonder if you would find it useful for OS gaming?

    www.WorldOfPrime.com

    P.S. What's the difference between RPGNow and DriveThruRPG? Other than the color scheme, I mean. :D

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  9. At Your Games Now, the webpage link for the No Dignity/PoP bundle is broken. Firefox can't find the web page.

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