mbassoc2003 wrote:3. Black Blade seems to be in a hiatus. Why? Is there a lack of material being offered in the market for publishers to publish, or is there a lack of time and resource vs. perceived return for putting in the time and effort? I know there were discussions of reprints of Starstome, Castle of the Mad Archmage and the Seren Ironhand bookend modules. It appears as though there is an issue of a credible return for putting in the time and effort needed to take the material and create a publishable product from it.
beasterbrook wrote:[*]Starstone: requires an OCR scan or transcription of the module text before editing or layout can beginsure there is one already for this.. I'm just assuming..
beasterbrook wrote:[*]Castle of the Mad Archmage: it's a _huge_ project, and will take considerable time and funds-raising to bring to market (50+ maps ain't cheap; we knew this going in, but still aren't willing to sacrifice product quality to speed up the box set's time to market); given that we made minimal headway in 2011 on it, we'll release more info/details when we are able to do better than "in late 2012, hopefully" one word.. KICKSTARTER!.. trust me on this one!
grodog wrote:[*]Starstone: requires an OCR scan or transcription of the module text before editing or layout can begin. [*]CH-1 The Morandir Company and CH-3 The Mountain King.
mbassoc2003 wrote:grodog wrote:[*]Starstone: requires an OCR scan or transcription of the module text before editing or layout can begin. [*]CH-1 The Morandir Company and CH-3 The Mountain King.If you give me a few months, I'll try and get these to you in MSWord format.
grodog wrote:mbassoc2003 wrote:If you give me a few months, I'll try and get these to you in MSWord format.That would be great, Ian: is it easy to produce/export a .txt, .rtf, or .doc/.docx file from an OCR .pdf? I know I can cut/paste the text, but am not sure if that's necessarily advisable vs. some sort of export process (if such a thing exists, and would preserve formatting better or whatever).
mbassoc2003 wrote:If you give me a few months, I'll try and get these to you in MSWord format.
Busman wrote:grodog wrote:[I]s it easy to produce/export a .txt, .rtf, or .doc/.docx file from an OCR .pdf? I know I can cut/paste the text, but am not sure if that's necessarily advisable vs. some sort of export process (if such a thing exists, and would preserve formatting better or whatever).How many pages is the thing? As I mentioned in my pm, if you're not retypesetting, you can do 2-4 pages a night from scratch pretty easily. If you've got an OCR copy, well, then it's basically all done for you and it's just a matter of going through and editing it for typos, etc. Are you looking to retypeset it in Word?
grodog wrote:[I]s it easy to produce/export a .txt, .rtf, or .doc/.docx file from an OCR .pdf? I know I can cut/paste the text, but am not sure if that's necessarily advisable vs. some sort of export process (if such a thing exists, and would preserve formatting better or whatever).
Busman wrote:I usually just copy from the PDF and paste into word and fix. I've not tried the conversion programs yet.
grodog wrote:Sorry for the slow reply, just read the thread Ian.mbassoc2003 wrote:3. Black Blade seems to be in a hiatus**. Why? Is there a lack of material being offered in the market for publishers to publish, or is there a lack of time and resource vs. perceived return for putting in the time and effort? I know there were discussions of reprints of Starstome, Castle of the Mad Archmage and the Seren Ironhand bookend modules. It appears as though there is an issue of a credible return for putting in the time and effort needed to take the material and create a publishable product from it.No, credible time rather than credible return has been our issue. Carving out time to work on the projects was difficult throughout 2011: Jon's been completely snowed under with work*, and I've been merely insanely busy. To your project-specific questions:Starstone: requires an OCR scan or transcription of the module text before editing or layout can beginCastle of the Mad Archmage: it's a _huge_ project, and will take considerable time and funds-raising to bring to market (50+ maps ain't cheap; we knew this going in, but still aren't willing to sacrifice product quality to speed up the box set's time to market); given that we made minimal headway in 2011 on it, we'll release more info/details when we are able to do better than "in late 2012, hopefully" CH-1 The Morandir Company and CH-3 The Mountain King (the bookend manuscripts to CH-2 Seren Ironhand): require an OCR scan or transcription of the module text before editing or layout can beginThat help? * real work, that keeps our families fed and all that---not this RPG stuff
mbassoc2003 wrote:3. Black Blade seems to be in a hiatus**. Why? Is there a lack of material being offered in the market for publishers to publish, or is there a lack of time and resource vs. perceived return for putting in the time and effort? I know there were discussions of reprints of Starstome, Castle of the Mad Archmage and the Seren Ironhand bookend modules. It appears as though there is an issue of a credible return for putting in the time and effort needed to take the material and create a publishable product from it.
mbassoc2003 wrote:Other than reprinting the old ruleset, has BB published anything new in the past couple of years? Any adventures or new 1E conversions of existing adventures? I remember buying Smuggler's Cove and something else many years ago, but I got the impression that the company was then put on ice for want of new material/time/money.
bbarsh wrote:1. Do most of these ventures struggle solely with the issue of achieving sales of the finished product? Do they manage 50 units before having problems? Or is it 100, 300, 500 units before they feel they've saturated their market? And what are the parameters for optimum printing? I remember AGP saying their optimum return was on a BW product of 16 pages.I am not sure about a saturation point overall, but certain products sell better than others. For example my T1 still outsells all other in print modules (except new releases in their first month). Without pulling out my spreadsheet, I think it is just over 300 copies sold to date. Most of the other modules I have done are less than 200 copies.
1. Do most of these ventures struggle solely with the issue of achieving sales of the finished product? Do they manage 50 units before having problems? Or is it 100, 300, 500 units before they feel they've saturated their market? And what are the parameters for optimum printing? I remember AGP saying their optimum return was on a BW product of 16 pages.
2. NTRPGCon seem to have the digest sized printing down to a tee. At this size, are you able/willing to discuss cost per unit printed? And how mauch time is put into assembling and proofing each product prior to publishing it?The problem with the NTX digest modules is that they are pure collector items, for the most part. Their target buyer is most often the collector. Nothing negative about that, but they are not what I would consider a more mass-market product, if that can really be said about any OSR stuff.
2. NTRPGCon seem to have the digest sized printing down to a tee. At this size, are you able/willing to discuss cost per unit printed? And how mauch time is put into assembling and proofing each product prior to publishing it?
4. What do FGG and GG have that make their product more viable than others on the market? How do they achieve the sales they do, and afford to pay for quality artwork and cartography? Is it purely a case of having thousands in the bank, or is there something they 'get' that the smaller presses don't understand yet? How do these companies' business models vary from those of other publishers? And why are their prodcts larger, better typeset, and better presented than the rest?Yes, it is money. Also, I think many of their products cross platforms so this helps drive their sales. They are also well-established and the products are solid. But it can't be stated loud enough that good art costs money - big money in relation to OSR sales numbers. Getting an established (named artist) to do a cover is typically going to cost you several hundred dollars (and usually more). If you drop $800 or so on art, you are way behind the profit curve unless you can sell about 200 copies minimum to break even. Assuming you are selling a $10 book at about 32 pages.
4. What do FGG and GG have that make their product more viable than others on the market? How do they achieve the sales they do, and afford to pay for quality artwork and cartography? Is it purely a case of having thousands in the bank, or is there something they 'get' that the smaller presses don't understand yet? How do these companies' business models vary from those of other publishers? And why are their prodcts larger, better typeset, and better presented than the rest?
5. What size of production team does it take to put out a product? What are the dispensible skills and resources a small time publisher can do without, and what impact does omitting those resources have on the final product, its sales, and the publishers perception in the marketplace?Well, you can have people do all kinds of work for you. Layout, design, art, mailing, etc. All of that stuff costs money. That word again. With work and time, you can do much of the production on your own. But unless you have no life (and no full time job), you have to make time to get this stuff done. Definately can be done, and is in many cases, but it is not easy.
5. What size of production team does it take to put out a product? What are the dispensible skills and resources a small time publisher can do without, and what impact does omitting those resources have on the final product, its sales, and the publishers perception in the marketplace?
Thork N Hammer wrote:I know that Guy Fullerton has a working relationship with a local printer. Whether that affords him special considerations, I do not know. But he usually orders print runs of 50 thereabouts. From what he's told me(and I hope he sees this and pipes in) his unit cost is not all that high--less than Lulu. Which, to me, suggests some kind or "working deal" with the printer. But Guy's business is beyond d&d adventures, so that might have some bearing as well. I simply do not know.
mbassoc2003 wrote:1. Do most of these ventures struggle solely with the issue of achieving sales of the finished product? Do they manage 50 units before having problems? Or is it 100, 300, 500 units before they feel they've saturated their market? And what are the parameters for optimum printing? I remember AGP saying their optimum return was on a BW product of 16 pages.
4. What do FGG and GG have that make their product more viable than others on the market? How do they achieve the sales they do, and afford to pay for quality artwork and cartography?
And why are their prodcts larger, better typeset, and better presented than the rest?
5. What size of production team does it take to put out a product?
Guy Fullerton wrote:The editor and author simply should not be the same person.