Quote:
Originally Posted by hal
What keeps either of you or Dan Howard, from putting together said "books" in PDF format, and then selling them on RPGNOW.COM?
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Dan's already doing it with his Castles books, but what's stopping me are quality of finished product and return on investment.
For the first, if I'm writing for a publisher, there's a QA process. There's an editor, and there's someone who does layout and pre-press stuff. The editor doesn't just fix spelling and grammar. The editor asks questions I haven't thought of and points out more than just technical flaws with the writing which I haven't noticed, and the man who many who does his own editing has a fool for both patron and client. There's also a skill set for laying out text for publication, and it's more complex when you throw a bunch of graphical elements like maps into the equation. That's a skill set I don't have. Both of those people make my book better, so I want them involved. It's certainly possible to hire such people, but I'm intensely averse to being a manager (another key skill set!), and it costs money up front, and that takes us to point #2...
For the second, the impression I've gotten is that, in the final analysis, I'm likely to make more money if I'm writing for a publisher than self-publishing. I know a number of people who have gone the self-publishing route, and some back-of-the-envelope math suggests that my royalties for the GURPS books I've written are better than the lion's-share-of-the-proceeds for most books they've written. There are exceptions, to be sure, but the math doesn't look like it's in my favor, and the obstacles posed by working with a publisher (for example, giant cybertanks blocking the way) are worth it in the final analysis.
This is not to say that things might not change that equation at some point in the future, but for the moment, if I'm going to write professionally, I'll work through a process which produces what I feel is the best work and the most pleasing profit. If I write stuff which I'm confident will never see professional publication but want to put out anyway, I'm likely to just put it up on the web somewhere without the expectation of it being salable.