This has been one of those weeks where I have been bounced from one thing to another.
First Up Deal of the Day
I got the notification late on Monday, that it would be live on Tuesday, but this was a time when I really struggled to be online.
As I had all the files I needed locally, I spent the time updating all my solo covers to the ones you can see in the video thumbnail.
I call these Mock Ups. I started doing it for new titles that I was going to put into Print. My goal between March 2021 and March 2022 is to get everything that I can print on demand, into print. Community Content is a block of titles that mostly cannot be put into print, and some of these titles are only one or two pages, so they cannot be printed via POD easily either.
I have plans for those!
Mock Up Covers
These are expanding, but also something I am experimenting with. I want mock-ups for one-page things, using a tri-fold look, those are the ones I am working on at the moment. I am also looking at mock-ups for the card decks, showing the pack and cards. Finally, I want to something with phone PDFs and VTT and there are some really nice looking phone + tablet mock-ups available. These are not difficult. It is just time to make them, and then refining them until you get the look you like.
I don’t suggest copying what I do, it is a style that I have developed for me, but if you look at War Hammer books, they are instantly recognisable, the same is true for Delta Green. As long as you can develop a house style and you can stand out in the crowd of covers on DTRPG, then it should work for you.
Talking of Print
I am gearing up to send all of the Cut Up Solo titles to print. I think I have everything I need in place. I am just waiting for a print proof to arrive. If that is good, then the others can be rolled out.
Last week, the little “New” star, you can see it as the first icon in the thumbnail above, was next to 1001 Nights. This week it is next to Rogue Handler, which has been re-released as system neutral.
Next week it will be next to a new card deck. These are based upon the system neutral Rogue Handler book but contain a lot more prompts.
It is generally accepted that if you release print & PDF on the same day, that you will sell more print copies. People who have the digital version are unlikely to buy the print later, and there is no easy mechanism for discounting a print copy if someone already owns the PDF. You can do that at the time of sale, but not after the event.
I have done that in the Grim & Perilous Library, but not with my own titles.
Card Deck proofs take about a month to get to me. I could very easily set up the digital card product, and do a DotD for DriveThruCards, and then a month later do a second DotD when the physical deck arrives. Two bites of the cherry, and a DotD on DTCards is just a single publisher promotion point. You earn publisher points at a rate of 1 per $10 of gross sales, as long as I generate at least $10 in sales from the DotD, it will pay for itself. If I generate more than $10, it will be contributing to the pot of points that I have for DriveThruRPG deals, which cost 600+ Publisher Points.
Patreon
My Patreon is now a little over a week old.
In the Solo RPG space, 10 to 20 patrons seems normal and the two most popular patreon accounts have 160 and 216 patrons.
I currently have 15 people who have very generously agreed to support my writing.
So I am in the middle of the ‘normal range’ which is comforting. Where I would like to be is nearer the top of the top range. The carrot that Patreons dangles is that of the rare few accounts that make many thousands of dollars per month, even in the RPG space there are people making $14,000 a month. It can be done, but not, I suspect, in the solo RPG niche.
I think I have had an initial rush of beginners enthusiasm. I am expecting it to remain steady now until mid-June when I would like to see the community grow again.
I will let you know how it goes.