OPEN CALL: NEVERMET PRESS Looking For Cartographers

[jonathanjacobs]

Nevermet Press is a new publishing company launched on July 6th that uses crowd sourcing, creative networking, and profit sharing to develop system neutral RPG gaming products. We currently have over 20 writers and five artists who are participating as Content Developers, but we want to expand considerably. While we do not pay commissions up front, these positions are work-for-hire positions that will pay royalties quarterly on a pro rata basis for product profit margins for as long as the product is in publication. Our website is also considered a "product", and once we kick in our freemium subscription service, all CDs will share in the revenue we generate. Currently, we are establishing our web presence and will be moving into PDF and print products later this year.

WRITERS: We are looking for several writers who are interested in fantasy, steampunk, scifi, or modern genres and who are capable of developing content independent of any one game system. Structured Fiction is what some are calling it.

CARTOGRAPHERS: We are looking for 3 or 4 cartographers who would be able to produce one _decent_ map per month. These maps will be everything from small-scale combat "encounter maps" for RPGs, all the way up to large scale region/continental world maps as needed.

ARTISTS: We are looking for several artists who are interested in fantasy, steampunk, scifi, or modern genres to do B&W and color illustrations for a variety of roleplaying game topics.

Our first publication cycle, The Desire, launched on Monday, July 6th and will feature 13 articles and illustrations by about a dozen different content developers. Internally, we are finishing up the development of cycle 2 (later half of July), and beginning the content development for cycles for August. Our main goal at this point is to expand our readership by providing quality content on a daily basis.

If you like working with a dymanic group that offers lots of flexibility, maximum creativity, and minimal "client input" - please send a cover letter and a sample of your work to jonathan.jacobs@gmail.com. In addition, you may want to check out www.nevermetpress.com to get an idea as to what we are doing.

I look forward to hearing from you.

[torstan]

I think many people here will be interested in this. Can I request a little more information? The obvious question here is pay. How are you generating revenue? You refer to a 'freemium subsrciption service'. What is this? What degree of revenue are you aiming to generate (realistically!)?

The next question is how the profits will be divided. What percentage of these profits would go to the cartographer who created a battlemap in a given month?

I know you guys have done some pretty serious projects in the past (Open Gametable and the Core Mechanic spring to mind) so I'm sure this is well thought through. I'd be glad of any expansion on the compensation that could be expected from involvement in the project.

[zhar2]

Sounds interesting, and one map per month isnt trouble at all, for the artist bit im ok at nearlly everyting though my human figure isnt so dynamic to where id like it to be.

[töff]

Guilds used to fix prices. At the mention of pay, are we all clamoring to underbid each other by private email?

[ravells]

Guilds used to fix prices. At the mention of pay, are we all clamoring to underbid each other by private email?

Toff that very same thought occured to me (ha ha and the Guild would normally get a percentage too - for which read a contribution to Arcana's running costs for the hosting the site). Let me speak to the other CLs about this, although I fear that enforcement will be toothless as if people wanted to undercut the most we could do is to ban that person from the guild and that's getting into murky territory and I'm not sure if price cartels are in the spirit of what we are trying to do here

Seriously, it would be nice to see more 'gracious donors' to the site in recognition of Arcana's outlay to make this place available to all of us and the time we spend here.

p.s. Eeep: just noticed that you're not one!

[töff]

enforcement will be toothless

It would probably drive members away ... members like, oh, maybe me ...

would be nice to see more 'gracious donors' ... just noticed that you're not one!

Guilty as charged, primarily due to all-but-empty pockets. I pledge to take the next $20 that anybody donates to the sites I run, and pass it straight to CG. Or if I ever pick up a commission off here, I'll split it 50-50. (Somebody remind me of that, if the day ever comes!)

But you know what ... it'd be awesome if every commission solicited thru this site got a voluntary 10% tithe from the bid winner. Maybe in addition to 'generous donor' CG might create a category called, um ... well I dunno what it would be called. Taxpayer?

[Gamerprinter]

Just thought I'd mention to you, that I don't strive to under bid other Cartographers. I've been told by four small publishers, that I am more expensive than most offering bids for pro cartography work, yet I still get commissions (and from all four of them too). So I don't worry about my price, even if its seemingly higher than most, I am still buried in commission work.

For example, I only did one map for Mongoose. Once they told me what they wanted to pay, I said, "no, thank you." and went on my way to other publishers.

GP

PS: too busy to get involved with this project, though.

PPS: more and more publishers find my site directly and contact me from there, I hardly get commissions from here anymore. Though I might do another kickback to the CG, once Kaidan gets going - that's kind of expensive for me at the moment.

[jonathanjacobs]

Thanks for all the info on bidding and undercutting and what not, but unfortunately we do not pay commissions up front. Sure, you might be thinking "Good luck with that..." and I fully expect that Nevermet Press is not the sort of thing most artists, writers or cartographers will want to get involved in simply becuase we do not pay any commissions. It's all about revenue sharing and crowd sourcing. As I'm very new to the publishing industry I have to honestly say that I'm not experienced enough to know how much a good map costs, or even what an acceptable bid would be. So, happliy, our business model somewhat removes that issue from the equation. Everyone shares in the success of failure of the company by the quality of the content they develop.

Hopefully we'll get lucky and one or two of the cartgraphers on this forum who are not buried in commission work (congrats to you btw!) will find the time to work with us. In the meantime, thanks again! and drop by sometime!

[jonathanjacobs]

ABout revenue/royalties -- content developers get paid on a pro rata basis according to how much they contribute. Writers get 30% of the profits divided by word count; Artists/Cartographers also get 30% divided by "shares". Each art piece or map is assigned a share value, which is used to determine the break down of profit sharing. In general, each 1/4 page B&W illustration is worth one share, larger color pieces or big 50 x 120 maps (joking) are worth more. Each piece is assigned a share in the contracts. I should add .. to clarify.. that NMP is currently not earning any revenue. Our first objective is to build a reader base for the website, in a month or so we will launch a freemium community support plan where people can choose to pay a small monthly fee for additional bennies (high res versions of the art and maps, custom content, additional forum privileges, access to the content developers forum, etc). But all the online content will be freely available. Once we launch that serve, we then will begin to produce PDFs for download (likely for free for subscribers) or for purchase through RPGNow and Kindle, all with the goal of everything supporting our first book, The Villain Manual, which we want to publish early next year (Xmas is not going to happen, we all have real jobs that limit the time we could put in). Studio2Publishing is our distributor.

did I miss anything?

There's more information in the Nevermet Press forums - go here

http://nevermetpress.com/forum/gener...evelopers-faq/

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Cheers, Jonathan.

[torstan]

Thanks for the clarification Jonathan. That covers all my questions. Other members here may have others. I'm too busy to pitch in, but best of luck with the venture - it sounds really interesting.