A vent of frustration

[J.Edward]

Larb - are you talking about things like Obsidian Portal and Roll20?

[Gamerprinter]

Well lately I've been creating detailed maps as personal projects that once complete, I post it to DrivethruRPG for a nominal price. Rather than creating maps for specific private commissions, I create my own concepts for things like Gothic Castle, or my recent Neptune Undersea Science Station, which I will placing the DrivethruRPG towards the end of the month. These private maps are designed for use with VT apps like Roll20. I'm all for providing products that can be used by the general gaming public, but instead of forcing each map to be created and paid for up front, I'm comfortable in creating them based on my own ideas, yet be generic enough to be useful in many games, settings for personal play. I actually have fans waiting in line for the release of each of these, which I then sell for betweem $2.99 to $4.99 in both printable PDF format, and as a Zip file containing VT ready maps. My Gothic Castle (first such product) has generated about $250 in sales over the last year. Hopefully in a couple years, I'll have dozens of such products consistently selling over time.

I guess I'd rather present my own ideas useful to many people, rather than making a design specific to one individual's concepts for one personal game. I get more exposure and make more money using my business model rather than doing so one commission at a time.

[J.Edward]

Thanks for that info GP. I was thinking of doing something like that as well but was not familiar enough as yet.
Do you have any advice on DTRPG? Is there anything one has to do before being able to create product for that?
You can message if you'd prefer. Any assistance there would be great and well appreciated.

[Gamerprinter]

DTRPG takes 30%, and they periodically hold discount periods (twice a year, mandatory), where your products must be priced at a lower price point (50%). Other online platforms take more %, so DTRPG is a good deal. DTRPG is the largest online platform for RPG products, and there are several other website platforms, that is just a different face of DTRPG - your products are sold on all platforms.

The backend of DTRPG, is uploading your products, setting a cover price, indicating whether it is a PDF file or something else, page count, MB size and a few other details, including giving your product some kind of SKU (mine is GPS00001+). Shoot me, but I can't think of the name of the organization, but there is one for RPG distribution, which is where I registered my trade code "GPS". Note: GPS stands for Gamer Printshop (my company), but conveniently is a very precise code for cartography.

Every product goes through a vetting process, where a someone at DTRPG has to look at your product, and meet approval - all products I've submitted meet approval, so its not been a problem. Once accepted, you set the release date, and on that date it goes public on site.

Every publisher (which is what you'll be if you sell anything on DTRPG) has his own publisher page that contains all your products, with publisher and product searchable from the home page.

As DTRPG publisher, you can offer free products to all or specific customers, should you need to. I've been fulfilling my Kickstarter products to backers as using this free product mechanism.

[su_liam]

So does Drivethru demand any upfront payment?

[Gamerprinter]

No, none. Consider that my Kickstarter fulfillment mechanism, I've forwarded hundreds of free product (since it was already paid for in the KS), and DTRPG charges me nothing to do that. There is no up front cost, though you do have to apply for publisher status. If you sell nothing, you earn nothing, but there is no cost to you from DTRPG. The only time DTRPG takes money, is when they collect their 30% upon customer fulfillment of a product. Already stated DTRPG is the world's largest online platform for RPG products.

[J.Edward]

Thank you for the info GP. Much appreciated.

[Jaxilon]

Yes, thanks for the details. One if these days I'd like to follow thru on this myself but I currently have to many project ideas begging my attention.

[su_liam]

So good for the no-risk speculative trade. Unlike the OP, I've never had any expectation of any financial kickback. So if a DTRPG posted item makes a little extra scratch, yay! If not, it was a good hobbyist's effort, and served my own gaming purposes.

[Gamerprinter]

Just to add, although my one mentioned product, the Gothic Castle map set, only earned $250 last year (and some think that's what should have been charged as a one-time commission). The real secret for RPG publisher sales is having a large stable of products. Speculating that a given product might earn $250 (no guarantee of anything, of course), but having a 100 products on your site has the potential of earning $25,000 a year. Although over time some items will sell less and less, so you'll need to add fresh product on an ongoing basis, but these sales will go year to year, and not just one year of sales. Whether you are a full RPG publisher or a cartographer like us, this is the business model that works best in our very niche market.