need of maps and art

[rhos]

need map makers

we are currently focused on the middle ages fantasy, much like the classic D&D or AD&D 2nd Ed. grew up with D&D / AD&D and Harnmaster. the pubs we want to get out will be detail and art heavy, to provide extra resources and material to make and campaign 3D and not the 2d Standard that has become the norm.

we are also trying to get away from the big company mentality of money, money, money.... it often seems that they come out with a new version or edition just to make players buy new books. we have selected a format of printing that allows the players and GM to organizes the resources and for quick reference, something like TSR tried with the monster compendium but failed at. this is why we need art and maps. they give extra resources but also fill the ugly blank page.

our current projects are

Herbalist hand book vol 1 and 2 --- a field guide to the plants and the parts used, what effects they have on a human / humanoid, and possible plant uses for the alchemist

herbalist hand book vol3 --- same as vol 1 and vol 2 but for the underdark setting.

alchemist hand book vol 1 --- covers building the lab and the equipment and stock supplies, will also have some recipes for the beginner alchemist.

Anjora Kingdom --- the first of the kingdoms being written in our world. covers the royal lineage, kingdom history, the land and people, who's who for political intrigue games, guilds and cults.

maps of underdark ---- we plan to build underdark to the same detail as our surface world with all the maps of passages and cities, strongholds and keeps.

if this interest you and you want to be part of it let us know, more that help more that can be available for players.

compensation for contributing is royalty bases as follows:

20% profit to artist
20% profit to writers
10% profit to map makers
20% profit to editors
10% profit support of local cons and marketing
10% profit physical assets, data storage, scanners and computers, web site fee's, etc
10% profit to founding members

profit is considered sales less print cost, marking sale fee's [e-book seller fee] and other distribution cost.

royalties are paid 3 months of sales at a time on the 20th to 25th of the month following. example pub is released in January.... January, February and March royalties would be sent out 20th to 25th of April.

royalties are reduced each year after the pub date..... if 20% for an artist would be 20% for the first full year, then 10% for the following year then finally 5% for the 3rd year.

if the art, article, map is used in another pub it is track alone. if we do a pub that is focused such as a art book or package of only maps it get 2x the normal royalty.

if you are a major contributor to any pub you will get a free issue of the pub in the marketed format. if we release it in a e- book first and then 4 months latter in print they will be tracked independently.

feel free to contact me at rhos2821@gmail.com if you have any questions

[Cunning Cartographer]

A few questions (though I would ask them here as I'm sure other people will be interested):

1) Presumably you have an idea of how many maps vs. how many illustrations you want, what's this number? Curious as to where you pulled the 10% for maps vs. the 20% for illustrations (I'm quicker at doing an illustration, but a map can take me days from concept to final image), so presumably there's just a lot more illustrations.

2) The % royalty is based on sales per unit? If so what are you expecting the sale per unit to be? Are you aiming in the D&D supplements pricing (around $30+ per book) or DriveRPG publishing ($5+ mark). If you're aiming at selling them for $5/unit minus expenses (20%?) and as a map maker I get 10% of $3 then you'd have to be shifting a LOT of units for it to be worth putting pen to paper.

3) How many illustrators/map makers are you looking to take on? 10% for map making isn't that nice if it's then divided between you and another 2 map makers.

4) Are you a publisher or are you/your group/company doing the writing/editing/etc. that the other 70% of the royalties go to? If someone is taking a job on royalties it's nice to know whether the person you're giving your art to actually has any experience in publishing previously so that you actually make some money (more so if the price per unit as above is lower). Also, if you are a known publisher then simply having work published can often offset any lack of income gained.

5) You mention publishing stuff for "The Underdark", which is WOTC intellectual property, do you have an equivalent for your world/system or do are you paying for licensing to actually create and publish content with WOTCs IP (presumably the former otherwise you'll pretty much be making no profit if you're paying for WOTC licensing )?

6) What market/ online presence do you already have for your product? Similarly to above you mention a depreciating royalties payment each year, but if you have zero presence then it may take you a year to actually get your product noticed and the higher sales coming in.

7) What time frame are you aiming for to have each compendium completed? How much of the content/writing is already done?


Either way, good luck with your project.

[Depassage]

Good questions Yospeck...

[AntonioFrade]

Yep! I agree. Good point(s) Yospeck

[rhos]

A few questions (though I would ask them here as I'm sure other people will be interested):

1) Presumably you have an idea of how many maps vs. how many illustrations you want, what's this number? Curious as to where you pulled the 10% for maps vs. the 20% for illustrations (I'm quicker at doing an illustration, but a map can take me days from concept to final image), so presumably there's just a lot more illustrations.

reply:
each planed book is different, both in art and maps.
ex kingdom book would have the world map and the kingdom map [ players and gm ver] that would be it and the art would be about 60+ pics
so each map would be 3.3% of sales as the art would be 1/3rd of a %

2) The % royalty is based on sales per unit? If so what are you expecting the sale per unit to be? Are you aiming in the D&D supplements pricing (around $30+ per book) or DriveRPG publishing ($5+ mark). If you're aiming at selling them for $5/unit minus expenses (20%?) and as a map maker I get 10% of $3 then you'd have to be shifting a LOT of units for it to be worth putting pen to paper.

reply
pubs will be sold both as a e-pub and printed. e-pubs will range from 4.95 for a module, 9.95 for a expansion resource, 19.95 to 29.95 for a kingdom book. the printed version would be the same plus print cost.
so a $100 map assuming there are 3 in a pub and sold for 19.95. to get the $100 point we would have to sell about 190 copies. 19.95 less 20% selling fee for e-commerce=15.96 times 3.3% for the one map = 53 cents per copy


3) How many illustrators/map makers are you looking to take on? 10% for map making isn't that nice if it's then divided between you and another 2 map makers.

reply:
see above

4) Are you a publisher or are you/your group/company doing the writing/editing/etc. that the other 70% of the royalties go to? If someone is taking a job on royalties it's nice to know whether the person you're giving your art to actually has any experience in publishing previously so that you actually make some money (more so if the price per unit as above is lower). Also, if you are a known publisher then simply having work published can often offset any lack of income gained.

reply:
we are hiring a professional editor but we [3] are doing some of the writing. as the organizers we only get 3.3% of all pubs unless we fill the roll as a freelancer, just like everyone else.
20% profit to artist

20% profit to writers
10% profit to map makers
20% profit to editors
10% profit support of local cons and marketing
10% profit physical assets, data storage, scanners and computers, web site fee's, etc
10% profit to founding members

5) You mention publishing stuff for "The Underdark", which is WOTC intellectual property, do you have an equivalent for your world/system or do are you paying for licensing to actually create and publish content with WOTCs IP (presumably the former otherwise you'll pretty much be making no profit if you're paying for WOTC licensing )?
reply:
underdark is under the concept of open license, but we will have our own name for it just to be safe. we use the term now so everyone knows what we are talking about.

6) What market/ online presence do you already have for your product? Similarly to above you mention a depreciating royalties payment each year, but if you have zero presence then it may take you a year to actually get your product noticed and the higher sales coming in.
reply:
we have little to no presence online as of yet, as stated we are a new company and have not yet created product ready to be sold. next month we should have our herbalist handbook back from editing. it has one artist who did all 24 plant drawings and 4 writers. the same artist is currently doing the fill art. so he gets the whole 20% of sales. it will be released at first as e-pub and we will get the second one done in the series and then get a kick-starter going to get it in print form. estimated sale price is $9.95 and is about 70 pages.

7) What time frame are you aiming for to have each compendium completed? How much of the content/writing is already done?

reply:
the world is rough outlined as it has been used in our local game over the years, but note paper has to be re written for pub and organized.
as stated next month is first pub and we should be getting one done each month after that for a while..... the kingdom book for Anjora is written and now is being cross checked and clearified. it is holding on maps now. once out we will have 7 supplements to it covering a group of cities, towns and villages. ideally I would like to have 10 map makers involved in all 8 of these pubs. it will give a nice flow of the map styles and showcase a varity at the same time. the person doing the world map would have the single map in each of the pubs for a share same with the kingdom maps. thus the return for the extra work for these maps compared to creating a city.



note that the maps are not required to be paper and ink created, their are many digital map tools that could be used.

hope this answers your questions and all that are following

rhos

[rhos]

people can help as they want

most needed will be the city, town and village/hamlet maps

[Cunning Cartographer]

Thanks for answering the questions Definitely sounds like an ambitious project and you guys already seem to have made quite some progress with it.

[rhos]

some times the project seems a bit too big but we are gamers and do this for fun so going the extra mile to get it out for others makes since.

scary thing............................................. ..

did a rough total of kingdoms 53, and about 80 so town cities or villages in each comes to 4,240 maps. scary eh lol

[rhos]

if anyone has some town, city or village maps that they have already did and used for personal gaming, has not been published. please let me know and what they would need for the map, weither it is a one time fee or part of the royalty comp we offer.

town, city or village maps we like the most are B/W head down view, just building outlines so it can be numbered for refrence as to what the building is.

thx rhos