The RPG industry is not as unique as we think it is sometimes. In one way, it's a tiny pie-slice of the graph titled "Publishing." If you have some familiarity with this slice and you think you might want to branch out into something different, here are a few comparisons to help you learn the differences between the RPG industry and the rest of the publishing world.

Approachability

The strength of your query alone is enough to get you an assignment from most RPG publishers. Publishing history and spec sheets are a nice bonus, but they're not necessary for most markets.

In the publishing world, the same is true for many smaller markets, but the very largest markets prefer to work with experienced writers who can provide evidence of their ability to produce, not merely write a good query. Having some content in that paragraph concerning your publication history is a huge bonus. A sparkling query can still get you just about anywhere, however.

Royalties

In the RPG industry, royalties on print books are typically paid on net sales--that is, on the amount the publisher receives, rather than the amount the customer pays. This amount is about 40-45% of the retail price. Thus, 10% net is about 4% or 4.5% cover.

In the book trade, while some publishers pay on net--especially smaller publishers--the big publishers pay on cover. Even when they do pay net, sales to the book trade are usually at a higher cost than sales through the gaming industry, and so 10% net on items sold to Barnes & Noble might yield more money to the writer than 10% net on items sold to Alliance and Centurion.

Word Rates

Among RPG publishers, some publishers pay a word rate for shorter works such as magazine articles or short adventures. This word rate varies from $.005 Canadian to an upper end of less than a dime a word.

Publishers in other interests pay up to a dollar a word; trade publications, which specialize in a particular industry and require pretty detailed technical knowledge, can exceed even that (Bloomberg Wealth Manager offers up to $2 a word).

Advance

I don't know of any RPG publishers that pay an advance. If you know one (or better yet, are one), please correct me. I'll be quite pleased to be wrong on this point.

Many publishers in the book trade pay an advance, known in full as an advance against royalties. Before publishing your book, they pay you an amount that they think your books will earn--typically the total royalties expected from your first print run. If they're planning to print 12,000 copies of a $16 trade paperback, they cut you a check for $19,200 that's all yours. Contrary to popular misconception, you never have to pay that back, even if your book only sells two copies.

Rights

What rights you sell are often a function of what you're writing. If you're writing an original RPG book, you might grant North American print rights only, for example, and keep the rest of the rights to your book.

However, if you're writing a supplement for an existing game (like GURPS), then you're creating a derivative work and the publisher will probably want to treat the work as work-for-hire. They'll even copyright the book in their name. You have no ability to profit on reprints, new editions, foreign editions, or anything subsequent.

The book trade goes by the same laws, but the copyright is nearly always yours in the case of an original work. I say "nearly always" because I can think of hypothetical examples otherwise, although my research does not show any.

Contact

How quickly a publisher responds varies from company to company. In general, RPG publishers respond quickly. A response to an e-mail query or proposal might take no more than a few days.

After you establish a working relationship, short and topical phone calls are acceptable.

In the book trade, paper submissions are still standard, and turn-around time is slow. A manuscript in Tor's slush pile might takes up to two years for the editors to reach. Three to six months is more common. Once you're assigned an editor, you might go months without contact from him or her.

You rarely speak on the phone to anyone other than your agent, which leads to.

Agents

Agents have no place in the RPG industry. Fifteen percent of the little bit writers earn here isn't enough to make an agent pick up the phone or read a manuscript. They don't want to work here and we really don't need them.

In the book trade, some publishers don't accept unagented work. Agents help publishers by weeding out the unpublishable. A publisher knows that if an agent sends him a manuscript, then the manuscript has passed at least one reading by a trusted professional and might be worth considering.

Collection of Information

Currently, the RPG world has no central, current information source on publishers. Attempts have been made, but the focus has been archival, or they have not been maintained.

The book trade has Writer's Market, which lists book and periodical publishers, the type of books they're looking for, what they pay, who to contact, how many titles they buy each year, whether they require an agent, whether they're open to submissions, and every detail a writer could want. It includes articles on a variety of useful topics. Not to sound like a WM commercial, but the online version's search feature is extremely useful. Looking for an advance-paying publisher who accepts unagented business-related non-fiction and accepts simultaneous submissions? A second or two later you have 25 such publishers, listed alphabetically from American West to Workman.

Measure of Success

An RPG might be considered successful with only 3,000 units sold.

A large publisher like Random House might consider 5,000 or 10,000 copies of a title a failure, depending on how aggressively they promoted it.

Reserve against Returns

RPG publishers don't typically hold a reserve against returns; they pay you your full royalties due on their normal schedule. Only a small portion of their sales are made through the book trade, so that channel's 25-35% returns might only be 1-5% of their total sales. At this point, they seem to be willing to absorb that cost themselves.

In the book trade, most publishers hold back any royalties due until they see books selling through. A good clue that a book is selling through is the number of re-stock orders that come in. If Barnes and Noble, for example, orders an additional 200 books after an initial order of 1,600, it means that at least some stores are selling their copies. After that, the publisher releases larger and larger percentages of the royalties.

Lloyd Brown
www.lloydwrites.com