Things We Could Do with Money

[Adminenkainen]

Reposted from www.patreon.com/posts/87629730. In case anyone wanted to discuss this topic, or add other suggestions.

Longterm fans of H&H know I don't like to charge much for Great Scott! Press books, so everyone has a chance to own all of them. That said, if there was more of a revenue stream for Great Scott! Press, here are some of my pie in the sky dreams...

Attend conventions. It would be really nice to have vendor tables at conventions and run demos of H&H all day, but vendor tables are expensive at everywhere but little public library or college conventions and out of reach of Great Scott! Press' budget.

Hire a webmaster. The Wix-based website is badly outdated because it is a pain in the butt to work on. I have a draft version of a Webador-based website that I like better, but I don't have either the time to work on it or the skills to make it look good enough. I would like to move the old blog off of Blogspot and house it all on the same website. With the paid version of Webador, I could embed all my Patreon vidoes there too. If there was some way to embed a message board I could have a one-stop portal for all things Great Scott! Press.

Hire a Layout Artist (more often). The Mobster Manual was so difficult for me that I had to cough up enough money to hire someone to help me finish it. I HATE the layout work that comes at the tail end of all the creative process of creating these books. I would love to palm it off on someone else and start writing the next book that much faster.

Hire Artists. I badly want to turn out comic books faster than I already am. If I had a little more money, I could hire an artist to touch up the colors and art on the old stories I reprint for me so I don't have to slowly do it in Paint. If I had even more money, I would like to hire artists to redo the second half of the old stories to take them in even better, more creative directions. If I had lots and lots of money, I would like to publish all-original stories someday.

Hire TSR Staff. If I had a ton of money, I would offer to share it with the old guard from TSR's 1970s days in exchange for work on H&H. How perfect would it be to have a game line meant to emulate TSR's early days illustrated by Diesel, Erol Otus, and Jeff Dee? Or ask Tim Kask to edit a new Trophy Case zine? Or ask Jim Ward to write a H&H module?

[order99]

I hear you. I have the same problem with my hand-made musical instruments and walking sticks. It's a hobby that pays for itself, and on rare occasions I'll pull a little extra cash from it-but with Full-time employment i'm lucky to make one a month. I always dreamed of expanding...

Covid put paid to that dream. Even drawing a 'stay home' salary from NC, I couldn't ramp up production enough to make a living at it. It turns out that my Pre-industrial techniques- a pocketknife, rasps and sandpaper on a picnic table in decent weather-does not scale up to 'making a living' in the Post-Industrial Age. So, a hobby it remains...but i'm mostly content with that. In the meantime, i'm turning my tiny 8'X 8' shed into a Workshop one pawn-shop tool at a time.

IMHO it's a miracle that this hobby turned into an Industry at all. A bunch of Wargame House Rules caught fire with some local groups, lots of photocopied hand-typed notes were exchanged, a few people took an enormous financial risk, got published, the timing was right and the Revolution was on...and a few decades later many small-to-medium companies collapsed, a few of the Big Dogs teetered on the edge of Bankruptcy, and various Intellectual Properties were purchased by a handful of Billionaire conglomerates and released next to Candyland and Risk...and so it goes, as Father Kurt would say.

And now the power is back in the hands of the Hobbyists again. They were always there, lurking around at conventions with Home Brew systems and Bespoke games they played locally and wanted to share...on BBS and Forum and LiveJournal sharing Cool Stuff, just Having Fun. And now, in the age of the OSR, Print On Demand, On-Line stores like RPGNow and Itch.io? Anybody can publish! Like many Democratized hobbies there is a gigantic signal-to-noise ratio-but some kid working his first fast-food job can pull out his Smartphone and...publish a game, a comic, a novel, to be purchased almost World-wide!

Money? I'd like to have more. And I would really like Great Scott! Press to have lots of money. But look how far you've come and what you've done on nearly nothing, Editor-san...it is no small thing.   Also, I wonder how many people were in my boat-gave up on Comic Books as over-priced and overrated, recycling the same stories and chasing a high from 20, 30 years ago...only to find your old Yahoo! site, pick up that free RPG in MS Word, browse the back pages and stumble into the story of a mild-mannered Zoologist who decided to periodically transform himself into a powerful Ape and go Fight Crime (as one does ) and having his Inner six-year-old wake up screaming that's what i'm talking about and pumping his powerful little fists in the air after a decades-long nap....Inner Child hasn't slept a wink since BTW...

  "If I had a ton of money, I would offer to share it with the old guard from TSR's 1970s days in exchange for work on H&H. How perfect would it be to have a game line meant to emulate TSR's early days illustrated by Diesel, Erol Otus, and Jeff Dee?"

  I deeply regret that the human body only has two kidneys, one liver, one heart and that the prices on Human Organs are at an all-time low due to modern Medical techniques and Bespoke printing technologies...because there's not much that I wouldn't do to see Jeff Dee in a Great Scott! Press contract. Hmm, i've got far too much Duct Tape on my hands-

 (Warning warning warning possible Act of Chaos detected suggest immediate ABORT)

 (Warning warning warning possible Act of Chaos detected suggest immediate ABORT)

(Warning warning warning possible Act of Chaos detected suggest immediate ABORT)

 Yeah yeah, Aborting already....sheesh. The first order99 really had my Android Weakness customized didn't he?

[order99]

  Okay, I have this terrible habit of hijacking Threads and pointing them towards Cuba... sorry about that.

 It sounds like Great Scott! Press already knows exactly what it (you) would do with the extra money-so the big question is how to get more of it?

 I won't lie here. Your products are highly underrated, both from a Price Point and a Popularity perspective-and I don't think i'm saying that just because i'm a fan, either. 

 Now i'll admit that during Hard Times I lived off of your 2008 Free Version and the Trophy Case supplements (and learned to both survive and thrive off of Ramen Stir Fries), but even when I could afford to re-buy all of your products at Full price I thought that they were under-priced. My idea for Pricing would be as follows:

 An Introductory Mini-Adventure, with pre-made PCs and SCMs, a few condensed Rules (Roll D20 plus the Combat/Melee or Combat/Missle [pre-figured on the PC block], beat an AC. Skills on a D6, beat a 5 if hard, a 6 if Terribly hard, assume success if easy. Here's what your Saves do. Here's what a SCM Morale Check is. Reaction Table, maybe only a half-dozen Combat Modifiers total. condensed Wrecking Chart. All Powers, Saves and Other Stuff will be Pre-figured (Damage codes, AC, Strike Mods , Hit Points etc) for Class and Ability Scores (for example-Wreck: Lvl 3, 3D6 or Wreck:Lvl 3 2D6) on the Hand-outs. The Price Point for this would always be Pay What You Want or even just Free.

 (It's easy to have Cool Ideas when somebody Else has to do the work, isn't it? Sorry... )

 The 1st Edition materials could be given its own section under 'Classic' H&H (pretentious? Moi?) This would include all of the Original Three books and pretty much all of the Supplements at this point (although Big Bang showed a bit of the transitional there). I'd add about $1 or so to those but leave the Bundle as is for Temptation's Sake.

 The Second Edition Revised (and Mobster Manual I) would get it its own section, maybe add $2 or so to those. Print out some Editor's Screens with common Tables all on 3 pages, offer it at about $2. Likewise a truncated, Abbreviated PC Creation Worksheet for same-you would only need the Level 1 info for the Class, and all of the Race/Origin Stuff, might get that down to two pages. Price about $2.

 ( I already made a Cheat Sheet for my own reference on another Thread and I might get time to condense a Lvl 1 Class Chart later on. You are more than welcome to use them gratis-fans should put their Sweat Equity where their mouth is, right? ).

 The Trophy Case should have its own section-i'd put them all at about $1. Change the Bundle to all of them and break the Price Point to about $0.25 per unit.

 The Adventures and Minnesota Sourcebook would have its own Section-I recommend Doubling the price on all. But then offer a Bundle for just under half the total. You could put Madden's Boys etc here until you have enough for its own section later.

 My Summation and reasoning:

-Introductory Adventure with Handouts, Free and enough to get them interested or dismiss without Buyer's Remorse.

-Classic Edition at a Really Good Price, Bundle for a Real Steal. Supplements and Bundle should now include the Big Bang material.

-Second Edition at a Slightly more Realistic but still Great Price, Game Aids not needed but are Dirt Cheap.

-Trophy Case, not needed but fun.

-Adventures and Sourcebook. Not needed to game, Bespoke items at higher Price Point. And you can always have Sales when you want-maybe offer an early Adventure for Free on Free Comic Book Day?

  Now we get to the other issue: Visibility.  Sadly, the great Democratizing of the Hobby which made Great Scott! Games viable (especially on the Tech side) has also reduced you to a Quality Product adrift in an ocean of products of Variable Quality. Your Niche is not absolute-you are not the only OGL or D20 Supers RPG, not the only OSR Supers RPG, not the only Golden Age Supers RPG, and (Thanks to John Slater and Mystery Men!, not that I begrudge him for a really nice product) also not the only OGL/D20/OSR/Golden Age Supers RPG.   You actually share the same Niche as Legrand Games' Mazes and Minotaurs-namely, the literary conceit of "What if the World's First RPG were based on X?" Sadly, the potential Fans who would love this idea need to find you.

 I can only recommend:

1) getting on other Online platforms-and I have no experience how easy or difficult that would be for you to do so. Are you on Itch.io yet?

2) encouraging your buyers.patrons to spread the news-but I think that those of us left here do that already, so...got a Micro-con on the 26th of August again and i'll be Demo-ing "The Heavens Tremble with Hussar Hooves" again-but it's a tiny Con...

 

  I think that the biggest issue is getting Great Scott! Press noticed and visible to all of those Golden Age fans out there (and I truly believe that they are out there!). If that happens, higher Pricing won't dissuade most of them...

[Adminenkainen]

I feel the mini-introductory adventures, or as close to your description as I feel comfortable with, already exist in the Big Bang Adventures comic books.

I'm looking into the bundle idea...

[az]

Aug 13, 2023 14:54:22 GMT Adminenkainen said:

Reposted from www.patreon.com/posts/87629730. In case anyone wanted to discuss this topic, or add other suggestions.

Longterm fans of H&H know I don't like to charge much for Great Scott! Press books, so everyone has a chance to own all of them. That said, if there was more of a revenue stream for Great Scott! Press, here are some of my pie in the sky dreams...

Attend conventions. It would be really nice to have vendor tables at conventions and run demos of H&H all day, but vendor tables are expensive at everywhere but little public library or college conventions and out of reach of Great Scott! Press' budget.

Hire a webmaster. The Wix-based website is badly outdated because it is a pain in the butt to work on. I have a draft version of a Webador-based website that I like better, but I don't have either the time to work on it or the skills to make it look good enough. I would like to move the old blog off of Blogspot and house it all on the same website. With the paid version of Webador, I could embed all my Patreon vidoes there too. If there was some way to embed a message board I could have a one-stop portal for all things Great Scott! Press.

Hire a Layout Artist (more often). The Mobster Manual was so difficult for me that I had to cough up enough money to hire someone to help me finish it. I HATE the layout work that comes at the tail end of all the creative process of creating these books. I would love to palm it off on someone else and start writing the next book that much faster.

Hire Artists. I badly want to turn out comic books faster than I already am. If I had a little more money, I could hire an artist to touch up the colors and art on the old stories I reprint for me so I don't have to slowly do it in Paint. If I had even more money, I would like to hire artists to redo the second half of the old stories to take them in even better, more creative directions. If I had lots and lots of money, I would like to publish all-original stories someday.

Hire TSR Staff. If I had a ton of money, I would offer to share it with the old guard from TSR's 1970s days in exchange for work on H&H. How perfect would it be to have a game line meant to emulate TSR's early days illustrated by Diesel, Erol Otus, and Jeff Dee? Or ask Tim Kask to edit a new Trophy Case zine? Or ask Jim Ward to write a H&H module?

yeah,i see what you mean.i hope all of that happens soon!

[Adminenkainen]

It took me a while, but I finally have followed Order's suggestions and tweaked some prices upwards. Usually 50% as much as Order suggested. I think my biggest change was boosting the price of the 2nd ed basic rulebook by $2, making it $6.50.

I have also made most of the free Trophy Case issues Pay What You Want. The Classic Edition bundle exists now with the 1st ed core rulebooks and all five supplements. I am also going to bundle the rest of the Trophy Cases together today (previously you could only get the first four issues as a bundle).

[az]

Sept 10, 2023 15:13:20 GMT Adminenkainen said:

It took me a while, but I finally have followed Order's suggestions and tweaked some prices upwards. Usually 50% as much as Order suggested. I think my biggest change was boosting the price of the 2nd ed basic rulebook by $2, making it $6.50.

I have also made most of the free Trophy Case issues Pay What You Want. The Classic Edition bundle exists now with the 1st ed core rulebooks and all five supplements. I am also going to bundle the rest of the Trophy Cases together today (previously you could only get the first four issues as a bundle).

Awesome,I hope you are able to attend conventions,hire a webmaster,hire a layout artist,hire artists,hire TSR staff very soon.keep up the good work.