Publishing Help Wanted

#1

Hey Shields. In 2020 I’d like to write, playtest, and publish my Warp Shell expansion, Asklepion. I feel confident in handling the writing and playtesting, but I’ll need help with artwork and desktop publishing. Does anyone have suggestions on where to start? Would anyone be interested in teaming up?

#2

I have been expanding my digital art chops lately and would be interested in collaboration. If you wanna check out my style to see if it meshes with your vision for your work you can check out my Inktober thread. Inktober greetings! One vtt asset per day

#3

I’d be willing to toss my name in for helping with the digital formatting. I’ve worked on two pdf adventures and am trying to build my chops on Affinity Publisher.

#4

no easy answers on art, but if Indesign is too expensive or complex, affinity publisher is 50$ and a bit easier to use…

#5

Thanks everyone! Yeah, I know how you feel about InDesign, but I can’t justify $300 a year for something I might use for one or two small projects a year. Someday I may expand my output :smiley:

#6

I’ve got nothing … but if you need players :grin:

#7

I am buried with work but I I may be able to help you since you say 2020. I’ll send you a message to get more detail.

Affinity Publisher is rock solid, we’ll talk about that too.

#8

Send me a PM. I can help with layout…
Many of my projects and work are lightening up.

#9

Just throwing this out there: what if I published “For Use With ICRPG” content, but used my own template? This would allow me to use Google Slides; that way I can dabble a bit before I decide to take the plunge and drop money and time on learning a new software.

Below is what I plan on using for some of my non-ICRPG stuff.

Hellmech%20Archives%20Front%20Stationary
Hellmech Archives Front Stationary.jpg3592x4649 1.36 MB

#10

I would be happy to see content using your own template. The use of Google Docs and Slides has certainly been a boon to the Runehammer community.

I do like the image of the stationary for Hellmech Archives. I think it is a good template which sets a style that wouldn’t distract from the text.

I hope you are continuing your work with the Warp Shell expansion, Asklepion. Though a name like “Hellmech” certainly sparks my interest too.

Keep going and good luck in 2020!

#11

Here’s what I’ve been working on, based on a conversation we had back on this post. @Chaologic and @Peterfromfargo might want to see this. I decided on Dread as the system, but one could easily make it ICRPG. I hand-drew the art and scanned it, then edited it with Paint 3D. Everything else was done in Google Slides. I’m still finalizing the placement, fonts, etc. What do people think? What does it need to be high-quality?

#12

I’m so glad you’re working on this and developing it into an adventure! That is rad! I also like your art and page template.

Unfortunately, I have never published anything and am a complete beginner in that arena. I’m trying to learn a little bit before I attempt to create my own published adventure, so I’d be reticent to attempt any advice. As a reader of the material, I feel like it’s all there but could be organized into a flow a little better. Perhaps putting the story elements in one area, characters closely behind, a section for enemies, then specific mechanics? Again, take that with a grain of salt because I don’t have any cred, haha.

However, I’m sure this is a great starting point, and with the experience of more accomplished creators in our community this adventure will really shine.

I can’t wait to see this developed further!

#13

Thanks! Yeah, I would love to see an ICRPG version of this, complete with your repair mechanics and driving mechanics.

#14

I’ll tell you right now: that mini-game I made derailed in the first round of combat.

What came after was a heart-wrenching scene as players scrambled to save one of their own, and one heroically killed themselves to stave off a larger threat. It was better than anything I could have planned, and I learned a real powerful lesson about only prepping framework to scenes. Making a mini-game was a novel idea that I rarely employ and has always played out smoothly, but this was completely different.

In the end, if I use a specific driving mechanic in the future it will be when more vehicles are involved and the “race” will be a more central element. But, if you’d like to develop some racing/repairing mechanics I’d be more than happy to help! :slight_smile:

#15

For those looking for some help and answers, here are my opinions which were formed after successfully publishing my first book ever https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/289220/Khans-Spells--Feats-for-ICRPG

I’d like to separate things into two camps: Things that will be free (hobby projects) and things that you want to sell.

For free stuff you don’t really need anything and you don’t have to pay money for software tools. Do whatever you want and use whatever software you can find (free or otherwise) and you’ll get better over time. People won’t complain because it’s free and the folks around here are very nice anyway.

Things change drastically for paid stuff. You need to put out something that is worth the price you are asking for in the eyes of your customers. For this, you need proper tools to get the best results. Google Slides can do some basic work (pun intended) but designing things for proper publishing is more than just putting stuff together if one wants a professional result. You need consistent line breaks, font sizes, distances etc. and you need to adjust them on the fly without too much effort. For a hobby project, these don’t matter. You can get away with anything.

For those who contemplate subscribing to Adobe Creative Cloud, I say stay away. It is a money sink and those apps have a substantial learning curve. They don’t have any must-have features for this line of work but you will be spending a sizeable portion of your little income unless you already have access to them and use them for other jobs.

I suggest Affinity Publisher + Designer. They are both easy to learn and easy to use and they have all the features you will ever need. Affinity has Affinity Designer Youtube channel where they explain a lot of features. I found them enough to start working. There are Publisher tutorials that are made by other people as well. Publisher is way simpler to learn if you do it after Designer. Learning these two is simple enough that I did it while writing the text of Khan’s Spells & Feats. Basically I learned them on the job.

Affinity Photo is not required unless you want to do some drawing and/or painting and even then there are many free alternatives like Krita for example.

As always, wait for a sale before buying anything, provided you are not in a hurry.

I have to caveat something though. Learning software is easy for me because I used to be a software engineer and I’ve been using computers for over 30 years. For a computer novice these things will be much harder, yet there is no escape from learning software in this day and age and Affinity software is sensible enough to learn without too many hassles.

As for the act of designing itself; it is a vast topic. I have only two tips and arguably they are the most important ones:

  1. Keep things simple, especially in the beginning. Don’t try to do fancy designs. You don’t need them.
  2. Build stuff in stages, from simple to complex, from base to details. For example, create the outline for a page. Put x over there, y over here. The page will look empty at first but then you’ll start filling it up and it will look more and more complete.

Hank has a video or two about publishing from last year. You can look for “Designing for Publishing” and one other video if I remember correctly. I haven’t watched them but you might find them useful.

I’m gonna stop here to keep this post short. If anyone needs anything else, feel free to ask. :slight_smile: