18 months ago Malhavoc Press released last PDF product, Dark Tidings. Is Malhavoc Press out of business?

I just have to wonder. I was looking at products at RPGNow.com and I noticed that it had been 18 months since anything had been put out by them.  While I do know about DungeonADay.com (hell I am a member), I just am wondering is Malhavoc Press as company dead? Has Monte just moved on from the concept of doing a RPG business and now is an occasional freelance for Kobold Quarterly and Paizo? What do you think?  More importantly, would you want to see Malhavoc Press return to making RPG material?  Talk to you later…

Can Kobold Quarterly keep up being Dragon Magazine, while Pathfinder acts like Dungeon Magazine?

So far, Kobold Quarterly has proven it self to be the new Dragon Magazine, while Pathfinder has proven itself to be the Dungeon Magazine of the time.  With all this goodness going on, I still worry if Kobold Quarterly will be able to keep up the production quality that so many are used to if it goes from quarterly to a monthly product.  The quarterly nature of Kobold Quarterly directly affects the amount of cash flow the magazine can make and as a long term goal making it a monthly book only seem logical.  Plus you have other project like Paizo Fans United Wayfinder that could grow stronger and stronger focusing on harness the power of crowdsourcing to go from a small twice a year book to a very good six times a year.  Better yet will something else disrupt the concept of print magazines with some new device or system?  Only time will tell.  Talk to you later...

How much money would it take to make a Dugeonaday.com free?

Continuing on with my Free Dungeonaday.com theme, I wanted to break down what it would cost to do something like this for a month. So let’s get started, first off webspace.  

Let’s assume you have a website already built and let us say you are paying $20 month (I know this is high but we are just estimating here so just go with it). Let say you are going to have this run for at least three months so the total is $60. For this little experiment, we are going to ASSUME that you will do all the HTML coding on the website too.

Next, how many days will we update? I think a Monday through Friday schedule is reasonable so we are going to estimate 22 updates per month (Math Breakdown: 5 times a week times 4.3 weeks in a month =  21.5 and round up).  Now we move on to per day word count.  Well if it is too long no one will read it online, if to short it will not cover the encounter properly, plus the real issue is stat blocks can eat up a lot of text.  Let me handle the stat block issue first with the use of the use of the online Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Reference Document. Since we are on the web we can tell what monster they are fight and link the stats of them to Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Reference Document. Problem solved and no increase in word count needed. I estimate 500 to 700 words per encounter will cover what we need daily. For the month we will need 11,000 to 15,400 words. Since we are keeping this budget tight let set writing to 1 cent a word for a total of $100 to $154 per month. Let expand that for three months and now we get $300 to $453. Let’s just say $460 for three months and be safe. Now the total price is up to $520. 

Next, artwork. This one is easy, STOCK ART!!!! Hit up RPGNow.com and get a few collections of stock art.  I would not spend more than $50 for stock art.  That should get you several different ones and be more than enough (Let me suggest LPJ Design's Image Portfolio of stock art if you need somewhere to start).  So now that brings your total to $570.

Also with artwork, you might need maps for the dungeon your visitors are exploring.  That one can be handled with a pen and some graph paper.  If you don’t think you can handle this because you can’t draw straight line, get a ruler. Writing, art, website, stat blocks and maps.  That looks like you have covered everything important that you will need in the first three months for a grand total of $570 or $190 a month. At a cost of spending only $190 a month you could have your own Dungeonaday.com  type website. 

Now this sounds like a great idea to do, but then you realize doing this website would break my Number #1 business rule: DON’T LOSE MONEY!!!!

So what do you do to not lose money? You find a way to turn this site into one that makes money for you.  A lot of you are saying and thinking the easy way, “Then why don’t I just have subscriptions?” You could and you would have to direct compete with some in the market who already dominates that space. Think of it as trying to sell your own MP3 player in a market which Mac and the iPod already control.  How successful do you think you will be?

But if you are free, at least you can get the people to come by and check you out.  There is no “friction” to stop them from examining your site to see if they like it. This could be your important selling point.  Imagine this as your marketing: It’s just like Dungeonaday.com, BUT FREE! How do you depend against free?  Now how do you make money having a free site?  Just follow the webcomic model:  Everything on the site is for sell.  You sell ad space on the site (See Kobold Magazine for this). You direct sell items and products to customers that can get anywhere (exclusive versions of products). You give away digital wallpaper with donations to the site (Girls with Slingshots does this VERY well).  Be inventive!  Think of it this way, are you going to let $190 ($6.23 a day) is keeping you from being a RPG Publishing Superstar?  So get to work.  Talk to you later... 

LPJ Design 2008 First Quarter Report

What a great year we are already off to! Our first quarter of 2008 has been a great improvement over last year and each month of these first three months, LPJ Design has had an average 5% month-over-month increase in sales, even with some fans waiting for 4E release.

The Sidetrek Adventure Weekly series has been a qualified success! The first series has done so well for LPJ Design, that we have already started and released the second Sidetrek Adventure Weekly series; The Undead Chronicles. There has been a great interest in The Undead Chronicles plus with such well know and respected writers like Nicholas Logue, Adam Daigle and Tim & Eileen Connors, only helps solidify the series as the premiere 3.5/OGL adventure and module path series on the market today.

We are also proud to announce that Neal Bailey has been hired to the position of Line Editor to the NeoExodus: A House Divided gaming line. Neal well known RPG companies including Fifth Element Games, Old Kingdom Games and RPGObjects, in addition to his work on the Race Creation Cookbook and the Prestige Class Creation Cookbook for us. Neal has been a fan of the NeoExodus: A House Divided setting since day one and it seemed a perfect match for both of us. With Neal at the helm, we have already set up several all-new projects for NeoExodus: A House Divided including Enemies of NeoExodus: The Folding Circle, Lexicon Chronicles: Arcane Intelligences and Lexicon Chronicles: Lazarus Brand. Look for these projects over the next few upcoming months.

LPJ Design has also been listening to our fans and supporters and we have made business alliance with several of the well-known and respected d20/OGL companies on the market to create the best products possible. With that, when you get the PDF version of Wolfgang Baur’s Kobold Quarterly #4, you will receive the FREE BONUS GIFT of Enemies of NeoExodus: Folding Circle – Brothers-In-Arms. Brothers-In-Arms is a 9-page supplement focusing on 2 NPC associates of the upcoming Enemies of NeoExodus: Folding Circle, which reveals the history of the greatest and most powerful criminal/terrorist organization in the setting. So if you are interested in NeoExodus: A House Divided and Kobold Quarterly, now is your time!

Even with all this, we have even greater plans for products in this upcoming quarter. Once again thanks to everyone support of LPJ Design and Devil’s Workshop!

Coming Soon to Kobold Quarterly...

It looks like issue #4 of Kobold Quarterly is going to be a HUGE (as in very full of stuff) issue for them. So to give you a taste of what we are releaseing in issue #4, here is the cover of the project, Enemies of NeoExodus: Bolding Circle Brothers-in-Arms. BUT unlike those other games companies out there, this product is EXCLUSIVE AND FREE to Kobold Quarterly, meaning you will not see it for sale somewhere else. No, no, no! If you don't pick it up in Kobold Quarterly then you are never going to see Axo the Wild Storm and the Seeker-in-Flame in any of your NeoExodus: A House Divided campaigns. ogo get your copy of Kobold Quarterly when it releases in April at RPGNow.com. Talk to you later...

LPJ Design / Kobold Quarterly Deal

Well you might want to check out Wolfgang Baur's Kobold Quarterly #4 (Coming soon) for an exclusive limited edition product for the NeoExodus: A House Divided setting. Now what it is, I wouldn't say but I will say that it ties into this and this and even this. So take a look at Kobold Quarterly and see what I am talking about. Talk to you later...

Christmas is over, back to work...

Well now that Christmas is over, we have to focus on the upcoming projects we have planned for 2008. While 2007 has been a great improvement over 2006, we are looking to expand is several different ways to raise LPJ Design into being in the Top 5 PDF companies. With our renewed business relationship with Paizo and e23, we fell that this will only help increase our over all sales. Also with this our expanding focus on Print On Demand materials with the use of Lulu will only help to raise awareness. On top of all this, our upcoming business partnership with Wolfgang Baur and Kobold Quarterly is going to open up all new avenues of success for us. So once again 2008 looks to be even busier for us. Talk to you later...