Transparency Agenda Daily Special Event with Jim Zub

Transparency Agenda Daily July 20th 2016 - Wednesday Comics & RPG marketing

Freelance Comic book Artist for weekly webcomic series Needed!

LPJ Design is looking for a comic artist looking to work on a weekly science fantasy webcomic series called, Grand Theft Exodus, that based off of our table top RPG, NeoEoxodus: A Housed Divided. We are looking for a specific artistic style that is influenced by such sources as Batman the Animated Series, Superman the Animated Series, the Ben 10 cartoon, Ninja Scroll, Cowboy Bebob and Samurai Shamploo.  The artist we are working with will be paid $200 a page (usually no more than four panels a page) for their full color artwork which will be delivered to LPJ Design in digital format.  We are planning to have Grand Theft Exodus online by summer of 2015. If you are interested, please send an email to LMPjr007@gmail.com with the email title of “Grand Theft Exodus Artist” and submit your website portfolio. Please DO NOT attach samples of your work in the email. Thanks!

What has been going on with Grand Theft Exodus webcomic?

Well, let me tell you is simple plain English: Not that much. The real reason for this? Well we can start with life in general, and then our two kickstarter projects could be an issue. Then add on the regular business stuff and secret projects with LPJ Design and you can say that I am a live overloaded. But now that I have been assigning several projects to freelancers, I have moved Grand Theft Exodus from the graveyard of ideas to the front of my mind. So here is a little rough sample of what we have been doing on it.  So now that it is back in the forefront expect to see more material coming out for it. 

Back to the salt mines. Talk to you later…

The second taste of the all new Grand Theft Exodus webcomic

Since I have not really put out anything for Grand Theft Exodus in a while I decided to show you the 2nd page with the blur effect.

Not really much to see, but you can get the idea. Also we have gotten in pages 3 & 4 for the artist and they need a little touch-up work and a few changes but all in all very good.  Now I just need to find a good letterer like Nate Piekos from Blambot or the guys over at Comicraft and that would be AWESOME. But there are a lot of letterer out there, beginners and experts, who would like more work. Lets see how this goes.  Talk to you later...

The first taste of the all new Grand Theft Exodus webcomic

Since I received the first four panels for the upcoming Grand Theft Exodus webcomic I thought I might show it to you. But then I thought, if I showed them to you now, why would you come to the new website for it?  So I found a way to make us both happy.

It doesn't give you a ton of info, but you know SOMETHING is there.  I still need to work on the lettering and getting that together, but so far I am VERY happy and what I have seen.  Now we just have to keep the moment up for the big actual release. When will that be? When we are ready to make sure this will be the success that we expect it to be. Talk to you later...

Character Design artwork for the upcoming webcomic series, Grand Theft Exodus

Here some of the rough drafts and the finalized character designs for the two main characters; Niobe Mylona and Tahki Zitkata; for the up coming Grand Theft Exodus webcomic. Enjoy!

Sample character designs for the upcoming Grand Theft Exodus

Just something cool for you to look at and enjoy for the upcoming relaunch of Grand Theft Exodus. There are ought design sketches but you can get an idea where we might be going with this.  Enjoy!

72 Days to PaizoCon: Making the list...

I just made a list of all the things I need to have at my booth at PaizoCon. Once again, this great list comes from  How to make Webcomics.  Tomorrow I start picking up the items on the list. Talk to you later... 

74 days until Paizo...

Today I put together our PVC banner stand and I am planning on doing a a 2 ft x 5 ft banner for the stand.  I got the idea from the How to make Webcomics on page 163. For less that $4, I now have a light wieght and sturdy banner stand.  The 2 ft x 5 ft vinyl banner is going to cost me $40 from Clubflyers.com.   Best of all, I have one for a lot less than the typical $80 and more that you would pay for a pull up one.  Now I have to make a t-shirt stand too.  Home Depot and PVC pipe here I come.  Talk to you later...

If you are not using Kickstarter, READ THIS POST!

If you are STILL not sure about using Kickstarter after seeing the successes from Rite Publishing, Open Design and even us at LPJ Design, take a second and read through the updates for the Order of the Stick Reprint Drive.  If this doesn't get you motivated to start a Kickstaer project, nothing will.  Talk to you later...

Countdown to NeoExodus: 44 Days...

When I original conceived of NeoExodus, I planned for it to be flush with many transmedia connections including comic books, art books, short stories and novels.  The first attempt can in the creation of Grand Theft Exodus, a webcomic based on the NeoExodus setting.  While, due to several issues including several unreliable artists, the Grand Theft Exodus concept never really got off the ground I did learn a lot for the experience (Thanks again to all the great advice from the guys at Webcomics.com and Webcomics Weekly).  So I put the concept of it in the background, but I kept thinking about bring it back. Someday. Maybe sooner than you think.   Talk to you later...

How much of free do I have to give away until I start to make money?

If I have said it once I have said it a million times, cash flow is the life blood of any business. But if that is true, how can you make money by giving things away? Google is free to use, but it makes billions of dollars in revenue.  This is an issue I have been thinking about for months and how it relates to the RPG industry.  Webcomics have tackled this issue and seem to have it under some control. Take a look at PvP, Sheldon, Evil Inc., Starslip and Girls with Slingshots to see successful business that make money by giving away their main product for free.  Why can you not find any “successful” RPG companies using this model? Is it because our niche is too niche?  How much free do I have to give away until I start to make money? What do you think. Let me hear your opinions on this topic.  Talk to you later...

Kris and Scott's Scott and Kris Show

$215 a month can get you a weekly webcomic series based off of your RPG setting...

So after thinking about it OVER and OVER again, I finally decided to crack down and actually find a way to make a weekly one-page webcomic based off of the NeoExodus setting. This will be picking up where we left off with Grand Theft Exodus which is basically the beginning. I have gotten the month budget of $215 (basically $50 a strip) to create a weekly series.  I am following the example of ATLAND By Nate Piekos as the template to create how Grand Theft Exodus will work.  I am a fan of Nate's font site Blambot and what he has done with Atland looks to be a good starting point for me.  I don't think with a $50 a page budget that find an artist who works in the style I would like to see as being difficult.  Making sure their work is consist and they are available will be the harder part to this but I just have to find the right artist(s) for Grand Theft Exodus.  I would like to have the webcomic start running by August but we will have to see what is really possible.  Is this transmedia? It theory, yes. I just call it, "Living out my dreams".  Talk to you later...

Advice at getting the job you want...

The Crossover - Moving from RPGs to Comics…

Anyone who reads this blog knows I am a HUGE fan of comics and the comic industry. I think the comic industry is the “other side” of the coin when you think of niche products or services. While it is a niche industry, comics have evolved to tap into the animation, video games and Hollywood movie industry. RPGs should and could do this same thing, on average don’t. The really sad part is that RPG publishers are built perfect for the video game industry (RPG publishers build game setting and build encounters/adventures as the status quo to make a successful line) to come to us and license our ideas. If people could play Tomb of Horrors as a video game how many people would become fans of it? My guess, A LOT!!!! While getting to the video game market is the successful end goal, the first easy step to move in that direction is comic books or even a better choice, webcomics.
After reading How to make Webcomics, I made an initial attempt to do a webcomic based on my fantasy setting, NeoExodus: A House Divided with Grand Theft Exodus. While Grand Theft Exodus didn’t do as I expected, I did see how it could be used to help grow my RPG business and create a whole new business where I could use the webcomic artwork in my RPG products. A webcomic can save you money over the long run, but it does have high start up cost. And that is the thing that will kill most RPG publishers, due to money being always tight as a RPG publisher. A full comic page will on average cost you about $100 buck a page (Look at the Atland or The Guns of Shadow Valley webcomic from an example of what I mean). So you release one page a week it will cost you $5,200 a year. You just need to generate $15 a day to pay for this artwork over a year. When you place your site up for the webcomic you will use Project Wonderful to help generate money for you to offset the cost. Now you have access to new customers is a different business medium (Transmedia anyone?) while at the same time introducing those people to your other related products, like a RPG.

Find a way to develop and create a crossover and you find a way to make more money for you, Green Ronin’s DC Adventures is a great example of a crossover product for DC Comics. Best of all someone had to pay DC Comics for the license. I am going back to doing Grand Theft Exodus sometime in the future. I just have to make sure it works well to grow my business. Just something to think about. Talk to you later…

DC kills their webcomic service, Zuda...

Read about it here!

The financial mathematic of making a profitable RPG product for FREE…

So a few weeks ago I spoke about Monte Cook’ DungeonADay.com site and How to do it if it was free.  So I  have been crunching the actual numbers and this is what I have come up with to do my own version of DungeonADay.com with a little spin on it:

Writing focus & Writing Cost: Unlike DungeonADay.com which is a daily updated traffic site, we are looking to do updates to this website twice a week (Monday & Thursday) or three times a week (Monday, Wednesday & Friday).  Also unlike, DungeonADay.com we are using the Adventure Path structure as our focus and basis for this new website.  We plan for our Adventure Paths to last only for 13 weeks. Each day that we do and update will be an encounter that links into the larger story the website is telling. We are planning for each of the encounter updates to be 1,500 words in length with a one cent a word rate.  So that comes to either $30 or $45 a week for this project.  Figure it out for the full 13 weeks and you get a total price of either $390 or $585

The web hosting: SubHub is exactly what I would be looking for.  After joining DungeonADay.com and looking around it for all the great stuff it has inside for gaming fans (and there is a lot of great stuff inside) I think this will fit me nicely.  The price breakdown that SubHub provides is somewhat reasonable at $97 a month.  $97 a month comes out to $22.55 per week for a 13 week total of $293.15.

Artwork: Stock art which I have TONS of it so no issue there.

Cartography: After experimenting with my Fantasyscape line I decided that I will be handling that myself so I save cost on that.

So the total to do this little project for 13 weeks would be $683.15 (for twice a week) or $878.15 (for three times a week). 

Now, the BIG difference between this site and DungeonADay.com is that we are giving this site and content away COMPLETELY FOR FREE.  If I am doing this for free, how will this site make any money?  Now it is time to think like our friends at Webcomics.com and what I have read in How To Make Webcomics. 

First off, I have to know what is the minimum amount of money I need to generate per day to make this whole idea profitable.  So for twice a week version we will need to make $7.51 a day; while the three time a week version we will need to make $9.65 a day.  When you break it down like that it does not really seem like a lot of money.  How will I be making that money?  Let’s see…

Advertising: There will be ads from Project Wonderful where I will do a two skyscraper ads (160 x600 pixels) that will cost $1.50 a day to advertise on each ($3 total); one letterbox ad (728 x 90 pixels) that will cost $2 a day; six half banner ads (234 x 60 pixels) that will cost $0.50 a day to advertise on each ($3 total)

RPGNow Affiliate Store: I have an affiliate store that was created by RPGNow.com and I am able to sell my products (and other RPG companies products).  RPGNow.com gives me 10% of whatever I sales that I generate at that site. So if I wanted to make $4 a day from the affiliate site I would need to sell $40 worth of product a day.  With all the traffic I would be generating from the interest in this site, I do think that would be an issue. 

And with those two little things I could generate a whopping $12 a day which would come out over 13 weeks to be $1,092.  Subtract the $683.15 (for twice a week) or $878.15 (for three times a week) and you get $408.85 (twice a week) or $213.85 (three times a week). Proving this could be a profitable venture. 

Now here is the fun part that many of you have not even thought of yet.  I could collect all the content we have written (39K words for twice a week or 59K words for three times a week) and make a PDF version and sell it at RPGNow.com for $7 or $9 each.  Better yet, I can go Print on Demand with Lulu.com and sell them for $18.99 or $21.99 each. Since we covered the cost of the site with the advertising and affiliate store, all the rest is PURE PROFIT!!!!  Once again, all of it is PURE PROFIT!!!!!  Who would have thought you could make all that money giving stuff away for free?  Looks like I have some work to do.  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...