Tabletop gamers seem to be a curious breed when it comes to selling by unconventional means. You can sell gamers something directly and by and large we're ahead of the curve technology wise, especially when it comes to the adoption of electronic publishing, try something a little more unconventional though and things break down.

• Donationware doesn't seem to work, you release something for free and ask for donations or hook up a 'donate' button and pretty much nobody ever does. They'll happily take what you offer, but you'll be lucky to see even a single return, even on thousands and thousands of 'sales'.
• Shareware doesn't seem to be a model that can work particularly well, but the closest example is probably the practice of offering preview/quickstart sets cheap or free to get people's attention. I can't say that's made a noticable difference in the couple of cases I've done anything along those lines but White Wolf did it a bit more and for several games, so you'd have to ask them if it really worked.
• Freemium model seems to be one that could work, giving away the base game for free and then charging for extensions, but in gaming you only really NEED the main book and can make up the rest yourself. In MMORPGs etc it works because you need the item/expansion to keep playing and to be competetive. I'd be interested to see how Eclipse Phase is doing.
• Subscription ideas were something I bandied around a few years back but nobody really took seriously. DDI appears to be working, sort of, though I only think I know one gamer who actually has one. Dungeonaday seems to be rattling on but is the potential subscription base big enough to support one site along these lines or any more? I'm not sure that it does.
• Hostageware does seem to work, to an extent, there's been a few releases put out on that basis and I met my target in terms of social media dissemination. It might be worth trying on a monetary basis some time, but I think you really need to be a 'name' in order to get enough enthusiasm for your product.

We need to innovate, find new and effective ways of supporting gaming 'auteurs' and small companies and the other way around finding ways to provide useful services to gamers and effective ways of providing value for money, but unless we can overcome some of these payment difficulties and people's seeming conservatism when it comes to alternative finance models, we're kinda stuck.

I didn't get the job at Mongoose that I applied for, which I told a very few of you about. While the urgency of the need for steady employment is no longer there I did, really, want this job this time and not getting it has come as something of a disappointment. Which is stupid, since I knew there were all sorts of people going for it and that my chances were slim despite my obvious brilliance and superiority.

I think my writing has come on leaps and bounds over the last couple of years, I get a good amount of freelance work and my own products do pretty well, all things considered. I get complimented on my writing style at conventions, which is nice, but it's still hard to tell how well you're really doing without some sort of feedback. Unfortunately in this business when you're self publishing you're hard pressed to edit your own work - which is what budgets typically limit you to - and when you are edited by someone vaguely professional you don't get any feedback, so you can't improve. Added to that there's some of the issues I've talked about in other posts where different companies have different peculiar requirements when it comes to terminology, spelling, punctuation and so on and when you've been working for one company - or to your own preferences for a long enough time - it's very hard to switch gears from one set of rules to the other.

I guess it's a confidence knock when I'd been feeling I was doing so well recently, like I was on top of my game, but the rejection had its share of praise in it as well and some advice so I can improve a bit next time an opportunity comes up. You never know, maybe someone else will give me a shot - not that there's many RPG companies out there!

*sniffle*

Tell me I'm pretty?

The Outlaw Press shenanigans are still ONGOING and I think, given that he took the name of the company a little too seriously we can all be thankful it wasn't called Buggery Press - though it might as well have been given how they've treated some people. A brief recap for people who haven't kept up on this is that Outlaw Press have thieved a huge amount of artwork from all sorts of sources and used it in their products without permission and without the artists getting a cent. There's also implications that whole adventures and chunks of writing have been ripped off as well.

Writers get ripped off a lot as well, though not quite so blatantly as this usually (the worst cases are usually 'payment on publication' for products that never get published. I feel a great deal of sympathy for the artists ripped off in this case due to getting screwed around myself a few times.

I always try to treat the artists that do work for me as well as I can. I can't afford even half as much art as I'd like and I try to make things up to the artists that do, do work for me by allowing them to keep rights, paying them in advance and other things to show mutual respect as creators. When someone like this steps in and rips people off, using fabulous art without paying for it, small publishers like me are made to look like chumps and small press as a whole gets painted with a bad brush.

So I just want to put a shout of appreciation out to the hard working, and low paid, artists out there who don't deserve to get treated so badly. In particular the artists I've worked with the most:

• DarkZel
• Brad McDevitt
• Toby Gregory
• Gavin Hargest
• Raven Morrison

Much love and appreciation and I pledge to keep treating 'my' artists right, to make up for the arseholes out there ripping people off. To pay on time, or even in advance to pay what I can afford to, to be flexible and to give you guys as much creative leeway as I'm capable of giving, so the jobs for me are fun, engaging and at least profitable enough to bother with!

1. Some seem to have missed some of the point of yesterday's post. The main thrust of what I was saying is that in planning, as in many things, religions seem to get special consideration when it comes to architecture. Same as in law, tax and so many other spheres of life and government. It ain't on, basically.

2. Interesting news story today, I don't know if you're aware but in many parts of the US it's still an electoral requirement - at least on paper - that you believe in god. This has previously been regarded as an outdated law, it's obviously unconstitutional, much like the straw bale and London cab laws.

Until NOW.

Now, I always like to point out in instances like this that most nations do have legal, sensible and above board laws against people who are insane holding office, or indeed voting. Insanity, like, say, believing in things that don't exist or that invisible and indetectable spirits are talking to you. Son of Sam was insane (religion was involved) and only killed six people, insane people in political office have the potential to kill much larger numbers of people, simply through irrational policy decisions.

I think it's clear who, if anyone, should be barred from political office...

Not 100% sure where I stand on THIS issue. On the one hand it's a little disappointing to see a right-wing, knee jerk reaction to Islam like this which will, after all, only encourage militancy and other issues, on the other hand it's good to see religion of any sort, even/especially Islam being challenged in its assumptions and privileged status.

Why should religious buildings get a relatively free pass on planning permission and why should mosques get a free pass in Europe when churches and synagogues and their attendant architecture don't get a free pass in, say, Saudi Arabia? Of course, we'd be better off with none of them at all and having the old buildings turned over to public use, but you can't have everything.

Opposing the spread of Islam - or indeed any other religion - leads to a heightened persecution complex and increased militancy, even as it does tend to whittle down and get through to the moderates. Being a walkover, on the other hand, ends up with people taking a mile when you give them an inch, as we've seen in so many nations with so many religions.

I guess what it boils down to for me is that it should be fair and equitable, civilisationally, and that architecture should - usually - be area sensitive. If I have to fill out acres of paperwork just to get double glazed windows in an old British village, then minarets should certainly be considered 'not in keeping with the character of the area' and if the Islamic community wants to kick up a fuss about it, they should first relax their own rules and prejudices back home.