The CGL situation p3 Options

[Pepsi Jedi]

An average *novel* has about 250-300 words per page. An average RPG book has 750-1000 words per page (that's factoring in all the art, maps, etc.) Take a quick count of one of them, you'll see. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Can you cite your source on this? That an RPG book WITH art and maps ect has 4 times the amount of text than a novel per page?

I mean I'm not sitting around counting 100s of words, but I'd be .... astounded if one page in an RPG is 4 novel pages. Doesn't sound right.

[dirkformica]

Can you cite your source on this? That an RPG book WITH art and maps ect has 4 times the amount of text than a novel per page?

I mean I'm not sitting around counting 100s of words, but I'd be .... astounded if one page in an RPG is 4 novel pages. Doesn't sound right.

Hey, look at those credits in the Shadowrun books! I see in SR4A that someone named ADAM JURY is credited with being on the DESIGN TEAM, Writing, Short Story Writing, Cover Design, INTERIOR LAYOUT, and Character Sheet. He might be someone you could ask about that! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Bob Lord of Evil]

none of the public's business

Hold it...you mean I don't have a right to know why you left?

But dude...I am a fan?

I have given my hard earned money to CGL?

I have worshipped at the alter of Shadowrun since the dawn of time.

My children were all named for the coolest of Shadowtalk posters!

You would deny to me...me...of all people...the intimate knowledge from the very heart of the company which sustains my life???

*SARCASM OFF*

I wonder why Adam gets a pass and CGL doesn't?

[Ol' Scratch]

Because Adam's a nice guy who's never (to my knowledge anyway) ripped most of the upset people off or broken contracts he's made with them? That'd be my guess.

[Adam]

Can you cite your source on this? That an RPG book WITH art and maps ect has 4 times the amount of text than a novel per page?

I mean I'm not sitting around counting 100s of words, but I'd be .... astounded if one page in an RPG is 4 novel pages. Doesn't sound right.

There's a shortcut to counting the number of words on a page, you know: count the number of words in a line. Count the number of lines in a column. Multiply those two numbers. Then multiply that number by the number of columns on the page. Do that on a few different pages and you'll quickly figure out some averages.

I designed the Shadowrun, 20th Anniversary book in 2009, along with Eclipse Phase. Every single Shadowrun book that Catalyst published passed over my desk at some point or another; whether I did the entire production myself, fixed up some loose ends, or did some amount in-between. I also produced the BattleTech Introductory Boxed Set, Total Warfare, TechManual, and Tactical Operations. I've written the initial outlines and word count specs for books you've seen and books and projects you've yet to see or even hear about. I know what I'm talking about.

(Oh, and I've done some novels/fiction, too.)

[Cergorach]

Or you use MS Word (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Seattle 2072 was 150,000+ words.

Writers aren't the only folks that need payment, you also need things like editors and illustrators. I think Adam did the layout for CGL, but often this is also done by freelancers.

So for the writing Seattle 2072 might cost $5250+ (which isn't much IMHO), but you also have illustrators and editors, not having the numbers what they get paid, but a book like Seattle 2072 might easily cost up to $10,000-$15,000 for the freelancers alone. Now multiply this by a couple of books and the costs quickly add up...

[Cardul]

Or you use MS Word (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Seattle 2072 was 150,000+ words.

Writers aren't the only folks that need payment, you also need things like editors and illustrators. I think Adam did the layout for CGL, but often this is also done by freelancers.

So for the writing Seattle 2072 might cost $5250+ (which isn't much IMHO), but you also have illustrators and editors, not having the numbers what they get paid, but a book like Seattle 2072 might easily cost up to $10,000-$15,000 for the freelancers alone. Now multiply this by a couple of books and the costs quickly add up...

Well, alot of the art in Seattle 2072 was recycled. Not all of it, but alot of it. So they probably saved some nuyen there.
I do not think it costs that much to produce, though. I would guess 6000 for the writing(4 cents per word, as stated elsewhere, times 150,000 words), and probably another 1000 for the editing(figuring that is going to be hourly, like with local news papers).

(Completely uninformed speculation..I expect to be WAY off! but this should illustrate kind of the point) Of that cover price we pay, I am guessing about half goes to the publishing house, 25% goes to the distributors, 15% goes to the FLGS(since 10% discounts used to be common), and 10% goes to CGL. From that 10%, they have to pay their freelancers, artists, licensing fees, and permanent employees.

[Ancient History]

I'm not trying to throw rocks or anything here but the numbers you've provided seem strange.

You say they owed you about $3,100 at one point. Even using 4 cent per word average, that's seventy seven thousand five hundred words add in the other $2,100, and that's one hundred and thirty thousand words. Maybe I'm looking at it weird (( again not a published author or anything)) but I didn't think that RPG's werwquite that chock full of text. There's good fluff in Shadow run but still. That seems like A LOT to me.

It IS a lot. I wrote massive chunks of Vice and Corporate Guide, I did a respectable number of countries et al. in the Sixth World Almanac, I was contracted for two entire chapters in REDACTED, I did a lot of writing over the last year or so. No resting on my red curly-haired laurels for me, no sir.

As anyone will tell you, we don't write for the money. It is nice to be paid though.

[Cergorach]

Well, alot of the art in Seattle 2072 was recycled. Not all of it, but alot of it. So they probably saved some nuyen there.
I do not think it costs that much to produce, though. I would guess 6000 for the writing(4 cents per word, as stated elsewhere, times 150,000 words), and probably another 1000 for the editing(figuring that is going to be hourly, like with local news papers).

AH mention 3.5 cents a word a couple of times, I suspect that that is what most writers get.

(Completely uninformed speculation..I expect to be WAY off! but this should illustrate kind of the point) Of that cover price we pay, I am guessing about half goes to the publishing house, 25% goes to the distributors, 15% goes to the FLGS(since 10% discounts used to be common), and 10% goes to CGL. From that 10%, they have to pay their freelancers, artists, licensing fees, and permanent employees.

As far as I know it breaks down as follows (unless things have changed drastically in the RPG business):
40% publisher (CGL in this case)
20% distributor
40% retailer
This is of course the percentage of the MSRP, if the retailer chooses to ask less for the product that's his choice. Some companies like Amazon are capable of negotiating far better prices (often going around a distributor), but those tend to buy a lot of product at once, so that is nice for a publisher.

[Kid Chameleon]

This is incorrect. Every contract I've had for working on Shadowrun books, dating back to my time with FASA lo these many moons ago, was for a specific word count. Some chapters are bigger than others; "The Infected" in Running Wild, for instance, is right at 10,000 words. The Lone Star node I wrote up for Target: Matrix was substantially smaller, about 1,500 words. But I was paid by the word each time. I can't imagine they'd change their boilerplate contracts just for my benefit.

It varies by the nature of the project. Some are paid by the word, some by the section, some based on the word but varying based on how many words total (they have $5X for writing, so someone writing 20% of the the word count gets paid $X). Some things are even a flat rate based on a project (such as some PDF only products) while I even had one proposed project where I would receive a percentage of the net.

[darthmord]

Can you cite your source on this? That an RPG book WITH art and maps ect has 4 times the amount of text than a novel per page?

I mean I'm not sitting around counting 100s of words, but I'd be .... astounded if one page in an RPG is 4 novel pages. Doesn't sound right.

Having worked in the retail book selling business, I can point out a couple of things...


Take your average paperback. Count the words on the page. Usually tops out at ~300ish words per page. This does vary due to font and such but not by much unless unusual circumstances exist.

I also want to point out the SIZE of the page. Keep this in mind.

Your average RPG manual / sourcebook / splatbook / etc is based on 8.5x11 page sizes (or a size very close to it). At comparable font sizes (or smaller fonts, check your SR4A against a paperback book sometime), you can cram almost 4x the words due to sheer page size differences.

So the page content count *CAN* and *WILL* vary between two different formats. SR4A was an *expensive* book in comparison to DOTA: Dusk just from the size difference between the two.

[BishopMcQ]

For clarification purposes, the LEs arrived in the warehouse on March 22, 2010. I do not know who began the rumor that the boat just hit port this week. No official street date has been assigned as of yet. I will ensure that the information is propagated as quickly as possible once a street date is assigned.

Thank you.

[BishopMcQ]

It varies by the nature of the project. Some are paid by the word, some by the section, some based on the word but varying based on how many words total (they have $5X for writing, so someone writing 20% of the the word count gets paid $X). Some things are even a flat rate based on a project (such as some PDF only products) while I even had one proposed project where I would receive a percentage of the net.

Roughly 90% of our contracts are done at a price per word. Development contracts, such as those for our PDF exclusives, are the only ones which regularly receive a percentage of NET. Our PDF exclusives such as the Missions, are generally a fixed fee, due to the more fluid nature of electronic layout and a diminished need to hit exact page counts for signatures in printing. The BattleTech side does operate differently in this regard.

For clarification purposes, Kid Chameleon is one of the owners of IMR and a regular contributor to the BattleTech IP, which may be why he is more familiar with that side of the operations.

[JM Hardy]

For clarification purposes, the LEs arrived in the warehouse on March 22, 2010. I do not know who began the rumor that the boat just hit port this week. No official street date has been assigned as of yet. I will ensure that the information is propagated as quickly as possible once a street date is assigned.

Thank you.

I mentioned (and put up on the blog) that the boat had docked, but since I didn't have a specific date for that action, I didn't give one. The assumption was subsequently made that it had hit at about the same time as the announcement. Just one of those internet things!

Jason H.

[Stahlseele]

Kid Chameleon is one of the owners of IMR

Oooh, important Guests O.o We probably don't leave a good impression here with these threads.

and a regular contributor to the BattleTech IP

Ah.

[Patrick Goodman]

It varies by the nature of the project. Some are paid by the word, some by the section, some based on the word but varying based on how many words total (they have $5X for writing, so someone writing 20% of the the word count gets paid $X). Some things are even a flat rate based on a project (such as some PDF only products) while I even had one proposed project where I would receive a percentage of the net.

I was not aware of this; thanks for the clarification.

[Sengir]

This is incorrect. Every contract I've had for working on Shadowrun books, dating back to my time with FASA lo these many moons ago, was for a specific word count. Some chapters are bigger than others; "The Infected" in Running Wild, for instance, is right at 10,000 words. The Lone Star node I wrote up for Target: Matrix was substantially smaller, about 1,500 words. But I was paid by the word each time.

That means you're the guy who came up with the zombie apocalypse stats for HMHVV? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)


Or more generally, how much info/guidelines do freelancers get for their texts? Is it more like "write 10k words about HMHVV, two thirds fluff text and one third stats for the different infected and the virus itself", or does the employer provide all the "raw data" and your job is to translate it into a readable text?

[Patrick Goodman]

That means you're the guy who came up with the zombie apocalypse stats for HMHVV? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

The contact vector for Krieger? No, that was Ancient History in the Runner's Companion. I just did a cut-and-paste of the relevant section, but he came up with all that.

I'm still upset that I couldn't use jabberwocks in that book, but that's neither here nor there. I also tried to make bandersnatchii a little scarier, but was asked to scale things back a little. Also neither here nor there.

Or more generally, how much info/guidelines do freelancers get for their texts? Is it more like "write 10k words about HMHVV, two thirds fluff text and one third stats for the different infected and the virus itself", or does the employer provide all the "raw data" and your job is to translate it into a readable text?

In my case, it was the former: "Dude, I need 10K words, to include a 500 word intro fiction and approximately 2K of game information (stats, etc.). We're looking to have HMHVV-II spreading, so include new varieties for elves, orks, and dwarfs along with the rest of the Infected that haven't been translated to 4E yet."

To be sure, there's all sorts of reference available. Runner's Companion had only recently come out, so I had a lot of new information. There was also existing, but fairly new, information in Runner's Havens and a couple of other places about Asamondo and other Infected-friendly locales. But for the most part, I was told, "We need 10,000 words."

This was, of course, only after I'd completed a proposal outlining what I had in mind. The proposal for "The Infected" came from a much larger proposal I'd put together outlining an entire critter book back in the SR3 days, which I think I was calling Call of the Wild for a time before the concept of Running Wild really took off in Rob Boyle's brain. "The Infected" section of that was originally called "Shadows of the Night," and sometimes I wish I'd stuck with that title.

So I guess in all my descriptions of what goes on, I left out the proposal stage. It's not like I was just called up out of the blue and told to write 10K words on the Infected. I'd expressed a lot of interest in it beforehand, and showed them what I had in mind for the section before it was offered to me. There were other competing ideas that I managed to beat out. When Running Wild got delayed, I had to adapt what I'd proposed to the new stuff that had appeared in canon since my original proposal.

Question for the IMR/CGL types looking in on this thread: Would it be a violation of my NDA to show people the proposal that got Rob interested a few years back, during the FanPro era, to kind of show what goes on behind the scenes? It's not the best proposal, to be sure, but it got me the gig. If it's not kosher, I won't do it, but I think it might be educational.

[Ancient History]

That means you're the guy who came up with the zombie apocalypse stats for HMHVV? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

You'd probably want to blame me for that one - different intentions of the use of the word "contact." Very unintentional, mea culpa.

Or more generally, how much info/guidelines do freelancers get for their texts? Is it more like "write 10k words about HMHVV, two thirds fluff text and one third stats for the different infected and the virus itself", or does the employer provide all the "raw data" and your job is to translate it into a readable text?

Heh. There have been various efforts at a "Shadowrun Bible" to educate freelancers, but mainly the process goes like this:
1) A Project Specification goes out.

2) Freelancers propose for some or all of the sections in the Project Spec. Different freelancers go into different amounts of detail; some of the proposals end up being longer than the proposed section!

3) The developer in charge picks who does what, sometimes mixing and matching ideas from proposals and/or partnering people together. They include comments on the proposal, and usually there's a bit of talking about the section. Reference materials are provided as necessary, but generally the freelancer is expected to do their own research, with any gaps being (hopefully) noticed and called out by the proofers or developers.

Except in certain extraordinary circumstances, you're not just taking a bunch of raw data and chopping it down - I can think of one or two instances, like the SR Quick Start Rules, where you could sortof make that claim, but even then there's a good bit of design thought that goes into the presentation et al.

[JM Hardy]

Question for the IMR/CGL types looking in on this thread: Would it be a violation of my NDA to show people the proposal that got Rob interested a few years back, during the FanPro era, to kind of show what goes on behind the scenes? It's not the best proposal, to be sure, but it got me the gig. If it's not kosher, I won't do it, but I think it might be educational.

I think if you just post your proposal without any dev comments or anything that I'd be okay with that going up. There are other caveats--different devs have different preferences, and proposal formats change--but in general you're right, it could be a nice behind-the-scenes thing.

Jason H.

[Dwight]

I think if you just post your proposal without any dev comments or anything that I'd be okay with that going up. There are other caveats--different devs have different preferences, and proposal formats change--but in general you're right, it could be a nice behind-the-scenes thing.

Jason H.

Perhaps in a separate thread so it doesn't get lots in here and/or derail these thread?

[Patrick Goodman]

Perhaps in a separate thread so it doesn't get lots in here and/or derail these thread?

That's the plan. Since Jason thinks it's all right, and I don't really have anything in there that has any trade secrets, and it's even referencing a different version of the game, I think it'll be copacetic. I'm going to let a couple of other folks chime in before I do it, but it will be in its own thread, to which I'll provide a link when it's done.

[Stahlseele]

You'd probably want to blame me for that one - different intentions of the use of the word "contact." Very unintentional, mea culpa.

Why am i somehow not surprised that you of all people would come up with the zombie apocalypse for shadowrun? ^^

[Sengir]

There have been various efforts at a "Shadowrun Bible" to educate freelancers

That's what I was thinking about, a specification (or series thereof) with all the details of the universe, and if some new info is to be published the secret Canon Cabal creates a new section of the SR standard and then hires a writer to turn that condensated information into a book chapter.

Yes, I'm a CompSci guy, before lifting a finger I read 500 pages of specs about digit movement and then fill a few hectars of whiteboard with requirements like the minimum fingertip velocity when Mars, Venus and Jupiter align in the fifth house.


@Patrick: I'd certainly like to see it.

[Adam]

Except in certain extraordinary circumstances, you're not just taking a bunch of raw data and chopping it down - I can think of one or two instances, like the SR Quick Start Rules, where you could sortof make that claim, but even then there's a good bit of design thought that goes into the presentation et al.

The Quick-Start Rules were extremely unusual in that an author created the QSR from SR4, and then Randall and I spent a long time paring it even further down, building some bits back up, tearing them down again, figuring out what content should be duplicated/presented in shortened format in the sidebars, etc.

I still think it's one of the best presentations of Quick-Start Rules in gaming.