Goal: To create a sustainable way to help bring more LH adventures to print without being a large upfront cost to creators.
tl;dr: Launch your adventure as print on demand through Lulu (or drivethrurpg or hosted on your own site) and the LH team will work hard to collect those on the main website and promote them.
Thought Process: As the LH dev team continues our journey growing, one of our main areas of focus is supporting new creators. One of the reasons around hosting the jams is that it helps us build momentum as a community. We also acknowledge that a big part of ttrpgs is the idea of tables being able to buy physical books. There is something about being able to crack open those pages and reference a physical object. The downside is that getting a book to print often involves a lot of work and cost (ordering stock, shipping it to your place, packaging and distributing). One great way to get started is to have your adventure hosted on Print On Demand (PoD). This allows customers to buy the work, and it gets printed and shipped to them without an upfront cost to you.
LH Third Party Print Program: The LH dev team will create a page on the main liminalhorrorrpg.com hub to host print products by creators. This will be at no cost, and simply link to where people can purchase the books (and their digital counterparts). We will also catalog them on the liminalhorrorlibary.com as their own entry!
PoD Steps:
1. Write and design you adventure, getting it ready to print! Remember that each printer has its own specific margin/design guides.
2. Set it up as Print on Demand
- Lulu (resources) https://www.lulu.com/publishing-toolkit
- Formatting (Book Creation Guide) Includes PDF specifications, spine guides, and formatting terms to help you print your book https://www.lulu.com/sell/sell-on-lulu (selling on the Lulu bookstore allows you to set up print on demand for no cost, sell direct to customers, and Lulu prints/drop ships them).
- Drivethru (resources)
- Overview: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/joininfo2.php
- Book cost and formats: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/pub_pod_cost.php
- Quick book specifications: https://help.drivethrupartners.com/hc/en-us/articles/12780800178583-Quick-Specifications-for-Print-Books#h_01HFVSQQNE7CNT9CBGDAMQC835
3. Price your work. A pretty standard rate for adventures is $10-15 for zines, 20+ for perfect bound soft cover, 25+ for hardcovers. But you can set it to whatever you like.
4. Launch the title!
5.Start making money of print titles as well as your digital options!
6. Reach out to the LH team to let them know your work is in print:
- discord
- LH library submission
- DM
7. LH team will post it to the library, the main hub page, and promote print projects regularly in newsletters, etc
If you are selling your print product (not PoD) Steps:
1. Finish your adventure
2. Get it printed and shipped (to you or a distributor)
3. Start selling it online.
4. Reach out to the LH team to let them know your work is in print:
- Discord: https://discord.gg/VdmSHXaqTT
- LH library submission: https://liminalhorrorlibrary.com/
- DM
5. LH team will post it to the library, the main hub page, and promote print projects regularly in newsletters, etc