Back in 2004 when the D20 system was still booming and the Open Game License was encouraging publishers to experiment with their own compatible systems, it seemed anyone could be a PDF publisher. This book goes beyond being a RPG PDF publisher and is an essential guide to any form of e-publishing. It includes everything you need to know to get started price points, budgets, assembling a publishing team, legal advice, design and layout, a variety of open licenses (not just the OGL), managing artists and writers, and even writing press releases and handling search engine optimization (SEO). The amount of advice crammed into this book is staggering – in the age of social media hucksters there are consultants who charge thousands of dollars to cover just one chapter of this book. Just as valuable are the survey results scattered throughout the book which tell their own story: you see the appropriate price points for PDFs, what content customers are looking for, what features they hate (hint: it involves copy/paste), piracy issues, optimal size, and even sales numbers for RPGNow (before it merged with DriveThruRPG). There's demographic customer information and the optimal time that they purchase products – all invaluable data for any prospective publisher. Although the book is over six years out of date, the advice is still very relevant to the industry today.

This should be mandatory reading for anyone wanting to start in pdf publishing. There's a lot of good advice on a wide range of subjects. There will be something you didn't think of that's covered here and worth your money to know it.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

This is a useful resource for those thinking of getting into the PDF business or looking to study it. <br><br><b>LIKED</b>: The contracts and other documents were quite useful and as informative about the pdf business as the text itself. I do so like charts and graphs.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I honestly expected to get more insight into the pdf business than i did.

The layout and presentation is somewhat simple and i think its reasonable to have expected a more top flight looking PDF that is designed to instruct others in pdf publishing.

I'll admit that i was interested in the admission into the publishers forum here at RPGNOW that the product included. However it turned out that access to the publisher forums is no great prize. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Very useful guide. The forms are great for a new publisher. <br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Boilerplate forms, templates, advice. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Not enough info :) <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Well worth the price, and great reference for anyone interested in e-publishing games.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

This is a useful book for people who know nothing about pdf publishing, and can't be bothered searching out the info themselves. But overall, it's disappointing.

I found this guide had many useful aspects, but it was limited in some respects. Firstly, I was disappointed that it had a proofreading mistake as obvious as Monte Cook's "Forward." I think they meant "Foreword." They've also not updated the information. I downloaded this after rpgnow had raised its rates, but the guide, and the associated documents with it, still talk about them taking a 20% commission. It's now 25 or 30%. That is simply poor copy editing.

Secondly, it was overly-oriented towards the USA. Of course it was written there, so we have to expect this. Sure, half the customers of the joint are from there, too. But e-commerce is supposed to be global - and half the customers, and vendors, aren't American. The sections on US copyright and business law were completely useless to me, except of course that it made me think, "yes, I have to check that." A guide which ignores half your customers and vendors is not the best. I wouldn't like my business to halve overnight.

By section:

the "Prepress and Planning" section was good, offering food for thought. The sales data wasn't useful, since it didn't tell us about the content of the market. If 77% of the sales is d20 stuff, is that, 1% of products with 77% of the market (ie, there's not much but everyone wants it), or is that 99% of products are d20, with 77% of the market (ie, people buy it because there's not much else to buy).

"Budgets and Staff" was excellent, and should be read by any would-be rpg producer, so they know what they're getting into financially.

"Legal" and "Licensing" were, as I noted, useful mainly to US people. There was too much blabbing about d20 stuff. This should have been kept to the other published separate guide, especially for the purpose. This should have been more general. It was not enough info for those who do want to do d20 stuff, and too much info for those who don't want to do it. Better to keep it in the separate guide.

"Design and Layout" was a decent section. "Marketing" and "Sales" were quite respectable. The sales figures in particular should be considered by every would-be publisher.

The "Internet Resources" and "Survey" sections were useful, too.

In essence, the entire guide is useful to Americans who want to produce d20 products, and half of it is useful to non-Americans who don't want to produce d20 products.

The e-publisher guide I've rated as "Disappointing" because it's largely just a collation of information which is already out there. When you're thinking about publishing pdf games, it's important to research. For my part, I spent some time talking to current publishers, and thinking about the market and so on. So, most of the stuff in this guide I knew already. However, if you can't be bothered doing that research, they've put it together in this guide for you.

And that is why I say it's a useful book for people who know nothing about pdf publishing, and can't be bothered searching out the info themselves. But overall, it's disappointing.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>

Hands down the single most important step I have taken towards e-publishing was buying & reading this book; even those interested in the print market will find a plethora of useful info in this tome.

A damn useful product for aspiring gaming moguls. The statistical breakdown contains a good dose of reality.

This is certainly a very useful resource for ePublishers and those thinking of becoming ePublishers. A certain amount of the information contained in this product is freely available elsewhere on the RPG Now site and this seems largely slanted towards RPGs in general and D20 stuff in particular but as a miniatures game publisher I still found it useful enough to warrant the price.

Very big help. Answered alot of questions that I could not seem to get answered. Gave me good expectations that I could live with.

This book is extremely useful for any budding e-publisher. I hope to use most if this information for my own publishing company!!

Filled with interesting information and highly recommended to anyone starting out in ebook publishing for the RPG industry.

I am not sure I learned anything I didn't already guess at, however if you are new to starting small companies as well being new to the RPG industry, this is a not-to-be missed product.

Wonderful resource! Worth every dime. I was wary because I thought it would include basic-easy-to-find-info on basic ebusiness, but instead it brought wonderful insight on the RPG industry, suplied numerous resources including contracts and templates, as well as gave sound advice on marketing strategy.

If you plan on epublishing get this book.

I found it pretty helpful, and I think this is a must-buy for vendors.

This is a well-written guide to ePublishing by people who know what they're talking about. The ePublisher Guide is detailed, but gets straight to the point.