I’ve been using this icon of myself for a couple of years, and that thing in my mouth is a fireworks sparkler. With the 4th of July US holiday coming this week, I just thought you should know not to hold sparklers in your mouth. (I do things like that, but I do a lot of things I shouldn’t).
Eddy took some time from his vacation to chat yesterday, and interestingly enough, he was happy to talk about last week’s look at the business model for Onyx Path. This is not surprising, as it was through our conversations that the current direction of Onyx was molded (as was the direction of WW in the last few years), and it is through our ongoing talks that I get to hear how things look from an outside observer who already understands the various pieces that make up the company. Very useful, that.
Following up on last week’s two Onyx Path business model precepts, here’s a big one for this week:
Third, Onyx Path delivers our projects into folks hands using three methods: PDFs (electronic publishing), Print on Demand books, and traditionally printed Deluxe Editions via Kickstarter Campaigns.
PDFs, were our first alternative to the traditional printing and distribution methods that our hobby has used for decades. Obviously, a lot of the methods Onyx is using with PDFs are what we learned after the years Eddy and I began transitioning White Wolf towards electronic publishing, but as the way we all get our entertainment has shifted in the past decade, we’re looking at going even further with ePublishing. Right now, we’ve just started on other electronic methods like with the choice of formats for the God Machine Chronicle Anthology, but we’re working on extending what we can do. Our Dice Roller App is still in production, and Mirthful Mike Chaney is exploring ways to include other ePub formats with our RPG book projects.
Now, I wasn’t all that satisfied with only being a PDF publisher, despite the future possibilities, because I’ve made books look beautiful for 30 years and still really love the physical turn of the page. For years, WW looked at PoD technology and results (we even seriously considered buying a set-up), but I didn’t like the quality. But about six years ago, DTRPG started showing us examples of where PoD printing had progressed to, and I started to see a black and white printing quality very close to what we had back when I started at WW. With DTRPG able to ship paper books to fans with the same ease as ordering from Amazon, I feel that Onyx Path offers printed books with a quality that keeps evolving to higher standards, while not forcing Onyx to deal with inventory, warehousing, and distribution.
And then last year, Onyx Path launched its first Kickstarter and the final piece of our current publishing delivery strategy fell into place. Even though DTRPG’s PoD service has a lot of excellent advantages, it still can’t truly replace the traditional printer when it comes to making books that use unusual inks, or embossings, or other materials for the covers. But those cool Deluxe features are expensive to print- really expensive- and Onyx doesn’t have a sales and ordering set-up and would have to find methods of shipping those orders if it did. We discovered that Kickstarter had the methods for inputting payments, the KS funding if it succeeded would provide the dollars for the printing, and if it failed to fund we’d get valuable info as to whether fans really wanted the book. And even more importantly, KS added greatly to Onyx Path‘s communication methods with our community (more on that next week). And Onyx doesn’t print any more of the Deluxe projects than we need to to fulfill pledges, so again, no inventory to store and manage.
As you can tell, from all three of these delivery method descriptions, I’m really looking at having the fewest steps between you, our fans, and our creators. We are freed, in ways White Wolf could never have been in its heyday, to produce the projects that we and you are most excited about without having to check with our sales venues. That means we are out of, and have no intention returning to, the traditional three tier distribution system like WW used for decades. Which is not to say Onyx never will, because never say never, nor that we don’t want to support our FLGSs. Our model doesn’t drop the books into a retail store like back when, but we are adjusting two aspects of the model to at least allow Retailers to join us on this path. First off, we have been including Retailer Reward Tiers in our last several Kickstarters, and secondly, we have been experimenting with a Retailer Discount Program for PoDs on DTRPG. Neither of these provide the same profit margins as the old distribution to retailer model, but we try to give as good a discount as possible without costing Onyx money to fulfill a Reward or order. Because that would be dumb.
Finally, speaking of Kickstarters, our buddies at By Night Studios are coming to the end of their Mind’s Eye Theatre: VtM Kickstarter and if you haven’t pledged yet, you might want to check it out as the book looks like it’s going to be sweet. Also, both Mark Rein-Hagen and Stewart Wieck, WW co-founders, are running Kickstarters. Mark’s is for his horror RPG I Am Zombie, and Stew’s is for an Augmented Reality Board Game called Darkling Plain. Again, if you haven’t checked them out, you should, they look like very cool projects.
Enough about other folks’ projects, here are our Updates:
– Strix Chronicle Fiction Anthology (VtR) is in layout.
– Blood and Smoke: The Strix Chronicle (VtR) This is smashing into Rose’s work on Demon and so we re-prioritized her to push the Demon text to editing and for art notes. Still waiting on some final drafts.
– Mummy the Curse – Book and Screen are at press. The MtC Ready Made Characters Pack is in editing. Cursed Necropolis DC being written.
– Exalted 3rd Edition: The Devs are back to work on the book and I’m creating Reward and Stretch Goal lists. In return, the Devs are getting together a full book status report and we just sent notes back to the cartographer.
– V20 Hunters Hunted 2: Files are with the printer for the Deluxe. We’re not going to get the PoD and PDF files OK’d this week, but will aim for next week. Justin’s almost ready to send the HH2 Fiction Anthology to editing.
– V20 Anarchs Unbound is in editing and we are getting art for it.
– Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition: At press and getting the page-edge gilding put on. Mike Lee went back and revised a fair number of chapter in the W20 “Houses of the Moon” novel prior to submitting to Bill for dev review. The Storyteller Screen files are at press with W20. Bill has theW20 Anthology stories in and is formatting them for editing. The Skinner is available from DTRPG in PDF and PoD form: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/115057/Skinner-SAS . Jess Hartley is writing the White Howlers Tribe Book and the W20 Cookbook is ready for editing- which might take a while since our regular copy editors might not be as up on translating UK measurements to US ones. Check out some news here: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/2013/06/03/white-howler-gifts-and-a-recipe/
– Deluxe Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has Phil Brucato writing like a maniac and developing his writers, also like a maniac. Very early sketches for the fulls from Michael William Kaluta look awesome. Getting art notes out to a ton of classic Mage artists.
– W20 Changing Breeds Kickstarter went live and we funded early last week. Now working on adding cool extra bits like a front of the book comic as Stretch Goals. The full text is available here: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/
– W20 Rage Across the World: Most of the art is in but two more pieces need to come in.
– Guildhalls of the Deathless (MtC) is into editing and art notes are out to artists.
– Conventionbook: Syndicate (cMtA) is having its first proof changes input.
– Conventionbook: Void Engineers (cMtA) is in editing.
– W20 Book of the Wyrm is being written and red-lined. Check out the W20 blog notes: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/
– V20 Rites of the Blood: is being written and is in Open Dev on the blogs: http://whitewolfblogs.com/v20/
– Under the Darkening Sky (classic Dark Ages): Being outlined and teased by developer David Hill.
– Trinity Continuum: We now have a whopping big Aeon outline and a Trinity Continuum Core Book outline.
– Scion: Great call between Ian and Joe. Much meeting of the minds, and Joe’s team are hammering systems.
– Demon: The Descent: Yes, that’s the title. Yay! Lots of example of play commentary including from Black Hat Matt McFarland’s play test are up on the new Demon blog: http://whitewolfblogs.com/demon/ Check it out, there are quite a few playtests posted now and they give a very interesting (if early) look at the game. Text is being readied for editing and Rose is trying to get art notes together. We’re looking to create a Demon Quickstart to roll out before the game itself as we’re not sure the finished book will hit Gen-Con- but the Quickstart can. If we go with that strategy, we’ll delay the Demon Translation Guide in order to work on the QS and create a Demon Preview booklet for Gen Con.
– Hunter: The Something About Monsters: Outline to writers.
Reason to Drink: Canada Day and the 4th of July in one week!
Kaluta??? Really?
The art from nwod mage was AWFUL. Sweet monkey gods, can we PLEASE have someone else?
I’ve seen him do better work, but after seeing him make that book look like a third rate Liefield copyist doing doctor who side characters, knowing he’s doing anything in this book makes me shudder. What ever happened to Christopher Shy or Steve Prescott? Is Uran doing too much Exalted to be tapped?
Did you like the big full-page “abstract”ish art pages in previous editions of Ascension, that were used as the covers to the 1st/2nd ed Traditionbooks? They were Kaluta, IIRC.
I liked Kaluta’s stuff, I always get a feel of motion from his art- which helped me get a greater understanding of Awakening. I need to go back through Ascension to remind myself of his art in there, I got a nice Ascension Art Book recently, so I’ll leap through that as well.
I will second though, Christopher Shy defined Ascension for me. More of his stuff would be amazing!
I thought Kaluta’s illos were *great*, and really set a solid tone for nWoD Mage.
What are the chances we will get that Mage20 development/art blog before late August looking like? I’m ready to start getting a feel for how things are gonna look inside it so I’m ready to throw money at you!
I’d suggest checking out the “Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition” Facebook page. 🙂
As someone who had previously been confused about the business model, these discussions help! Also, as someone who only wants physical books, I think the POD system works swell. I’ve gotten hardcovers & softcovers & been very happy (I assume it is Lightning Source that DTRPG uses? & that you were thinking about maybe an Espresso machine, once upon a time? But that is just me making wild guesses). Anyhow, I haven’t gotten a Kickstarter book yet– I’m nWoD, so Mummy is the first one I backed– but I’m interested in it as a model too. I WOULD like to see Retailers join in– order something to have on the shelves– but that is really on them, I suppose. As long as they are informed of the ways to buy in, that is. Which I hope they are!
I’m perfectly content with Onyx Path’s business model. PDF, KS, and POD services have been great(with the exception of my POD copy of Hunter: the Vigil, in which the paper quality was terrible), and I will fully support any and all KS OP creates. More Hunter(Reckoning and/or Vigil) please!
I wasn’t interested in Mummy, but then the Kickstarter came along and I figured I could at least throw in for a PDF to help out. I never would have done that if it had gone straight to PDF/PoD. For a company focusing on e-commerce, Kickstarter does an excellent job of encouraging community involvement. I don’t even want to think about the money I spent on Exalted.
I’m really looking forward to seeing how the Demon Kickstarter goes.
Lots more great stuff coming from Mummy.
hey @richt, did you see? Mind’s Eye Theatre: VtM Kickstarter has a translation strench goal!!!!!! you could copy that!!
It’s funny you posted your picture. I’ve always thought that picture looked like your annoying little fairy godmother/shoulder-angel appeared to remind you to be good. Again. Your expression is perfect- “Oh hell, you again. What the feck do you want now?”
How about instead of taking on so many projects you guys actually finish what you have done so far. SEVEN MONTHS! Waiting on mummy? W20 still hasn’t been delivered to my friends….. you’re happy with the taking of our cash but where’s the product? I shudder to think when we will get EX3 ….you’re saying Dec for that….so since its been 5 month’s overdue on Mummy and that’s a small book can I assume you guys mean December 2015 for EX3. Stop taking on projects and actually finish the job you have.
So many fan boys out there will be happy to wait but V20 came within 5 months of the KS. What tge hell happened?
Keep in mind that the Kickstarter model is still fairly new, and we’re continuing to refine it.
Each Kickstarter has a lot of moving parts: one company prints the pages, another one prints the cover, another does embossing, another gilts the edges, another does the bookmarks, another does the binding, and another ships the individual pieces between companies. If any one of these organizations has a hold up, that brings the whole project to a halt.
But other than Rich trying to smooth things over, this doesn’t affect the operation of Onyx Path. W20 being delayed doesn’t affect the work of the Exalted devs. Stopping the Mage team won’t magically speed up Hunters Hunted 2.
We understand you’re upset; we want these books released too. But stopping all operations isn’t going to help, it’ll just delay those books too.
V20, by the way, was done under CCP, and before we were using Kickstarter, so it’s not a fair comparison. The entire process was different.
Plus, if I recall, Rich called in a lot of favors to get V20 out on time to The Grand Masquerade.
My belief is that if you invest in a kickstarter, you should be patient. You should know about the industry and mechanics you are investing in. Kickstarter is not placing an order. It is investing in a product that has not been done yet. Kickstarter is not a store. There are any number of things that can delay a project. I have seen one project I backed get bogged down in legal issues, and I have seen others get bogged down in stuff not shipping from overseas when it was supposed to. I saw the potential for all of these when I chose to invest in those kickstarters. Why do people not do any research in the greater issues involved in what they are backing on kickstarter when they would never do that with something else they were investing in?
I know what you mean, I took a Theater Appreciation class in Community College, so I know how this stuff works out. The final thing we had to do as certain groups was to make a “pitch” to our other class mates about why they should invest/fund/support for our play.
Many people are unaware that nearly every single play that a theater does needs money from many people or donors to be able to do it in the first place. And you have to talk to those donors to convince them why you should this or that “play”.
And yes, I’ve seen my fair share of various delays too. One guy gave everybody a second item (Stuffed Tiger) for the very long delay that happened to make up for it.
I also believe that many people just don’t have the patience anymore for simple things.
I’ve done everything from convention Masquerade waiting (Anime Expo), Postage Stamp changes (Where everyone wants to mail their stuff before the price increases, so you have a snaking line for that), theme park line waits, to waiting inside a plane in the runway for nearly three hours with no problems.
Heck, I can sit still for a very long time when I was in Head Figure/Portrait Drawing classes, when it was my turn for other people to draw me.
And yet, I’ve also seen people give negative feedback towards ebay sellers if their item isn’t shipped right away even when the seller informs them about any delays that could happen. I knew a ebay seller who sold items from Japan and sometimes had delays because of holidays over there.
She straight up had that warning about Japanese holidays on every single item she sold in big bold red letters, because people still weren’t getting the message.
Wait, what? New Hunter stuff!? Pleasepleaseplease let it be for Reckoning!
Sorry, it’s Vigil.
That answered the question I was about to ask.
It’s on our schedule as “Monstrous Basterds.”
And for the record, that is a wicked title. 🙂
Oh Gods Yes! I love VIGIL. 😀
Note that is a placeholder title for now and not the final.
My writing team on this book and the code names for their sections of the book are:
Open Doors, Closed Hearts – Monica Valentinelli
Mad Science – Matthew McFarland
Lost & Found – Jess Hartley
Eaters of the Dead – Jason Needham
This Place is Cursed – Adam Tinworth
To Hell & Back – Rose Bailey
Creepy Capability – David Hill
-Matt
Excellent Tease! 🙂
Matt, there is not a word in your post that I do not like! Sounds like a freakin’ awesome supplement! Take the money now, man.