Subterranean Battlemaps: A "New" Product and a Business Recap

The Fantasy Cartographic's "newest" product went live on RPGNow.com yesterday: Subterranean Battlemaps.

Except, well, it isn't really new.  All of its contents were available before.

Let me step back.

Do you ever have that feeling, as you try to work your way through various projects, that the one or two old ones that you never finished have come back to haunt you?  That exact thing happened to me earlier this week.

If you have spent any time in these parts at all, you probably have picked up on the fact that I sell a few minor wares over at RPGNow.  Admittedly, they are minor.  At one time, I had grand aspirations of putting out lots and lots of material.  Not to make a lot of money (because the chances of that are slim to none), but to just do it.  To satisfy that little itch that so many in the OSR have of putting material out there.

Those aspirations ran into life.  And just like my blogging has not been as prolific as I would like, the output of the The Fantasy Cartographic has been (to me, at least) disappointing.

Way back in November 2007, I released my first product, Locales, Volume 1.  I'm still a big fan of that one, and I think it holds up--especially for us OSR types.

In 2008, I released the following products:

Hand Drawn Maps, Volume One.
Caverns, Tunnels, and Caves, Volume One.
Caverns, Tunnels, and Caves, Volume Two.
Caverns, Tunnels, and Caves: Battlemaps One
Caverns, Tunnels, and Caves: Battlemaps Two
Caverns, Tunnels, and Caves: Battlemaps Three

These were all collections of maps, some made by me and others drawn by a very talented artist called Terrain Monkey.

The 'Battlemaps' products took the maps from the two 'Caverns, Tunnels, and Caves' products and expanded them into one-inch per square "battlemaps" specifically for use with miniatures.  [That was back during the 4E days, and I thought that I'd jump on that band wagon a little.]

2009 became the '4E Year' for The Fantasy Cartographic.  In February, I released a product called Power Cards: Secrets of Necromancy.  These cards were in support of Zodiac Gods Publishing's Secrets of Necromancy, a 4E sourcebook that presented an alternate character class for 4E, the Necromancer.  [Just in case ZGP is not familiar to you, it is Tori Bergquist's company, he of Realms of Chirak fame.]

Working on that product was a warm-up of sorts for me.  Later in 2009, I released Fantasy Class: Martialist, a 4E sourcebook of my own detailing a new character class. [I've been meaning to write a post on that product for some time now and my thoughts on 4E.  One more thing to add to the list...]  A topic that I will touch on in that post is that the Martialist didn't do that well.  As I read the reviews for it, I realized that my take on the class wasn't compatible with the 'standard' 4E default of super-heroic characters.  I did things in the design of that product that, in hindsight, are much more in keeping with the style of D&D that I grew up with.  Oh well.

I rounded out 2009 with two re-packagings: I created Bundles on RPGNow, lumping together the two Caverns, Tunnels, and Caves products into one and dropping their price and lumping together the three battlemaps products into one and dropping their price.  In the case of the three battlemaps products, I realized that they were woefully overpriced.  In both cases, the bundles were a way to group like products together and increase their value.

All told, the battlemaps dropped from over $25 to $9 when I bundled them.  (There's a lesson in there.)

2010 continued this trend.  I released Basic Maps, which combined the contents from the Caverns, Tunnels, Caves bundle and Hand Drawn Maps into one product.

So that now brings me back to the point that this post started with: Subterranean Battlemaps.  Just as Basic Maps was a compilation of previous products, Subterranean Battlemaps is a compilation of the previously bundled battlemap products.  And while the bundle sold for $9, this new compilation product will sell for $2.50.  Here is the description for the product: 

Subterranean Battlemaps is a compilation of three previous releases from The Fantasy Cartographic: Caverns, Tunnels, and Caves: Battlemaps 1, 2, and 3. 

Most recently sold as a Bundle, those products are no longer available in that format or separately here at RPGNow.

Frankly, when sold separately and then as a Bundle, these products were overpriced.  Their new pricing as a compilation now is much more reasonable.

For what you are paying, Subterranean Battlemaps is actually a steal!!  It contains:

 • Maps for fifteen different subterranean locations.

 • 295 pages of one-inch scale battlemaps for those same fifteen locations.

 • Black-and-white maps that are easy on your printer!

These maps are for use with 4E or any other rpg that requires the use of miniatures.

I don't think that many of you will buy this.  While I think that it is a useful product for those of us who play with miniatures, I would be surprised if it was a big seller (define that how you will).  Ultimately, I released this product, because it has been a little nagging itch in my head for years now.  I knew that its predecessors were overpriced; I knew that I wanted to fix that; and now I think I have.

Why Publish? That's Why!

The Digital Orc wrote a nice long piece about publishing gaming material.  I really enjoyed his take on it.

He talks about why he publishes (four reasons), he talks about inspiration, he talks about his personal process, and then he wraps with a description of his current projects.

I wish that I was as prolific as he is...

PDF Sales

Here is an interesting post from Tori Bergquist over at Realms of Chirak about the pricing of pdfs and the market for rpgs today.

I find it interesting because of the points that he makes.

I also find it interesting because a long time ago, when Tori was putting out some material for 4E, I produced a product that was a tie-in to one of his.

Basic Maps for your Fantasy Needs

Basic Maps is a product that I have for sale at RPGNow.com for $2.30.  It's just what it says it is--basic dungeon maps, 39 to be exact.  For your viewing pleasure, below you can peruse all 39 of them in low res.

The first 30 are cave and cavern complexes.  The last 9, which are hand-drawn and in a different style from the first group, are of an assortment of types of locations.

Personally, I think that 39 maps for $2.30 is a pretty good deal.  Perhaps, you'll agree.

D&D - Past, Present and Future

So where I am currently typing this, the New Year has not yet rolled in.  It is about ten minutes to midnight, and I am surrounded by sounds of explosions, large and small, welcoming the coming passage.

So, I guess first thing's first--Happy New Year to all of you who are already on the far side of this celebration.  I hope that you had a fun, and safe, time.

But on to the point.

I'm not a regular reader of the Escapist, but these articles caught my attention.  A guy by the name of Greg Tito has written three articles about D&D, talking about its Past, Present, and Future.  Interesting read, all in all, whether or not you agree with what he has to say or if you think that these articles have any relevance to the real world.  But I always enjoy hearing from "insiders" so I found these articles a fun read.  Perhaps you will as well.

Purple Worm Graveyard - Soon!

Over at Year of the Dungeon, Tony Dowler has (almost) made a very exciting announcement.

Okay, so why do I find this announcement exciting?  I did the layout work for Tony's nifty little adventure, and I am pretty pleased with my work.  Better yet, it was a paid gig.  Most importantly, he was pleased with my work.  (That is, unless he is the nicest man on the planet and didn't tell me how he really felt about it.)

I already have in my possession a complimentary hardcopy of the module, and I think that it came out very nicely.  The adventure itself is a lot of fun, and I highly recommend it.

$$ $$ $$

It is a topic that many people love to discuss--sometimes related to their desires to make money in our little hobby.

I recently ran across two short articles by Monte Cook regarding the topic.  (I know that, to some, he is the devil, but I typically find his thoughts to be insightful and interesting.)

Here he writes about the highest paid authors in 2010.

Here he talks about rpg designers and money.

I do have to admit, however, that when he discusses money, I am left with the feeling that his words would be more meaningful if he would inform us of how well he does in his writing.  Obviously, well.  But numbers would be interesting.  I realize that it is personal, and that it is truly none of my business, but it would be informative nonetheless.

I also know that the vast majority of people in this world (that I have ever met) do not like to discuss money issues--at least their own personal money issues.  I suppose it makes people uncomfortable.  Emotions get involved, etc, etc.  I, on the other hand, don't feel that way.

To be fair, as an officer in the US Navy, my pay is fully public knowledge.  With a few pieces of information, such as where I live, how long I've been in the services, etc., any one of you could google some numbers and determine EXACTLY what the Navy pays me.  I guess in a way, that is liberating.

But I would still be interested in knowing what Monte Cook makes in a given year.



...



This post is also a little experiment to determine if the title leads to increased traffic over my typical posts.  Apologies if my experiment offends.

pdf Pricing - Yeah

I'm going to have to agree with what he said.  I just don't see a pdf as being worth that price, any pdf.

Because it is a topic that interests me a lot, I thought that I would link to several posts that Tenkar has written over at his tavern.  First, he starts with some general questions pertaining to the pricing of pdfs.  I think that the questions he poses are all valid.  Unforunately for the erstwhile publisher, the answers to those questions vary across the buying public.  Valid questions that might be impossible to answer, unless one does market research, which by its very nature  is not done by publishers in our little corner.  Too expensive.

Later, Tenkar discusses the pricing of the Castle Keeper's Guide and what he might have charged for it.  Thanks, Tenkar!

I should say that in both cases, the comments are just as interesting as Tenkar's initial thoughts.

Questions of Legality and Recourse

So by no means do I fancy The Fantasy Cartographic anything more than a hobbyist venture.  As much as I would love to devote more time to my little rpg publishing experiment, family and career ensure that it will remain something to do on the side, something that, since I began, has made me only enough money to basically partake of this hobby for free.  For the foreseeable future, that will remain the case.

With that being said, I was over at RPGNow.com the other day, and I ran across this.  For those of you who choose not to click, the link leads to a product page at RPGNow for a Pathfinder rpg supplement detailing a new character class called 'The Martialist Base Class' from a company called Little Red Goblin Games.

This caused me to raise my eyebrows a little bit, as I put out a product back in the summer of 2009 for 4E (which I realize most readers around here do not play) called Fantasy Class: Martialist and, before that, a free preview, called Fantasy Class Preview: The Martialist Heroic.  I was extremely proud of these products; not only do I believe that they are visually on par with a lot of the 'professional' products being produced, it was the one product to this day that I had an art budget for.  (For the record, I highly recommend VShane for your illustration needs.)

The Martialist class that I had developed was an unarmed fighter that was not a monk.  There is no mysticism or Eastern philosophy in its conception.

Anyway, I know that 'martialist' is not a common title.  Frankly, if the nice people at Little Red Goblin Games had read some of the reviews of my product, they might have chosen a different name for the class, as it wasn't much appreciated.  But what is the chance that those little goblins came up with the name on their own and also attached it to an unarmed combatant class?

So the questions are this:  Is there anything to do?  Should I just let it go?  Am I being a buffoon for even getting upset about this?

I think that the answers to these questions may be 'No', 'Yes', and 'Possibly', but I'm interested in hearing what others think.

"New" Product for Release

Several months ago, I wrote a post about three products that I have for sale at RPGNow.com.  The punchline of that post was me telling you not to purchase any of them.  And I was serious.  (Seriously.  Go read that post if you don't believe me.)

Basically, as discussed in an even earlier post, I feel that the price-to-quality ratio of those products is poor at their current price.  If you were to ask me today, I would still tell you not to purchase them.

In that same post, I explained why I felt that way, and then went on to tell you about a compilation of those three products, to be called Basic Maps.  The idea behind Basic Maps was to take the maps in those three products, make them a little prettier, then combine them into a single document, and put them back on sale at a much reduced price.  (At the same time, I will discontinue the sale of the original products.)

This post is to announce that I have finally completed that project.  Basic Maps is now on sale at RPGNow for $2.30.  It contains 39 maps that I feel are pretty spiffy.  (Or, at least spiffy enough to charge you just under six cents per map, which was the point of the earlier post.)  Hopefully, some of you will feel the same way.  Please go check it out.

Sales Figures - For Another

My density knows no bounds.  I only just a few days ago realized that John Stater over at Land of Nod is pursuing the publishing thing in a big way.  Yes, I've come across his blog a few times, but for whatever reason have never spent much time there (Sorry, John!).  That's not to say that I wasn't impressed with his stuff--it's just that I always had other things to be reading.

Anyway, just a little while ago, he posted this.  (In case you didn't follow that link, it was a November Sales Report for his material.)  As someone who dabbles in the publishing side of things, I really appreciate his willingness to put out these numbers.  In my opinion, it would be fantastic if everyone who is putting out material, from those who are one step above amateurs to those who are one step below professionals, would publish their sales results.

A lot of the blogs that we are all familiar with are written by people who are also publishing material--seems to me they could all be making posts like this.  Obviously, there is nothing that says that they have to do so, and I understand that people value their privacy, etc, etc.  But I can't, for the life of me, come up with a good reason not to put out that information.

So, John, thanks for doing that.

If anyone is interested, here are his Sales Reports from the beginning:

June.

July.

August.

September.

October.

...

I figured that I would also post my historical sales figures--if only to demonstrate how well John is doing for himself.

I posted the first of my own Sales Reports back in January.  You can read it here.

But it now seems that how ever dense I thought I was before completely missed the mark:  I posted an updated Sales Report in July.  You can read it here.  If you want to understand embarassment, read the first sentence of the July Sales Report, then read this current post again.

Um, yeah.  Sorry, John.

The Business Side of Gaming

I seem to come back to it occasionally.  I just can't help it.  I enjoy reading about it, I enjoy trying my hand at it, I just enjoy it.

I recently came across a blog that I find very interesting: 20th Level Marketing.  I really like the post here about pricing products and sales.  I agree with him completely regarding his thoughts on pricing digital products.  Now if only more people (in the OSR) actually bought them...

Maps for Sale

So this is going to be a bit of a strange post.

You see, I'm going to tell you about three of my products that are for sale at RPGNow.com.  I'm going to give you links to the product pages so that you could, if you so desired, purchase them.  But then, as you approach the end of this post, I'm going to tell you NOT to purchase any of them.

I don't want you to purchase them at this point.  For reasons that I discussed a long time ago here, I don't think that these products are worth your money.  Okay, you say--if they're not worth my money, drop the price to make them worth it or remove them from the website or do something other than write a post about them.  Actually I am, but more on that in a moment.  First, the products:

Hand Drawn Maps, Volume 1.  A simple product containing 10 maps of various fantasy locations--a few dungeons, a keep, and a small town.  It contains only maps--no text, no description, nothing but the maps themselves. It first went on sale in January 2008 for $1.50 and has remained that price ever since.  Unlike Locales, Volume 1, which was my first product, HDMV1 did not include any work of my own but was the work of a cartographer who hung out at the Cartographer's Guild who held the moniker Terrainmonkey.  It was my small attempt to highlight the great things that were going on over at the Guild.

Caverns, Tunnels, and Caves: Volume 1.  Another simple product containing 16 maps of--you guessed it--caverns, tunnels, and caves.  No keys, no descriptions, just 16 maps, black and white with a grid.  It first went on sale in February 2008.  Initially on sale for $1.90, it is now selling for $1.25.  What I wanted to do with CTCV1 was include maps of underground areas that looked more 'natural' than typical D&D maps.  As someone who enjoys looking at maps and has done a little bit of caving, I realized that most maps of cavern and cave systems in D&D weren't very realistic.  I was hoping that this would fill a niche in the market.

Caverns, Tunnels, and Caves: Volume 2.  Identical to the first, this time containing 15 maps.  It first went on sale in September 2008.  Initially on sale for $1.75, it is now selling for $1.25.  Same idea as CTCV1.  I am ashamed to admit it, but at the time I wanted to put something out and couldn't find the motivation to do what I should have done, which was work on Locales, Volume 2--something I still haven't done.

So those are the three products.  If you were to purchase all three of them, you would spend $4.00, and for that money, you would receive 41 maps of gameable locations.  What you wouldn't get is any text or description, beyond the titles of the maps in HDMV1.  Worth it?  That depends on you, but I would say probably not.  (Although there are a large number of gamers out there who can be inspired by a decent map and find great utility in standalone maps, why would you spend money for them when there are so many free maps floating around?)  Looking back now, it certainly was not worth it when, instead of $4.00, those products cost you $5.15.

Since I do not feel that these products are worth the $4.00 that I am asking for them, I recommend that you DO NOT purchase them.

What is my point in all of this?  Let me tell you:  I am going to do some things to, hopefully, make them a little more worth your hard-earned money.  I am going to take these 41 maps, spruce them up a bit, combine them into a single document, and put them up for sale.  I'm not sure what price I'm going to charge, but it is going to be something less than $3.00.  Further, I am going to discontinue the sale of the three original products at that same time.  Are those maps worth the small money that I am soon going to charge?  Again, that depends on you, but I think that they just might be.

Last thing.  The new product will be called Basic Maps, and its cover will look like this:

Thoughts on Business from the Spiderweb

I've linked to Jeff Vogel before, his blog is firmly on My Daily Read, and his most recent post proves that he and I share sensibilities.  In case you aren't familiar, he is the owner/lead-designer for Spiderweb Software, an indie computer gaming company that specializes in one person rpg games.

In his most recent post, he discusses piracy in computer gaming.  It is a very interesting read.  While the parallels are not perfect, I think that there is enough overlap to be of interest to those who play and/or write for the paper rpg hobby--especially people who consume or produce (as I do) pdf products.  Not only is his article interesting, but the comments (167 as of this moment) demonstrate the full spectrum of opinion on the issue.

Not directly related to his post, but something that came up in the comments was a discussion of pricing for computer games.  I believe that the points raised on software pricing are equally applicable to pdf pricing--that, in general, for a product that costs the same to produce one copy as it does to produce a million copies (anything digital)--a lower price will equate to higher sales, which should lead to more income for the creator.

While that sentence is a gross oversimplification and the topic deserves a lot more indepth discussion, I think that it mostly holds true.  I've been thinking about it a lot over the last several months, and will post a longer explanation of why I believe this to be the case in the coming days.  If anyone has thoughts one way or another, I'm all ears (for the time being).

Sales Reports

I wanted to thank John over at the Land of Nod for posting this sales report.  I think that it is always interesting to see how people are doing on the 'business' end of our little hobby, and I wish that more people would post numbers like this.

Of course, after saying that, I probably should post my numbers.  I previously posted sales numbers here, which included sales from 2007 through the end of 2009.  Sales since then are as follows:

Locales, Vol One: 8
Hand Drawn Maps, Vol One: 8
Caverns, Tunnels, and Caves (CTC), Vol One: 4
Caverns, Tunnels, and Caves, Vol Two: 2
CTC: Battlemaps One: 2
CTC: Battlemaps Two: 2
CTC: Battlemaps Three: 2
Power Cards: Secrets of Necromancy: 1
Fantasy Class Preview: Martialist Heroic: 67 (Free download)
Fantasy Class: Martialist: 4

This then brings my grand total numbers up to:

Locales, Vol One: 69
Hand Drawn Maps, Vol One: 41
Caverns, Tunnels, and Caves (CTC), Vol One: 44
Caverns, Tunnels, and Caves, Vol Two: 26
CTC: Battlemaps One: 12
CTC: Battlemaps Two: 11
CTC: Battlemaps Three: 11
Power Cards: Secrets of Necromancy: 15
Fantasy Class Preview: Martialist Heroic: 382 (Free download)
Fantasy Class: Martialist: 21

Something that I have not done before is provide my gross and net profits.  (I've told you the numbers; I may as well tell you the dollars.)  As I distribrute only through RPGNow, they get an immediate 30% cut of my gross.

My profits by year are as follows:

Year        Gross           Net
2007      $027.50    $019.25
2008      $337.23    $236.07
2009      $343.95    $240.79
2010      $076.36    $053.45

Of course, even that is an oversimplification of the truth.  That 'Net' is not true net, as it does not include my costs to collaborators on Locales, Volume One nor does it include fees for the art included in the Martialist products.

So there you go.  You have now read The Fantasy Cartographic's extremely (over)simplified financial report for the first half of 2010.

Blogging as a Business

I can tell you that this blog is, at best, a hobby for me.  Unlike many people in the OSR corner of the blogosphere, I do sometimes think, however, that it would be great to turn this little hobby into some kind of steady income--perhaps even separate from the few products that The Fantasy Cartographic sells.

I came across this interesting article, and it really got me to thinking: Just what is possible?

Year of the Dungeon Compilation

Hey, everybody. 
As I mentioned back here, I offered to help out Tony Dowler with some small projects of his.

Why don't you go take a look?

Marketing the OSR - My Thoughts

Al, the guy who lives past the Black Gate (Which one?  If you don't know, don't ask.), posted yesterday about marketing the OSR.  A very interesting post that led to an interesting discussion.  The Bat (over in the Attic) also had some thoughts to add to the discussion.  I think that the Bat is on to something with his idea of a collection of content producers pooling their monies to do some large scale (relatively speaking) advertising.  The Fantasy Cartographic would certainly be interested in joining such a collective, if it came to pass.

It seems to me that the collective could do some things that wouldn't be very difficult or time-intensive to "spread the word".  Here are some ideas:

First, an identity needs to be developed.  Whether you call it the 'OSR' or 'The Renaissance' or whatever, pick a name and have someone design a logo.  A logo is huge, in that it will become the visual focal point for our efforts.

Second, a website should be thrown together.  The logo across the top.  A few paragraphs on who we are and what the renaissance is all about.  Then some links:
- One to 'Member Companies' which goes to a listing of the companies who contributed the fee as described by Rob Conley in his post.
- One to 'Other Companies' which goes to a listing of all of the other companies who have any relation to the OSR.
- One to 'Blogs' which goes to a complete listing of ALL the blogs out there who consider themselves part of the OSR.
- One to 'Handy Definitions' that would go to a page containing just that.
- One labelled 'Rosetta Stone' which would describe, in general terms, the different games and their links to the D&D equivalents.

You get the idea--obviously, there are many other things that can be linked to.  Perhaps it also includes a news feed, similar to the 'This Week in the OSR'.  The layout and design would be important.

Third, a link, incorporating the group's logo, similar to the 'RPG Bloggers Network' logo that any website, blog, gaming company, etc with an online presence can add to their site.  The purpose of it would be to allow these people to show their support for or membership in the group.  Once that starts popping up all over the place on the web, people will start to take more notice, just as they did with the RPG Bloggers Network.  The link would point directly to the group's website.

Fourth, once a pool of funds have been collected, use it to purchase banner ads at RPGNow.com (and its affiliates), at ENWorld, and all of the other 'larger' sites in the rpg world.  Use it also to purchase ad space in the standards--Fight On and Knockspell, Kobold Quarterly, and any other print periodicals that might be read by those interested.

Finally, as suggested by Raggi and others, purchase a booth at GenCon to sell our wares.

I have other ideas as well, but I think that those things would be a good start.  I think that they would also go a long way toward getting the word out.

My Thoughts on 4E

I enjoy playing and writing material for both 4E and the retro-clones.  Against any semblance of good business sense, the Fantasy Cartographic will try to support both ends of the D&D spectrum.  But I do have a couple of comments on 4E--conclusions to which I have recently come.

- Rules-heavy roleplaying (4E) is just more difficult to play than rules-lite (0E, 1E), for both the players and the DMs.  In the case of difficulty for the DMs, I think proof of this can be found in the blogosphere.  Two cases in point: ChattyDM and NewbieDM.  I love both of these blogs and am a regular reader of both.  But a good half of Chatty's writing is from the perspective of "I'm not that good of a DM, because it is so difficult, so here are some tips that I have learned the hard way to get better."  And Newbie's whole blog is based on him learning to be a better DM and sharing his insights with the rest of the DMs out there.  This is not meant to take anything away from either of those guys, but I think that their success is proof positive that 4E is hard.

- Avid players of 4E are different than players of the earliest editions.  (I know--obvious statement--just go with me on this one.)  If one goes to ENWorld's forums, they have a whole section devoted to questions about the rules, as they do about the 3.X rules.  I don't think that these types of sections would exist if ENWorld had been around in the early days.  Maybe I am wrong, but I think that players 30 years ago would have just house-ruled things.  (Although as I type this, I realize that perhaps that is not the case.  We probably would have discussed/argued the nuances as much as they do today.)

- It is extremely difficult (comparatively) to write good, mechanically sound material for the later editions than it is to do the same for the earliest editions.  (Thirty years ago, did anyone even consider the need to be 'mechanically sound'?)  The learning curve is steep--perhaps too steep to attempt to climb.  I think that 3.X epitomizes this, and while I believe that 4E is better in this regard, it is still difficult compared to the early editions.

- With one exception, I think that WotC is supporting 4E very well, which makes it difficult for a would-be publisher of 4E materials to really get traction in the market.  Between their DDI, Dungeon and Dragon magazines, and the other content available on their website, they are producing a vast amount of gaming material.  The one area where I think they could do a lot better is in publishing adventures.  While one could argue that Dungeon magazine includes several adventures each month, it is not the same as full length modules that you can hold in your hands.  [Is 'magazine' even the proper term of WotC's two periodicals?  I don't know.]

- While I know that many people (especially in our neck of the woods) do not consider 4E to be D&D, I know that I enjoy it.  I enjoy reading the material that they are putting out; I think that the production values are top-notch; and (perhaps most blasphemous of all) it even feels like D&D to me.

I'm sure that I'll write about this topic again as I wrestle with my views on it and as I attempt to decide where (and if) The Fantasy Cartographic will concentrate its efforts.  Lots to think about.

Making a Living in the OSR

Much has been said about James Mishler's recent decision to close up shop at Adventure Games Publishing.  I think that I agree with everyone when I say that it is a sad thing whenever any gaming company decides to close its doors.  It is obvious from his announcement that he has given it a lot of thought and is doing the right thing for himself--as he most certainly must.  I wish him luck in his future endeavors and look forward to seeing his name on gaming material in the future.

As I've been pondering this development over the past few days, I've reread his post several times.  On the fourth or fifth reading, something jumped out at me that I hadn't noticed previously.  He writes:

Were this simply a sideline to a full-time job, that would truly be a nice result. As this is supposed to be my "day job," that result is, as we call it, a "reason to quit."

I have to admit that those two sentences shocked me.  Much has been written all over the internet about the feasibility of making a living solely based on rpg-related income.  I believe that the general consensus is that, outside of employees of a few of the larger gaming companies and a few invididuals (who can probably be counted on two hands), no one makes a living solely from rpg work.  I know that there are artists who derive a good bit of their income from their gaming work, but I believe that most of them also do art work for other industries.

I might be wrong on this count, but I have always viewed AGP as an OSR entity.  The idea that one could even conceive of making a living from our "niche within a niche" completely blew me away.  Perhaps this has been a topic across the blogosphere and, new to the OSR as I am, I missed it, but does anyone think that this is possible?  Is it?

Is there anyone out there who produces mostly "old-school" material who is making a full time living from it?  I would love to know.