Louis has a post up about getting started in PDF publishing for under fifty bucks.  Go check it out.

I got my start as a PDF publisher because of the podcasts Louis did called the “RPG Publishing Gauntlet”, so I have benefited directly from LPJ’s advice.

Let me lay out for you the details of the first product Skortched Urf’ Studios ever released:  More Mighty Than Steel.

I spent exactly ten bucks on this masterpiece!  Five bucks went to the writer (Dennis Mohr) and another five bucks for the stock art cover I got HERE. (It looks like the prices have gone up a bit since then, so the same piece of stock art today would set me back $12 bucks. That would bring the total for this PDF to $17 as opposed to the $10 I spent.) So ten bucks for your first very short PDF, not bad.

I ran a report on OBS and it shows I have sold 78 copies of this PDF.  Our first PDF was profitable almost from the very beginning!

Now lets look at what happens when you don’t ruthlessly control costs, and let yourself spend too much on a PDF.

I let Anthony go hog-wild on the artwork for this baby.   It looks great, but lets examine the cost on this PDF.  I spent $50.00 on the writing (By Eric Karnes) and a whaopping $500 on art!  Sure, that sounds like a lot, but it really comes to about $25 bucks per piece of full-color artwork; a real bargain when you take into account the quality of the illustrations.

The OBS report shows 42 sales of this PDF.  (Smaller overall market for D20 Modern vs. fantasy stuff.)  So run some quick numbers and take out OBS’s 35% and I made not-quite $150.00 bucks on this PDF.  I am still $350 bucks in the red on this baby.  Looks like I may never get my money back.

Unless….

I sell the images I already own as stock art!  Remember, I have about $25.00 bucks *per piece* into the art.  How many pieces do I have to sell to make up the delta? About 25, right?

Each of these Sketchbooks sells for $9.99, and each has about 8 images, but to make the math work lets just say I make one buck per image when they sell.  So if I manage to sell 25 of each Sketchbook I have broken even.  Lets look at the numbers.

Modern figures #1 has sold 36 copies on OBS.

Modern figures #2 has sold 34 copies on OBS.

Modern figures #3 has sold 30 copies on OBS.

Modern figures #4 has sold 31 copies on OBS.

I have net sales (after OBS takes their cut) of $653.25 on those four sketchbooks.   Without the stock-art sales I would NEVER get my money back on Mia Famiglia, but factoring them in I have a great looking product, great stock-art that I can re-use and sell to other publishers who get access to the artwork for as little as ten bucks.  I think that iswhat we call a “Win-Win” scenario!  I’m not getting rich on stock art sales, but they do allow me to access another revenue stream that helps keep Skortched Urf’ Studios profitable.