anyway.

1. What's your name? Brennan Taylor
2. What's your publishing company? Galileo Games
3. What game or games have you published? The Legend of Yore, Bulldogs, Mortal Coil
4. When you first started publishing, what success did you hope for? I hoped to become a professional game designer, and do it full time.
5. Did you achieve it? Nope.
6. What success do you hope for now? To have the company sustain itself and maybe turn a little profit.
7. Have you achieved it? Not yet, but I actually have a plan now.
8. If a hopeful new RPG publisher came to you and asked you for your wisdom, to help her set reasonable expectations for her own games' success, what would you tell her? I'd tell her to answer question #4, and then take a look at the market and what other people are doing. Then re-examine her answer. Does it look achievable? If so, write down your plan and start implementing. If not, reassess your goals and see if you will be satisfied with what you can reasonably achieve.

1. What's your name?
Ralph Mazza

2. What's your publishing company?
Ramshead Publishing

3. What game or games have you published?
Universalis
Blood Red Sands (soon)
Robots & Rapiers (eventually, yes...for real)

4. When you first started publishing, what success did you hope for?
People would play my games and tell me I'm awesome.

5. Did you achieve it?
Yes.
Well, mostly.  Some people tell me I'm awesome.
Ok they're all mostly related to me.
Well, really there's just one person who tells me I'm awesome.
And its me.
But I'm pretty adamant about it.

6. What success do you hope for now?
To double the number of people who tell me I'm awesome by the end of the year.
And to make enough profit so that my fun hobby business pays for itself and other hobby related expenses.

7. Have you achieved it?
Well there's still 3 months left in the year for the first one.
And pretty much yes to the second.  Except when I go super crazy and buy a gajillion games I don't really need.

8. If a hopeful new RPG publisher came to you and asked you for your wisdom, to help her set reasonable expectations for her own games' success, what would you tell her?
For every one person who loves your game there will be 10 who like it, 100 who despise it and you for making it, 1000 who don't give a shit, and everyone else will never have heard of it.

1. What's your name?

Seth Ben-Ezra

2. What's your publishing company?

Dark Omen Games

3. What game or games have you published?

Junk
Legends of Alyria
Dirty Secrets
A Flower for Mara

4. When you first started publishing, what success did you hope for?

Make a decent profit as a side business, have people play my games, and tell me that I'm awesome. (I hadn't really figured out that last bit into words until recently, but it's true, and I should own up.)

5. Did you achieve it?

Well, my initial publishing attempt actually hurt me badly financially, though part of that was the context when it happened. I've had some people play my games and say that I'm awesome, but really, probably not as many as I've thought that I "should". Yeah, that's in quotes because it's silly to say that anyone should think I'm awesome.

6. What success do you hope for now?

I want to design cool games and publish them with the money that I make from selling my games. In other words, I want Dark Omen to be self-sufficient. If it can fund some additional stuff on the side, then all the better. And, I still want people to think I'm awesome, though I think that I probably need to give up on this as a goal. If it happens, it happens. But trying to pursue the popularity game just really isn't helpful.

7. Have you achieved it?

In general, yes, although the lack of profit motive as a primary purpose is making me question the amount of time that I should spend on Dark Omen. So, these are questions that I'm still grappling with. However, at this point, with the exception of GenCon, I can easily pay for new print runs, plus upgrade equipment, plus even buy additional stuff on the side from my sales.

8. If a hopeful new RPG publisher came to you and asked you for your wisdom, to help her set reasonable expectations for her own games' success, what would you tell her?

*Don't go into debt to publish anything.

*Don't design anything that you wouldn't see as being your Favorite Game, at least for a while. If you don't love it *for itself*, then no one else will.

*This is craft-fair territory, not big business territory. Have comparable expectations of your presumed income and popularity.

*Don't go into debt to publish anything. (It needs to be said twice.)

Name: Marco

Company: JAGS Inc.

Game: JAGS (Just Another Gaming System)

Hoped For Success: Someone would play it.

Achieve: Yes. And two Indie awards are extra nice!

Hope For Now: Get JAGS Archetypes released this year.

Advice:
1. Don't quit your day job.
2. Don't take yourself too seriously!

1. What's your name?

Judd

2. What's your publishing company?

Paka's Thread Games

3. What game or games have you published?

Dictionary of Mu.

ooh!  And I contributed to a boxed set called the Fury of Shadows.

4. When you first started publishing, what success did you hope for?

I wanted my geekery to pay for itself.

5. Did you achieve it?

Yeah, I did.

6. What success do you hope for now?

Hope for?

I'd love for George Lucas to read Dictionary of Mu and track me down.  At that point we'd have a gluten-free lunch on him and he would apologize for the prequels and offer me untold hundreds of thousands for the rights to make a film based on the Dictionary of Mu.

7. Have you achieved it?

Not yet.

8. If a hopeful new RPG publisher came to you and asked you for your wisdom, to help her set reasonable expectations for her own games' success, what would you tell her?

I'd ask what her most pie-in-the-sky goals would be and say that however unrealistic those goals might be, she should go for it.  But in self-publishing at the moment there are safe ways to go about those goals so that they do not have to mortgage their house or sell grandma's pearls.

And I'd give them my e-mail in case they wanted to discuss anything else.

1. What's your name?

Ben Lehman

2. What's your publishing company?

These are our games, AKA TAO Games. Originally was going to be two people involved, but I'm the only one who ever finished anything.

3. What game or games have you published?

Polaris, Bliss Stage, and XXXXtreme Street Luge.

4. When you first started publishing, what success did you hope for?

To sell 105 copies of my game so I wouldn't have excess inventory on hand and could walk away cleanly with a profit.

To get some recognition and love for my game design work.

To practice game design in a real and serious way.

To impress a girl I liked.

To maybe be able to get a professional game design job.

5. Did you achieve it?

Yes. To all five.

6. What success do you hope for now?

To cleanly wrap things up so I can publish my back catalog with minimal hassle and move on with my life.

7. Have you achieved it?

Not yet.

8. If a hopeful new RPG publisher came to you and asked you for your wisdom, to help her set reasonable expectations for her own success, what would you tell her?

Game publishing is great, wonderful, personally rewarding, and usually profitable.

It is not a career. Do not pay money you aren't afraid to lose.

There are assholes and nice people in the indie publishing world. Learn to tell them apart. Don't waste your time on assholes.

Assholes: Anyone who wants to be your friend but never talks about anything other than themselves is an asshole. Anyone who won't hear you out, or who dismisses your input completely is an asshole. Anyone who blames their poor communication and dickish behavior on "the internet" is an asshole.

Nice Guys: People who support you and your game. People who will help you step by step through the publishing process. People who own up their responsibility.

People who are "friendly" aren't necessarily nice guys. People who are "mean" aren't necessarily assholes.
In my experience, the reverse is more likely true.

Writing role-playing games is a great way to convince yourself that you're doing something meaningful. Don't get lost, don't lose sight of your other goals in life.

Don't join IPR right away, unless you have a pressing need to. Do your own work.

Be honest.

Don't be afraid to cut out, cut ties, and cut your losses to save your honor, your heart, your pocketbook, or any other part of yourself. Basically, when all else fails, fuck the bastards.

Don't let other people saying "it's not about the money" convince you to spend money you can't afford.

Don't listen to any kerfluffles about "honesty," "popularity," "status," "money," "the Forge" as some sort of monolithic institution, or "sales." None of them matter.

1. What's your name?
Gregor Hutton

2. What's your publishing company?
BoxNinja

3. What game or games have you published?
I've published, for sale, Best Friends, Solipsist and 3:16 Carnage Amongst The Stars. I wrote Best Friends and 3:16, while Solipsist was written by David Donachie, who refused to publish it himself but who my friend John Wilson and I wanted to be published. I've also published other things like PDFs on my website for free.

4. When you first started publishing, what success did you hope for?
Well, I first published things for free on my website to make me work on/finish off ideas and share them with the internet. The success I hoped for was that I would force myself to write stuff down and make it available for comment and play, and that people might find them interesting and useful. When publishing for sale my aim was to not lose any money and make enough to offset my odd transatlantic extravagance.

5. Did you achieve it?
Yes and No.

Yes to the work on/finish ideas. It was a slow process and often things came in bursts. I spent a week off work doing an 8-page PDF of Frenzy: Fast Action that I still sometimes get mail about. A guy once had a convention at his house in Florida using a free game I put on the web. I got a few fans in Germany and Italy who played, enjoyed and translated the files. I've played, and other people have played, things I worked on and put on the web for free. So, success.

Yes, at first, on publishing for pay. At first my books made enough money to cover print costs and help pay for convention trips.

More recently, No, as 3:16 is making too much money (for my modest aims). It is in danger of becoming hobby "work" rather than hobby "fun". It's also paying for transatlantic trips and leaving money left over, which I'm having to re-invest in the business and be super-wary of. It also raises the grief level that I get from gamers. I never "owed" anyone anything before and all my mails were friendly and supportive (even the frustration people had with my games was well-muted by my lack of "success"). Now I get the odd profanity-laden e-mail full of unreasonable demands and comments about my family.

6. What success do you hope for now?
To help other people publish their games and see that it's not difficult, that it is rewarding and that it does not bestow higher status or worth in you in-and-of itself.

7. Have you achieved it?
Yes, I've helped on the Collective Endeavour website and locally in Edinburgh in doing this. David is now going to be publishing Solipsist himself when the remaining books are sold out (soon I thinK!). He's also working on a labour of love called Eekamouse In Atlantis dedicated to his wife Victoria. He'll be publishing this too, which is something I'm delighted about. He's doing it in a way that is sensible and rewarding to him. So I am over the moon.

8. If a hopeful new RPG publisher came to you and asked you for your wisdom, to help her set reasonable expectations for her own games' success, what would you tell her?
Just what I told David. That, if it's for pay, then she should remember it's about the bottom line. If that doesn't add up then she should publish it for free as a PDF, no problem. If the numbers do add up then she should sell it and get some reward for her work. She can expect 100 sales in a year if she does a good job with the book, plays the game herself and talks about it at cons and online. This will more than cover costs and will be a fruitful and rewarding project.

1. What's your name?

Jonathan Walton

2. What's your publishing company?

I never really had one, except for that one time that I paid taxes under the name "One Thousand One."  Right now, I just have Bleeding Play, which is a hobby website, not a company.

3. What game or games have you published?

(only including stuff that I know independent groups have played)

Push vol. 1, Geiger Counter (in alpha and beta), Kazekami Kyoko Kills Kublai Khan, While You're Far Away

4. When you first started publishing, what success did you hope for?

When I first discovered the Forge, I got excited about print publishing and wanted to be a part of the small press community and gain praise and attention for myself and my ideas, so I thought I'd print 100 copies, sell those through IPR, print another 100 copies, etc.

I really wanted to help support some of the bleeding edge theory and practice discussions that were happening and help create a space for them to happen slower and more carefully, which was what Push was about.

5. Did you achieve it?

No. I found that I disliked the details of running a small business and that I wasn't making enough money to make it worth filing taxes over and keeping track of expenses and all the other stuff I felt I had to do.  Also, it was much more time consuming that I imagined, taking me away from the real fun of designing (and even more importantly) playing games.  Somewhere along the way, roleplaying went from being one of my hobbies to being THE hobby, the only one I had time to focus on.  A large swath of my life came to be defined by the small press games scene.

Also, Push was much more difficult to run than I thought.  Getting everybody to participate on schedule was like wrangling cats and my own attention drifted about, so it took two years to get the 2006 issue out and Push 2 is still only about halfway there.  Maintaining my excitement over the ultimate goals of the project is hard, given the pace.

I also found that selling things through IPR into distribution was simply not sustainable for me, since it would require pricing my products much higher than I wanted.  This was where I started noticing that money was hindering, not helping, my goals for distributing my products.

Also, I found that participating in print publishing really didn't make me a part of the community.  What made someone a part of the community is face-to-face contact with the people involved, something I never understood just from the internet.  Playing games with people and hanging out at conventions (working in booths together, etc.) is the critical social glue.  Also, the folks who were really successful at publishing, selling tons of copies, seemed to mainly just get flack for it, gaining a lot of negative attention even if more people respected them.

6. What success do you hope for now?

Now I just want small press games to be one hobby among many, not the most important creative outlet of my life, but I'm still in the process of cutting back.  A big move was deciding to shift to a non-profit, hobby model instead of trying to run a small business.  Unlike what Clinton and Ben seem to be up to, I don't want to get out of publishing, but I mainly want to release free stuff on my website, because that's the stuff that I find most fulfilling and least stressful.

I also want to stop measuring my success by copies sold/downloaded/play reports/number of people who think I'm awesome/the attention I get, because I find all of those things create unhealthy dynamics.  I want to get back to doing this for myself, my local play group, and other people who happen to be interested in some of the same play / design goals as me.

7. Have you achieved it?

Nope, but I'm trying.  Maybe in another couple years.

8. If a hopeful new RPG publisher came to you and asked you for your wisdom, to help her set reasonable expectations for her own games' success, what would you tell her?

I would talk to them about my experiences, as a warning, but also say that plenty of people claim to be happy with print publishing.  I would also underline Ben's comment several times.

"Writing role-playing games is a great way to convince yourself that you're doing something meaningful. Don't get lost, don't lose sight of your other goals in life."

While I do think that making games can be meaningful, it's important to realize that, yeah, other goals are important too, maybe more important.  That can be hard to see if RPGs become one's main creative outlet, as they did for me.  But sometimes that just means you have to rediscover the rest of your life.  Damn, I sound like a recovering addict.

1. What's your name?

Graham Walmsley

2. What's your publishing company?

It doesn't have a name.

3. What game or games have you published?

I've published Play Unsafe, which applies improvisation techniques to roleplaying games.

4. When you first started publishing, what success did you hope for?

I decided I'd be moderately happy if I sold 50 copies and ecstatic if I sold 100.

5. Did you achieve it?

Yes (and more).

6. What success do you hope for now?

I'd like to publish other books to other niche markets. On acting, perhaps. I'd like the publishing to be a solid second income.

7. Have you achieved it?

Not yet.

8. If a hopeful new RPG publisher came to you and asked you for your wisdom, to help her set reasonable expectations for her own games' success, what would you tell her?

Have high ambitions but low expectations. You'll probably be as successful as Intergalactic Cooking Challenge or Covenant, although it would nice if you were as successful as Spirit Of The Century.

Be a little commercial. Think about pricing, marketing and so forth. And especially about differentiating your product.

Take the time and effort to produce something of good quality. Partly, it's a matter of pride; and partly, it'll sell more in the long run.

Graham

1. What's your name?
Vincent.

2. What's your publishing company?
lumpley games.

3. What game or games have you published?
kill puppies for satan, Dogs in the Vineyard, Mechaton, In a Wicked Age, Poison'd.

4. When you first started publishing, what success did you hope for?
I hoped to get Jonathan Tweet's attention.

5. Did you achieve it?
Yes.

6. What success do you hope for now?
I hope to make $20,000 a year (profit) publishing games.

7. Have you achieved it?
Nope. I'll have to publish another couple of games to do it.

8. If a hopeful new RPG publisher came to you and asked you for your wisdom, to help her set reasonable expectations for her own games' success, what would you tell her?
Don't expect your first game to be your breakout game. Expect to spend a few years working hard without much recognition - you won't lose money, if you're smart, but expect the first few years to be about breaking even and laying a foundation.

Lay that foundation as hard as you can.

1. What's your name?
Trukulo. Yes, i use my nickname.

2. What's your publishing company?
None.

3. What game or games have you published?
RyF, Fashion Fudge and Legacy of Stradivarius (all in spanish).

4. When you first started publishing, what success did you hope for?
1 - With RyF, Be the linux for roleplaying games.
2 - Or at least, make a game my friends and i like.
3 - With the others, just enjoy.

5. Did you achieve it?
No to first. Absolutly yes to second. Pretty yes to third.

6. What success do you hope for now?
People making their own games with our game, and achieve big success.

7. Have you achieved it?
Not yet. But i have hope.

8. If a hopeful new RPG publisher came to you and asked you for your wisdom, to help her set reasonable expectations for her own games' success, what would you tell her?
If you want people play your game, do a LOT of playtesting with different people and groups. If you want money... Wall Street is safer (even now).

1. What's your name?
Eero Tuovinen

2. What's your publishing company?
Arkenstone Publishing

3. What game or games have you published?
A bunch of Finnish translations of American indie games
Zombie Cinema, my zombie storytelling game
Solar System, a rewrite of The Shadow of Yesterday by Clinton R. Nixon
A bunch of minor projects published in magazines, etc.

4. When you first started publishing, what success did you hope for?
I wanted to introduce the American independent rpg scene to the Finnish rpg hobbyists. I wanted to learn and demonstrate to use the new methods of desktop publishing, to open up the possibilities for new Finnish hobby game publishing.

5. Did you achieve it?
I guess so - nowadays "Forge style" games are rarely ignored when Finnish hobby activists list important styles and schools of thought in roleplaying. Several designers in Finland have taken influence from these games, and dozens of people around the country play them successfully.

6. What success do you hope for now?
To hone my skills in project management, game design and writing to higher levels. To create genuinely valuable art.

7. Have you achieved it?
Nope, still working on it.

8. If a hopeful new RPG publisher came to you and asked you for your wisdom, to help her set reasonable expectations for her own games' success, what would you tell her?
This happens to me surprisingly often, perhaps because folks hereabouts view me as some sort of warden of the indie rpg wisdom now and then. I usually focus on a dialogue process wherein we try to figure out what the hopeful new game designer/publisher would like to achieve; depending on the details, I then approach the topic on the operational level, trying to point out where one should go and what sort of risks one should expect to fulfill the particular dreams one has.

1. What's your name?

Nathan D. Paoletta

2. What's your publishing company?

Hamsterprophet Productions

3. What game or games have you published?

In print: Kildarrin, Timestream, carry. a game about war, Annalise

Available in PDF: playtest drafts of Countdown, Vesna Thaw

4. When you first started publishing, what success did you hope for?

To make game design and publishing a self-sustaining hobby. To meet all these cool people I read about online. To go to Gen Con and have an awesome time.

5. Did you achieve it?

No, yes and yes, respectively. My overall numbers for HPP are still in the red, mainly because I'd rather go to Gen Con every year than make a profit on game design.

6. What success do you hope for now?

Right now, I want people I respect to play my games and think they're worth something.

Outside of that, I honestly don't know in any concrete way. I want to reach a non-standard audience with my games while sustaining my personal links to the community, which is kind of contradictory.

I also want to rebuild myself as a hobbyist/publisher. HPP is on hiatus and probably not coming back. I'm not sure what's going to come back in it's place.

7. Have you achieved it?

Kind of, nope and nope.

8. If a hopeful new RPG publisher came to you and asked you for your wisdom, to help her set reasonable expectations for her own games' success, what would you tell her?

In hobby game publishing, the only reason to make art is because it makes you happy. Fuck everyone and everything else.

That said, be ambitious, but don't spend anything you can't afford to lose. Publish from your heart. Spend more time that you think you should in identifying your target market.

Last time I had this conversation, I asked a lot of questions about what her goals for publishing were, and then asked her how those would change once the initial goals were met. We then talked about a lot of product development stuff, and how and where to print things without breaking the bank. Also, playtesting.

1. What's your name?
Tony Dowler

2. What's your publishing company?
Planet Thirteen

3. What game or games have you published?
How to Host a Dungeon

4. When you first started publishing, what success did you hope for?
Achieve my childhood goal of attending Gen Con
Satisfy the requirements of my adult life by proving that a Gen Con trip can pay for itself
Show myself and others that with effort I can contribute something meaninful to the conversation in return for all the good I've recieved from the community.

5. Did you achieve it?
Yes!

6. What success do you hope for now?
To hack my life to the point where I can give my love of games and game design a progressively larger share of my attention and creativity.
To make games that change the way people think.

7. Have you achieved it?
The early stages are going well.

8. If a hopeful new RPG publisher came to you and asked you for your wisdom, to help her set reasonable expectations for her own games' success, what would you tell her?
I'd say it comes in steps.

1. What's your name?

Levi Kornelsen.

2. What's your publishing company?

I don't have one.  I have a website / brand / thing - Amagi-games.org - but it's not a company.

3. What game or games have you published?

Sanctum, 8-Bit Dungeon, Perfect 20, Hoard, The Far Towers, Microcosm, Dustbowl Prophets, Sea-Changed, and a whole fuckton of "drabbles" (one-to-three-pages things).  Of those, Sanctum and Prophets were in-print locally only and for a short time, Hoard is on Lulu, and the rest are pure PDF.

4. When you first started publishing, what success did you hope for?

Gin, Glory, bags of Money.

5. Did you achieve it?

No, thank god.

6. What success do you hope for now?

First, to feel as if people are taking what I have, in whole or in part, and using it to entertain one another, in whatever way they want.  Second, to overcome my own ego regarding the stuff I make, and recognise that I am not the bubble; I'm just part of the stream.

7. Have you achieved it?

The first, absolutely.  I succeed daily.

The second, not even a little.  I fail daily.

8. If a hopeful new RPG publisher came to you and asked you for your wisdom, to help her set reasonable expectations for her own games' success, what would you tell her?

I would likely refer them to someone with a metric of success matching their own, probably after blathering at them a bit.  If their idea of success matched mine...  I dunno.

1. What's your name?

Joshua A.C. Newman.

2. What's your publishing company?

the glyphpress

3. What game or games have you published?

Under the Bed; Shock: Social Science Fiction; Beowulf. I also published Homunculand, a modern tale of a mathematically gestated golem.

4. When you first started publishing, what success did you hope for?

First, for the process to teach me about publishing, from conception to production to distribution.

Second, to engage in the give and take of a creative community, the chosen medium of which I understand and am passionate about.

Third, to learn enough at low risk for the process to always turn me profit as part of my design business.

5. Did you achieve it?

Yes. The profit-turning has sometimes been smaller than other times, but in the four or so years I've been doing this, it's always turned a profit.

6. What success do you hope for now?

For the glyphpress to increase in profit and progress technically proportionate with the rest of Joshua Newman Design and the glyphpress.

7. Have you achieved it?

I don't think so. I think it lags significantly.

8. If a hopeful new RPG publisher came to you and asked you for your wisdom, to help her set reasonable expectations for her own games' success, what would you tell her?

I'd very carefully discuss just what it was that she wanted from the process and how to get it. If it was outrageous commercial success I'd shrug and offer that she ask someone else.