The Lifecycle of RPG Publishing

As I've mentioned before on this blog, I'm currently doing a preorder campaign instead of a "traditional" crowdfunding campaign for my first big project for His Majesty the Worm, The Castle Automatic:

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Since I'm currently going through the process of publishing an RPG supplement, I thought it might be worthwhile to enumerate the basic outline of my process: the steps that it takes to get a physical book made with a publisher. The process can feel opaque if you've not involved in the industry. But I promise you: If I can do it, you can do it! 

The Phases of Making a Big Old Dungeon

Roughly, we can think of the process as a waterfall workflow with six main phases. People familiar with the software development lifecycle will know that waterfall is a dirty word, but there are meaningful gates that prevent future work being done. For example, you cannot do fulfillment until the book is printed. 

That said, by knowing all the steps, you can anticipate what is coming next and begin pre-work on that step. For example, because we know that we're bundling the book with a map, we'll need to anticipate packaging these orders together.

The steps are:

1. Writing: Get the dang thing on paper! This also includes playtesting, revising, and developmental editing.

2. Editing: Before the book can be laid out, the text needs to be copyedited and free of errors. All of the references, monster stats, and room descriptions on page 140 should be consistent with those on page 14.  

3. Layout & Art: Next comes the act of making the text look good by laying it out with expert graphic design and all new art. This also includes creating graphics for information design and indexing.

Psst. This is how The Castle Automatic is looking, re: layout and art. 

4. Printing: At this stage, the creative team is pretty much done, but we're still only halfway to our goal of having the book in hand! The book goes into pre-press to make sure everything was set up correctly for print—colors, margins, gutters, etc. Then, the book is sent to the printers. (At this point, Early Worms will get a digital copy of the book!)

5. Shipping & Warehousing: Once the book is printed, it makes the journey by boat to the United States for warehousing. This part can take a surprisingly long time--3-4 months.

6. Delivery: Once Exalted Funeral has the book, it can be shipped to Early Worms!

Status update for The Castle Automatic

Status: On track

Current phase: Editing (95% complete)

Next steps: Layout is set to begin as soon as copyediting is finalized. Our goal is to finish the layout early next year. In the background, the key art for the module has already been completed. Once layout is complete, additional art may be needed to fill gaps and get everything looking great. Once all additional art has been placed, the digital edition will be ready!

Preorder Timeline

We've had a few Early Worms asking how long the preorder campaign will be open. We would like to give people a chance to get in on being an Early Worm, but still make it special by not having the Early Worm map incentive go on for too long. We anticipate the Preorder Early Worm with Map Campaign to end around the end of the first quarter of next year and then switch to a full priced preorder. That give us plenty of time to know how many maps we need ahead of the early summer delivery! 

If you're excited too, let people know about the book! Tell your friends! Chatter on Reddit! Holler on Discord! Let the Early Worms multiply.