Submission & Work Guidelines
General Guidelines
We are mostly looking for world books for d4-d4.
Our preference is for historical, realistic settings. But we consider others, as for example with Age of the Atom. “Realistic” means realistic in flavour. We don't expect any game to perfectly model reality, nor do role-players want history and science lessons.
All spelling is to be Commonwealth spelling, colour, flavour, civilised, etc, and Commonwealth grammar, no “would of”,”off of”, or “I could care less”, etc. The obvious exception is for games in US settings, Age of the Atom is another good example here.
Flavour text is strongly discouraged. People are paying for content, not fluff. Most buyers will buy the .pdf, and have to print it out themselves. Every page must be useful to them.
How to Submit an Idea and Get It Accepted
Write an email containing a few short paragraphs about your idea.
After a few back-and-forths, you may be asked to write a sample chapter excerpt. This will be at least two pages, written up in what you consider to be finished, publishable form. So, spell and grammar-check. Company preference is for clear and simple writing. Instead of “it is in my opinion a not unjustifiable assertion that,” write, “I think.”
If that is acceptable, then we move on to the following sections.
Worldbook Outlines
Each worldbook is to be a stand-alone rpg with the d4-d4 rules. The difference between the worldbooks and the d4-d4 Main Book rules is simply that the latter has a fuller explanation. When you omit things like “Can I abuse Similar Traits,” and other discursive sections of the rules, you're left with about 25 pages of rules.
The aim is to have 96-page worldbooks, with:
An average of a ¼ page illustration every two or three pages. That adds up to 10 pages of illustrations.
1 page title with contents
1 page credits
2 pages index
25 pages of core rules, altered as appropriate for your setting.
Leaving 57 pages, more or less, of purely original content – about 25-30,000 words.
Deadlines will be negotiated individually, but in general an authour is expected to be able to submit a first draft within eight weeks of agreeing to write it, and a final draft four weeks after that. Thus, the whole project ought to take three months. It's our experience that authours who ask for longer than that never, in fact, finish anything. People need to feel a bit pushed to get moving.
Sales Arrangements
Worldbooks will be sold through Goshu Otaku storefronts at RpgNow and Lulu. Since you are licensing the system for use in your worldbook, Goshu Otaku will take a percentage of the net sales revenue, that is, the revenue after RpgNow and Lulu have their take. The exact percentage taken depends on how much you want Goshu Otaku to do for you, as follows.
For simple proofreading and general advice, plus line-editing (ie ensuring it's logically consistent with the vanilla ruleset), 10%.
Layout editing adds 5%.
Providing appropriate cover art adds 5%.
Providing appropriate interior illustrations adds 5%.
So if all you do is write the basic text and submit it, Goshu Otaku takes 25%, and you get 75%, of the net sales revenue, after RpgNow and Lulu have taken their slice.
Goshu Otaku will, regardless of percentages, do its best to provide promotion for the content, on a level consistent with the promotion of its existing material.
RpgNow takes 25% of pdf sales, and 20% of PoD sales. Lulu takes 20% of the price above the printing cost. So for example, if a .pdf version is priced at $10, and the PoD version is priced at $20, with a printing cost of $8... RpgNow would take $2.50 of the pdf, $4 of the PoD; while Lulu would take $2.90 of its PoD sales.
Average sales of a non-d20 pdf are, for RpgNow, 40 in a year.
It's expected that the worldbooks will sell for $7.95, and the PoD version for $14.95. Goshu Otaku reserves the right to discount these from time to time in the aim of boosting sales.
It's expected that authours for Goshu Otaku will not publicly abuse or badmouth company staff, and other present and former authours, whether it be remarks about their personal or professional abilities.
Payment will be on the 20th of each month via PayPal, and will be made whenever the current money owing exceeds $50.
Terminating Association
Either Goshu Otaku or the authour may at any time, with one calendar month's notice, withdraw any book from circulation. Remaining monies owed will be paid, and the products removed from sale. The authour retains the rights to the purely original sections of their work, and may of course republish it with a different system, or in whatever other form, unconnected with Goshu Otaku products.
This termination also applies before the book is ever published, as for example if drafts being provided by an authour prove of an unacceptable level or content, or if the authour decides they'll get a better deal elsewhere.
© COPYRIGHT 2005 Goshu Otaku Games