I'm also part of the team that has updated and expanded The Garhound Contests for Hero Wars, and this will soon be available for download as a number of PDF files through Issaries. At 80+ pages, it represents a very substantial document, and it will be interesting to see how the community responds to the format.
I'm also finishing up an ebook PDF version of the Helden (Fires of Mist) novella, and am looking at various methods of distribution. It will be available on the Best of Tales CD, but I also hope to make it available for download over the web.
Of course, none of these projects involve the exchange of pesos. I'm hoping that as the PDF/ebook standard becomes more accepted, and as bandwidth broadens, the Gloranthan community will become more comfortable with the idea of downloading largish files for either on-screen viewing or printing. Early experiments with short stories and maps have been very encouraging.
The advantage for small scale writers/editors/publishers like me is that I can produce full colour magazines, scenarios, novellas etc. with photographic quality graphics for almost nothing, as opposed to the two grand or so Australian it would take me to get a magazine like Questlines through the printers.
Distribution over the web is fast, easy, and relatively cheap, and if mistakes or omissions are discovered, they can be fixed almost immediately. And I don't need legions of loyal volunteer trollkin at key places round the globe assisting me with myriad currency exchanges.
The disadvantages are on the reader's side: no one really wants to read long screen-based documents, (though this is changing as hardware and software adapt), so the reader needs access to a printer - and must be able to get quality black and white output as an alternative to colour.
If methods evolve that are acceptable to the majority of the community that allow small transaction fees in some relatively painless way, then the future is bright. With such small production costs, final costs to the punter will be correspondingly small. Even the students and mortgagees among us wouldn't miss a pound or so for a quality product: the trick is to find a system that is painless enough to be worth while. And while epublishing will never replace Issaries books or even quality magazines like TotRM, TT and UW, it can serve as an important adjunct while also offering possibilities not possible using traditional media. (Like all of TotRM, *all* of TotRM, available on a single CD Or continually updated rules supplements)
Raise the Scribes!
John
(wearing his PDF apostle hat)
nysalor_at_... John Hughes
Oh to be in Canberra / Now that it's July / Where poets write of Iceland / Turn central heating high Draft mid-year post-grad theses / for the Australian National U / The leaves, once bright, have fallen / They do too...
Powered by hypermail