Printing or reprinting books

[tiger]

Any chance that Kickstarter will be used to print some of the unprinted books like Villains VOl 3 or APG II or reprint some of the other wule books?

[cptpatriot]

Admittedly, I was curious about this also. If not through Kickstarter, why not work out a deal with a Print on Demand publishing company?

[tiger]

I think they were using such a company in the past, not sure. Hope they will consider doing either for these books

[mallet]

Which books are you guys looking for? Maybe putting the word out on what you are looking for will get other Herophiles on the site to help out finding them?

For example, Imperial Hobbies in Richmond, British Columbia has copies of APG 2 still on their shelves (and I'm sure they would mail them to you if you ordered them online) They also have Hero System Martial Arts (which I remember other people asking about a while back).

http://imperialhobbies.ca/

I'm sure there must be other game stores out there with books still on their shelves. Maybe other people can post links to help everyone find them?

[tiger]

I'm still waiting, as are others i've seen to get the 3rd in the villain books. Not printed as of yet that I know of

[tiger]

AGP2 not listed on their website, but thanks.

Have found other online though

[mallet]

AGP2 not listed on their website, but thanks.

Have found other online though

Hmmm... It was there on Monday, they must have sold it already. They are having a big boxing week sale right now, so stuff might be going fast.

Glad you found it somewhere else.

[bigbywolfe]

Hmmm... It was there on Monday, they must have sold it already. They are having a big boxing week sale right now, so stuff might be going fast. Glad you found it somewhere else.

where did you hea about the sale? I don't see anything about it on the Hero Games website...

[Derek Hiemforth]

I believe they were talking about the Imperial Hobbies website, not Hero Games.

Since the original post is a question for the company, I'm going to move this thread to the Company Questions board...

[ghost-angel]

last I checked APG2 was still available at Paizo. That was 2 weeks ago though.

[tiger]

I lucked out and found one on Amazon. Unfortunately they are using supper snail-mail, should have it anytime between Jan6 and Jan 24.

Guess it will just depend on which snail they put it on

Still like to know if they plan on printing Villains Vol III or if I should give a printer a heart attack.

[Steve Long]

Still like to know if they plan on printing Villains Vol III

I'm no longer in a position to speak officially for Hero, but hopefully Jason will forgive me if I stick my big snout in and provide what information I do know on this particular question. As always, an official answer will have to come from Jason.

Hero would very much like to print CV3. However, printing in color is incredibly expensive. If the BotE Kickstarter succeeds, then launching a Kickstarter to get CV3 printed is certainly a possibility, provided Hero feels it has a reasonable chance of succeeding. If the BotE Kickstarter fails, or if the amount of money it raises is far below the associated costs of printing CV3, then I suspect the odds of Hero spending the time and effort to launch a Kickstarter for it are mighty slim.

[mallet]

If the BotE Kickstarter fails, or if the amount of money it raises is far below the associated costs of printing CV3, then I suspect the odds of Hero spending the time and effort to launch a Kickstarter for it are mighty slim.

Well, it looks like BothE is going strong on Kickstarter, but I hope that even if for some reason it doesn't make it's pledge level, that that won't stop Hero (or Steve) from trying to get other books made using Kickstarter. One of the main reasons for using kickstarter is to see if people are interested in a project before it is made.

Just because the first project didn't bring in the pledges (again, I know BothE is doing great, but if it wasn't...) doesn't mean that Villains vol:3 wouldn't make all the pledge $$'s + more, or that CyberHero wouldn't bring in $20,000+, etc... So I hope that if BotE doesn't succeed in reaching it's goal, Hero (and Steve) won't just give up on the whole Kickstarted model, but rather take it as that particular book wasn't in high enough demand, but that other books still might be. (Sure, if after 4-5 Kickstarter projects go by and none of them get enough pledges then it might be time to look at other options, but until then don't just let the success or failure of this one book sway the entire future of the game line.)

Personally, I don't play Champions and honestly I probably wouldn't buy/pledge for this book, if it didn't have all of the extra "mulch-dimensional" stuff going on in it which is something that I think can be used for StarHero games. And if the first book being offered on Kickstarter was Villains:Vol. 3, or almost any other Champions supplement I wouldn't pledge for it. But if you offer up any StarHero or FantasyHero books I'll be all over them. So again, please don't let this one book (BotE) control the whole fate of future books Hero (or Steve) might want to make.

[Steve Long]

Well, it looks like BothE is going strong on Kickstarter, but I hope that even if for some reason it doesn't make it's pledge level, that that won't stop Hero (or Steve) from trying to get other books made using Kickstarter. One of the main reasons for using kickstarter is to see if people are interested in a project before it is made.

Just because the first project didn't bring in the pledges (again, I know BothE is doing great, but if it wasn't...) doesn't mean that Villains vol:3 wouldn't make all the pledge $$'s + more, or that CyberHero wouldn't bring in $20,000+, etc... So I hope that if BotE doesn't succeed in reaching it's goal, Hero (and Steve) won't just give up on the whole Kickstarted model, but rather take it as that particular book wasn't in high enough demand, but that other books still might be. (Sure, if after 4-5 Kickstarter projects go by and none of them get enough pledges then it might be time to look at other options, but until then don't just let the success or failure of this one book sway the entire future of the game line.)

Personally, I don't play Champions and honestly I probably wouldn't buy/pledge for this book, if it didn't have all of the extra "mulch-dimensional" stuff going on in it which is something that I think can be used for StarHero games. And if the first book being offered on Kickstarter was Villains:Vol. 3, or almost any other Champions supplement I wouldn't pledge for it. But if you offer up any StarHero or FantasyHero books I'll be all over them. So again, please don't let this one book (BotE) control the whole fate of future books Hero (or Steve) might want to make.

I see your point, Mallet, but there's another side to that equation.

Hero doesn't have to actually pay Kickstarter to launch a project... but that's not to say that it's free. It takes time to plan the right reward levels, do the initial work necessary to calculate the costs so you know how much to ask for, make a video, and manage the project once launched. That's a lot more work than you might think, especially for a company that's down to one employee who has to do basically everything.

If Hero tries a Kickstarter, and it fails, Hero has in effect lost some money. It's not an out-of-pocket expense, but it's a loss nevertheless. So if one fails, that's not necessarily a signal to "try again with something else." That's a signal for Hero to ask itself, "Is this worth doing at all?". It's up to Hero to decide how to answer that question. One failed project -- maybe you try again with something else. Two failed projects? Well, personally, at that point I'm not sure I'd be interested in losing more money on what looks like an increasingly unlikely proposition.

The same reasoning applies to me with my personal projects, but to an even more stark degree. I don't have the benefit of an Online Store and a back stock of books that still brings in some amount of income, the way Hero Games does. If I launch one Kickstarter, and it fails -- well, that's going to make me extremely reluctant to try again. I can't keep putting things out there, waiting a month with no income, and then failing. If the first one doesn't succeed, I have to seriously question whether there's not some better way to spend my time, energy, and money.

You're absolutely right that Kickstarter lets someone learn before he starts a project whether there's enough support to justify the work. That's one of KS's best features! But repeated "we don't want this" messages send a broader message that a lot of effort's being put into things that people don't want enough to pay for. That being the case, at some point a rational person stops making that effort. That's particularly true in my own case, since I want to use Kickstarter projects to generate income to support myself. If I had a day job and was just Kickstartering stuff for fun in my spare time, multiple failed projects wouldn't matter. When I'm trying to keep food on the table and the heat turned on, multiple failed projects matter in the strongest possible way.

If you don't want to pledge to support Champions books (or FH books, or whatever) -- that's certainly your privilege. No one should spend money on something they don't want. But you have to realize that not supporting a book now means the odds of getting a book you do want later become worse and worse.

[Kaze9999]

I see your point, Mallet, but there's another side to that equation.

Hero doesn't have to actually pay Kickstarter to launch a project... but that's not to say that it's free. It takes time to plan the right reward levels, do the initial work necessary to calculate the costs so you know how much to ask for, make a video, and manage the project once launched. That's a lot more work than you might think, especially for a company that's down to one employee who has to do basically everything.

If Hero tries a Kickstarter, and it fails, Hero has in effect lost some money. It's not an out-of-pocket expense, but it's a loss nevertheless. So if one fails, that's not necessarily a signal to "try again with something else." That's a signal for Hero to ask itself, "Is this worth doing at all?". It's up to Hero to decide how to answer that question. One failed project -- maybe you try again with something else. Two failed projects? Well, personally, at that point I'm not sure I'd be interested in losing more money on what looks like an increasingly unlikely proposition.

The same reasoning applies to me with my personal projects, but to an even more stark degree. I don't have the benefit of an Online Store and a back stock of books that still brings in some amount of income, the way Hero Games does. If I launch one Kickstarter, and it fails -- well, that's going to make me extremely reluctant to try again. I can't keep putting things out there, waiting a month with no income, and then failing. If the first one doesn't succeed, I have to seriously question whether there's not some better way to spend my time, energy, and money.

You're absolutely right that Kickstarter lets someone learn before he starts a project whether there's enough support to justify the work. That's one of KS's best features! But repeated "we don't want this" messages send a broader message that a lot of effort's being put into things that people don't want enough to pay for. That being the case, at some point a rational person stops making that effort. That's particularly try in my own case, since I want to use Kickstarter projects to generate income to support myself. If I had a day job and was just Kickstartering stuff for fun in my spare time, multiple failed projects wouldn't matter. When I'm trying to keep food on the table and the heat turned on, multiple failed projects matter in the strongest possible way.

If you don't want to pledge to support Champions books (or FH books, or whatever) -- that's certainly your privilege. No one should spend money on something they don't want. But you have to realize that not supporting a book now means the odds of getting a book you do want later become worse and worse.

Maybe some kind of 'pre-kickstarter' commitment poll? Like if there were a 'pre-order' item on the Online Store and if enough people 'bought', say, a pre-order of for example a 'Valdorian Age Age' PDF, then a kick starter would be launched???