For me blogging is closely tied to my gaming experience, when I’m playing regularly I tend to be inspired to write regularly. Conversely when our weekly game is thrown off so is my writing. This summer our weekly game has been in total disarray. Vacations, work demands, and family have all taken their toll on each of us and the campaign we started last winter has been on hold since June. That’s not to say we haven’t had fun doing other things. We’ve played lots of the Firefly board game (which I can’t recommend highly enough) as well as several sessions of Numenera (featuring some of the PC’s from last year’s campaign).  A few of us even attended the second annual RageCON here in Reno (a very well run event).

It’s also been a great summer for me in terms of purchasing and reading a variety of newer RPG’s. I finally finished reading Through the Breach and I’m really looking forward to running games set in the mysterious city of Malifaux. I picked up a few new games powered by the Apocolypse including; Monster of the Week, Urban Shadows, and what I think will become my all-time favorite super hero RPG, Worlds in Peril. I also read the new Fantasy AGE rulebook from Green Ronin that takes their system from Dragon Age and modifies it for general fantasy use. Additionally one of the highlights of the past few months has been the release of the Cypher System rulebook. If you’ve spent any time on RPG Alchemy you know we’re huge fans of Numenera and The Strange and all things Cypher system.

This fall I should be back on track for running my regular game so I anticipate being back on my regular article posting schedule. I also have a few “pet projects” I want to put more work into including a campaign primer PDF I want to post in the next month or so.

In other personal news I’m also planning on attending multiple gaming conventions in the coming months so you’ll most likely be reading about that as I develop adventures and talk about techniques for running games at cons. Speaking of single-sessions games, I’m also working on a mini-game system I’m calling One-Shot Heroes, a quick throw-down RPG Powered by the Apocalypse.

I do have a quick question for our readers; what types of articles do you find most useful or entertaining? Practical how-to’s? Advice and insights? Reviews and previews? I always enjoy writing articles or discussing topics suggested by, or relevant to, our readers. So feel free to comment or request anything you’d like to hear about in a future article. We alchemists would be more than happy to oblige.

A couple of months ago we began playing the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons. I’m having a great time running the game but this past session I was reminded of another reason why I really enjoy player-facing games, my dice hate me. Three encounters in row I couldn’t hit anything. Owlbear vs. human fighter; miss, miss, miss. Two hobgoblins vs. dwarf cleric; miss and miss. Even in the “grand finale” that included a bugbear chief, a doppelgänger, and a trained wolf only a single hit landed for a couple of points damage! Are you kidding me? Turns out the toughest enemy of the night was a chubby goblin cook that actually managed to not only hit a character, but crit him as well. Oh well, at least the players all had fun making a mockery of my adversaries!

I suppose it’s all my fault for ignoring my dice the past couple of years. Looks like I’m going to need to find a way to make it up to them and beg the uncaring gods of probability for their favor. Or, I suppose I could just convert the 5th edition mechanics into something player facing…

Can YOU Make Money By Roleplaying?

In the previous article, My Personal Journey, I talked about my background and how I came to writing about roleplaying games, what I’ve made in doing so, and what I’ve gotten out of the process. Now I’ll bring it full circle and give some actionable steps for those that are looking to move forward on their own journey.

If you have a desire to make money through roleplaying, here are some ideas on where I’d suggest you start out:

1 – Discover the part of gaming that you love to talk about.

If you were talking with your friends, or staying up till the wee hours of the morning, what part of gaming is the part that you could talk non-stop about? Do you love talking about game mastering, playing, tactical combat, comparing RPGs, a specific RPG (like D&D, Numenera, etc.), miniatures, gaming accessories, your own setting you created, or all of the above? Whatever the answer is to that question, that’s what your business should be about.

2 – Decide on a vehicle for your actions.

Choose a vehicle that fits your passion. Do you have a smooth radio voice that would fit well with a Podcast? Are you good at making videos in a way that would fit with building a YouTube channel? Are you a writer at heart where creating a book or blogging would fit you perfectly? Have you run a small business before and opening up your own sounds right up your alley? Although you may use more than one of these vehicles eventually, choose one to start with. You are now that archetype, a Blogger, Podcaster, Author, Small-Business Owner, or whatever.  You are not aspiring to be that, you ARE that.

3 – Take action.

Nothing gets done without action. Don’t get stuck studying and planning on what you’re going to do soon. Just do it. There is no point in waiting until you feel you have the perfect idea or strategy. You will never have the PERFECT idea or strategy. It is better to get out there, do it, learn from it and keep moving forward. You may not even realize that you already have enough knowledge and skill to start a successful business. You’ll never know until you try. I can guarantee one of two things will happen, you’ll either succeed or you won’t. If you never get started I guarantee you one thing will happen, you won’t succeed.

4 – Network within the industry (and outside of it).

Networking is pretty much the key to any industry. A lot of people don’t bother e-mailing industry leaders or talking to them at events because they feel like they will be rejected in some way. Everyone started somewhere and I think you’d be surprised at how open the people in the roleplaying industry are. Attend gaming conventions, online meetups, and do whatever you can to talk with other people in roleplaying. There are numerous people out there that can help you reach your goals.  But don’t forget other people outside of the industry as well that could potentially help you with your business.

5 – Be happy, be thankful, and give back.

I’ve met very few successful people who were completely negative. Of the few I did meet that were negative, I have a feeling that negativity wasn’t what got them to the top. Focus on being happy, be thankful for the opportunities you have, and give back when you can. Whether you believe in god or karma, it’s just the right way to live your life and you’ll be happier if you do it that way.

Finally, there are thousands of resources available online to help you build your own business and be successful. Here is a list of resources that I’ve personally used and found valuable:

The Solopreneur Hour – Michael O’Neal runs a great Podcast where he talks about becoming a Solopreneur, essentially a one-man entrepreneurial show.

Smart Passive Income – Pat Flynn runs an incredible website, several Podcasts, and a host of other things that earns him six-figures monthly. He’s pretty transparent on how he accomplishes what he does, so you can actually learn a lot since he doesn’t hide things like other “coaches” do.

100 Day Challenge – I haven’t completed this yet, but I know quite a few people who have (some that have done it seven or eight times). It’s a great way to set goals and jump start your way towards them.

Firepole Marketing – Danny Iny’s book, Engagement From Scratch, is probably the best book I’ve ever read on building an audience. You can get it for free from his blog, as well as incredible information on building a business, getting exposure for that business, and making money.

Books – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen R. Covey), The Millionaire Next Door & The Millionaire Mind (both by Thomas J. Stanley), Failing Forward & How Successful People Think (both by John C. Maxwell), Eat That Frog! (Brian Tracy), The E-Myth Revisited (Michael E. Gerber), Born To Win (Zig Ziglar), How To Win Friends & Influence People (Dale Carnegie), and Entreleadership (Dave Ramsey) are all great books for building a business and being successful at life.  Remember, even if you’re not into reading, many of these books can be found on Audible.com (or other audio forms).  You can simply listen to them on the way to work, when you’re washing the dishes, or whatever.

These are just a few of the resources that I’ve poured through this year. However, they are the ones that I received the most value from.

Whatever you decide on, I hope you take action now and start working towards your dream. I don’t believe life was meant to play safe. If you have a desire to make money with your roleplaying passion, I say go for it. You have so little to lose and so much to gain.

If you have any questions about the topic we discussed today, or any of the other topics in this series, please feel free to leave a comment below!

Can YOU Make Money By Roleplaying – Article Series
• Introduction
• Ways to Make Money Roleplaying
• Areas of the Market
• Enough Money to Justify the Work
• Top Companies and Earners
• My Personal Journey
• Conclusion

Can YOU Make Money By Roleplaying?

In the fifth article of our seven-part series, Top Companies and Earners, I touched on the sales revenue of major corporations in the industry and then drilled down into newer companies, various websites, and Patreon revenues for some roleplaying creators. In this article, I’m going to be completely transparent on my own journey with making money through MY roleplaying passion.

My “day job” is in Law Enforcement, but I have about a decade in the Information Technology industry as well. Pretty much from the day I picked up a roleplaying game I was also learning about computers. In addition, my college education is primarily focused on Business and Technology. So my foray into making money with roleplaying has mostly been through the use of websites and advertising.

My First Website

Many years ago, I created my first website that was focused on providing information on the Palladium Fantasy Roleplaying Game. This was around the late 1990s right when I was finishing high school and starting college. This website was strictly an outlet for creativity purposes and I had no intentions of making any money off of it.

My only claim to fame with this website was author Bill Coffin took one of the adventures I created and ported it into his Palladium FRPG Sourcebook, The Baalgor Wastelands. He was nice enough to improve upon the adventure I had written, throw it in the back of his sourcebook, and give me credit for it (thanks Bill!). Then college ensued and I honestly couldn’t tell you what happened with this website. I’m sure it drifted off into internet oblivion.

Lesson Learned: You never know when cool opportunities will come your way when you’re working hard on your passion.

Roleplaying Pro

Although I dabbled in website development, my next roleplaying-based site didn’t come about until around 2008. It was a blog called Roleplaying Pro. During that time, there was an explosion of roleplaying blogs on the internet. I had a passion for roleplaying and enjoyed building websites, so I thought I’d give it a whirl again. This time though, I tried a little harder at combining my passion with some of my business skills in the hopes of making a little money with my hobby.

Roleplaying Pro was around for about two years and I learned a TON during the time it was up. We reviewed everything from roleplaying games, to miniatures, to video games, and a host of additional accessories related to those products. I made money through the Amazon Affiliate Program, Google AdSense, and other advertising programs. I even got offered money for yearly targeted ads from various companies, but I usually turned them down since the things that were being advertised didn’t fit my core values (lots of gambling related websites were preying on RPG Blogs at the time).

Although I received a lot of free products to review, I can’t imagine that I cracked much more than $1,000 in actual revenue during that two-year period. The best thing that really happened to me was that I learned a lot about website development, advertising, search engine optimization, and networking. These skills really helped me with developing websites after this point.

Unfortunately, Roleplaying Pro met a fateful end due to my own failings. After about two years of working hard, I saw a lot of progress but not the amount that I felt I wanted. My wife and I had our first child coming and I felt the amount of time I was putting into the site was too much. So I gradually put less and less work into the site, eventually dropping it altogether. The current Roleplaying Pro was picked up by a domain squatter after I dropped it. Somehow he resurrected some of my old articles and is now using the domain for link traffic to “sugar scrubs”, computer stuff, internet marketing, and weight loss. Such a tragic end to a great website…

Lesson Learned: If you get tired and decide to shelf a website you put a ton of effort into building, pay the domain name and hosting fees for the next five to ten years just in case you decide to come back to it (it really won’t cost you that much in the long run).

Game Mastery Pro

Eventually, I got bitten by the website creation bug for a third time. This time I was a lot more prepared to develop a website that I wanted to do that I could also make money with. Game Mastery Pro was born in August of 2013. My intention was to create a dual purpose blog that talked about my two biggest hobby passions at the time, roleplaying and video games. I saw a lot of possibilities being able to crossover the two topics and felt that I could differentiate myself in the market by doing so.

My goal was to have a variety of income streams for the website, Google AdSense, Twitch.tv advertising, YouTube advertising, sponsorships, and product endorsement. I initially started out writing about various video games I was playing at the time. Because of my experience with search engine optimization from Roleplaying Pro and a little luck, the website took off pretty quick.

At the time, I was playing a lot of Game of War: Fire Age on my smart phone. This was back before it became a MASSIVE hit in the marketplace (aka pre-Kate Upton). Game Mastery Pro was really the only source of information on the game at the time and it quickly blew up. I noticed this happening and basically changed the focus of the site into supporting that game. It all happened so quickly I hadn’t really even begun to monetize the site at that point.

Even after I stopped playing the game and supporting the website, it seemed to keep growing bigger and bigger. As a test, I threw up only Google AdSense advertisements on the website and started playing around with them. Here are the results:

Overall Views: 2,100,000 (approximately)
Average Views Per Day: 3,500 to 5,000 (approximately)
Average Ad Impressions Per Day: 10,000 (approximately)
Average Revenue Per Day: $3.48

So for every 1,000 ad impressions that the website shows, I make approximately $0.35. That’s around $25 per week or around $100 per month. Except for a few articles I added to the site recently, I basically don’t do anything with it and I get a check from Google for about $100 each month.

Lesson Learned: Search engine optimization is very important for views on your website, but so is being in the right place at the right time. Being the first to bring some sort of valuable information to the market can be a critical element of success. But sometimes it is hard to tell what is going to be popular in a few months or years and what isn’t.

RPG Alchemy

With Game Mastery Pro becoming a niche-focused website that was earning me passive income, I took a step back again. I was approached by a friend of mine, John Lewis, on doing a tabletop roleplaying focused website. John had helped me with Roleplaying Pro in the past and I knew he had a lot to bring to the table. However, we didn’t want to confuse people by adding roleplaying content to a website that had basically talked about a popular phone app game for the last year. So in August of 2014, a year after I started Game Mastery Pro, RPG Alchemy was born.

Again, I used the basic principles that I learned from previous websites in starting RPG Alchemy. It was much quicker this time and a “cleaner” startup, in my opinion. John and I set some pretty strong goals and worked tirelessly over those first few months to build up a base for the blog. This was also really the first time I started using social media to promote my websites.

As of this date, I haven’t really tried to monetize RPG Alchemy yet. We’ve received a lot of cool products to review but I haven’t chosen to advertise due to the view count. If I decided to add Google AdSense to the site, these are most likely the results I would see:

Overall Views: 42,000 (approximately)
Average Views Per Day: 100 to 350 (approximately)
Average Ad Impressions Per Day: 700 (estimated)
Average Revenue Per Day: $0.25 (estimated)

To me, it isn’t really worth it to fill up the website with ads right now for $7.50 per month. There is the possibility that the click-through rate on RPG Alchemy could be higher, but even if it doubled I don’t see $15 a month in ad revenue being worth it for me.

Lesson Learned: The popularity of your website’s topic will drastically affect the amount of advertising revenue you can receive. The topic of roleplaying is nowhere near as popular as video games, health and fitness, self-improvement, etc. So in the roleplaying industry, you have to adjust your expectations accordingly or change your strategy for revenue.

Conclusion

Although I can only speak about website development, advertising (primarily Google AdSense), and product reviewing, I’ve definitely learned a lot when it comes to making money with your roleplaying passion.

First, I have a greater level of appreciation for the mainstays in our online community that have been around for a long time. A great example is Johnn Four at Roleplaying Tips. He’s been publishing in the industry since 1999 which is around the time I started my first website. The big difference between us is he never stopped and just kept moving forward and getting better. To me, he deserves every dollar he makes in the industry.

Second, I realize that making money in the roleplaying industry is currently constricted by the fact that it’s not a large topic (comparatively). If you wanted to make a living off of developing a roleplaying-based website, you’d really have to diversify your income streams. Building a high-traffic site with advertisements, combining it with Patreon, eBook sales, affiliate product sales, paid reviews and more would be necessary to create a sufficient and diversified income stream.

This idea goes for any other revenue path when it comes to roleplaying, be it building a brick-and-mortar store, developing your own publishing company, or doing something crazy like becoming a professional gamemaster. The revenue for any of those paths will always be constricted by the overall size of our industry.

Finally, I appreciate every product I’ve been given and every dollar I’ve made in the industry. If you break it down on a dollar per hour basis, I’m probably pushing a nickel an hour (if that). But the experiences I’ve had and the skills I’ve learned during that time must be taken into account as well. They are all things I’ve translated into other areas of my life and I’m better prepared for the goals I want to accomplish now because of it.

If you have any questions about the topic we discussed today, or any of the other topics in this series, please feel free to leave a comment below!

In the next article of the series, we end the series with the “Conclusion” of our thoughts and discussions on the topic.

Can YOU Make Money By Roleplaying – Article Series
• Introduction
• Ways to Make Money Roleplaying
• Areas of the Market
• Enough Money to Justify the Work
• Top Companies and Earners
• My Personal Journey
• Conclusion

Can YOU Make Money By Roleplaying?

In article number four of this seven-part series, Enough Money to Justify the Work, I talked about how much money you would have to make to justify the work. That is a personal question that will be different for each individual depending upon their own goals. But what could someone realistically expect to make? What do the top earners, mid-level earners, and others actually make in the industry? Well, this article will try to answer some of those questions.

Industry Giants

Clearly, the top tier companies of the tabletop roleplaying industry are companies like Wizards of the Coast (part of Hasbro Inc.), Fantasy Flight Games (part of the Asmodee Group), or Paizo Publishing. These companies are examples of giant mega-corporations in our industry (if there is such a thing). But to get a more realistic idea of what is possible, we’re going to take a step down from that level since you’re talking more about corporate creation and takeovers. Let’s leave that to the Shadowrunners…

But just to give you an idea, here are some concrete numbers for you to let sink in…

Wizards of the Coast
2012 Sales Revenue – $25,184,850
2012 Gross Profit – $7,976,679
2011 Sales Revenue – $24,466,241
2011 Gross Profit – $8,953,650
Considered the industry giant due to Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering

Fantasy Flight Games
2011 Sales Revenue – $21,900,000
2008 Sales Revenue – $12,900,000
69% growth during that 3-year period
Considered one of the fastest growing private companies in America at that time

Paizo Publishing
2012 Sales Revenue – $11,200,000
2009 Sales Revenue – $4,400,000
152% growth during that 3-year period
Considered one of the fastest growing private companies in America at that time

Monte Cook Games

The first company I’d like to take a real look at is Monte Cook Games. To some gamers, he recently burst onto the scene with his successful Kickstarter of Numenera which raised over $500,000 (more than twenty-five times its goal of $20,000). A video game for Numenera entitled, Torment: Tides of Numenera also successfully funded with a whopping $4,188,927 in April of 2013. The doesn’t count numerous other successful Kickstarter’s including the Numenera boxed set, The Strange, No Thank You, Evil!, and a web series called Geek Seekers.

What some people don’t know is that Monte Cook has been a professional game designer for almost thirty years. Even with the huge success of his products, I’d wager to guess that Monte Cook isn’t living in some penthouse in New York. I remember seeing a picture on his website that described his “Mid-West Offices” or something similar. It was the picture of a garage with various metal lockboxes containing product inventory. He and his company are a newer, top-tier gaming company, but they still obviously focus heavily on the bottom line in order to remain profitable.

Finding specific numbers on newer companies or companies that are considered “small business” are a little harder. I don’t have any hard or fast numbers on Monte Cook Games, but that company will be a great one to follow the growth of over the next few years. They have incredible momentum right now, are putting out solid products, and in my opinion are doing a lot of things that other companies aren’t doing.

Engine Publishing

This company was started in 2009 by Martin Ralya and is associated with Gnome Stew, arguably the most popular tabletop roleplaying blog out there currently. They’ve published five system-neutral books for game masters that have sold over 21,000 copies since their first release in 2010. Three of their titles are in the top seventy-five (75) out of over 40,000 products on DriveThruRPG. Their fourth and fifth products are in the top 1%. All of these products, like their website, have won numerous industry awards.

Now, keep in mind that each book required between nine to twenty-six people to create. They currently sell for $9.95 to $16.95. And like I stated before, they’ve sold around 21,000 copies (from all of the books) over the last five years. They are in the top tier of PDF publishing on DriveThruRPG.

That should give you a little perspective of what a top tier small-press publishing company can expect to sell. When you start doing the math, it definitely is not something that could support a small team of individuals full-time. However, if combined with other revenue options this could be a solid addition to an overall income strategy. Bear in mind though, just like Monte Cook Games, these guys and gals have been working hard in the industry for many years (even if much of it is “part-time”).

Patreon

When I first encountered Patreon, someone described it as their form of “gaming welfare”. Once I actually figured out what Patreon was, I had a legitimate chuckle at that description. But Patreon is a consistent way to earn by providing products to consumers.

Here are some examples of what gaming-related creators are making with Patreon:

– Johnn Four (Roleplaying Tips) – $900.73 per month
– Dyson Logos (Illustrator) – $430.46 per map/adventure
– En World En5sider (En World) – $1,674.01 per article
– Jeff Brown (Illustrator) – $172.00 per month
– Endzeitgeist (Reviewer) – $688.00 per month
– Evil Hat Productions (Fate Core) – $4,165.14 per adventure/world created

These statistics are current as of 06/10/15.

As you can probably see with this, many of these individuals were all already doing what they loved before they started using Patreon. Patreon simply gives them money for things they were already doing or gives them another outlet to sell their “products”. They are all already making money using other methods, like advertising, products sales, etc.

Conclusion

Finding statistics about large companies can be challenging but is usually doable. Finding information about smaller businesses can be downright impossible unless they decide to publish it themselves. I provided you a smattering of examples here with the sales revenue of three top RPG companies, Kickstarter numbers for Monte Cook Games, PDF numbers for Engine Publishing (Gnome Stew), and Patreon numbers for a small variety of gaming-related “artists”. With smaller companies, the numbers listed are typically just a piece of their overall income picture.

I think it is important to understand though

– What a top level company is making in profit
– What a newer company with an established name can fund on a Kickstarter
– How much a small-press publisher can really expect to sell
– What a creator or artist can make via Patreon

Just having these numbers floating around in your head can give you an idea of what is realistically possible in our industry because it has already been done. The proof is sitting in front of you.

Disclaimer: Many of these examples were pulled from various statistics that are openly available on the Internet. I do not presume to know what sponsorships, endorsements, advertising revenue, sales revenue, or additional sources of income that the above individuals or companies make.

If you have any questions about the topic we discussed today, or any of the other topics in this series, please feel free to leave a comment below!

In the next article of the series, we discuss the topic of “My Personal Journey”.

Can YOU Make Money By Roleplaying – Article Series
• Introduction
• Ways to Make Money Roleplaying
• Areas of the Market
• Enough Money to Justify the Work
• Top Companies and Earners
• My Personal Journey
• Conclusion