Hi, I’m Dan and I recently launched my first side project; How to Make an RPG. It’s a digital book, set of artwork, collection of examples and game engine (including source) that teaches you how to make a video game. Want to know more? Check out the release page.

A screenshot for one of the games you can learn to make with the book.

This article covers what worked well when creating and launching my first product, and lessons learned as a result. In a future post, I’ll cover what went wrong and some things I’d do differently.

Inception

I enjoy RPGs so creating one seemed like a fun project but that wasn’t only reason for this side project, I also wanted to:

Write the book I wish had existed when I first began game programming Try self-publishing Learn about running a small business

I chose to focus on JRPGs specifically because their structure is well defined. The majority of JRPGs share a certain set of mechanics that makes them easy to write about and create. Writing a book about creating any type of RPG, from Zelda to Fallout. just wouldn’t be feasible!

The target audience was a younger version of myself. When I wanted to write games as a teenager there was nothing out there. Good information on how to write games was very hard to find. The “How to Make an RPG” project takes the reader step-by-step from an empty window to a full game; I think it’s quite unique in this respect.

Previously, I wrote C# Game Programming : For Serious Game Creation, published by Cengage Publishing. This was a fun experience. I could have taken this book through a publisher but this time I wanted full rights to my work and full control over what I could do with the finished product. That’s why I chose to self-publish.

Finally, I wanted to learn how to create project that lets me run a small business. The root reason for this is that I’d love to be able to support myself independently doing things I enjoy. This first project was a step in that direction.

Project Goals

Knowing what you want from a project lets you measure it’s success. Here are the goals I wanted to hit:

Create a book to teach a reader how to make a JRPG from scratch Sell 1000 units (in the first year of release)

Your goals don’t have to be fancy!

From the feedback I’d say I’ve achieved the first goal. It’s certainly not perfect but I’m happy with the final product. The second goal, as of writing, is 61% complete. Is it possible to complete by the end of the year? Time will tell!

What Worked Well

Here are the six lessons I learned.

1. Test The Water

I want my project to be a business; if no one buys the book that’s not much of a business!

Before writing anything I tested the waters by creating a website that said something like:

“Hey, do you want to make a JRPG? I’m writing a book about them. Sign-up to this mailing-list and I’ll notify you when it’s out."

I arbitrarily decided that if one-thousand people signed-up, it was a good indicator of interest and it was safe to begin writing.

To get my subscribers I needed a way to drive people to my page. Instead of buying advertising I contacted the envatotuts+ website and wrote an article for them called How to Build a JRPG: A Primer for Game Developers (for which I was paid a small fee). This article linked to my mailing list website. The article proved popular and in short order I had my first one-thousand potential customers.

My article on the envatotuts+ website. (Note the date! I’ll get to that in the “What went wrong” post)

Why did 1000 people sign up?

The envatotuts+ website has a large audience of readers interested in game tutorials. I’m providing them with valuable content so I can use their platform to reach that audience. The page was linked from the /r/gamedev subreddit and other similar sites.

The article is a high-level summary of the same topics the book covers in much greater detail. It precisely targets the kind of reader who’d be interested in the full product.

If the article excites the reader and they want to know more — it’s almost a no-brainer for them to sign-up to my list. They’ve already read some of my writing, they like it and the mailing list is the best way to get more.

What if only 100 people signed up?

I wouldn’t have written the book. Only 100 sign-ups would indicate there isn’t much interest in a “How to Make an RPG” book. I’d reapply my strategy and write a new article perhaps focused on Adventure Games or User Interface Programming until I found something that struck a nerve. It’s more efficient to test the water with articles than to commit to a full book.

2. Use Unfair Advantages

We all have different personal strengths and experience, where possible: work on projects where you have an unfair advantage.

For my project I had these advantages:

These advantages don’t necessarily mean this was the best project I could start but they do mean it’s harder for someone not in my position to undertake it.

3. Aesthetic Sells

Or as we might phrase it in the game industry; art sells. What do I mean by this? People like pretty things. The nicer your product looks, the more appealing it is and the better it sells.

Before writing I created a color scheme that I use for every figure and diagram in the book.

The colors I use for all figures in the book.

I commissioned a lot of high quality pixel art, so my examples are on par with a commercial game.

An example of the art I commissioned for the book. This guy is an end-boss.

4. You Don’t Have to Do Everything!

I am programmer so of course I want to write my own storefront, sales and distribution platform using Stripe and AWS. But this isn’t the core of what I’m doing, it’s far better to use a known solution that works today.

I use Gumroad to sell the book. Gumroad is great; it handles update notifications, payment processing, distribution and is reasonably priced. It’s self-contained and can be swapped out, if I do decide to roll my own solution.

Everything about the business is automatic. The product sells without any action on my part. Potential customers find the website, through a google search or link, they read an article, like it and decide to buy the book. Gumroad handles the purchase details, then sends out a receipt email, the customer can then download the book, examples and engine, and immediately start using it. This happens even if I’m asleep.

For every 100 customers I estimate I do 30 minutes of support; resending receipt emails, clarifying some aspect of the book, answering queries for potential customers and that type of thing. As I deal with these issues I update the website so people have the option to find answers to common questions without contacting me directly.

5. Digital First

Digital products make your life as a creator easier. They can often be created in entirety by one person and costs for manufacture and distribution are so low they’re practically free. Profit margins are high meaning it’s easier to reach profitability.

I’d love to have a physical version of the book but the workload to create such a version is exponentially greater than what was required for the digital edition (which was already a challenge!)

6. Cultivate your Platform

Platform is a marketing term that describes the structures you have in place to reach your audience. My platform is made of two main parts:

A website - http://howtomakeanrpg.com/a/ A mailing list

I also use Twitter but I know from analytics this is nothing compared to the website and mailing list.

Mailing List

The people on your mailing list are interested in your product and what you have to say. On release these people want to buy what you’re selling — that’s why they’re on the list!

My mailing list has ~3000 subscribers. My open rate is >60% and my click through rate is >30% . The click-through rate is the percentage of people who visit a link in my mail. My conversion rate from click-through to purchase is ~25%. These rates are high because my subscribers are exactly my target market (and this is why you should have your own mailing list!).

Due to demand, I offered my mailing list subscribers the chance to purchase the book early. I announced this to the mailing list (at that time 2000 subscribers) so the math worked out like this:

-- Funnel for early access purchases

2000 * 0.37 * 0.25 (=185)

From 2000 subscribers, 37% clicked the early-access link in the mail and about 25% of those purchased the book.

Website

A website tells people about your project. My site has two parts:

Root landing page to collect emails Collection of articles about writing RPG games

I tend to drive people to the root of the site and people are pulled to the article section through search engines and external links to the content.

As I wrote the book I added articles to the site. Sometimes I used the site to rough out an idea for part of the book before writing it up properly. I did this for the section on Levels and Stats.

Stats for RPGs — 11K Lifetime unique visitors Levels for RPGs — 3k Lifetime unique visitors

Anyone reading these types of articles is interested in creating an RPG and therefore a potential customer. The article pages invite readers to sign-up to my mailing list to be notified about the book release.

There’s a second way articles like this help. People find the content valuable so they link to it. In my case I see backlinks from Reddit and Stack Overflow. The more backlinks you have, the more search engines associate you with the topic you’re discussing and so you’re displayed higher up on Google and other search engines. This becomes a virtuous cycle because the higher you rank the more people are likely to find your content and the more likely they themselves will link to it in the future.

Closing

I hope this was helpful if you’re considering your own project! The second part will be out in the next couple of weeks. If you want to contact me: hit me up on twitter, leave a comment or check out the How to Make an RPG contact page.

This article was original posted here and has been modified for medium.