Re: Can I make money by writing IF?


Thu, 30 Nov 95 14:15:44 GMT

In article <ckt-3011950400260001@ckt.vip.best.com>,
ckt@best.com (Chris Thomas) wrote:

>Well, I bitched about this before, but it doesn't necessarily depend
>on the game or the market: it may just be that the interpreter sucks
>on many platforms. In the case of TADS, I seem to recall being limited
>by a less-than-wonderful parser as well. Or it could be that the
>pricing structure is out of whack; what'd you pay for your last paperback?

While the folks trying to sell IF will probably not like it, I suspect that
the pricing structure is way out of whack -- at least for mass sales. Most
commercial IF is short story or novella length, but sells for $10+. Full
length paperback novels are about $6 and you get a nice pile of expensive
paper. Commercial IF is currently priced like the small press hardcover
chapbooks of short stories (very high), and probably sells to about the same
percentage of the IF market and said chapbooks do (very low). IF might do
much better at $2-4 a pop. I'm sure most of the commercial IF authors will
say that it would not be worth their time to deal with such small sums of
money, but many businesses do think such sales are worth their time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Randall S. Stukey | Internet: lensman@crl.com OR gray-lensman@genie.com
San Antonio, TX | GEnie: GRAY-LENSMAN
Computer Consultant | Assistant Sysop, GEnie's SF Fandom RoundTable
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Links of Interest to Fandom [Index]: http://www.sfrt.com/sfrt3/sflinks.htm
GEnie's SF-Fandom RoundTable Home Page: http://www.sfrt.com/sfrt3/