When I first started Asparagus Jumpsuit, I was faced with a decision. Given that the company has little or no budget for any given product, would it be better to have bad art, or no art? Ultimately I decided that no art was better, for one very huge reason: value.
When I play a roleplaying game, I rely on the rules. With the exception of maps and some monster illustrations, I rarely need illustrations. They’re nice to have, but not essential. I would rather have as close to 100% of a product be useful bits, and as little filler as possible. When writing certain products, I already loose a page to required legal notices. If a product is only 5 pages long, I’d rather sell you 5 pages of content, not 4 pages and some art. When selling you a 96 page product, I’d rather sell you 96 pages of usefulness, not 90 pages and some art.
The reason many products historically have art is because of the nature of print. There are registers, minimum numbers of pages to make a book, in increments of 16. you can’t print a book that’s 123 pages; because of the registers, it has to be 128. What to do? Either write 5 more pages of useful material, or pad it out to 128 pages by adding some art. If you’ve got the budget, it makes the book look nicer, adds “production value”, so it can be won-win.
The other thing art does is raise costs. Good artists don’t work for free; ethical publishers pay artists what they’re worth. I like to think that I’m ethical. I also, as stated above, have no budget. If I include art, I have to pay someone for it. That means raising prices to cover it. If I were a huge publisher, I could absorb those costs, because I could expect to sell a lot more copies. As a teeny, tiny publisher, I know I will only sell a limited number of copies (because advertising and marketing is another thing I have no budget for). Amortized over the number of copies sold, I’m going to lose money on art.
So it really comes down to bad art, no art, or no product.
Does it bug me? You bet it does. I want to make great products. Given a budget, I’d hire the best writers, the best artists, professional layout people, the works. I would run a company that put out the greatest games ever imagined, as well a publishing coffee table art books, new and classic fiction, a plethora of stuff.
But right now, I can do the best I can with what I’ve got, until such time as sales reach a point where I do have a budget for bigger and better things.
What do you think? Any other tips or information? Add your thoughts in the comments below. And if you like this post, please share it via the social media buttons below, so others can join the the conversation!
When given the choice, I (as a buyer) would prefer a good-looking, text-only book over one with horrible art on every second page. A strong, good-looking cover image, combined with clear font types and good writing in the entire book is much “sexier”, if you ask me
if you do have to go with bad art, make sure it is spectacularly bad, rather than kinda-maybe-sorta bad. That way at least it will have a humor value, rather than be just omg-lame. That’s my advice.
As an artist, I really respect your commitment to fair pay, but I also know that there are many artists who’d recognize a clear benefit in getting their work published in a good game. There are TONS of us out here who’d probably be willing to work for some kind of of conditional payment deal ( like a “point” system after losses are recouped) . I would, and I wouldn’t be upset if it never paid off in cash; I love to draw/paint, so the process is fun & the feeling of accomplishment is pretty great. Feel free to email me if you want to talk more about it.
Many small game publishers are focused on the PDF market through sites like RPGNow. I know a lot of writers and artists that don’t expect an upfront fee, but rather a small amount of the pruchase price. Yes, it does raise sale price, but there is no up-front cost. It also boosts sales as a lot of people buy based on art, or at least look twice at products with interesting art.
Art is nice when it serves a purpose. I’d honestly not worry about finding artists willing to work for less than average wages. A small publisher not able to afford mid range art gets it at a fare price and gives some credit to an artist who probably needs it if they are working for those prices. If you start getting sales that warrant more fair prices pay the artist back by giving them first offer for jobs.
On the flip side there is some pretty decent stock art over at rpgnow.com you won’t be able to rely on it completely but its worth skimming over now and then.