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I am but I don't know how long it will continue! My side project is: "How to Make an RPG" (http://howtomakeanrpg.com/ http://howtomakeanrpg.com/) which I relea

I am but I don't know how long it will continue! My side project is: "How to Make an RPG" (http://howtomakeanrpg.com/ http://howtomakeanrpg.com/) which I released in June. It's a collection of code samples, art and digital book that shows the reader how to make an old-school, Japanese-style RPG. So, it's super niche! I wrote a little about my process here: https://medium.com/@DanSchuller/my-first-side-project-part-1-what-went-right-e40f4eac8f92 https://medium.com/@DanSchuller/my-first-side-project-part-1... There was supposed to be a second part to this article but I haven't written it yet. It's been over $1000/month very comfortably so far but it is trending down. This isn't uncommon for this type of project - there's often a spike followed by a slow decline. Still, for the last three months I haven't actively worked on it and it's still sold well. I've moved country and been finding a job (all sorted now), so I haven't had much free time. I'm not really sure where is good to go after this project. For now I'm building on the base the book introduces, just for fun.

pavel_lishin 10y ago
That's really cool. I wonder if you could make some money by doing actual in-person classes. It obviously wouldn't scale as well as a book you write once and release, but you might be able to charge a lot more for in-person education.
- danschuller 10y ago
  This is a good idea, and then potentially classes can be recorded and that would be another product (or special tier). I think this applies equally to other similar products.
  - AlexeyBrin 10y ago
    You can try to record a course and sell it through Udemy or Pluralsight.
dorfsmay 10y ago
Revenue is from people paying for access?
- danschuller 10y ago
  Yes, it's a simple purchase and then the customer has access to all the content.
  - umen 10y ago
    This great stuff , few questions if I may , What payment getaway are you using? How did you market your site I have also gaming how to site that I plan to monotize but not sure how Www.gamedevcraft.com Any tips ?
    - danschuller 10y ago
      I'm using Gumtree for payment and distribution, it's worked very well for me. As for marketing, I've just replied earlier in the thread with a little more detail. For a site with tutorials on game development, most of your readers will be using adblocking software. Therefore most popular monetization methods are: selling a book, a course or locking off content behind a paywall. Here's an example of premium content: http://aigamedev.com/premium/interview/dying-light/ http://aigamedev.com/premium/interview/dying-light/ Here's an example where the author sells the source code for his articles http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/ http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/ This blog is about all sorts of tech stuff but he sells his book "Game Programming Patterns" (which is very good!) in the side bar. http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/ http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/
      - vram22 10y ago
        Gumtree seems to be only for UK and AU, is that right? (from a quick Google for the name). Congrats on your work.
        danschuller 10y ago
et1337 10y ago
Very cool. Just curious, what was your marketing plan? How much time did you spend on marketing?
- danschuller 10y ago
  I didn't have a detailed marketing plan. An early channel was this article I wrote for tutplus: http://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/how-to-build-a-jrpg-a-primer-for-game-developers--gamedev-6676 http://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/how-to-build-a-... I wrote it before starting the book (to test the waters) and had a link to sign-up to the mailing list. I used mailchimp for email collection. I have ~50 articles related to gamedev on the same domain, so these get organic SEO and backlinks: http://howtomakeanrpg.com/a/ http://howtomakeanrpg.com/a/ I quite enjoy writing them. The ones with a more technical bent get a lot more traffic than the others. 50% of my traffic is organic SEO. I haven't tried ads yet, but it's on my list. More recently I commissioned some new art that I give away as a mailing list sign-up incentive. This hasn't worked very well so far :) I have to work on the messaging. Tracking time spent is something I want to do but don't - each article at the very least takes a couple of hours. So there's 100+ hours, done in a very incremental way.
dylanhassinger 10y ago
sales might pick back up if u wrote the 2nd part to the article
csallen 10y ago
Any interest in doing an interview for https://IndieHackers.com https://IndieHackers.com? I'd love to feature your story on the site! I spent many many hours as a kid trying to make my own RPGs, and IH could really use more indie game dev related stuff!
meir_yanovich 10y ago
Can you please comment on those questions ? Why you didn't go with eBooks publishers ? Also how long it take you to write the book ? In the payments can you tell how much percentage are using payapl ? Thanks!
MikeTV 10y ago
I wonder if there's enough interest to run a webinar on the topic? Or offer a higher tier that gives access to one-on-one with you if they get stuck during the course?

pavel_lishin 10y ago

That's really cool. I wonder if you could make some money by doing actual in-person classes. It obviously wouldn't scale as well as a book you write once and release, but you might be able to charge a lot more for in-person education.

danschuller 10y ago
This is a good idea, and then potentially classes can be recorded and that would be another product (or special tier). I think this applies equally to other similar products.
- AlexeyBrin 10y ago
  You can try to record a course and sell it through Udemy or Pluralsight.

dorfsmay 10y ago

Revenue is from people paying for access?

danschuller 10y ago
Yes, it's a simple purchase and then the customer has access to all the content.
- umen 10y ago
  This great stuff , few questions if I may , What payment getaway are you using? How did you market your site I have also gaming how to site that I plan to monotize but not sure how Www.gamedevcraft.com Any tips ?
  - danschuller 10y ago
    I'm using Gumtree for payment and distribution, it's worked very well for me. As for marketing, I've just replied earlier in the thread with a little more detail. For a site with tutorials on game development, most of your readers will be using adblocking software. Therefore most popular monetization methods are: selling a book, a course or locking off content behind a paywall. Here's an example of premium content: http://aigamedev.com/premium/interview/dying-light/ http://aigamedev.com/premium/interview/dying-light/ Here's an example where the author sells the source code for his articles http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/ http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/ This blog is about all sorts of tech stuff but he sells his book "Game Programming Patterns" (which is very good!) in the side bar. http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/ http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/
    - vram22 10y ago
      Gumtree seems to be only for UK and AU, is that right? (from a quick Google for the name). Congrats on your work.
      - danschuller 10y ago

et1337 10y ago

Very cool. Just curious, what was your marketing plan? How much time did you spend on marketing?

danschuller 10y ago
I didn't have a detailed marketing plan. An early channel was this article I wrote for tutplus: http://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/how-to-build-a-jrpg-a-primer-for-game-developers--gamedev-6676 http://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/how-to-build-a-... I wrote it before starting the book (to test the waters) and had a link to sign-up to the mailing list. I used mailchimp for email collection. I have ~50 articles related to gamedev on the same domain, so these get organic SEO and backlinks: http://howtomakeanrpg.com/a/ http://howtomakeanrpg.com/a/ I quite enjoy writing them. The ones with a more technical bent get a lot more traffic than the others. 50% of my traffic is organic SEO. I haven't tried ads yet, but it's on my list. More recently I commissioned some new art that I give away as a mailing list sign-up incentive. This hasn't worked very well so far :) I have to work on the messaging. Tracking time spent is something I want to do but don't - each article at the very least takes a couple of hours. So there's 100+ hours, done in a very incremental way.

dylanhassinger 10y ago

sales might pick back up if u wrote the 2nd part to the article

csallen 10y ago

Any interest in doing an interview for https://IndieHackers.com https://IndieHackers.com? I'd love to feature your story on the site! I spent many many hours as a kid trying to make my own RPGs, and IH could really use more indie game dev related stuff!

meir_yanovich 10y ago

Can you please comment on those questions ? Why you didn't go with eBooks publishers ? Also how long it take you to write the book ? In the payments can you tell how much percentage are using payapl ? Thanks!

MikeTV 10y ago

I wonder if there's enough interest to run a webinar on the topic? Or offer a higher tier that gives access to one-on-one with you if they get stuck during the course?