If I were to think about publishing a Traveller magazine on a small scale print on demand level, would I have to get official licencee status from Marc Miller? What about permissions and royalties etc? What would have to be paid? If anything how do fanzines and magazines like Far Traveller etc manage it.
Traveller Magazine
- Thread starter Ben W Bell
- Start date
grendelttroll
SOC-12
I believe the starting fee is around $1000 U.S.. That's not much at all, if you think about it.
$1000 US is a lot for someone who had plans of a small part time print on demand publishing company.
Gallowglass
SOC-12
The only way to get a definitive answer is to mail Marc Miller himself; so all of my following comments are idle, uninformed speculation!
If it's just a fanzine (which I would have thought web or pdf would be better mediums for, see the Unbound Book for Call of Cthulhu: http://www.unboundbook.org/) then if you don't charge people for it and acknowledge copyright, it's OK. For an actual print 'zine, FFE _may_ (I am speculating here!) accept charging to cover costs. But a commercial product is going to have to have a license (FFE would be exceptionally foolish to do anything else), and, from what little I know of these things, US$1000 is a pretty reasonable bench mark.
Maybe you could look at a subscription model (donations up front to finance things) or perhaps some sort of publishing partnership with Andy Lily and BITS (who obviously DO have a license from FFE)?
As I said, the only definitive answers can come from MWM himself, but I hope some of the above speculation has been helpful.
Cheers,
Nick Middleton
If it's just a fanzine (which I would have thought web or pdf would be better mediums for, see the Unbound Book for Call of Cthulhu: http://www.unboundbook.org/) then if you don't charge people for it and acknowledge copyright, it's OK. For an actual print 'zine, FFE _may_ (I am speculating here!) accept charging to cover costs. But a commercial product is going to have to have a license (FFE would be exceptionally foolish to do anything else), and, from what little I know of these things, US$1000 is a pretty reasonable bench mark.
Maybe you could look at a subscription model (donations up front to finance things) or perhaps some sort of publishing partnership with Andy Lily and BITS (who obviously DO have a license from FFE)?
As I said, the only definitive answers can come from MWM himself, but I hope some of the above speculation has been helpful.
Cheers,
Nick Middleton
Myself and a few friends were considering, since we are all prolific writers in one aspect or another, setting up a small part time company to publish some Print on Demand supplements for games etc and an Idea for a traveller magazine was one idea, among others. D20 fantasy stuff is sorted that's no problem, as is the 1920s bits we want to do for Cthulhu but without actually connecting it to Cthulhu, but Traveller is a pre-existing copyrighted universe. Maybe I'll mail Mark and ask him. Maybe he'll go for a percentage of the cover price.
lord irial
SOC-12
Not sure how many people read it, but Knights of the Dinner Table, the comic turned gaming magazine from Kenzer & Co, is willing to publish articles on any game system. Submit the articles, they pay you, they pursue permission to print, and you get printed. So far, very few articles have seen print in KoDT that aren't HackMaster or D&D3e/Kingdoms of Kalamar related, but Kenzer wants to change that.
Here's a link to their submission guidelines.
I'm not saying wouldn't mind seeing a magazine devoted to Traveller, but meanwhile, there are other possibilities...
Here's a link to their submission guidelines.
I'm not saying wouldn't mind seeing a magazine devoted to Traveller, but meanwhile, there are other possibilities...
I agree Kenzer (et. al.) are a great group of people but, TSR was a great group of people back when I was gaming back in the mid 70's. The true question I have is:"can they maintain their standards and integrity in the long run?" I hope that they can, because I have been happy with their work so far. I would summit to their magazine and see what happens; perhaps you can beat them before they introduce a "SpaceHack" gaming system! 
If you want to do a Traveller-esque magazine, but can't (or would rather not) get into a licensing agreement with Marc and FFE, you might consider the option of doing a d20 future/sci-fi generica type thing. Considering the OGC already available in things like T20, Dragonstar and other sci-fi genre d20 products, and your stated interest in d20, it shouldn't be that hard to do.
Going the generica route also vastly increases your target audience, since you'd add players of Dragonstar, Star Wars d20 and the other offerings in the genre to your audience of T20 players. That's not even considering the d20 Future expansion to d20 Modern that Wizards is doing late this year or early next.
Now, this does mean of course that you would have to be considerate of the IP of all the Traveller licensees and owners (FFE, SJG and QLI especially) and wouldn't be able to do articles specifically for OOP Traveller rules sets right off the bat, but it depends on what your goals are. Once you are an established zine, it's also possible that you would have an easier time getting permissions to do the occasional Traveller specifc article. I'm not a publisher or a lawyer, so I don't know the specifics, but remember that magazines like Dragon and Different Worlds once published Traveller articles, so the possibly certainly exists.
Going the generica route also vastly increases your target audience, since you'd add players of Dragonstar, Star Wars d20 and the other offerings in the genre to your audience of T20 players. That's not even considering the d20 Future expansion to d20 Modern that Wizards is doing late this year or early next.
Now, this does mean of course that you would have to be considerate of the IP of all the Traveller licensees and owners (FFE, SJG and QLI especially) and wouldn't be able to do articles specifically for OOP Traveller rules sets right off the bat, but it depends on what your goals are. Once you are an established zine, it's also possible that you would have an easier time getting permissions to do the occasional Traveller specifc article. I'm not a publisher or a lawyer, so I don't know the specifics, but remember that magazines like Dragon and Different Worlds once published Traveller articles, so the possibly certainly exists.
