RE: Freelancing in the Tabletop RPG Industry
I claim the (dubious) title of freelance RPG artist, and I am at the dollar commissions stage, that is, I'll do pretty much anything for a dollar just to get my art published (and that dollar can be negotiated down to a penny). My stuff has appeared in two publications by another author so far (Black Goat Games).
At the moment, I keep plugging my own platforms while selling ACEO format art on eBay, all the while hoping to get discovered by low budget projects. What I lack possibly in talent, I make up for in uniqueness and style. I'm probably more appropriate for filler art than cover pieces and "small" (or even tiny art) format is my favorite.
My Facebook Art Page
http://www.facebook.com/JBGarrisonArt
My Roll20 Marketplace Creator Page:
https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/publisher/321/jeffrey-boyd-garrison
My DriveThruRPG Publisher Listing
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/12297/JBG-Games
My Twitter Spam Catapult
http://www.twitter.com/JBGarrison72
I love independent publishing and publishers and I wish I could afford to buy ALL THE THINGS on DriveThru... if I win the lottery, first thing I'm going to do is throw ridiculously large wads of cash at every pay-what-you-want publication on DriveThru. :P
I think that one of the only ways to do well in the games industry is to get a following and a lot of exposure.
Part of the reason that I think that Waystation Deimos was so successful was that it was a variant of a game that was a variant of another game and I was able to acquire some of their community's interest. Compare this to Segira: 1985, which should by most metrics be an objectively better game, but had much less reception.
I think you've got it spot on... the question of building a following then becomes tireless work in promoting and running games?
Somewhat.
I'd imagine that some of it comes down to having promotions and being out there. I think that if you can get a decently sized podcast to highlight your game you can do pretty well pretty easily, or even a bunch of people like me who are very willing to recommend what we like and have a more modest following you might see a potential to get followings.
It takes maybe ten thousand sales of a game to hit break-even (assuming a somewhat expensive budget of $250,000 or so), after you account for the cut that DriveThruRPG takes. Compare that to "best seller" ranks on DriveThruRPG. They start as low as 250 from what I've heard, so that's not exactly a tremendously high yardstick.