Printing, publishing and protecting

Y'know how hard it is to actually publish your idea? It's hard for them too. It's (generally) not worth it to steal an idea, since you'll spend a lot of time and effort to publish it, then take a formidable hit to your reputation once word gets out.

If you'd looking to game design and publication as a means to make a living, you may want to consider other directions to channel your energy. Licensing is very unlikely to make you wealthy, unless you manage to license a large number of games that become very popular. Publishing is also unlikely to make you wealthy.

That said, you'll want to contact publishers who accept unsolicited submissions. There's a page full of them at http://www.bgdf.com/node/621 Going to game conventions and meeting them face to face is also a good move. Of course, going to cons costs time and money, so...

You could also go the pay-to-download print-and-play route through RPG.net or another online pnp portal.

I wish you good fortune in whatever path you choose.

Stardragon, welcome.

Another option not mentioned here is the print-on-demand (POD) avenue. A good example is a relatively young company called the Game Crafter (thegamecrafter.com) which you could take a look at. Again, this particular POD company is less than a year old, and it is yet to be seen how much foot traffic they will get for sales, but they put out a respectable product and give you options in building a game for sale. I purchased a number of christmas presents there and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the games that shipped to me.

They don't do much promotion work, and leave that instead to the designers to do for themselves. So you'll have to take advantage of BGG and other sites to promote your work and try to generate sales through the Game Crafter site.

The main advantage to a POD service is that you don't have to put up any money. Instead, you simply upload all the materials for the game, and the POD service will print per-order and then pay you a royalty for the sale that you determine when you set the product price. The downside is that one-off printing makes the product a little more expensive to the consumer.

It's worth a look. Self-publishing is a big financial commitment and will be more than a full time job, but from what I've heard, it is a rewarding experience even if it doesn't pay well. Licensing and selling to the big boys is very difficult to do, and you lose a lot of control, but they take on most of the risk.

Good luck, whatever you decide, and I can tell you that personally I have found this forum to be a fantastic resource, so make sure to stop back in and use it. People here, as a rule, are remarkably helpful and friendly, and a lot of them know a hell of a lot about doing this sort of thing, so newcomers like you and I can learn a lot!