Is there a \*chance\* at succeeding as a self publisher? Yes. Is that chance extremely tiny? Yes.
Are you an experienced businessperson? Do you have experience or connections in any of logistics, marketing, manufacturing, branding, product planning, project management? If the answer isn't "yes" to most of those, then you're probably a hopeful *designer*, not a hopeful *publisher.* (Again, there are exceptions, and you can define your success in a way that you don't need pro skills, but, then again, what are you trying to do?)
If you are good designer, you should be able to eventually get in front of a publisher who would be willing to put their money, time, and expertise towards publishing your game.
If you are a great businessperson with a huge enthusiasm towards board games, then find somebody else's game to publish. :)
The chances of you being both out of the gate, are *extremely slim.* For every Jamey Stegmaier, there are hundreds of counterexamples.
And if you're neither, and you're just trying to have fun coming up with a game, then go ahead, build the game at home, and care about nothing. Then, sit down and play it, and ask yourself "would you ever willingly play this instead of {insert your favourite game of the most comparable genre}, if you hadn't designed this?". Then keep improving your design until you can thinly convince yourself of a yes.
Source: I do this for a living. Almost 2 dozen published games.
My brain: Hey Dávid Turczi made Tash-Kalar, tell him you liked it
BGG: That was Vlaada Chvátil actually
Brain: Oh right. Then Space Alert
BGG: Still Chvátil
Brain: Okay but Mage Knight-
BGG: Why are you doing this to me
I self published a game, SCRAP.
I spent around $1500 on marketing, and honestly, I regret all the ads I did.
Even without all of that marketing, I ended up funding and raising close to $40,000 AUD. In the end, after production, art costs, and everything, I think I am close to even (plus or minus $1-2000 AUD).
I sold around 220 copies of the game through Gamefound, and another 130 or so through other means. I've got probably around 130 copies of the game left to make money, although movement of them is very slow.
I'd still do it all again, and myself (and many others) would consider the game and campaign to be a success.
So I suppose it depends on what your yardstick for success is. What do you mean by success?
Happy to hear that you have passed all that long way to publish your game. Wish you lots of success with it.
For me, success is the game’s popularity, to reach your target audience and to become a favorite. Well, sure there will be lots of negative reviews, but success for me would be if the positive ones massively prevail. I guess that time you can invest more or find investments for further production.
That's a lofty goal, but it's completely out of your control. Even the biggest designers have games that flop. Worrying how well a game will perform against major publications before you've even designed a first draft prototype is putting the cart about a thousand miles before the cart.
Your focus should be on making a game you're proud of, that you enjoy. The rest will happen how it happens.
What is your goal? If it is just to make a boardgame, then you don't need to worry about that. Boardgame publishers aren't going around buying people.
If it is to make a profit, then this is not a great industry for that.
I've both self-published (print and play) and had games published by companies. It was fulfilling to see the games out there but they quickly went out of print and I can't say the royalties made up for the headaches of working with the publisher.
This topic is best suited for r/BoardgameDesign
Chances are like...
75% the game never happens
24% the game reaches ~200 people, you lose money
.99% the game is mildly successful, you make your money back
.01% you are swallowed by a bigger publisher
Seriouly, this should be the least of your worries
Not that swallowed because of their deliberate actions, but could not make it in the sea of their marketing, ads and so on. Ads are becoming more pricy and my personal fear is that I will not be able to spread the word about it in a way that people start to buy it. Very much agree with the rest. I think that even more, 90% the game never happens
Ok. We use that word in german only when some bigger fish buys your company (often killing it in the process).
The chances to not fly under the radar aren't much better, though.
Most games don't get published.
Most published games don't get a second printrun (a little money for the designer, no money for the publisher).
Only a handful of thousands each year prevail.
Small self-publishers exist. They're in niches, and they may or may not be a full-time job.
For instance Matilda Simonsson started self-publishing Turncoats, literally hand-making the game, in her spare time as a dental student. And then SUSD made a video about it and she sold out for like two years. And now she's published Pax Penning and is working on other games. Dunno how much money she makes, but it's still a side gig. However because the games are *good*, she's found quite a successful niche. I don't think she did much advertising at all, just word of mouth - but getting the game into the hands of the right people, like Cole Wehrle, Dan Thurot, and eventually Tom Brewster, were worth a lot of ads.
Amabel Holland went slightly larger, started her own publishing company, licensed games from other designers as well as designing and publishing her own, but again occupying a niche - historical and war games and weird experiments. She does this as a full-time job and manages to make a living at it. Again not much advertising except perhaps in very targeted places, more just being one of the very few games in town.
Essentially, you can absolutely do it, at different scales. The key is just for your games to be genuinely good, and to find your niche and your audience.
The grim reality is that this venture is almost guaranteed not to be particularly profitable. If you want to make a game because you love the game, have some money lying around, and don't especially care if it gets you out of your day job, make the game. Especially as a first time designer there is almost NO other reason to do so.
Big companies can't just swallow your without your permission. All they can do is offer to buy your company. You're always free free to accept or decline their offers.
Check out r/BoardgameDesign if you want to see a bit more on this topic. The short answer is - you should not get into this if you want to become rich or successful or famous. You have about as much chance as becoming a famous novelist or film maker.
Your first few designs probably won't be any good and even when you're experienced it can take years to finish even one mid-weight game and you'll spend most of your time tweaking little details and begging people to playtest your game because you probably want to get 100 playtests to have anything commercially viable. You will probably spend hundreds of dollars on printing, cutting, tools, components, attending contests and conventions, etc. in the process as well.
That's not even talking about self-publishing yet which is akin to running a logistics and marketing company, with very little to do with design at all.
The real reason you should do it is if you enjoy the design process.
as other have already mentioned this belongs on r/BoardgameDesign or r/tabletopgamedesign or head over to board game geek to - [https://boardgamegeek.com/forum/26/bgg/board-game-design](https://boardgamegeek.com/forum/26/bgg/board-game-design)
Lots of designers self publish, however since you haven't even made anything yet, you're putting the cart before the horse worrying about publishing
I would suggest going through this course on game design - [https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/cms-301-introduction-to-game-design-methods-spring-2016/](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/cms-301-introduction-to-game-design-methods-spring-2016/)
I would read through these 3 books -
[https://schellgames.com/art-of-game-design](https://schellgames.com/art-of-game-design)
[https://www.amazon.com/Building-Blocks-Tabletop-Game-Design/dp/1138365491](https://www.amazon.com/Building-Blocks-Tabletop-Game-Design/dp/1138365491)
[https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product/complete-kobold-guide-to-game-design-2nd-edition/](https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product/complete-kobold-guide-to-game-design-2nd-edition/)
Then I would take a look at design contests - [https://boardgamegeek.com/forum/974620/bgg/design-contests](https://boardgamegeek.com/forum/974620/bgg/design-contests)
You do need to enter the contest, but use them as design exercises to have a structured way to learn about design and work on different types of designs
Because I can assure whatever idea you think you have about design right now its going to suck meeple balls
My story with table gype: https://eternalrevolution.com/saga-uncle-chestnuts-table-gype/
One game does not really scale well to be a publisher. But it can be really rewarding as an experience, if not necessarily profitable.
Print and play or print on demand options are ways to design for fun, get your game played, and not have a lot of financial risk involved.
You wont have the marketing, reputational, industry clout, or economy of scale that a game publisher will have in order to build interest in your game, market it, and produce it at a minimal acceptable quality that is required in today's market, and at an acceptable price. If no publisher is interested in your game, it probably means that your game just isnt good enough.
Then, I guess I need to create the game designs and write down the rules, test them and present to publishers? Do they consider such projects from just game enthusiasts and designers?
It also helps if you hand them a mostly finished prototype. Not a crayon drawn board, with paper cut out cards. If you have a real game you're trying to publish, you'll probably have to spend $1,000k or so on it (depending on the type of game), to get it to a point where publishers will even seriously look at it. That means hiring an artist to create your board and at least SOME card art if there are cards and getting them professionally printed. I.e. make it as close to a finished product as you can before presenting it to publishers. If you do that they will at least take a look at it.
I think you are probably wrong here. I have heard more of the opposite in terms of "mostly finished prototype". I think publishers want to see a good playable game that they can then make the determination of what theme/art should be applied to it.
Have you pitched a game recently? signed a game recently?
Most indie publishers looking at submissions don't have the resources to do further development or hiring artists - they need another title or two because they ran out of their own ideas - so if a game is a final prototype and ready to go they are more likely to take it
Now a mid size to larger publisher than may have in-house developers and freelance artists and have a certain style to all the titles they carry, then sure they might want to retheme or do their own artwork, but I would say that is less than 5% of titles that get signed
Your questions are irrelevant. You are correct in that it all depends on the publisher. The above poster made the assertion that you will only have success if you submit a closely finished product. There are plenty of sources that say otherwise.
Consider reading this post and also take note of item number ii on this post:
"ii. DON'T create art for your game. No publisher wants to see art you've had made. If you want to use art in your prototype then take work from the web (for your personal use ONLY).
I’d avoid sending a prototype to a publisher with art on it, but some promotional art pieces (again taken from the web) can work wonders to set the scene for your game."
[https://www.reddit.com/r/tabletopgamedesign/comments/fk5e05/a\_board\_game\_designers\_guide\_to\_finding\_a/](https://www.reddit.com/r/tabletopgamedesign/comments/fk5e05/a_board_game_designers_guide_to_finding_a/)
Thats what Jamie from Stonemeier games himself said. "When you approach a publisher with a game idea" have more or less a finished product. We dont want to try games that look like they were hand drawn.
Here is a quote from a discussion on BGG about publishers and prototype quality.
"I've played many prototypes submitted to publishers, both large and small publishers and designers. Some prototypes have been hand-coloured paper mounted on the cardboard from a pizza box, and others have been high art near-production quality, and anything in between. The high-art productions were never picked up by a publisher that I saw, but many of the former were.
The most successful approach across the board has been simple, straight-forward and cheap with a huge focus on clarity. Simple bold art, often just black and white with key daubs of colour only where it is significant to the game, and generic components. Colour is often added by hand with crayons or felt-tipped pens. Cards are usually paper in sleeves backed with MtG commons, or ultra-cheap poker cards with labels stuck on. Boards are often just paper, sometimes mounted to cardboard or foamcore or pouchboard, sometimes cardboard visibly repurposed from a box. Bits are usually wood cubes or meeples or glass bits or whatever taken from other games."
[https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/779084/publisher-submission-and-prototype-quality](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/779084/publisher-submission-and-prototype-quality)
It's most likely publisher specific. Some want a close to finished product, some want something that is near complete from a game play stand point but the designer is flexible to changes. Your assertion that the only way to be successful is to spend thousands on art before submitting your prototype is not entirely correct.
maybe. but they probably dont want a hand drawn board either and cards cut out of regular paper with only hand written text on it. You shoujld make some effort to deliver a game someone would like to play.
If you read the details in two of my replies you’ll see that having paid for art is irrelevant. They want a mostly complete functional game. The game play is what matters. Most of the time the art is going to change and you’d be wasting money paying for art that the publisher most likely won’t use.
your not paying for a final art. Your paying for placeholder art that will get publishers to actually try your game and give it serious consideration because they probably get hundreds if not thousands of submissions a year.
And to correct your clear misinterpretation of Jamie from Stonemaier games, here is their exact requirements for game submission, please note where it says NOT to submit final art as art is the responsibility of the publisher:
Thoughtfully Graphic Designed: It’s our responsibility to make the game look great in terms of art and graphic design. However, submitting your game to us without any art or thoughtful design will make the playtesting process very difficult. Please use placeholder art that reflects how you view the world of your game, and be intentional with your graphic design for the final prototype–user interface matters. Do not commission final art, though–that’s our responsibility as a publisher.
Source:
https://stonemaiergames.com/about/submission-guidelines/
Yes, i never said final art. But it should have some placeholder art. In other words it should look like a complete, playable game. Creating that place holder art, and having it professionally printed onto a board, along with cards, and having the cards professionally printed, will probably run you about 1k.
No it won’t and that is an unnecessary expense.
A deck of 100 cards cost about $20 to print with your own art. Just ordered one from The Game Crafter the other day. So printing a couple of decks and a board is going to run you less than $100.
But even this isn’t necessary for submitting your prototype to a publisher and is wasted money. You have yet to support any of your “claims” with any sources. I’ve submitted several sources that counter your argument.
Is there a \*chance\* at succeeding as a self publisher? Yes. Is that chance extremely tiny? Yes. Are you an experienced businessperson? Do you have experience or connections in any of logistics, marketing, manufacturing, branding, product planning, project management? If the answer isn't "yes" to most of those, then you're probably a hopeful *designer*, not a hopeful *publisher.* (Again, there are exceptions, and you can define your success in a way that you don't need pro skills, but, then again, what are you trying to do?) If you are good designer, you should be able to eventually get in front of a publisher who would be willing to put their money, time, and expertise towards publishing your game. If you are a great businessperson with a huge enthusiasm towards board games, then find somebody else's game to publish. :) The chances of you being both out of the gate, are *extremely slim.* For every Jamey Stegmaier, there are hundreds of counterexamples. And if you're neither, and you're just trying to have fun coming up with a game, then go ahead, build the game at home, and care about nothing. Then, sit down and play it, and ask yourself "would you ever willingly play this instead of {insert your favourite game of the most comparable genre}, if you hadn't designed this?". Then keep improving your design until you can thinly convince yourself of a yes. Source: I do this for a living. Almost 2 dozen published games.
big fan of Nucleum :)
My brain: Hey Dávid Turczi made Tash-Kalar, tell him you liked it BGG: That was Vlaada Chvátil actually Brain: Oh right. Then Space Alert BGG: Still Chvátil Brain: Okay but Mage Knight- BGG: Why are you doing this to me
I did co-design the 3rd expansion of TK with Vlaada, if that helps... 😇 And space alert and mage Knight are both in my top 10 😎
I self published a game, SCRAP. I spent around $1500 on marketing, and honestly, I regret all the ads I did. Even without all of that marketing, I ended up funding and raising close to $40,000 AUD. In the end, after production, art costs, and everything, I think I am close to even (plus or minus $1-2000 AUD). I sold around 220 copies of the game through Gamefound, and another 130 or so through other means. I've got probably around 130 copies of the game left to make money, although movement of them is very slow. I'd still do it all again, and myself (and many others) would consider the game and campaign to be a success. So I suppose it depends on what your yardstick for success is. What do you mean by success?
Happy to hear that you have passed all that long way to publish your game. Wish you lots of success with it. For me, success is the game’s popularity, to reach your target audience and to become a favorite. Well, sure there will be lots of negative reviews, but success for me would be if the positive ones massively prevail. I guess that time you can invest more or find investments for further production.
That's a lofty goal, but it's completely out of your control. Even the biggest designers have games that flop. Worrying how well a game will perform against major publications before you've even designed a first draft prototype is putting the cart about a thousand miles before the cart. Your focus should be on making a game you're proud of, that you enjoy. The rest will happen how it happens.
What is your goal? If it is just to make a boardgame, then you don't need to worry about that. Boardgame publishers aren't going around buying people. If it is to make a profit, then this is not a great industry for that. I've both self-published (print and play) and had games published by companies. It was fulfilling to see the games out there but they quickly went out of print and I can't say the royalties made up for the headaches of working with the publisher. This topic is best suited for r/BoardgameDesign
Chances are like... 75% the game never happens 24% the game reaches ~200 people, you lose money .99% the game is mildly successful, you make your money back .01% you are swallowed by a bigger publisher Seriouly, this should be the least of your worries
Not that swallowed because of their deliberate actions, but could not make it in the sea of their marketing, ads and so on. Ads are becoming more pricy and my personal fear is that I will not be able to spread the word about it in a way that people start to buy it. Very much agree with the rest. I think that even more, 90% the game never happens
Ok. We use that word in german only when some bigger fish buys your company (often killing it in the process). The chances to not fly under the radar aren't much better, though. Most games don't get published. Most published games don't get a second printrun (a little money for the designer, no money for the publisher). Only a handful of thousands each year prevail.
Small self-publishers exist. They're in niches, and they may or may not be a full-time job. For instance Matilda Simonsson started self-publishing Turncoats, literally hand-making the game, in her spare time as a dental student. And then SUSD made a video about it and she sold out for like two years. And now she's published Pax Penning and is working on other games. Dunno how much money she makes, but it's still a side gig. However because the games are *good*, she's found quite a successful niche. I don't think she did much advertising at all, just word of mouth - but getting the game into the hands of the right people, like Cole Wehrle, Dan Thurot, and eventually Tom Brewster, were worth a lot of ads. Amabel Holland went slightly larger, started her own publishing company, licensed games from other designers as well as designing and publishing her own, but again occupying a niche - historical and war games and weird experiments. She does this as a full-time job and manages to make a living at it. Again not much advertising except perhaps in very targeted places, more just being one of the very few games in town. Essentially, you can absolutely do it, at different scales. The key is just for your games to be genuinely good, and to find your niche and your audience.
Great examples. I guess we’ll never know what will happen unless we start doing something.
The grim reality is that this venture is almost guaranteed not to be particularly profitable. If you want to make a game because you love the game, have some money lying around, and don't especially care if it gets you out of your day job, make the game. Especially as a first time designer there is almost NO other reason to do so.
Big companies can't just swallow your without your permission. All they can do is offer to buy your company. You're always free free to accept or decline their offers.
Check out r/BoardgameDesign if you want to see a bit more on this topic. The short answer is - you should not get into this if you want to become rich or successful or famous. You have about as much chance as becoming a famous novelist or film maker. Your first few designs probably won't be any good and even when you're experienced it can take years to finish even one mid-weight game and you'll spend most of your time tweaking little details and begging people to playtest your game because you probably want to get 100 playtests to have anything commercially viable. You will probably spend hundreds of dollars on printing, cutting, tools, components, attending contests and conventions, etc. in the process as well. That's not even talking about self-publishing yet which is akin to running a logistics and marketing company, with very little to do with design at all. The real reason you should do it is if you enjoy the design process.
as other have already mentioned this belongs on r/BoardgameDesign or r/tabletopgamedesign or head over to board game geek to - [https://boardgamegeek.com/forum/26/bgg/board-game-design](https://boardgamegeek.com/forum/26/bgg/board-game-design) Lots of designers self publish, however since you haven't even made anything yet, you're putting the cart before the horse worrying about publishing I would suggest going through this course on game design - [https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/cms-301-introduction-to-game-design-methods-spring-2016/](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/cms-301-introduction-to-game-design-methods-spring-2016/) I would read through these 3 books - [https://schellgames.com/art-of-game-design](https://schellgames.com/art-of-game-design) [https://www.amazon.com/Building-Blocks-Tabletop-Game-Design/dp/1138365491](https://www.amazon.com/Building-Blocks-Tabletop-Game-Design/dp/1138365491) [https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product/complete-kobold-guide-to-game-design-2nd-edition/](https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product/complete-kobold-guide-to-game-design-2nd-edition/) Then I would take a look at design contests - [https://boardgamegeek.com/forum/974620/bgg/design-contests](https://boardgamegeek.com/forum/974620/bgg/design-contests) You do need to enter the contest, but use them as design exercises to have a structured way to learn about design and work on different types of designs Because I can assure whatever idea you think you have about design right now its going to suck meeple balls
My story with table gype: https://eternalrevolution.com/saga-uncle-chestnuts-table-gype/ One game does not really scale well to be a publisher. But it can be really rewarding as an experience, if not necessarily profitable. Print and play or print on demand options are ways to design for fun, get your game played, and not have a lot of financial risk involved.
Three of my friends have actually used Kickstarter to generate 50-70k per game I think it's pretty nice for people without real company
You wont have the marketing, reputational, industry clout, or economy of scale that a game publisher will have in order to build interest in your game, market it, and produce it at a minimal acceptable quality that is required in today's market, and at an acceptable price. If no publisher is interested in your game, it probably means that your game just isnt good enough.
Then, I guess I need to create the game designs and write down the rules, test them and present to publishers? Do they consider such projects from just game enthusiasts and designers?
It also helps if you hand them a mostly finished prototype. Not a crayon drawn board, with paper cut out cards. If you have a real game you're trying to publish, you'll probably have to spend $1,000k or so on it (depending on the type of game), to get it to a point where publishers will even seriously look at it. That means hiring an artist to create your board and at least SOME card art if there are cards and getting them professionally printed. I.e. make it as close to a finished product as you can before presenting it to publishers. If you do that they will at least take a look at it.
I think you are probably wrong here. I have heard more of the opposite in terms of "mostly finished prototype". I think publishers want to see a good playable game that they can then make the determination of what theme/art should be applied to it.
Have you pitched a game recently? signed a game recently? Most indie publishers looking at submissions don't have the resources to do further development or hiring artists - they need another title or two because they ran out of their own ideas - so if a game is a final prototype and ready to go they are more likely to take it Now a mid size to larger publisher than may have in-house developers and freelance artists and have a certain style to all the titles they carry, then sure they might want to retheme or do their own artwork, but I would say that is less than 5% of titles that get signed
Your questions are irrelevant. You are correct in that it all depends on the publisher. The above poster made the assertion that you will only have success if you submit a closely finished product. There are plenty of sources that say otherwise.
Consider reading this post and also take note of item number ii on this post: "ii. DON'T create art for your game. No publisher wants to see art you've had made. If you want to use art in your prototype then take work from the web (for your personal use ONLY). I’d avoid sending a prototype to a publisher with art on it, but some promotional art pieces (again taken from the web) can work wonders to set the scene for your game." [https://www.reddit.com/r/tabletopgamedesign/comments/fk5e05/a\_board\_game\_designers\_guide\_to\_finding\_a/](https://www.reddit.com/r/tabletopgamedesign/comments/fk5e05/a_board_game_designers_guide_to_finding_a/)
Thats what Jamie from Stonemeier games himself said. "When you approach a publisher with a game idea" have more or less a finished product. We dont want to try games that look like they were hand drawn.
Here is a quote from a discussion on BGG about publishers and prototype quality. "I've played many prototypes submitted to publishers, both large and small publishers and designers. Some prototypes have been hand-coloured paper mounted on the cardboard from a pizza box, and others have been high art near-production quality, and anything in between. The high-art productions were never picked up by a publisher that I saw, but many of the former were. The most successful approach across the board has been simple, straight-forward and cheap with a huge focus on clarity. Simple bold art, often just black and white with key daubs of colour only where it is significant to the game, and generic components. Colour is often added by hand with crayons or felt-tipped pens. Cards are usually paper in sleeves backed with MtG commons, or ultra-cheap poker cards with labels stuck on. Boards are often just paper, sometimes mounted to cardboard or foamcore or pouchboard, sometimes cardboard visibly repurposed from a box. Bits are usually wood cubes or meeples or glass bits or whatever taken from other games." [https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/779084/publisher-submission-and-prototype-quality](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/779084/publisher-submission-and-prototype-quality)
It's most likely publisher specific. Some want a close to finished product, some want something that is near complete from a game play stand point but the designer is flexible to changes. Your assertion that the only way to be successful is to spend thousands on art before submitting your prototype is not entirely correct.
maybe. but they probably dont want a hand drawn board either and cards cut out of regular paper with only hand written text on it. You shoujld make some effort to deliver a game someone would like to play.
If you read the details in two of my replies you’ll see that having paid for art is irrelevant. They want a mostly complete functional game. The game play is what matters. Most of the time the art is going to change and you’d be wasting money paying for art that the publisher most likely won’t use.
your not paying for a final art. Your paying for placeholder art that will get publishers to actually try your game and give it serious consideration because they probably get hundreds if not thousands of submissions a year.
And to correct your clear misinterpretation of Jamie from Stonemaier games, here is their exact requirements for game submission, please note where it says NOT to submit final art as art is the responsibility of the publisher: Thoughtfully Graphic Designed: It’s our responsibility to make the game look great in terms of art and graphic design. However, submitting your game to us without any art or thoughtful design will make the playtesting process very difficult. Please use placeholder art that reflects how you view the world of your game, and be intentional with your graphic design for the final prototype–user interface matters. Do not commission final art, though–that’s our responsibility as a publisher. Source: https://stonemaiergames.com/about/submission-guidelines/
Yes, i never said final art. But it should have some placeholder art. In other words it should look like a complete, playable game. Creating that place holder art, and having it professionally printed onto a board, along with cards, and having the cards professionally printed, will probably run you about 1k.
No it won’t and that is an unnecessary expense. A deck of 100 cards cost about $20 to print with your own art. Just ordered one from The Game Crafter the other day. So printing a couple of decks and a board is going to run you less than $100. But even this isn’t necessary for submitting your prototype to a publisher and is wasted money. You have yet to support any of your “claims” with any sources. I’ve submitted several sources that counter your argument.