As many of you here know, I've been working on a book on the Famicom since 2016. The book had been something I conceptalized in my head since around 2012 or so, and has undergone many transformations over the course of time, but its path and destiny are by now pretty much set in stone. After about six months of doing absolutely nothing towards the project, I actually thought about killing it,but last week I sat down and took a look at what I had done, and I discovered that probably about 90% of the project had been completed anyways, so why not just try to wrap things up and get it released sometime early next year?  I like the idea, anyways  

On this point though is where I need your help, and hence why I am setting up this thread so we can discuss some things.


Scope:

Originally I was planning on having the book cover everything related to Famicom, but in 2016 or 2017 a few guys I know ended up releasing an extensive book covering *all* the Famicom Disk Releases, licensed and unlicensed. This made me start questioning the scope of my book, and then when I started researching costs if I actually tried to get a 2000+ page book published (i.e. not particularly feasible), I decided to have my book focus only on unlicensed games, bootlegs, and homebrew games.  This scope suits my area of expertise best, and also avoids reinventing the wheel, while also allowing me to focus my efforts better on one area.


Size:

As the book is still going to be large (probably around 700 pages), I've felt it best to divide it roughly into two volumes:


Volume I:

-Introduction on Topics
-Unlicensed Famicom Games


Volume II:

-Famicom Disk System Exclusive Conversions to Carts (thanks to pirate companies)
-Nintendo (NES) cart to Famicom Conversions (thanks to pirate companies)
-Edutainment 
-Multicarts
-Homebrew and Indie Games
-Unofficial Game Translations
-Clone Machines Gallery
-Other Related Stuff*

*I have some ideas in mind, but I don't want to reveal it here just yet.


Other Items:

-Information about JNCOTA games
-Information about Waixing games
-Information about Nanjing games

With these other items, here is the situation:

Little information is known about *most* of the JNCOTA games, as they are hard to find, and are all in Chinese.  I have a large portion of the (known) Waixing games to exist, and actually have this section mostly completed.  Regarding the Nanjing games, I have almost nothing done on this section (about 130 games or so), and actually own maybe only 1/3 - 1/2 of them. Again these are in Chinese, a lot of RPGs and what not.

For these three companies, it would add I'd reckon about 300 pages more onto the total scope of the project, if included. Some of these games would appeal to foreigners, though I'd guess only about 20% or so. I feel to include these in the same section as the other unlicensed original games would be sort of like if people started including Sachen games onto the "regular" NES games list. While purists would be interested, most would prefer them to be in their own section(s), due to being just so many titles (each company I listed above had 100 or so titles), and then not being particularly interesting to the average western gamer, no point in cluttering up the main section with it.  


Publication:

I would like to release both volumes at the same time, as a set. I think I need to divide the book into two sections due to it being large (the section on unlicensed originals is easly just under 400 pages alone), but I want the work to be viewed as I had intended, which is united. Since I got the vast majority of information gathered and written, I think this really isn't a problem at all.  


Thoughts and Questions:

#1:  For a two volume set of books, equalling around 800 pages, what would you feel a fair price to pay would be?

#2:  I am planning to take this to Kickstarter to raise money to get this book finalized and published. While I realize it is totally up to me, what do you think a realistic funding goal would be to strive for? My thought had been to include the sections on JNCOTA, Waixing, and Nanjing games as stretch goals, each company a separate stretch goal, thoughts?

#3:  Does anyone have any suggestions on companies, if I were to try to self-publish this beast of a project? Or perhaps some publishers I could shop the final product to?

#4:  Would you be interested in purchasing this work, when it is completed? Why or why not?

#5:  Other thoughts and comments on the project?

Thanks guys! I know it might be odd to be asking so many questions about this, but I really would like to gain some feedback from everyone. I'm not expecting to get rich off of this project, but to be writing a roughly 800 page book on a niche / unknown market of video games, I hate to see this project tank too, not just due to the countless hours I've put into it, but also since I don't think any other collector in the west has access to such a collection to put together such a definitive work on the subject, either (I know this sounds arrogant, but I swear, I'm not trying to here, I'm just being realistic).

Thanks everyone for your input!

Have you considered your competition? He's got a pretty established reputation as well. I like Waixing/Shenzhen Nanjing, but I don't think you'll get a whole lot of interest from American gamers. They're mostly poorly programmed, unbalanced RPGs that are nigh unplayable to a Western audience. (Seriously, have you ever tried to get through the intro to FF7? It's impossible to make it through the first part without the patch!) I think you are fighting an uphill battle of interest from Western audiences. I love the Super A'can, but even my closest friends mock me for that love. It's hard to get people to care about obscurity.

I like Jeff, I sat with him at GOE and shot the shit for about 30 minutes. He might be open to telling you about his experiences as a book seller, despite the fact that he's technically competition.

The homebrew book is the only book of Jeff's I have, because I don't need a published list of info I can easily find 10 places online. I would probably expect to pay around $60/volume if I thought the content looked worthwhile (about what Pat's books cost). To be honest I'd probably pay whatever asking price because I highly value distilling scattered obscure info into a single source, and I recognize the audience for such a project is super limited. So limited that I don't know how a Kickstarter would go over at all. I think many orders of magnitude of people would rather buy a checklist of US NES games with Wikipedia blurbs than a complete, pricey reference to the most obscure Famicom games they've never heard of.

Some of my opinions for consideration :

1. The front cover graphic is really important, which helps sell a book regardless of the content (I know that sounds ridiculous). Suggest hand drawn style art, reminiscent of the 80s for videos games, some movies etc.
2. Like the front page graphic, the book name is very important. In Australia, "bits" can be slang for genitals (not sure if elsewhere) , so family bits is like saying family junk in the USA. Maybe research this further.
3. For me, pictures are an important part of a book. Would be great to have box art, cart and one or two screenshots of the game, or any other relevant pictures. These all feed the nostalgia element with retro video games
4. What will you be covering in the text for each game? Review? History? Developer info?
5. Perhaps show one or two concept pages for feedback

Good luck

Perhaps doing a poll on NA in what areas are more of public interest relevant to your project? Show a few pages to a handful of people you trust in PM, so they can give you more appropriate feedback?

A lot of people on NA (including myself) know absolutely nothing about bootlegs or unlicensed retro games, other than perhaps having played them many years ago as a gaming experience only. So I can imagine it's hard to give you advice on a topic that you're already an expert on!

1. $50 each? 
2. No idea. What countries will you be marketing this to? Sounds like you could get interest from Japan /China /etc equal or greater than USA. 
4. Add me to the list asking for a preview. This might also help #1.
+ This is a whole library of vintage games that I know nothing about.
- Not into RPGs, foreign edutainment, and other impenetrable language barriers.
5. Would you really fill a whole page for each JNCOTA /Waixing /Nanjing game? Maybe you could save half of that page count.
  Screenshots yes, box art AND cart no. I have seen this in other books and it’s stupid when the art is the same on both. 

 

  Screenshots yes, box art AND cart no. I have seen this in other books and it's stupid when the art is the same on both.