RPG shopping down under rant

Grabbing some indy zines and books
please drop me recommendations in comments
im checking out itch.io now

this is a rant of possible interest to game marketing and reaching the world I try to live within my partial pension so price and post are barriers to me reading stuff.

I do RPG to get away from computers a bit so I like books I can actually read too. Some books i loved 5 years ago are harder to read even with glasses. Im trying more old style weird zine products many veering into art books. One system I'm interested with one a5 book vs 4 from the rival publisher that I've seen older free pdf of - including a post for $130 here

A 20-page RPG hardback 60 euros for me to buy - looks great but I will get a pdf

Indy games I've written for are mostly not in Australian stores and I printed my own. I struggle to keep up printing my own gear and its not really a great saving for big books. For A5 zines or 3folds printing myself is ok. I find some second-hand from someone who did pay high prices to import.

Four game shops in my city all with poor choice and not great pricing - it's random if I see something I want and some always have worse pricing.

 Mostly I use Amazon as I get free posts from us items worth 30-40 off the post price per item. Occasionally there is a sale and I discover something new. Occasionally I find a local store sale item but often post is terrible (I know the local rates) and some stores free or free with high purchases.

Midderlands and The Monster Overhaul I did pay for from indy sellers but I was possibly cashed up briefly and the only way to buy at all.

I use Noble Knight and Drivethrough who have good prices for bulk.
Books on drive-through I got fine. It made lots of KS easier.

Kickstarters I have done to help make it affordable but I only do one or two at a time and the best ones are mostly done.

2 sucked the most
-MCC was very disappointing for time and lack of setting and lore - slow and early draft had complaints but was improved. The art is fantastic and why i keep it. Less lore than DCC
-Dungeoneers survivor guide clone was physically nice with good art but full of mechanics i would never use and tables i have my own

Second hand sourced a huge amount of stuff or started me on certain writers and publishers - cheap on FB marketplace and never a problem. Since covid the scene dropped a bit and I have most of my old game want list and a pile not moving like it did in covid.

LuLu prints and posts locally and fast so affordable. Reminds me I must buy an older copy of "Babylon On Which Fame and Jubilation Are Bestowed" on LuLu as it is a different system older version but closer to an old Dn&D clone with innovative ideas for old-school gaming i would like to reference. Drivethrough has a newer edition which has a more historically detailed setting but the older one has rules you could port into dnd - I love god spell lists in the older version and like both versions for different reasons.

I was into Zine culture since 1980 with a gestetner machine. I was in indy zine scenes and used to travel interstate for them. Was a weird point scene boomed and older creators became excluded and dropped out. Ive always seen expensive art zines 400 for handmade books with photos and complex folding that were in galleries and collections. The bulk of zines are handmade and cheap and bought from creators. The self published books stuff was more commercial and pricey accordingly. I preferred weird handmade stuff mostly or small indy magazines. Zines and self-published books were sold side by side for decades but distinct. I think calling some works as zines is questionable but my take isnt important and this isnt a big deal. Zines are part of punk to me so overly slick isn't punk. Lots of punk rock art in some though but mostly games for a few sessions. Its fine I like stiff I can steal ideas from.

I managed a youth and a graffiti newspaper and have 100s old zines from the 90s i made not digital. I used to have the nous to publish. Im sorting out my IT dramas currently and looking for xmas work.

I've been told I must drop x companies and must use Indy Zines-type publishers by ppl online. The price, post and availability options are gatekeepers for your work. It might be cooler and ethical to buy weird art but it can be very expensive and you shouldn't abuse ppl for choosing cheaper fatter works for a limited reading book budget. I'd like to get a discount on prices if I had pdf first and then want the print later. When I was a nomad I got lots of PDFs. Some with a cheap pdf price so it doesn't matter - a 30-dollar pdf then a 60-dollar book sucks if I could have got a 60 bundle at once. Plenty of good publishers have cheap pdf, especially for core stuff. I tried many lines from a single PDF so it pretty much takes a convincing review or video to see what it's like and invest.

I'm considering using an Indy distro zine distro despite finding print from them difficult for me. I can't afford prints of my own books which is stupid and I need to fix. I guess buying and selling second-hand or in zine fairs is cash and no problem but making noticeably more money online will have paperwork and other consequences I'm possibly not willing to be bothered to deal with or well enough to do. I did hustle art for decades and was still burned out and silent running mostly.

Thanks for reading this far 

Obviously, I'm ignoring the publisher and artist creator's views on this just a buyer in my hemisphere.

People have leased my tables for works and publications and I have written d100 for people and it's much appreciated. Patreon currently ok but im unsure about sustainability. I might be better-off overdesigning small works than books.