April 2025: Open Letter to Our Publishing Partners

The recent announcement of tariffs threatens to raise the cost of creating and delivering the physical products that help fuel our industry’s shared imaginations. From indie zines to off-the-wall card decks to crowdfunded hits, we have supported creators and we plan to continue to do so. So, whether you’re printing books, building digital tools, or bringing players around the table, the platforms we provide are uniquely positioned to help you weather volatility, reach new players, and keep momentum behind the stories you’re bringing to life.

Below you can find a list of immediate and practical options to help navigate the current uncertainty. These options represent new ways we can help to grow, stabilize, and connect with your audiences.

You can look through this on your own time as we navigate these new challenges together. If you have any questions or need further clarification, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are here to support you as best as we can.

We will continue to share more support and ideas in the days ahead through email, our Discord, or in our regularly scheduled conversations.

The joy of tabletop gaming comes from everyone coming together and we look forward to doing so again today and in the future.

Best in Class Partner Relations Team

Through their industry experience and knowledge of customer browsing behavior, the Partner Relations Team is dedicated to helping you sell your games. They are available to you at PartnerRel@roll20.net and the DriveThru | Roll20 Partner Discord server during regular North American business hours to provide step-by-step support and answer even the smallest of questions.

The Discord server is a vibrant community filled with industry experts and partners ranging from first-time creators to industry veterans, all ready to offer advice, suggestions, and feedback. In the server, you’re not just a partner, you’re part of our supportive network.

Print on Demand Books + Cards

We strive to work with Lightning Source, our print-on-demand book partner, to keep prices affordable. While we did recently implement a price increase, our print books remain competitively priced and because printing takes place in the US, UK, and Australia, cost increases due to tariffs can be avoided. The price increases to our print-on-demand books are not tied to these tariffs.

For cards, our printer is based in the US, and our print costs are locked in until Dec 1, 2025. At that time, we will likely have a modest increase in per-card print costs. A couple of notes: while our cardstock does come from Germany (and may impact the price changes in December), the ink used in card production is made in America (and, therefore, will not affect pricing). We are still looking at options for international printing but do not have an update yet.

A misconception we often encounter is that print-on-demand can cannibalize offset-print sales. However, print-on-demand books and cards are simply another alternative for your customers to enjoy. Having your books and cards available on our site is another new sale or customer with our discoverability. Several partners that offer their games in both retail distribution and print-on-demand tell us this is a cumulative sales growth, not competitive.

Additionally, our quality has improved immensely over the past few years. Books and cards can be printed in bright, beautiful colors or rich blacks. We have several tutorials in our Help Center and our Partner Relations Team is available to help walk you through the process, whether it is your first time or your twentieth.

Release Cadence

Publishers often focus on just the core book, but in reality, there are many creative ways to fill your catalog. Consistent, staggered releases — where you don’t release all products at once, but over a period of time — allow customers to fully enjoy and explore your new title before the next one comes out and also keeps your content at the top of customer’s minds due to being featured on the front page Latest Releases title strip more (twice for exclusive partners!).

Below are several types of products that may help a publisher accomplish this:

• Quickstarts
• Out-of-Print Content
• Bundles of Current Titles
• Convention / Promotional Material
• VTT Components

When it comes to pricing, we believe in your independence. We will never tell you how much you should charge, though we are happy to discuss it with you if you need help. We recommend quickstarts be free, as they allow customers to explore your world before committing to the entire game line, but ultimately the decision is yours and we trust your judgment.

VTT Components

While creating compendiums and sheets for VTTs can be daunting, we do have alternative solutions that are not only simple but also great for expanding your offerings and reaching an increasingly diverse tabletop market

Token and map packs from pre-existing art assets can be listed for sale on Roll20 and/or DriveThruRPG. If the tokens and maps can be used in versatile ways, these titles can be utilized by various types of users for VTT play. For example, Paizo released an Art and Token Pack for their NPC Core on Roll20. While created for Pathfinder NPC Core, this art and token pack are generic portraits of heroes and villains that can be used in any game.

We have a comprehensive guide on creating VTT Token Packs and Maps, and we encourage you to reach out to our Partner Relations team if you have any questions.

Marketing

With over 500 new titles a week, our Marketing Team does its best to find ways to promote where possible. To help partners, DriveThruRPG provides a diverse range of self-service marketing tools, empowering you to take independent actions to enhance your title visibility. Our Help Center features a comprehensive list of these tools, including running your own mini sales, leveraging Publisher Promotion Points, and more.

One of the key challenges for new partners is the temptation to rush through product page descriptions out of excitement. It’s vital to use your game assets to effectively show and explain to customers what they’re getting. We have a guide here to help you make the most of your listing. You can always add and change your descriptions in the future if you find ways that work best for you.

We also recommend checking out organizations like StartPlaying to run your games online for potential customers. There are many companies that can help leverage your game and we encourage you to seek out those opportunities where you have the time and bandwidth to do so.

You can engage with the Partner Relations Team for more ideas and tap into the diverse perspectives and opportunities offered by our Discord community.

Affiliate Program

Once you publish your first paid title, you are automatically added to our Affiliate Program. This program allows you to gain 8% in royalties from sales made by customers through links you share. While you cannot use your affiliate link on DriveThruSites themselves (customers are already there), we encourage you to use it everywhere else.

There’s a handy button on all titles (on PHNX, our new site design) to generate the link for you when logged in.

To learn more about the program, login to your account and click **Affiliate System listed at the bottom of any DriveThru site page.**

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These are a few ways we can offer support during this time. While these options are not a solution to everything, we hope that you find something that works best for you.

We want you to know that you’re not alone in this journey, and we empathize immensely with you during this time. We are committed to supporting you as best as we can within our available time and bandwidth, and we will continue to do so.

Your stories and experiences are crucial to us. We are committed to keeping you informed as soon as possible if we find more opportunities to share and ways we can support you.

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Contact Partner Relations (DriveThruRPG)

Contact Partner Relations (Roll20)

DriveThru / Roll20 Discord

• Follow the instructions in the #welcome to be allowed access.
• This is for publisher partners and community content creators only.
• If you’re looking for a customer experience, please join the Roll20 Official Discord