US RPG publisher Space Penguin Ink may only be celebrating their first birthday this month, but they’ve already made a splash releasing a series of acclaimed new modules for the likes of Dungeon Crawl Classics, Mothership and Troika! whilst also taking over the publishing of several of our favourites games including Cairn, Liminal Horror and Forbidden Psalm. 

To find out more we caught up with Space Penguin Ink’s boss, Jarrett Crader.

Hi Jarrett, before we get to Space Penguin Ink could you tell us a bit about some of the other projects you’ve been involved with over the years…

Hey, thanks for asking! I got my start working in games in 2013, proofreading on Expanded Petty Gods. I’ve since worked for The Melsonian Arts Council, Tuesday Knight Games, Exalted Funeral, and many other publishers. 

I’ve edited, written, designed, developed, project managed, and even illustrated close to 500 zines, books, pamphlets, blog posts, crowdfunding campaigns, and more inside the world of rpgs.

From the outside it looked like Space Penguin Ink had a pretty solid first year, has it all gone to plan?

Yes indeed, most of what we’ve set out to accomplish has happened, though of course like all plans, something always goes awry. At the end of one year we’re pretty far along in our plans with distribution and publishing, and we’ve done our taxes on time, which we count as a major win, haha!

A lot of what you've put out has been content for other people's games, do you think too many new publishers focus on wanting their own flagship game?

We’ve been quite happy to put out books and zines for many systems, yes. However, I feel quite strongly attached to all of those systems as I have been (and still am, in some cases) integral to the editorial direction of those systems. 

I don’t think it’s either good nor bad if someone spearheads their time as a publisher with a focus on their own system/a system in particular, we’ve just chosen to go this route and support stuff that we love along with highlighting a couple of systems, Forbidden Psalm and Liminal Horror, that are both near and dear to us.

Looking through your releases, it's an eclectic lot, is there something that ties them together, a style or tone that makes you think this needs is an SPI release?

What we look for when we engage with a creative team for anything we publish is primarily: does this person/team really get behind the system? We really like it when someone takes something they’ve created and works it to match up with the system, as opposed to simply being a reskin or ‘system agnostic’. Also, most of the stuff we put out is slightly weird and ‘off’, haha. We’re not really into vanilla so much as we like sprinkles, and we like a lot of sprinkles.

You've used both Kickstarter and BackerKit, whilst some released have gone straight on sale, were there specific reasons for pairing projects with specific platforms?

We started out with everything going direct to print, and quickly learned that what Kickstarter and BackerKit actually bring to the table are a larger share of marketing and eyeballs on your projects. We’re sticking with printing the zines directly, and some books, and then reserving crowdfunding platforms for projects that have larger print run and or production budgets.

Kickstarter's been the default for most indies for a while, how have you found BackerKit as an alternative?

We’re digging BackerKit thus far, and with our first project there, The Parthenogenesis of Hungry Hollow [for the Liminal Horror system], we’ve learned a lot about the platform and how to better utilize it. We’re definitely looking forward to running projects for our hardcover line there, which will help us print them in larger runs and get them into more hands via our distribution partners later.

Something Zach from SoulMuppet told us was that making books is easy, it's getting them into people's hands that's hard. What’s something you’d like aspiring publishers to understood before they get going?

I touched on this in the previous answer but that’s the spot, right there: distribution. If you build up your print runs early and don’t take the cash out you’ll have more SKUs, which is something distribution looks for when partnering with publishers. 

Keeping clean and tidy lines and records is also a must. This space can get overwhelming fast, so don’t rush, there’s plenty of time to do good business if you take the time to plan things out and move steadily. 

Don’t be afraid to buck market trends and do what’s good for you and your partners. 

What do you think of the general state of the RPG scene these days? 

I think we’re all learning at a rapid rate and improving processes. The best thing I see are repeatable successes due to folks drilling down and taking the time to make quality books, which means we all have more cool stuff to read in the future!

So what is exciting you at the moment? Where do you see the interesting stuff emerging from these days?

I just got a copy of Seth Ian’s Spectacle in the mail the other day, for Longshot City, and it’s a gorgeous artifact, hand sewn, with killer art by Mark Conway. We’re also fulfilling Eco Mofos for David Blandy and Daniel Locke, and I have those on my to-read stack as well!

And finally, what's next for Space Penguin Ink?

We’re keeping up with our monthly Forbidden Psalm releases, we just wrapped funding for Endless Horrors from Between the Stars for FP as well, so post-production on that. 

The aforementioned Hungry Hollow is going into post-production, we’re working on post-production and printing and delivery for Cairn, along with a couple of decks of cards for different systems and some board games for early next year. Exciting times!

This feature originally appeared in Wyrd Science Vol.1, Issue 6 (August '24)

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