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Heroscapers that are published authors

Mossman said:
Are you going to make it available for Nook, either through Smashwords or Pubit?
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Funny, I just googled Nook. I had no idea there was another Kindle-like e-reader out there. Would you suggest going with Smashwords if I do? Never heard of Pubit. The only options I was even aware of were Amazon and Barnes and Noble (heard B&N is bad for indie books). In terms of Smashwords, I thought they were only for hard copies. I'd definitely like to get on board with whatever e-book options I have.
 
Pubit is Barnes and Noble's publishing platform. It's easy to use- very similar to Kindle. It's not nearly as lucrative as Kindle, but I do okay there. Smashwords works well as a "go-between" that will get your ebook on several sites: iBooks, Sony, Kobo, Diesel, even Barnes and Noble if you don't want to fool with Pubit. It's another one that's easy to use and you'll at least make a few sales here and there. I think they're all worthwhile.
 
Taeblewalker said:
I did actually buy a copy. And awesome Erol Otus avatar, BTW!
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Thanks! Feels good to sell that first copy. Of course, it will be a real bummer if I can't sell many more. I feel buried in a sea of other books, and how anyone is ever going to come across mine I don't know. Guess that's what real publishers are for--the marketing thing.

Erol Otus? Yes, he's one of my favorites. Old school rules!
 
philowar said:
Taeblewalker said:
I did actually buy a copy. And awesome Erol Otus avatar, BTW!
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Thanks! Feels good to sell that first copy. Of course, it will be a real bummer if I can't sell many more. I feel buried in a sea of other books, and how anyone is ever going to come across mine I don't know. Guess that's what real publishers are for--the marketing thing.

Erol Otus? Yes, he's one of my favorites. Old school rules!
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Look for bloggers that review fantasy and accept ebooks and see if they'll take a look at your book. You could also purchase a sponsorship on a site like Kindle Nation Daily, but they're expensive. You might want to be active at Kindleboards. They have a very supportive indie author community. The best thing you can do, though, is patiently keep writing and publishing. The more you have out there the better the chance you'll get noticed.
 
Wow, I had no idea there were so many authors who play heroscape, and vice-versa. I'm going to have to add some books to my reading list.

I'm also interested reading about the troubles of getting published. Writing a novel is on my bucket list, and though I have plenty of time, its good to hear ebooks are making publishing easier. It makes books easier to get, too.
 
There's a big, big gap between writing a novel and publishing one. :) Which one is on your bucket list?

Believe it or not, even unpublished novels can be worth writing. :)
 
Well, writing one is the first step. I was introduced to NaNoWriMo last year by a friend, but stopped at about a week into it and ~5000 words. Looking back, I should have focused less on quality and more on quantity. This year I am going to come up with an idea beforehand I think, which should make it easier. Yikes, I need to get started, less than 3 months to go. I want to take a writing class in college to improve my writing ability. Right now it has a lot of room for improvement.

I'll add publishing a book to my bucket list after I write one. :)
 
Good call. :) One thing at a time.

If you're having trouble with inspiration, I recommend going on lots of walks and just giving yourself time to look around and think. Did wonders for me when I was working on my master's thesis for my MFA in fiction.
 
My friend that I am working on a RPG with, sent this over to me and I thought others might want to take a look.

An Open Letter to My Fellow Authors

It’s all changing, right before our eyes. Not just publishing, but the writing life itself, our ability to make a living from authorship. Even in the best of times, which these are not, most writers have to supplement their writing incomes by teaching, or throwing up sheet-rock, or cage fighting. It wasn’t always so, but for the last two decades I’ve lived the life most writers dream of: I write novels and stories, as well as the occasional screenplay, and every now and then I hit the road for a week or two and give talks. In short, I’m one of the blessed, and not just in terms of my occupation. My health is good, my children grown, their educations paid for. I’m sixty-four, which sucks, but it also means that nothing that happens in publishing—for good or ill—is going to affect me nearly as much as it affects younger writers, especially those who haven’t made their names yet. Even if the e-price of my next novel is $1.99, I won’t have to go back to cage fighting.

Still, if it turns out that I’ve enjoyed the best the writing life has to offer, that those who follow, even the most brilliant, will have to settle for less, that won’t make me happy and I suspect it won’t cheer other writers who’ve been as fortunate as I. It’s these writers, in particular, that I’m addressing here. Not everyone believes, as I do, that the writing life is endangered by the downward pressure of e-book pricing, by the relentless, ongoing erosion of copyright protection, by the scorched-earth capitalism of companies like Google and Amazon, by spineless publishers who won’t stand up to them, by the “information wants to be free” crowd who believe that art should be cheap or free and treated as a commodity, by internet search engines who are all too happy to direct people to on-line sites that sell pirated (read “stolen”) books, and even by militant librarians who see no reason why they shouldn’t be able to “lend” our e-books without restriction. But those of us who are alarmed by these trends have a duty, I think, to defend and protect the writing life that’s been good to us, not just on behalf of younger writers who will not have our advantages if we don’t, but also on behalf of readers, whose imaginative lives will be diminished if authorship becomes untenable as a profession.

I know, I know. Some insist that there’s never been a better time to be an author. Self-publishing has democratized the process, they argue, and authors can now earn royalties of up to seventy percent, where once we had to settle for what traditional publishers told us was our share. Anecdotal evidence is marshaled in support of this view (statistical evidence to follow). Those of us who are alarmed, we’re told, are, well, alarmists. Time will tell who’s right, but surely it can’t be a good idea for writers to stand on the sidelines while our collective fate is decided by others. Especially when we consider who those others are. Entities like Google and Apple and Amazon are rich and powerful enough to influence governments, and every day they demonstrate their willingness to wield that enormous power. Books and authors are a tiny but not insignificant part of the larger battle being waged between these companies, a battleground that includes the movie, music, and newspaper industries. I think it’s fair to say that to a greater or lesser degree, those other industries have all gotten their asses kicked, just as we’re getting ours kicked now. And not just in the courts. Somehow, we’re even losing the war for hearts and minds. When we defend copyright, we’re seen as greedy. When we justly sue, we’re seen as litigious. When we attempt to defend the physical book and stores that sell them, we’re seen as Luddites. Our altruism, when we’re able to summon it, is too often seen as self-serving.

But here’s the thing. What the Apples and Googles and Amazons and Netflixes of the world all have in common (in addition to their quest for world domination), is that they’re all starved for content, and for that they need us. Which means we have a say in all this. Everything in the digital age may feel new and may seem to operate under new rules, but the conversation about the relationship between art and commerce is age-old, and artists must be part of it. To that end we’d do well to speak with one voice, though it’s here we demonstrate our greatest weakness. Writers are notoriously independent cusses, hard to wrangle. We spend our mostly solitary days filling up blank pieces of paper with words. We must like it that way, or we wouldn’t do it. But while it’s pretty to think that our odd way of life will endure, there’s no guarantee. The writing life is ours to defend. Protecting it also happens to be the mission of the Authors Guild, which I myself did not join until last year, when the light switch in my cave finally got tripped. Are you a member? If not, please consider becoming one. We’re badly outgunned and in need of reinforcements. If the writing life has done well by you, as it has by me, here’s your chance to return the favor. Do it now, because there’s such a thing as being too late.

Richard Russo
December 2013
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Grats. I hope by next year sometime my/our RPG will be ready for the world. :)

We had to axe the standard magic user for now. Trying to come up with tons of spells and keep it all balanced proved to be exceedingly difficult. It is a lot like creating custom Heroscape designs, I have found, except we were trying to create 100 at one time. :)
 
IAmBatman said:
There's a big, big gap between writing a novel and publishing one. :) Which one is on your bucket list?

Believe it or not, even unpublished novels can be worth writing. :)
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I have writing one on my bucket list. I tried (once again) to tackle it recently and I find it's exceedingly difficult. I seem to do much better with short stories and poems.
 
I wrote a book between 1990 and 2000. Yeah, it took that long on and off. Sent it to a publisher but got rejected and haven't bothered with is since. It was a standard fantasy genre type with your dwarf, barbarian, priestess, thief and wizard types all starting out on their own but fate brings them together for their adventure. Kind of rough in some senses, but real good character development.

I've started other stuff since but just end up with a block and stop. I've created whole worlds with different kingdoms and such, with maps. One day I'll revisit my writing, for like Bats said, even if it doesn't get published, it's still cool to have 300+ pages of a story that you've written.

C3G had been keeping me busy for about 4 years and free time went there for the most part, so that kind of kept me from revisiting my writing, though I'm very happy for the time spent with C3G for sure. Now I'm playtesting and working with Mice and Mystics, so perhaps once that's done I'll get back into writing, unless I get roped into more stuff :)

Of course another hurdle keeping me from getting back into writing is my love for board games over the past 2 1/2 years, and over the past month I've been working on designing a board game. So that kind of shoots my writing out of the water again. :(

One day.....one day
 
Those sound awesome. 'Hook wielding, Mexican warrior', nice.

Always cool to hear from an O'sixer. Grats. :)
 
Tornado said:
Those sound awesome. 'Hook wielding, Mexican warrior', nice.

Always cool to hear from an O'sixer. Grats. :)
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Thanks! It's nice coming back here from time to time, though a little sad too. Makes me feel so nostalgic for the old days, though most of the old faces are long gone. Sometimes I come here just to read through the posts from years back. Ah, the memories...

As for the hook-wielding Mexican warrior, it's too bad we never saw a hero like that released in any of the waves. I'm still holding out though.
 
Fighting Fantasy! So very cool.

Those books dominated by youth. I have the first 20 or so in my collection along with many others like it, including the AD&D books.

Super cool. How was writing that? As I understand it, once you do one it becomes much easier as you have a pattern to work off from. I assume you started with an outline with different branches that spread out and possibly re-connect.
 
Tornado said:
Fighting Fantasy! So very cool.

Those books dominated by youth. I have the first 20 or so in my collection along with many others like it, including the AD&D books.

Super cool. How was writing that? As I understand it, once you do one it becomes much easier as you have a pattern to work off from. I assume you started with an outline with different branches that spread out and possibly re-connect.
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I originally wrote it as an introductory module for Dark City Games, who have a rules set that recreates the old Fantasy Trip series of games. I wrote it as a sort of resume to see if they wanted me to write a longer adventure. I wrote that one, and it's in the editing process now.

When I retooled it to be a stand-alone book, I had to edit it to be more like a fighting fantasy book. As for coming up with a formula, mine's a bit different than the FF books, since I allow the player to return to the same location - something that the FF books really don't allow. The story allows you to collect plot words that affect what happens in certain locations. It's really a sort of hybrid between the Fantasy Trip and a true FF book.
 
I had started working on a western adventure but I was coming up short with material to make a full book. But the door is open, and I may well write another one some day.
 
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