December 2024 Newsletter
Ok, first thing’s first. The big news of this month is launching our podcast!
Here’s the link to episode 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4fBpY27XKM&t=123s
We plan on making this a ~twice per month release. We have a few more episodes already edited and more than that recorded. If you enjoy watching people play tabletop RPGs and being silly (or serious), you’re curious about how tabletop games work, you want to see the story from a different perspective, or you just like the background noise, come take a peek.
A note on this podcast, while it is in the setting of the Witches of Serna, the game time of the podcast is set two years after the time that the Witches of Serna happens. In other words, if the Witches of Serna is book 1, then the game podcast begins around the time of book 5. While what the players do in the podcast is not canonical, you will implicitly encounter spoilers.
What’s this podcast about? Why would I put my made-for-writing face on the internet? Aha! (advertising). This is the tabletop RPG group that I’ve been with for the past six years. We’ve played a lot of different games, but sometime last year, with our antics around the table, we got it into our head that we could put our games on the net, similar to Critical Role. The first opportunity to do this came when we decided to start a gaming campaign, using the game system Burning Wheel by Luke Crane, to tell a story in the setting of The Witches of Serna.
It’s interesting how circular this journey has gone. If you saw the acknowledgements in the front cover of the Witches of Serna, I credit the person whose idea it was for me to start writing this in the first place. The idea to write was born out of me being frustrated as a game master that I was weaving all of these references and clues together (or at least I thought I was) and the players were missing the hints and going off to look under rocks and various antics. This person said, ‘if you want them to do specific things and they’re not, just write a story about it.’ At first I was like, ‘are you crazy? I can’t write a book.’ But time later, I got some more encouragement from Amanda Hemmingsen, who is also credited in the acknowledgements to actually start writing. For many, gaming is about stepping into a story and acting yourself as a player character so you can make better decisions than the cliche ones that characters typically make. Here we are, full circle, starting a game in a setting from a book that was written because the writer was tired of players playing the game as they wanted. Ah, well.
If you’re not familiar with Critical Role, they are a group of friends (who happen to already be famous through their voice acting careers) that play D&D and put their game on the internet. Here’s their page on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@criticalrole). To be clear, we have no coordination with them, no relationship, nothing like that. It’s just a reference to what we loosely used as a model to emulate. We are not at all famous and our production level is way lower than those folks who are now doing it quite professionally. So, there may be a bunch of improvements we can make (we don’t know wtf we’re doing), so we’re open to suggestions!
Other things to share, first up is some wonderful fanart from Jade Bohlsen
Lazura is one of the three youngest elves among Holbrin’s travelers, along with Lierialuth and Erensed.
This is Kachem. If you remember from a couple months ago, I showed you a sculpture that my Mother, Sandra Spring, did of the goblin, Ys. This is another goblin, Kachem. You sort of meet them at the end of book 1, but they form into more coherent characters in book 2. The context of this sculpture is the same for the one of Ys: my Mother is working on an illustration for book 2 involving the both of them. This scene will be of them preparing a feast. Very idyllic and cinnamon bun-ish.
Something else on the way here. This is going to be a scene from the Battle of Versingit near the beginning of book 2. It has a long way to go and I really think I am going with a print next time I go a cobbled street. These stones took FOREVER to draw. The ground layer is still not entirely done, but it’s close. The next big challenge will be is getting the art style to be consistent through out as I refine the buildings and add in the figures.
In other news, I had my first book signing with the help of a local shop owner friend, who has been crazy supportive! So, my special thanks to Cari Payer of First City Creatives for being a great friend and collaborator (https://www.firstcitycreatives.com/ and https://www.tiktok.com/@firstcitycreatives). If you’re in the area, they have a bunch of great classes for all age groups (including adults - if you ever want to get into drawing, photography, acrylics, embroidery, writing (yes, that one’s mine), etc.), then this is a great place.
For the book signing itself, a few people came and I sold two books there. You might think, ‘two books? That’s it?’ Yea, but bear in mind, I am really an unknown here, so two more readers is still a really big deal to me. Also, it was good practice for a signing event that I have this month (actually in about a week!). So.. wish me luck.
If you have done me the honor of purchasing and reading my book, if I could ask for one more honor of a review. That will really, really help this whole endeavor out.
So, now down to the business part. We have sold a total of 59 books through Amazon (plus a few more through some very kind and helpful local vendors). I told you folks that I would be conducting an advertising experiment through Amazon ads. There’s a good part and a bad part.
The good part is that, even though I was prepared to lose almost $400 in people clicking on the ad (you can set a max per day; I set mine at $12/day), I only ended up spending $8 and got over 12000 impressions (times that your ad is shown to customers). The bad part is there were no sales generated from this. So… I can afford $8/month for 12000 impressions. Maybe it’ll pay off later.
On the other hand, this tiktok (https://www.tiktok.com/@morgan.the.gamer/video/7438381842144726315) did get me one sale, as a user was kind enough to tell me in the comments.
Coming back to the signing event coming up, it’s at a nearby Barnes & Noble location. When I spoke with their management, they told me that I either had to bring my own copies or get my book into BookMaster. BookMaster is Barnes & Nobles internal ordering system. In my quest to get my book into bookmaster, I learned that I have to get it into a distributor… such as IngramSpark. There are other options for distributors and I have not yet done the research to see if there’s a benefit to going with another distributor, such as Small Press United, but we’ll see. It is probably going to come with the same problems that I have with Ingram Spark or Amazon Expanded Distribution. So… a reformat for a shorter book with the same content may be in the future, as much as I really loved having a book that’s 500 pages, there are real economics to deal with on these things. Fear not, the content will not change. It will be more like those classic college term paper tricks of font size and spacing.
So, some obstacles to getting these things done in time for the hopeful release of Book 2: Unseen Wrath in late February - aside from the various pieces of work that need to get ironed out (illustrations, maps, cover art), I’ve also started a renovation of one of the rooms in the house that really needs to happen. So… sanity is becoming a premium. Take care folks, see you next month. (Yes, I trimmed the beard).
Late add - song of the month (really more of an album): Draining Love Story by Sewerslvt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBejlYvfBF8&t=1174s
