Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 72

DRAGONSKULL: TALONS OF THE SORCERER Table of Contents

Making good progress on edits for DRAGONSKULL: TALONS OF THE SORCERER, and if all goes well the book should be out by the end of the week!

Meanwhile, let’s take a look at the Table of Contents.

-JM

Six Dungeons & Dragons Business Lessons For Indie Writers

My brother recommended a book called GAME WIZARDS: THE EPIC BATTLE FOR DUNGEONS & DRAGONS by Jon Peterson, and I wanted to talk about the lessons it offers for indie authors and small creative businesspeople like writers and artists in general.

I haven’t played a tabletop RPG this century, but I’ve read a lot of the books and tie-in novels.  In fact, if you’ve read a fantasy book or played a computer game in the last thirty years, it’s probably been influenced by D&D because the game has had an outsized cultural impact.

How to explain this? When I was in college, I took a class on medieval history, and the professor said that what we think of as the European Middle Ages arose from the interaction of five major sources – the legacy of Rome/Greece, the rise of Christianity, the rise of Islam, the barbarian invasions, and the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire. Obviously there were other influences – the Vikings, the Jewish diaspora, the Magyars, the Irish, and others – but I think most people familiar with the era would say that those five influences were the major ones of the Middle Ages.

In the same way, I think it is fair to say that Dungeons & Dragons is one of the main influences on modern fantasy/science fiction literature and games. Obviously there are others – THE LORD OF THE RINGS chief among them – but D&D is definitely one of the major ones. D&D was also the way some lesser-known SF and fantasy authors became better-known, given that Jack Vance’s DYING EARTH and Poul Anderson’s THREE HEARTS & THREE LIONS both had a significant influence on the design of D&D. The game’s dynamic of “spell memorization” came from DYING EARTH, and Poul Anderson basically invented the Paladin class in THREE HEARTS & THREE LIONS.

But to return to the main point! The book focuses on the business side of Dungeons & Dragons, which was created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in the 1970s. Neither man expected it to do well – Mr. Gygax thought they might sell about $300 worth – and the initial contract between them definitely reflected it and didn’t consider the possibility of runaway success. Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson fell out badly before D&D started to become a commercial success. That was probably inevitable given their contrasting personalities – Mr. Gygax was outgoing and a natural leader, but he had an unfortunate tendency towards pettiness and was unable to let a slight go, while Mr. Arneson had no wish for a leadership capacity, but was nonetheless perfectly happy criticizing how things were going. The commercial success of D&D led to a series of lawsuits that finally settled with Mr. Gygax’s company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) paying Mr. Arneson a royalty on D&D products for the rest of his life.

Unfortunately, an occasional affliction in previously poor people who suddenly become wealthy is extravagance to the point of wastefulness – sadly there’s a different between thrift exercised through self-control and thrift imposed by outside circumstances. By the 80s, both Mr. Gygax and TSR itself had fallen prey to this malady, and for a while the company and Mr. Gygax personally were spending like D&D sales would always grow. When D&D sales dropped (as always happens in a business cycle), TSR found itself in financial trouble. Mr. Gygax by that point had managed to alienate many of his previous supporters on the board of TSR, so Lorraine Williams was able to seize control of the company and push Mr. Gygax out. I think it is fair to say that Ms. Williams was better at business than Mr. Gygax, but that isn’t to say she was good at it – she righted TSR’s ship for a while, but the company’s debt problems threated to overwhelm it. Then Wizards of the Coast bought TSR, and eventually Hasbro bought Wizards of the Coast, which is where we are today.

This entire saga – the creation of D&D, the lawsuits between Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson, and Mr. Gygax finally losing control of the company and the game system he helped create – all of it provides valuable lessons for indie authors and creative professionals in general. Specifically, I think we can take away six main lessons from this.

Before we examine these six lessons, I want to emphasize that I am not a lawyer, and you obtain legal advice by hiring a lawyer licensed to practice in your country, state/province, and other jurisdiction.

1.) Retain control of your intellectual property.

Whenever possible, create your own intellectual property, and retain as much control over it as possible. Mr. Gygax lost control of Dungeons & Dragons because the copyright belonged to TSR, and Mr. Arneson had to sue for royalties because the company controlled the copyright. If either man had been able to retain control of the copyright, they would have been in a much better position.

So whenever possible, if you retain control of your intellectual property, you’ll most likely be better off. Traditional publishers nowadays tend to offer contracts that are for the life of the copyright of the book, which is the lifetime of the author plus 70 years under current US law. Retaining those rights for yourself is a much wiser decision.

2.) Have contracts be very explicit.

If you enter into a contract with a business partner, it’s a very good idea to be highly explicit about what is covered. The most common reason a small business fails is due to lack of sales – the business just can’t turn a profit. However, another common reason small businesses fail is the founders fall out hard. Sadly, this is especially common if the founders are friends or family members. People assume because they’re going into business with friends or family members that will take care of any conflicts that arise, or that there won’t be any conflicts.

This is definitely not the case.

So any business contract, especially if you are starting a small business, should be as detailed and specific as possible. Mr. Arneson was able to make a lot of money off Dungeons & Dragons even after he was no longer actively involved because his contract specified that he would get a royalty off any D&D products. It’s best to be as explicit and non-ambigious in a contract as possible. Hiring a lawyer to help draft it may be expensive, but that expense can help you avoid far greater expenditure and possible heartache in the future.

3.) Retain as many rights as possible, and be aware of the difference.

When signing a contract, especially a publishing contract, be aware of what rights you are licensing to the publisher – paperback, hardback, collectible hardback, foreign language print book, ebook, foreign language ebook, audiobook, and others are all very different rights.

(You should probably never sign a contract that claims “all rights” to anything.)

J.K. Rowling made a lot of money from the Harry Potter ebooks because she kept the ebook rights when she signed her original contracts. Before his big Kickstarter this year, Brandon Sanderson was able to do a “smaller” Kickstarter $4 million for collectible hardcover editions of his books. Keeping as many of your rights as possible can lead to business opportunities like that.

4) Beware personality conflicts.

We already touched on the personality conflict between Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Unfortunately, this is a common problem. The most common reason a small business goes out of business is because it can’t turn a profit and runs out of money. However, it is also common for a small business to fail because the founders fall out hard at some point.

So if you are going to go into business with someone, or you are going to hire someone, it’s best to be as clear-eyed and honest with yourself as possible. Can you get along with this person? Can you work with this person? Especially with our friends and family members, we often look at each other with rose-colored glasses, overlooking personality incompatibilities that might cause serious problems in a business environment. So if you do work with someone, it’s best to do so on a trial basis at first to watch for any potential personality conflicts.

5.) Don’t hire employees unless you have no choice.

Employees are seriously expensive even before you factor in taxes, Social Security (in the US), unemployment insurance, benefits, and other related costs. (Governments often find themselves in the strange position of trying to encourage hiring while simultaneously making it punishingly difficult and expensive to hire people and fire unsuitable people.) Of course, layoffs are brutally difficult for everyone involved, which is why it’s best to only hire people when absolutely necessary.

One of TSR’s problems as described in the book was that when times were good, they hired way too many people, which seriously contributed to their debt problems.

So carefully consider whether or not you can afford to hire employees, or if you even need to do so. In the indie author space, you can do a lot of things through one-time contract work – cover design, audiobooks, etc, and that is wiser than hiring employees.

6.) Be aware of the business cycle.

Sales never, never always go up – if something goes up, it inevitably must go down again.  That’s simply the business cycle.

That was another self-inflicted problem TSR faced when D&D sales were good – the company’s officers made wildly optimistic and ultimately inaccurate decisions about how sales would grow. They didn’t – TSR’s sales leveled off at a very respectable level, but because they had over hired and spent too much money, the company was in a bad place and had to take on serious debt and eventually lay people off.

So if you have a good sales month or year, congratulations! But don’t assume it will last forever, and definitely don’t assume that sales will always go up.

One of the reasons that TSR got bought out and Gary Gygax lost control of D&D was because the company didn’t heed those lessons above. But one of the benefits of history is that we can learn from the mistakes our predecessors made. If you run a small creative business, hopefully you can look at the lessons of TSR from the 1980s and apply them to your own business!

-JM

DRAGONSKULL: TALONS OF THE SORCERER excerpt

Editing is underway for DRAGONSKULL: TALONS OF THE SORCERER! That means it’s time to share a spoiler-free excerpt!

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Crake offered a solemn nod and then drew in a deep breath. “Well, out with it.”

“Out with what?” said Gareth. 

“You’ve been dying to give me a lecture,” said Crake. “You’ve had that twitchy look on your face all day.”

“What?”

“You get this twitchy expression when you want to lecture someone about being unknightly.”

“I most certainly do not.”

“You do,” said Crake. “I’ve known you for years. We’ve been squires, knights, and Swordbearers together. We’ve gotten drunk together. I’d say we went whoring together, but that one time in Cintarra you sat outside with that twitchy look…”

“For God’s sake.”

“With that twitchy look you have just now.”

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 141: Six Dungeons & Dragons Business Lessons For Indie Authors

The Pulp Writer Show returns for 2023! In this week’s episode, we take a look at six business lessons for authors inspired by Jon Peterson’s book GAME WIZARDS, which describes the legal struggles around Dungeons & Dragons in the 1980s. We also take a look at Brandon Sanderson’s decision to keep his Kickstarter novels off Audible.

As always, you can listen to the show on Libsyn, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Amazon Music.

-JM

New Owyllain map!

Long time readers will know that I am not at all fond of drawing maps, though it is something of a necessity in the epic fantasy genre.

However, while I’ve been writing for the last ten years, technology has moved on.

My brother suggested a tool called Inkarnate, and it’s quite a bit better than other mapping tools I’ve used.

I actually enjoyed using it! This is the first time I’ve ever been able to say that about a mapping tool.

Anyway, I made a new version of the map of Owyllain from SEVENFOLD SWORD in Inkarnate. Might have more upgraded maps arriving this year.

-JM

Ad results December 2022

December is really a rather tricky time to advertise because of the Christmas season, as everyone is pretty much advertising everything which drives overall costs up. Plus people’s attention is often on Christmas preparations and travel (or getting stranded in airports, alas) and therefore selling books is harder.

But it’s always fun to see the Cost Per Click of an ad suddenly plummet the day after Christmas.

First, let’s see how my Facebook ads did. This is how much I got back for every dollar I spent:

CLOAK GAMES: $6.91

FROSTBORN: $2.03

THE GHOSTS: $2.70

SILENT ORDER: $4.23

SILENT ORDER and CLOAK GAMES did really well. It helped that they had recent books (CLOAK OF MASKS and SILENT ORDER: WRECK HAND) to help drive things. FROSTBORN and GHOSTS were lower than usual but that’s almost certainly because of the Christmas season and the aforementioned pressures.

Next, let’s look at the Amazon ads I ran. This will show how much I got back for every dollar I spent. Remember, for Amazon ads to work, it really needs to deliver a sale for every 6 to 8 clicks.

CLOAK OF DRAGONS: $2.27, 2.53 clicks

DRAGONSKULL: SWORD OF THE SQUIRE: $6.11, 1.16 clicks

So we can see that DRAGONSKULL continues to outperform on Amazon ads. Makes me very glad DRAGONSKULL: TALONS OF THE SORCERER is coming soon!

Finally, I used combined Facebook and Amazon ads on DEMONSOULED, since sometimes a Facebook ad can generate traffic for an Amazon autotargeting ad to use and become more accurate:

DEMONSOULED: $1.78, 3.27 clicks

That’s not as good as I would have liked, but better than I expected! We’ll see how it does in January.

-JM

DRAGONSKULL: TALONS OF THE SORCERER rough draft done!

I am very, very, VERY pleased to announce that with 31 hours remaining in 2022, the rough draft of DRAGONSKULL: TALONS OF THE SORCERER is finished!

Technically I wanted to get the rough draft done by New Year’s Eve. Since it’s still nine hours from New Year’s Eve as of this writing, it counts.

Next up is THE FINAL WAYSTONE, a short story from the perspective of Niara the First Magistria. Newsletter subscribes will get a free ebook copy of THE FINAL WAYSTONE when the book comes out. Once the short story is done, it will be onward to editing and revising and formatting.

If all goes well, the book will be out in January.

Meanwhile, let’s take a look at the cover image!

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 140: Looking Back At 2022’s Writing Goals & Goals For 2023

In this week’s episode, I look back to see how many of my writing goals in 2022 I reached, and I set some new writing goals for 2023. I also look back at my favorite books and games of 2022.

As always, you can listen to the show on Libsyn, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Amazon Music.

-JM

Christmas movies

I got to watch some Christmas movies.

I do think DIE HARD qualifies as a Christmas movie, since it’s essentially about a man repairing his relationship with his estranged wife at Christmas.

Granted, traditionally Christmas gifts for a spouse are things like jewelry, watches, perhaps expensive trips, but is not total victory over all her enemies also an excellent Christmas gift for a wife?

After all, as Conan the Barbarian said, what is best in life is to crush one’s enemies and see them driven before you, and what better gift than what is best in life?

Now to be a bit less tongue-in-cheek, A CHRISTMAS CAROL has been adapted into movie form many times.

My favorite version is the George C. Scott one. Scott doesn’t play pre-redemption Scrooge as a cackling supervillain, but a hard man who had been hardened further by the world. He’s also quite funny in a deadpan sort of way.

However, I think the best film version is A MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL with Michael Caine as Scrooge. It’s surprisingly faithful to the book, and it works because Caine plays it totally straight with an understated Scrooge, much like George C. Scott. The songs are also very good.

And if anyone was ever born to play Bob Crachitt, it was Kermit the Frog.

-JM

Merry Christmas and DRAGONSKULL update!

I had hoped to finish the rough draft of DRAGONSKULL: TALONS OF THE SORCERER by Christmas Eve. I came close, but I didn’t quite get there – I’m currently on Chapter 19 of 21. If we had one fewer major snowstorm and I had spent less time shoveling, I could have made it, but it wasn’t to be, alas.

Now my new goal is to finish the rough draft by New Year’s Eve. Both holidays have “Eve” in the name, so it still counts.

Meanwhile, posting will be light on the ground for the new week, unlike the snow.

Have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, everyone, and may your 2023 get off to a good start!

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And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

-JM