Reader Question Day #36

Manwe asks:

Way back when, when you were creating Mazael, did you have any visual inspirations for him?

I’m afraid not. Though his name came from Johan Maelzl, the inventor of the metronome.

And hey, speaking of Skyrim, did you ever get it yet?

Yes. And I’ve gotten all the way up to level five! So you can see how much time I’ve had to play it. Though at nights lately I’ve been playing ICEWIND DALE, since it’s a straightforward dungeon crawl, and sufficiently brainless for the end of the day.

I asked what type of game you want DS to be, how about this, if you had to choose one developer to make it, who would you choose?

No one affiliated with Electronic Arts, Blizzard, or Ubisoft. Which I suppose would disqualify most developers at a stroke.

How much does it cost you in the long run to do the createspace stuff? I mean is it worth the investment?

I believe the base version of CreateSpace is free, but then the printed books are only available through Amazon. For $25 per book, you can get “expanded distribution”, which makes the book available in other venues. That said, the author gets a higher royalty rate for paper books sold through Amazon than any of the Expanded Distribution places.

Selene asks:

I was wondering when will Ghost in the Stone come out.

I’m hoping to start Ghost in the Stone by the beginning of September, once I’ve produced a satisfactory outline. So unless Real Life intervenes, I should have it done by November or December.

More on that later this week!

-JM