GTiS

Gold Throne in Shadow is done! Sent it out to my loyal readers for comments.

My Fabulous Agent

Now that I've signed the agency agreement, I can tell you who my agent is. It is the fabulous Kristin Nelson. She runs a very entertaining blog about writing called Pub Rants.

Although this is the same agent Sara has, I didn't land the agent through her. We write under different last names, so my slush pile submissions don't even have the same name. However, my wife still gets the credit, because she kept bugging me to keep submitting. For years.

Kristin still hasn't read SotBL yet. Apparently she has, like, other clients and stuff. Go figure.

In other news, I finished the first draft of GTiS. Now I just have to go over it one more time, from top to bottom. I'll get through that pretty quickly since I got laid off today. For the second time.

Not that I care. As you may have deduced from the change in blog title, Something Is Afoot. Big Plans are in Motion. Stay tuned, loyal Bat-fans!

An interesting development

I've stopped sales of Sword of the Bright Lady, pending review by my (newly acquired) agent. I actually signed the agent based on a different book, but she wants a chance to look over SotBL for potential sale to a publisher.

So those of you (all two dozen!) who bought this copy of the book either have a) a priceless collector's item, or b) a manuscript even a high-powered agent couldn't pawn off on a publisher. Time will tell.

I'm almost finished with Gold Throne in Shadow - just two chapters to go. This creates an interesting dilemma for my fans (again, all two dozen of you). If I get a publisher for the series, then it's bad for you, since it will be probably two years before GTiS comes out. If I don't, then it will be available in two months.

On the other hand, the 3rd book would come out a lot quicker if a publisher were waiting on it, whereas if I am busy writing sci-fi for my agent it will be years before I get around to The Black Harvest.

So... which is better? Mind you, I'm prejudiced - I think GTiS is even better than SotB, and I pity those of you who haven't read it yet. :D

The genius of Frank & K

Been re-reading the Dungeonomicon. Here's one of my favorite passages:

It is historical fact that you can take a ridiculous and crumbling imperium with serfs and horse-drawn carts managed by a tyrannical and squabbling aristocracy and boot strap it into being a technologically sophisticated global power that can win the space race and such in a single generation even while being invaded by an evil and genocidal empire. The people at the top don't even need to be nice or sane, they just have to understand that economics is an entirely voodoo science, and the limits of production can be broken by thousands of percentage points by getting everyone to buy on credit, work on projects that people looking at the big picture tell them to work on, continuously invest in productive capital, and believe in the future.

Right. That's called Communism, and it ends the dark ages immediately even if it isn't run well.

I love this stuff!

DriveThruRPG

The World Of Prime game materials are now available on DriveThruRPG. In their first day there they've gotten between 40 and 60 downloads each, which is a really good number. I'm hoping the weekend will be even better; but after that, they won't be new, so it should start to tail off.

Best of all, I've actually gotten some reviews. Two five-stars of Ye Olde Shoppe, and one three-star of Hives of Formia. The low rating seems to be because my adventure settings aren't very scripted; it's more of a resource for a DM to generate encounters than a series of pre-programmed encounters. I've been thinking about making some actual modules, in the old style, but I want to get all of the Kingdom and the surrounding areas down first.

The high ratings are because Ye Olde Shoppe is what every DM wants. If all I did was put every price from the PHB and the DMG in one book, with an index, it would have been worth 4 stars. At least. The Bard of Valiant compared it to Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog, which is high praise.

I can't say enough good things about DriveThruRPG. Their tool interfaces are better than Lulu's, and their staff is incredibly quick to help. I've put SotBL up at their sister site DriveThruFantasy as an e-book. Too bad they don't do POD...

A productive weekend

Thanks to the holiday I actually got a lot done. Two Adventure supplements and the shopping guide.

Now I just need to do the Kingsrock guide, and then I'll stop writing game guides for a while and get back to writing novels.

Hopefully these booklets will be useful to people in their own games. The Worldbook, while a labor of love, isn't exactly something you can just drop into your own campaign. But giant ants and techno-magic goblins - who doesn't need more of those?

Ye Olde Shoppe

Well, the shopping guide is finally done. Going to let it sit for a day and do some final edits, maybe see if SC can add any pictures.

Then I just need to revamp the materials I already have to match it, finish up the Kingdom of the Rock, the Goblins, and the Trogodolytes, and I guess I could take a breather then. And finish GtiS.