Pity me lameness; I am the lame cheese

The BBQ Pit
1

I just wanted to tell people I feel really, really bummed about writing.

I love writing. Its just very tiring. And starting a business based on writing is very unrewarding. I pretty much doubt, although only to myself, that I can make it work. I knwo we have good stuff, I just don’t think we’ll ever get it all ready. We don’t have marketing guys like some of these presses, or advertising money. On the upside, we don’t really need much beyond food and rent. But moving our products to print will probably cost about 1725 dollars: 500 per book and 225 for the frickin’ ISBN’s (good lord, those people do nothing at all and must rake in the dough!)

Man, we’ve been in it since mid september, and we’ve got good material. Its just really hard to handle everything.

And I can’t get much motivation to write. I pretty much think all my material must completely suck, dammit! Or at least I’m afraid it is. There aren’t many jobs where I am - most places I apply to, over the web or not, never even send me a courtesy email saying “no, we don’t need you”. And of course, the big publishers won’t even take a look at us.

On the bright side, I made 60 bucks selling on rpgnow. On the downside, the only review we got was from some idiot who criticized our book for… no apparent reason. His given critisism was no nonsensical I assume he had no clue what he was talking about.

And, unlike most people, I canb’t enter the military. I asked. They wouldn’t take me if I paid them! Am I like, some sort of virulent disease, infecting everything I touch? I;ve been laid off three times since january.

I’ll try to bring out the despair in my new book, “The Hell Chronicles”

I’m also trying to write a short 10-page story (which is damned hard) to submit to WotC, while making a pitch idea to Dragon Magazine, which may get us some attention.

2

Have you considered spelling correctly?

3

Not when I’m not publishing! :wink:

4

First of all, I wish you success. That said, I’m reserving judgment on this rant.

Not to kick you when you’re down, but saying that you can spell when you want to is like saying you can ride a bicycle when you want to, as if you happily pitch face-first into a tree as a matter of personal preference. Knowing what button to push to run spell-checking programs is not the same as knowing how to spell. Generally, people who love something care about doing it well all the time. Of course, there have been a couple of very good books written by people who didn’t know how to spell, so it’s somewhat irrelevant to the OP, as is the abysmal construction “doubt to myself” (you can doubt, or you can believe, but you can’t do either “to” something), or the minor sin of beginning a sentence with the word “but.” They’re not completely irrelevant, though, because in deciding how much sympathy to extend to a struggling writer people are bound to consider the quality of his or her work. Nobody roots for a struggling surgeon to make it if they can see his hands shake.

Also, your OP leaves the nature of your business awfully vague. You’re apparently operating a printing press/internet content provider that produces a lot of its own material in-house, and having trouble placing your product. If you consider advertising and marketing as cheating or unaffordable or beneath you, somehow, you’re asking for that trouble. This is an industry in which a better mousetrap alone will see your path overgrown with weeds in short order.

Once again, I wish you the best. Perhaps if you could give a demonstration of your work, material you produced that you cared about, you could gain my support for this rant.

5

It’s D20 gaming material, if I’m not mistaken. smiling can you tell us yet the name of the one published book? Free publicity and all.

Daniel

6

Also, I don’t know whether you’ve seen Monte Cook’s article on Game Industry Etiquette, but I thought you might find it interesting.

Some aspects of it that might be helpful:

I’m not sure whether you responded publicly to the bad review you got, but Monte builds a strong case for that being a bad idea. Personally, I know that when I see an author respond to a review, it never improves the author’s standing in my mind, and frequently makes me less likely to purchase works by that author.

Heck, I ran a competition for DM writers awhile ago, and awarded the first place prize to a guy whose products are fairly well-known (and who wrote some crackerjack adventures for the contest). I like his stuff a lot, judging by his contest work. But his venom toward a bad reviewer has so totally turned me off of him that I’m not likely to pick up a product by him any time soon.

Fess up–what’s the book called? (If this breaks board rules, I apologize, but I think you’re allowed to tell us, as long as you’re not spamming with ads for it).

I remember awhile ago some posts from you that seemed to break this rule; it may be useful to remember that the most informed game product purchasers often know a bit about the authors, and take the author’s behavior into consideration, even when doing so isn’t entirely rational.

All in all, I think the article is a good read.

Daniel

7

Since **Left Hand of Dorkness ** just completely confounded me with the introduction of things I don’t understand, I’ll back off a little bit. In fact, I’ll apologize for my harsher remarks, with this qualification:

I’m too old and out of it to know what D20 gaming material is. I suspect from Left’s (pardon the abbreviation, please) post, that the rules of grammar and spelling may not apply, but I’m not sure they do not, either. Perhaps my definitions of write, print, press, etc., are antiquated and may not apply, but maybe they do: the OP does mention books and magazines. Nonetheless, I’ll hold to the notion that writing correct and proper sentences is central to my notion of how well someone thinks and uses language to express those thoughts, and that makes a difference in how I react to someone who labels his profession as writing.

8

Soup, the D20 gaming system is a generic format for role-playing games (i.e., Dungeons and Dragons.) It basically refers to a system wherein most of the important rolls in the game are made with a 20 sided die. As with virtually any printed and publicly marketed work, all the rules of grammar, spelling, and style still apply.

9

Thank you, neuroman. Even though I grok D&D (and that phrase alone should prove it), I still have the sense of having spoken out of turn, because I did so without fully understanding the OP, so I’ll let my apology and explanation be my last words here.

10

Out of curiosity, what sort of writing business is it that you’re starting? Sounds like you’re a hybrid author/publishing company all in one. Perhaps you should consider “POD” publishing. It’s pay on demand, and may be a good way for you to get started.

Another comment I have is that, I can tell you as a fellow writer, if you’ve only been doing this since September, it’ll probably be a while yet before you’re really successful. I began my copywriting business in January this year. I’m just now getting my first really well-paid writing job that I didn’t have to find online or through an agency. I know that being and author and publisher is different from copywriting; however, I can tell you that it does take a while to get things moving. Why don’t you try visiting the forums at Writer’s Weekly? The people there are very nice, and will probably give you some great moral support.

Also, if I were you, I’d buy a 2005 Writer’s Market ($30 for a standard edition at any major bookstore) and look for contact information on gaming trade journals. You can always write some articles for them - that way, you could not only get some publicity for your book by including it in your writer’s bio, you could also get paid for your writing. And some magazines, depending on the ones you write for, pay a pretty decent amount. (Of course, there are lots that don’t, and some will even try to get you to write for them for free. Avoid doing that if possible, but if you really need clips, it might be something to consider as well.)

11

Jeesh - I need to learn to use the preview button. It’s print on demand, not pay.

12

Why don’t you guys lay off the spelling lectures? What I see in that OP is typos. Most of us don’t proof our posts, I’ll bet.

What is it about the Pit that brings the vultures out? One should be allowed to complain every once in a while, I’d like to believe, without the Pit harpys jumping all over one’s shit.

IMHO, YMMV, etc. (insert insult-spewing emoticon here)

13

Try

http://www.distanthorizonsgames.com

. I wrote Prestige Class Collection One. I have four more book more or less done that are just awaiting work on covers, art inserts, and so on. We do this on another computer (cause my partner’s got Corel WP11) and it just takes some time to get it crammed in. In any event, we just write material faster than we can edit it.

Just to let you know, we did not respond. I don’t understand what his beef was. I personally would have liked to contact him and ask what he thought the problem specifically was and how he would like it changed. But then, I never liked that product anyway. :wink: But really, if you look in, say the Arms and Equipment Guide, you’ll see the exact same format.

I am planning on setting up Paypal POD soon.

I’ll check that out. I’m already planning to submit some things to Dragon Magazine; they print reader submissions all the time, so…

Ain’t that the truth!

Seriously, guys, I wrote it after midnight and wasn’t too happy with myself at the time. Fortunately, I do have quite a bit of savings. You’d be amazed what you can save from a minimum wage job if you put your mind to it.

14

Thanks, smiling; I’ll check it out!

One more resource, which you may or may not be aware of: there’s a D20 and Open Gaming Publishers forum over at ENWorld, where lots of the big names hang out. It’s also a great place to issue some press releases and get feedback on your products.

Daniel

15

And some unasked-for editing: On your “products” page, the following phrase has two nails-on-chalkboard errors in it.

Gah! Fix please!

(and your own book’s description ends with a run-on sentence, but it’s not as bad).

I just looked over the demo. The Spymaster looks very cool and lots of fun to play! I’d make a few mechanical changes myself (e.g., base Traitor’s Watch off an opposed Sense Motive check, so that it’s easier to detect the flaws of a yeoman farmer Com1 than of a Rog20), but the flavor is quite good.

Daniel

16

Sorry, but these weren’t just a few typo’s - an thread which is littered with major spelling and construction errors {from the title onwards} isn’t exactly calculated to excite sympathy for a writer complaining that he’s struggling to be published.

17

Perhaps you mean “typos” instead of “typo’s?”

Perhaps you mean “a thread” instead of “an thread?”

Perhaps you mean “thread that” instead of “thread which,” as which requires a comma preceding it?

Sorry, but a poster who pisses all over someone’s thread should, aw fuck it.

Ain’t irony delicious? Quit while you’re behind, why don’t cha. (insert winky saying a mean word emoticon here)

18

The question mark should go outside of the quote.

Otherwise, pwned.

Daniel

19

What’s wrong with the title?

Pity me lameness; I am the lame cheese:

This thread is lame in the category of “Pity Me”; I am the lame cheese.

?

20

ACK! My partner wrote that. I am so going to have a talk with him about this. When I finish writing something, it’s done. I may have a few errors in the final product, but not many. My friend, however, can’t do grammar. And he doesn’t argue with me over it - when I point out flaws he just stares at the screen for five minutes and says “hmmm…” and does nothing about it! I’m not letting him write any more blurbs without approval.

Well, thank you for pointing that out. I honestly didn’t look at the blurb on our site when we put it up.

Oh, that was deliberate. The errors in the post were just from rushing it. I just liked the look of the titlte, though. Sort of a weird, Japlish, vibe in it.