Errors, Editing, and The Bottom Line in Publishing

This past weekend I experienced a bit of an oops moment in one of my latest publications. The TTRPG supplement 100 Gangsters, Gun Molls, and Goons came out from Azukail Games for the Call of Cthulhu RPG, and it details a list of characters to add to the town of Arkham for players who want to explore the use and effect of organized crime in the city during the Roaring 20s when campaigns in the core continuity are set. I wrote it partially because I've always liked the idea of the mob going to war with the mythos, but also because there seemed to be an uptick of players who were trying out this particular game.

However, someone pointed out a rather glaring flaw in my original. You see, a gun moll is a slang term used to describe a woman who was a gangster, typically as the partner of a mob boss or gang leader. But for some reason I was certain that it was spelled "mal" and not "moll"... as such, an edit was necessary to the document.

I expected better of you.

Rather than just try to bury that (admittedly embarrassing) mistake, though, I wanted to try to use it as a teachable moment. Because there are a lot of misconceptions about editing in the publishing industry as a whole, and I think this makes a good jumping off point to talk about them.

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Perfect is The Enemy of Done

There's a meme I've come across several times that explains the best way for an author to find spelling mistakes and editing errors is to go through their manuscript a dozen times, publish it, and then to open to a random page once they have a hard copy in their hands. If you've ever published a book (or even a short story) then you know just how true this is. Sometimes, very rarely, the layers of editing will catch all the mistakes, weed them out, and leave a perfect, pristine product... but that's far from the norm.

And as with a lot of stuff in the publishing industry, it has far more to do with time and money than it does with talent and skill.

As is often the case, sadly.

As a for-instance, when I write a TTRPG supplement, there's typically a 3-step process. First, I write it by hand. Then I type up what I've written, proofreading and editing as I go. Then, once it's been typed, I review it for edits and further changes. Once I've finished that, I send it in to my publisher, who handles layout, art, etc., and puts it up for sale.

Now, Azukail Games is a relatively small publisher, and there isn't an on-staff editor. Nor, for that matter, is an editor contracted to go over every supplement that gets turned in. The reason for that is first, that would add a lot of time to the process (probably a week or more, at least). Secondly, editors aren't free. An average supplement should sell about 50 copies at the low end of things, to 100 copies in the initial release (which won't rack up to much more than $100 or so in initial profits for the publisher), with occasional copies being sold down the line as the catalog grows.

Adding extra time to every release, and spending far more than a given supplement is likely to make in sales to give it a pass by an independent editor doesn't make for a good business strategy. As such, it's a step that usually gets left out of things... however, even companies who can afford editors still have issues with their books and releases.

Gonna name a name here...

Not to call out anyone specifically, or to throw shade on folks who worked hard on their books, but White Wolf had quite a reputation for this during the hey day of the World of Darkness. While the games were very popular, a lot of players often criticized them for errors in the glossary, spelling mistakes, or rules that didn't quite seem to match up in examples in different sections. And the constant refrain was always, "Would it have killed them to give it one more editorial pass?"

And the answer is, actually, yes. It probably would have.

We tend to think that bigger publishing companies (Wizards of The Coast, Paizo, White Wolf/Onyx Path, etc.) have gads of spare funds just lying around, but that really isn't the case. They're already paying for artists, designers, layout, printing, shipping, and initial editing, along with many more costs on tight deadlines, so they probably can't afford an extra round of edits just to be sure that products are perfect. Because that extra round of edits might eat deeply enough into the spare time and profit margin for the release that it won't make enough money to justify the next release, and sustain the company.

Or, at the very least, it will increase the amount of books that the project needs to sell in order to break even, and justify the release of future content.

Would the extra edits catch some spelling mistakes, and align the numbers in the guide? Sure, it could, but when you look at the raw numbers (both the extra costs of additional editing passes, and how many typos and errors slip through the process on average even with those extra passes) it just isn't worth it to your bottom line.

Digital Tools Help (But Sometimes It Still Isn't Worth It)

Let's back up a moment and look at the mistake I made in my latest TTRPG supplement. If it had been released back in the 90s as a hard copy, and that spelling error had survived through editing to be released as a product sold in game stores, the publisher would not have recalled the supplements and released a corrected version. If it was released with a mistake, it would be left in the wild to sink or swim on its own... if it did well enough to justify a second print run, then the mistake would be fixed, but more likely it would just go down as a flawed product, a victim of a single (albeit major) error. Or perhaps a collector's edition, if it did well enough to justify more being printed.

But in the digital age, and the age of print-on-demand, we have the ability to fix errors as we see them, or as they get reported to us. In fact it was less than a day between the mistake in that title being reported, and the text and cover being fixed by the publisher. If someone points out a mistake in a blog or article like this, I can just go in and fix it with minimal sweat. Even if someone finds errors in a book of mine like my short story collection The Rejects, I can update the text of the manuscript, re-submit it to Amazon for approval, and the new version will appear in 24 hours or so, no muss, no fuss.

Even with all these options and tools on-hand, though, there is still a single, deciding factor when it comes to fixing errors in your work... how much that effort is likely to improve your bottom line.

Consider the video for my short audio drama Whispered Words Sharpen Knives, which is taken from my supplement 100 Rumors to Hear at The Freehold for Changeling: The Lost. While the title appears to the right of the display image in this video, it's extremely dark due to something going wrong with the applied filter. The text was supposed was be white on a black background... but by the time I caught that mistake, it was already published on the Azukail Games YouTube channel (which, if you haven't subscribed yet, please consider doing so).

So while it is certainly within my power to fix the video, resubmit it to the publisher, and then have them reupload it to fix one error, it doesn't really feel worth the effort to to do... especially because the title of the video appears directly below it any time it's displayed on YouTube or linked on social media, so folks can still see what it is, and determine if they want to click it.

If there was an outcry from regular viewers to fix the video, it could certainly be done. However, with only 79 views at time of writing, it isn't exactly something being seen by a huge number of fresh eyes. There aren't a string of comments requesting the edit to be made, nor is it something that a lot of folks are being turned off by. Even though the channel isn't monetized (though we're hoping to change that in the near future), that kind of outcry from the viewers would warrant the edit being made... but if no one is noticing, the effort it would take to fix the mistake could better be spent making new content.

And those are really the three lessons I want people to take away from this. First, that no matter how hard you try, or how many times you look, it's always possible for mistakes to slip through your editing net. Secondly, that there is always some form of editorial, but even putting your manuscript in the hands of a professional is no guarantee that they're going to catch everything. And, thirdly, mistakes are not the end of the world in the digital age of publishing... you can usually fix them quickly, and efficiently, if the mistake is serious enough to warrant doing so.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects! You can also check out my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary for free audio dramas!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Short Stories, Werewolves, And Rolling The Dice on a Book

There are a few things I've learned over the years as an author. Perhaps the biggest thing, and a lesson I learned early on in my career, was that selling the reading public on short stories (much less on short story anthologies) is really damn hard to do. Additionally, while there are a lot of folks who might read an ebook, convincing people to buy something that's ebook exclusive is also one hell of a marketing feat to pull off.

So, of course, my dumb ass proposed a project that was both a short story anthology and an ebook exclusive. And while I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew, I don't regret rolling the dice in the slightest. I might, however, need a little bit of help from all my regular readers out there to really pull out a decisive win on this one.

Seriously, check it out if you haven't yet!

Before I get into talking about this week's topic, remember to subscribe to my weekly newsletter to get all of my latest releases fresh in your inbox! And if you have a bit of loose change you'd like to contribute to help keep the blog going, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Every little bit really does help.

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The Seed of The Idea

For folks who don't know me, I spent a lot of my teenage years as an avid reader of RPG tie-in fiction. If you're not familiar with the term, it refers to stories that take place in the same world as a roleplaying game, and they're meant to act both as supplemental reading for folks who enjoy the game, but also as a funnel to pull in people who aren't players, but who might consider trying out the game after reading a story they really liked. From Battletech to Greyhawk, and Forgotten Realms to Bloodshadows, these stories were my introduction to so many worlds it's easy to lose track all these years later.

These books were extremely common in the 1980s and 1990s, and even up until a few years ago there were several companies putting out regular novels and short stories meant to keep their existing audience happy while luring in a new audience with tales of adventure and horror alike. I even managed to land one of my own short stories, The Irregulars, with Paizo during the Pathfinder Tales era. It's still available, for those who'd like to check it out!

Come on... you know you want to.

While there are still plenty of these books for sale, they aren't produced with anything near the regularity they once were. Which makes sense, because as many companies shift budgets and adopt different marketing strategies, this method of engaging the public likely wasn't as effective as others. Especially when you consider how much time, energy, and sheer sweat goes into publishing a book, and how easy it is for them to lose money rather than make it.

However, while reading through the rules and limitations on Storyteller's Vault (the community-use platform for White Wolf/Onyx Path RPG properties like Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, etc.), I noted that it expressly allowed fiction to be set in the approved games provided that it was faithful to the published setting. While these stories had to be published on the Storyteller's Vault platform, and they could only be published in electronic format, it was still an option.

And, as they say, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Why An Anthology?

After examining the options available, I decided to propose Tales From The Moot, an anthology of short stories for Werewolf: The Apocalypse that had the framing device of stories told by the various tribes of werewolves around their fires about the great deeds they'd done, horrors they'd witnessed, and so on. I took the idea to High Level Games because I felt that a book of short stories would pair nicely with the 100 Kinfolk project I'd penned for them previously, and that the two could act kind of like companion pieces.

But why an anthology, though?

After some back and forth on precisely what shape the project should take, and how much time and energy I wanted to sink into it, I eventually proposed it as an anthology for several reasons. The biggest among those included:

- Faster Turnaround Time: If you have half a dozen people writing a book, it gets done faster. That's just math.

- Shared Marketing Efforts: I have no illusions about the size of my audience, and I figured it would be easier to market a book with half a dozen other contributors helping out.

- Effort V. Return on Investment: I was more than capable of contributing 1-2 good short stories, but the more I had to put in, the more it would need to earn to be worth that effort.

There were also drawbacks to using this format, of course. For one thing the earnings would be split between contributors, meaning that each of us only gets about .30 per sale (which is less than my affiliate cut for actually selling a copy of the book through one of my links by about .10 for those who are curious). Additionally the more people who are part of a project, the bigger the chance there is for something to go wrong (someone has to duck out, there's delays caused by family or health crises, etc.). And there was definitely a lot of reshuffling, reaching out, and follow-ups that had to be done to finally get this project out in front of the reading public.

At the end of the day, however, I didn't expect this project to be some viral sensation that paid my bills for the rest of the year. What I was hoping to accomplish was that this book would act as a proof of concept that there was an audience out there for tie-in fiction, and that it was a viable product worth pursuing... in no small part because I'd like to write more stories about some of my favorite games.

So Why Am I Telling You All This?

I told you all that story so you would have context for what I'm asking this week. Because the one truth I've tried to drive home in my Business of Writing posts is that financial success and quality of writing are not really connected at all. Books full of great stories and interesting prose will languish in bargain bins unseen and unread, while poorly-written schlock climbs to the #1 slot and makes its creators rich beyond the dreams of mortal men. What decides a project's success isn't the talent or drive of the writers... it's the voice of the readers who scream for more.

Whether you're someone who enjoys RPG tie-in stories, a person who likes werewolves, or just somebody who wants to see me write more fiction in general, I would like to ask you to please check out Tales From The Moot. My goal is to get it to at least Copper sale status (51 sales), though Silver status (101 sales) would be preferred. If we manage the former goal, creators will make about $15. The latter would net us each $30 or so. More to the point, though, even selling that many (or that few, depending on your perspective) copies would mark this out as a success by RPG product terms.

So even if you're somebody who wouldn't usually pick up an ebook, or anthologies are something that is a once-in-a-while thing for you, consider giving this one your time and energy. Especially if you want to help lay the ground work for future projects that might range across the World of Darkness, into Golarion, and other settings with community use platforms that are ripe for new tales to tell!

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!