I just launched my latest Kickstarter for my third trilogy in the 12 for ’12 series: Dangerous Games. The pitch goes something like this:

Once a year, the greatest tabletop gamers in the world descend upon Indianapolis for Gen Con, the Best Four Days in Gaming, to play games, see friends, and have fun. They play things like D&D, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40,000, Settlers of Catan, Munchkin, and everything else they can get their hands on. Mostly the competition is friendly.

Sometimes it is not.

When a world-famous game designer turns up murdered at the convention, a group of gamers makes it their quest to figure out who killed him, and why. As they dig deeper, they start to question everything they thought they knew about the man: who he is, why someone hated him enough to kill him — and if he’s really dead. In the end, they must figure out who’s playing whom or risk not only losing this most dangerous game but their lives.

If that sounds like fun, check out the video below too, and then head on over to Kickstarter and place your pledge. The drive ends on June 17 (Father’s Day!), but that’ll be here before you know it. 

If you can also help spread the word, I’d appreciate that. The 12 for ’12 plan has been a huge success so far, but that all falls apart without help from wonderful people like you. Thanks!

Yesterday, I put Brave New World: Revolution up for sale on DriveThruFiction.com and here on my site. You can now also get it for the Kindle and for the Nook through their direct stores.

Best of all, although the book’s only been available for about 24 hours, it’s already hit #1 on DriveThruFiction.com! To frost that cake, Don’t Read This Book — Chuck Wendig’s Don’t Rest Your Head anthology, in which I have a story — sits at #2, and Gareth-Michael Skarka’s Tales of the Far West — in which I also have a story — stands at #7.

Thanks to all the people who have backed and bought the book so far. I’m just thrilled with the response. If you’ve enjoyed it, don’t be shy about posting reviews, whether on your own site, at Amazon, on Goodreads, or wherever else you like. Woot!

Amazon jumped the June 1 release date and has the audiobook of Carpathia for sale already. This is my first-ever audiobook release, and I cannot wait to hear it. The talented Ralph Lister provides the voice for it.

Amazon has it for the low-low price of only $11.24 at the moment for the whole nine hours. If you like your historical horror served up with a proper British accent — which only seems fitting, given the fact the heroes are all English — be sure to check it out.

I just uploaded the files for Matt Forbeck’s Brave New World: Revolution — the first book in my 12 for ’12 series — to a number of ebook retailers. It should be available soon for the Kindle and the Nook, and I’ll post links for those formats as soon as they’re ready. In the meantime, you can order the ebook immediately through DriveThruFiction.com and directly through this website in my spanking-new ebook shop. Both of those offer the book in ePub, Kindle, and PDF formats at a single price without any DRM getting in your way.

I set up the shop today (using Jigoshop for WordPress, for those who care to know such things), and it seems to work well so far. If you have any issues with it, though, don’t hesitate to let me know.

This past Sunday the New York Times ran an article by Julie Bosman about how certain genre writers used to write a novel every year but are now being asked to buckle down and write as many as two — or at least some short stories to supplement their annual book. It’s called “In E-Reader Age of Writer’s Cramp, a Book a Year is Slacking.”

As you might imagine, I found this hilarious.

Now, I’m not mocking any writer’s work ethic or process. We all write at our own pace, and in the end it’s what’s on the page that matters, not how fast it got there. Besides which, every one of the authors quoted in the piece has likely sold far more novels than I have, so clearly what they’re doing works well for them.

The reporter takes an odd angle at the story, highlighting how hard this pace is for authors to manage. I doubt any of the authors pushed that angle. While writing is challenging and can be difficult, it’s not hard work.

My brother, for instance, works as a carpenter, often outside all winter here in Wisconsin. That’s brutal. I get to sit in a climate-controlled room and make up stories during hours I set. By almost any yardstick, I have it far easier.

There’s a better angle for the article, and it’s buried there in the text. It’s about how the publishers who work with these bestselling authors have finally figured out that readers want more from an author than a single book each year. Writers like James Patterson have known this for years. He uses co-authors to help him come out with around a dozen novels a year, and they all sell well.

Here’s hoping more publishers figure this out soon. It’s one of the reasons I took up my 12 for ’12 challenge this year, to show that it can be done. However, the reason I’m self-publishing the books is that no big publishers would even think about taking on a dozen books from me — or anyone but James Patterson, it seems. Moving writers up to two books a year is a step in the right direction, but they still have a long way to go.

I’m in the final stages of planning my next 12 for ’12 Kickstarter. It’s for a trilogy of thrillers set at Gen Con, the largest tabletop games convention in the hemisphere. I call it Dangerous Games.

This combines two of my great loves — fiction and games — and just thinking about it gets me excited for it. I’ve been a professional game designer for over twenty years and a published novelist for eight. If the success of a book comes down to “Write what you know,” these books will be amazing.

I hope to launch the Kickstarter drive this week. I have a preview of the page up now. Head on over there to get a taste. 

I’m hoping to start my next Kickstarter for the third 12 for ’12 trilogy (a trio of thrillers set in the largest gaming convention in this hemisphere) sometime next week. This schedule is relentless, but I knew that going into it. Despite that, I’m having fun riding the wave so far.

I’m thinking about altering the structure of the Kickstarter a bit this time around. Rather than try to fund one book for $3,000 and set the others as stretch goals, I’m considering setting the goal as $10,000 for all three books. This comes with its own set of risks and benefits.

The reason I went with the original structure is that it’s great to be able to step forward and say, “Hey, we hit our goal right away! Here are some stretch goals to go even farther!” The trouble comes in the way I set up the reward structure to go with that. If you went in for a trilogy right away, you risked the stretch goals not being reached and then feeling like a fool for paying so much for one or two books rather than all three.

I never want a backer to feel like they made the wrong decision by choosing a higher level. Setting the whole trilogy as a goal means that no one has to worry about that. You know that if the drive succeeds, you’ll get all three books — and if it doesn’t, you’re not out a thing. That seems fairer, right? Of course, it means a higher risk of not getting funded at all, but if that happens, at least it’s a clean break.

That raises another question, though, which is whether or not I should restructure the reward levels to eliminate the single-book levels. I’m inclined to leave them in place, but I can see the allure of streamlining the structure down to just three or four regular levels, plus the premium ones.

I’m looking for feedback on this one. What do you think?

Marty and me at last fall's Gaming Hoopla.

Later today, I’m off to the Gaming Hoopla in Janesville, WI, just up the road from where I live. This is a great little convention that the folks here run twice a year, and the proceeds all go to Relay for Life, the big event for the American Cancer Society. So, you get to do something for a good cause and have a ball doing it.

I’ll be there with my son Marty this afternoon and maybe into the evening. (I’m still trying to catch up with my work after that horrible illness last month, so I may cut out at a reasonable hour to get back to my keyboard.) At 2 PM, I’m running a seminar on designing and publishing games. If you’re around, come on by, ask me questions, get things signed if you like, and play some games. Hope to see you there!

I really hoped I wouldn’t have to write this kind of note this year, but here we go.

I’m not going to get 12 for ’12 Book 4 (Shotguns & Sorcery Book 1) done by the end of the month, which is today. I had two kids down with a terrible cold this month. They’re good boys — even when sick — and are on the mend. Even so, taking care of them slowed down my writing a bit. It’s one of the hazards of working from home — and one of the great benefits too.

I still had high hopes to get the book done on time, right up until I came down with the same thing myself last week. I even wrote through the coughing, sore throat, and headaches for the first few days, but then last Friday the whole thing morphed into a sinus infection with a high fever that knocked me flat for three days. I’m back out of bed now, but not quite up to full speed.

So, does this torch 12 for ’12? Not at all. I’m still going to write 12 books this year. I just won’t finish one of them in April. I plan to wrap this book up by the end of the week, just a few days into May.

As a longtime professional writer, I know all too well how a little slip can cause a domino effect on a schedule. I’m determined to catch up as fast as I can to make sure that this doesn’t happen.

My apologies for this. Believe me, no one’s more disappointed than me. However, it shouldn’t affect the writing of the stories and the delivery of the books by much at all.

As always, though, I want to do my best to keep you in the loop. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll field them as best I can between chapters. Thanks!

Last night, Gen Con announced this year’s slate of Industry Insider Guests of Honor. It includes an all-star list of talent:  Tavis Allison, Steve Kenson, Mark Rein-Hagen, Wolfgang Baur, T.S. Luikart, Elizabeth Shoemaker-Sampat, Stan!, Michelle Lyons, Gareth-Michael Skarka, Dennis Detwiller, Ryan Macklin, Christina Stiles, James Ernest, Dominic McDowall-Thomas, George Strayton, Jason Morningstar, Richard Thomas, Jess Hartley, Susan Morris, Rodney Thompson, Kenneth Hite, James Wyatt, and me.

That’s a fantastic lineup by anyone’s standards — and in this case Ken Hite, Stan!, and I helped out with setting those standards in our roles as members of the Industry Advisory Panel. While this is the largest slate of Guests of Honor ever for the show, we still had a hard time narrowing down the applicants. Any one of them would have been an excellent addition, and I hope those who didn’t make the slate this year submit their names next year as well.

This makes 2012 my tenth year running as a guest of honor at Gen Con. It’s always been my favorite time of year, and the honor tickles me every time. Come on down and join us in Indianapolis this August 16–19 if you can!