2nd Best Year Ever.
It will always
be a hard to top 2013, the year of the Lords of Gossamer & Shadow
(Diceless) Kickstarter & its retail release. The core book is an evergreen
product for us as are many of the supplements. Nevertheless, 2015 had the highest
amount of retail sales in out 8 year history. I am well pleased.
Diceless
This year
saw us continue release a small setting product each month, supported greatly
by Matt Banach’s work on his series of short inexpensive Gossamer Worlds PDFS,
Gossamer Worlds: GlimmerGloam becoming a best-seller. I even published Matt’s
crazy idea of an entire gaming product written in poetic verse, GossamerWorlds: Poetica Mundi, to great critical acclaim.
I also got
the opportunity to work with Rob Donoghue again with his excellent work on Lucien’s
Guide: Legends & Lies, plus we brought on H.M. “Dain” Lybarger who wrote Threats:
Secrets of the Annunaki and my personally favorite projects, Gossamer Words: Planet
Fiction, so you could ally or become the enemy of Sherlock Holmes along with
many other fictional characters.
Finally, we
have also started shipping the Kickstarter for our second Icon Deck of cards,
to allow GMs and Players to have representations of Icons in the Lords of
Gossamer & Shadow game or Trumps in their Amber Diceless games.
DrivethruCards really does amazing quality cards, I could not have done this project
without them.
For Diceless
2016, we will see the release of The Long Walk: Life On The Grand Stair, a
massive supplement which will come out of editing next quarter. Addendum Shapeshifting
which is in mock layout now. The retail release of the second Icon Deck, an
Adventure written by me, and of course more Gossamer Worlds. I also hope to do
one or two compilation print books. And launch a new Kickstarter once the Long
Walk is complete and in everyone’s hands.
Fate
We released
our supplement to our ENnie Award wining game/adventure The Demolished Ones, as
Robert N. Emerson gave us A Fly In The Ointment, which to me is really an enhancement
to the original story rather than a traditional supplement giving you a new experience
if you run the adventure a second time.
13th Age
We jumped
into a new license this year with support for The 13th Age, and
while its sales are not as strong as Pathfinder or Diceless, our strongest showing
being 101 Feats and Talents, it is profitable for us and we will continue to do
so through 2016.
Speaking of
2016 look out for the Book of Icons and the Taskshaper.
5th Edition
While there is
no official license for 5th Edition, I have chosen to follow the
model of Goodman Games and many other publishers and release content under the
existing OGL, as there is virtually nothing in 5th Edition that was
not published in one format or another during the d20 ERA by one company or
another.
As such Ed
Kabara has done a number of products for us from 101 1st LevelSpells to The Breaking of Forstor Nagar, and I look forward to him doing more
and more.
In 2016 I
hope to bring another 5e expert on board to create some additional products for
us.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game
We had some
amazing success in 2016, I was especially pleased to release the largest
product we have ever done with Faces of the Tarnished Souk: An Npc Collection.
Its really an amazing book doing what I wanted, and succeeding where I felt
every other book of Npcs had failed. Completely
both the Kickstarter and then its retail release is something every small publisher
longs for in the modern era of publishing. For a micro press like me, it’s
amazing.
Another big
milestone was the Martial Arts Guidebook completion after a long arduous production
(I will never use Indieagogo again); we have released to our backers the PDF
and are shipping the signed Print copies. The retail PDF has gained the highest
critical acclaim from Thilo “Endzeitgeist” Graff with a 5/5 start + seal of
approval and being recommended for his best for 2015. I am
more than well pleased.
We also saw
financial success, with such products The Secrets of the Iron Titan, which let folks,
finally play the construct character they wanted to. The Kaiju Codex, which
brought Godzilla and Pacific Rim to your Pathfinder game. Along with great new
ideas like the 101 Environment Spell Series by Dave Paul who has gone from
being our go-to-editor to being a major writing force with this series.
Speaking of
Dave Paul the editor, we launched our Patreon this year for our PathwaysE-zine. Allowing us to add two additional paid articles by some of the greatest
talents in the industry. As always by using a different cover artist every
month, we give work to new talent that micropress publishers can afford, and
allow them to demonstrate the quality of work they can do on a deadline.
This also allows us to find some of the best
artists in our freelance stable like Dennis Darmody, Ernanda Souza, and Juan
Diego Dianderes. Plus it allowed us to find new talents this year like Lee
Pfenniger, Melvin Chan, and Manuel Castanon. I however never seem to have
enough work for all the artists I love so if you a publisher check these folks
out and give them some work.
We also
launched a great Kickstarter this year with In the Company of Dragons, upgrading
the original small PDF, that allows you to play a dragon right alongside other
PCs, into a much larger book, we already have the manuscript complete and its
off in editing land so we are on schedule to release it in 2016.
We also had big
fun with our April fools product In the
Company of Gelatinous Cubes, because who doesn’t want to play Jell-O.
Systemless
I would be
remiss if I did not mention the skill of Tommi Salama’s Rite Map Packs and his
amazing cartography. I really enjoy every time we get to put one of these out.
He has taken the Pathfinder Rpg community by storm as I swear I now see his
cartography everywhere I look.
Failures
No year is
perfect, and Rite Publishing has failures like any other company. I always believe
in transparency, we acknowledge our mistakes, learn from them, and move not to
make them again in the future.
Kaidan
Campaign Setting (PFRPG): Never start a Kickstarter without the manuscript
being done. If you do don’t every allow
the burden to fall all on one author, bring in others, a singular vision is
awesome but you can break the writer. Also because it’s taken so long we have
lost or original artists for the project. This manuscript is done, edited, and
the mock layout is done. We are now moving forward with artwork. Therefore,
this is a production timeline failure, but not a failure as a product and will
like the martial arts guidebook will become a success in 2016.
Adventure
Quarterly (PFRPG): This is another timeline failure, not a product failure, as
the adventures, art, and cartography have been stellar. We do an amazing job
putting Pathways out on time every month, but I fail to get AQ out every
quarter. Once issue # 8 is complete, Robert N Emerson (editor-in-chief) and I
will be making changes with Adventure Quarterly so that we can fix this
problem.
Gossamer
Options: Characters (Diceless): I should not be an editor. I don’t have the
time or the skill to be great at this. This book needed a better editor than me
and any failings on its part are due to my failures as an editor and developer.
It’s not a bad book, but it’s the weakest of the Diceless line, and we have set
that bar so high that a standard book like this ends up coming out weak.
The Long
Walk: Life On The Grand Stair (Diceless): This is a failure of timeline again,
projects sometimes just get behind, it is in editing now and will come out of
that next quarter, but what I should have done on this from the beginning was
bring a second experienced writer in to assist with this book from day one. It’s
sadly the same mistake I made on Kaidan, putting too much on one author and one
editor. Now that we are past all of it, it’s an awesome manuscript, heck I am
running the adventure as part of my home game. I am really looking forward to
publishing this one.
So the big
lessons from 2016, don’t be afraid to use multiple authors on large projects,
don’t be afraid to bruise someone’s ego by bringing in another author late in a
project (even your own) because you are saving their sanity and your own. Oh
yeah, and I am not allowed to be an editor.
The Future
I want to do
things with PFRPG Occult Adventures maybe a 1920s Noir Chicago adventure path, I want
to do the Gateway Pass adventure series, where your PCs never leave the local
outpost and the adventure comes to you. I
want to publish more In the Company of (Rakshasa, Daemons, Demons, Devils,
& Unicorns) next year.
I want to do
a Bestiary for Lords of Gossamer & Shadow (Diceless) probably a Kickstarter. A series were we detail
a single world in the Shatterlight series. See some fiction written for the
game system, plus a guide to powers series, along with continuing the Gossamer
Worlds, Threats, and Lucien’s Guide Series.
On a
personal note, I hope to finish my novel Tartarus: A Superhuman Prison.
