This is the fourth year of our tradition of year-end update blog posts. I keep expecting them to become boring and they keep failing to meet that expectation. There’s never a dull moment to running a business.
Map Mishap
The year started off on a high note because we had just released the print edition of Magonomia® and we thought we were finished. We soon discovered the map of Enchanted England had some inaccuracies that were highly noticeable to customers in the UK. I (Andrew Gronosky, chief cook and bottle-washer) take responsibility for that. The artist who made that map wasn’t a specialist historical cartographer. He did a good job on the task as he understood it. I missed the opportunity to explain the importance of sticking to the historical reference maps I provided. I also missed the opportunity to run the finished map by the real history experts on the freelance team.
Once some UK fans pointed out the errors, they graciously helped me correct them. We got an updated map into both the PDF and print-on-demand versions of the book, and you can download the map itself if you like. Customers who bought a print copy before the map was fixed can write to service@shewstone.com to request an updated copy for the cost of printing and shipping. (We can’t afford to just print and ship new books to everyone, but an at-cost replacement copy is no problem for us.)
What I’ve learned from this is that historical maps of real places require a lot more engagement from the art director than I used to think they did.
Magonomia Sold at Gen Con 2022
Shewstone missed Gen Con 2022 again due to Covid concerns. But our book was there! Magonomia Core Rules was sold on the convention floor from the Indie Press Revolution booth. This marks seven years since the inception of what would become Magonomia in a bar at Gen Con 2015 to actually selling print copies at the convention. Achievement unlocked! Shewstone Publishing has leveled up again. Now we’re a 6th level RPG publisher.
Indie Press Revolution is a great partner. They made this level-up achievement possible. Thanks, Jason!
Marketing and Social Media Challenges
I have a family member who works for a marketing company, and they tell me social media marketing performance plummeted in 2022. This is across all industries, not just roleplaying games. In 2019 when we crowdfunded Magonomia, Facebook ads are what got us across the finish line. In 2022, we tried some Facebook ads and they didn’t bring in enough sales to pay for themselves. I’ll leave it to pundits to speculate why, but the truth is self-evident: to grow the business, Shewstone needs a new marketing strategy.
What does work reliably is: free products, our retail partnership, convention appearances, and guest appearances on podcasts.
Farewell to Twitter
Then there’s Twitter. Shewstone is done with it. Elon Musk made his three strikes against safety and accountability within two weeks of taking over. This is a person whose idea of “free speech” is calling one of the Thai cave rescuers a “pedo guy,” I’m unwilling to participate in a “community” where he sets the standards of propriety.
I deeply appreciate the friendships and collaborations I formed on Twitter, but I’m not looking back. Since I stopped logging in, I feel like a weight has been lifted. This means it was never the place for me. I’ve kept my personal and business accounts open so their handles can’t be taken over by someone else.
If you’re not already following Shewstone, you can find us on Facebook, Mastodon, or our email list.
Glorious Return to Kickstarter!
This year, we returned to Kickstarter with A Bestiary of Enchanted England - 400% funded in November. If you missed it, you’ll have to wait for the retail release in June 2023. We’re not accepting late pledges for this project.
Kickstarter has a new CEO, Everette Taylor, since September 2022. I’m pleased with the signals he’s sending. I will say the creator experience was vastly better than my first campaign in 2019. They answered my email promptly and resolved my issue on the first try.
Shewstone is using Kickstarter primarily as a marketing platform. I no longer expect a Kickstarter campaign will pay for the full costs of developing and producing a game book. The campaign gets Shewstone’s products in front of gamers who are outside our small social media bubble. Kickstarter is social media—its recommendation system is based on matching your interests to those of other backers. Unlike Facebook with its pay-for-reach model, Kickstarter has a financial incentive to amplify a creator’s message. At a time when other social media advertising is collapsing, Kickstarter is looking better every day. Analytics show that 25% of our pledges—$500—came from Kickstarter’s discovery and recommendation systems.
The Bestiary project is turning out great. Our writing team of Ars Magica veterans clearly enjoyed writing this book. They went off the beaten path to research creatures from authentic British foklore that I’ve never seen in another RPG bestiary. During development, the team and I settled on an approach of writing plot hooks for every creature. Even though it’s too late to back the project, do yourself a favor and check out the previews and updates on our Kickstarter page!
Awesome new freelancers!
For Shewstone’s 6th level class feature, I picked “awesome freelancers.”
Early in 2022, I put out a call on Twitter for freelancers to write adventures for Magonomia. Four freelancers answered the call, nearly doubling the size of the writing for that game line. They’ve all turned in manuscripts. Working with the newcomers has been a delight. I’ve learned and grown from their perspectives, and I think they’ve done outstanding work.
We’ve also recruited three new freelancers for an entire new product line that I’ll announce at the end of this post.
Reality check on capacity
2022 was also a reality check on how many projects I can lead at a time in this part-time gig. A Bestiary of Enchanted England was no joke to manage and edit. There are 34 creatures in this book, each of which has full game statistics to review. Each needs an illustration. This project made me realize, even more than the Core Rules project did, that management is skilled work. I updated my LinkedIn profile to no longer downplay my Shewstone work. This isn’t just a hobby.
I’ve learned I can really keep two RPG projects going at a time alongside my day job and the rest of my life. Anything more than that ends up on a back burner. I have about nine projects in the pipeline. I don’t think they’ll all get finished in 2023. This new and sober view of how much we can get done led me to choose the Temperance tarot card for the header image of this post.
Outlook for 2023
It helps to remind myself that Magonomia Core Rules wasn’t even available in print form until late 2021, and not on store shelves until June 2022. Sales seem to be picking up, though still a long way from the break-even point. The task now is to support the product line with adventures and supplements.
Our top priority is A Bestiary of Enchanted England because we’ve made a commitment to backers to deliver on a certain date (May 2023). We’ll make a lot of noise about it when the retail release comes. It’s on track to be in the Indie Press Revolution booth at Gen Con 2023!
We’re working on a new Quick Start for Magonomia. The current Starter Rules tried to be a self-contained, playable game. The new Quick Start is a leaner product that requires Fate Condensed or Fate Core as a rules reference. It includes an original adventure by Jaclyn Lewis. I can’t commit to a release date yet because I don’t know how long playtesting will take.
We have six other Magonomia adventures that are written and have been playtested in-house at least once. How many make it to DriveThru in 2023 depends mainly on long it takes to organize and complete external playtests.
Announcing the World of Drintera™
For years now, I’ve harbored an ambition to apply Shewstone’s love of history and real-world folklore to create a rich, plausible fantasy RPG setting. In fall 2022, I set the plans in motion. Work has begun on the world of Drintera™.
We’re laying the foundations of this project—still assembling the hand-picked creative team. I can tell you this much:
This will be a world with many cultures, not all of them based on European patterns.
Drintera will be system agnostic. That means it’s all “fluff:” lore, history, mysterious legends, unresolved conflicts, adventure seeds, myths, and quests. That’s what a GM needs to help build a truly memorable campaign. Bring your own “crunch” (character classes, powers, and other rules).
There will be a lot more to say about Drintera over the coming months. Right now we’re still laying the foundations: recruiting a handpicked team of history, mythology, and anthropology geeks and building the world from the gods downward. Join us on Facebook, Discord, or Mastodon to follow along and to share your thoughts about what makes a best-in-class fantasy RPG world!
