View From the Bushes

I told the DireKobold.com (back then I called it d20pdfs.com -- a horrible name, but one which I had registered for a year) idea to a couple of friends, and they all thought it was pretty cool, and that was the end of it. I didn't do anything more for at least a year. At work, my boss had been out sick for about 8 months when they finally decided to fill his job. So I applied and just as they were about to fill the position, my boss recovered. I don't think I would have gotten it anyway; it was after the dot-com bust and there were literally hundreds of applications.

After my boss came back, I felt like I needed something to shoot for some other big goal. Initially I thought I might finish my novel (I had 100 pages of some fairly inconsistent stuff). But I thought, "Why wait for years to start making money when I can start making money in months with the dynamic adventure idea." I was pretty clueless. If I had know the amount of effort it would require I would have never started. Though having done it, I'm glad I did.

For some reason, my biggest worry during this time was that someone would beat me to the punch; it seemed like such a cool idea. What I failed to grasp was that PDF publishers are to RPG publishing what Kilgore Trout is to Science Fiction. That, despite an enormous amount of effort by some, the low entry cost to PDF Publishing has given everything about it a hue of "effortless shoddiness," and a deep hole to dig out of.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross