My Ultimate Character Background Questionnaire | dmleviathan (I built this from several questionnaires I found online. I hope it helps your NPCs or your player character’s backgrounds) Why was the character given the name he has? Does the character have a nickname? What is the source of the nickname? Is it flattering or not? What is the character’s hometown? How long has he lived there? Does he like it or want to get away or already miss it? Has he traveled much? Where & Why? Has he lived for a long period in another town? Which town(s)? Has he lived in any unusual/harsh environments? How does he react to it? How old is your character? What would somebody see at first glance (i.e. height, weight, skin color, eye color, hair color, physique, race, and visible equipment)? What additional attributes would be noticed upon meeting the character (i.e. Does your character have any personality quirks (i.e. antisocial, arrogant, optimistic, paranoid)? Does your character have any distinguishing marks (birthmarks, scars, deformities)? Are your parents still alive?
NO TRASH PROJECT Handbound Books and Journals BuildItSolar: Solar energy projects for Do It Yourselfers to save money and reduce pollution A Writer's Guide to Horses An Equestrian Writer’s Guide by Susan F. Craft In this motorized era the majority of humanity suffers from equestrian amnesia. Thoughts on equestrian writing by Long Rider authors Jeremy James is a Founding Member of the Long Riders’ Guild. Far be it for me to presume how anyone might tackle such a subject, since we all have our own idiosyncrasies when it comes to what to spout upon the subject of horses, but if there were one suggestion I would advance it would be to stop and think about any piece of received wisdom that people tend to hoy about without further thought. CuChullaine O’Reilly is a Founding Member of The Long Riders’ Guild, who has spent thirty years studying equestrian travel techniques on every continent. Doug Preston is a North American Long Rider who rode from Arizona to New Mexico across the Despoblado Desert, retracing the equestrian route of Coronado, a 16th Century Conquistador. As fiction writers, we cannot be experts in everything we write about. Sex/Age
Cape Falcon Kayak Aeon Timeline: Outlining Made Easy | Writing Is Hard Work Aeon Timeline is a great way to plan a novel. I broke down and bought Aeon Timeline. It was $39.99 in the AppStore, but so far it has been worth every penny. Even though there is currently not a Windows version, I have found the program to be probably one of the greatest tools for planning out multiple story arcs, keeping track of character relationships and viewing all of the subtle nuances of my novel at a glance. After watching a detailed video tutorial found on Scribblecode’s website, I was off and running, plotting out my fictional future timeline with ease. Events are things that happen on the timeline, but they are much more than that. Entities are not just characters. Arcs are like story arcs. One cool feature is that the calendar is not bound by the real world. Above all I found it easy to use. Like this: Like Loading...
BookBaby $19 Printing Maybe you just want to print one proof copy of your own book to see how good our book printing is. Or maybe you just want to know how good it feels to hold your very own printed book in your hands. Whatever the reason, thanks to this special single book offer, you can print a book extremely affordably. BookBaby makes it easy to print your own book. Any trim size, any binding... full-color inside... you name it. How Publishers Make Decisions About What to Publish: The Book P&L Photo by gonzalo_ar / via Flickr Note from Jane: Last year, I wrote and published the following article in Scratch magazine. It has been edited and updated for my site. In a widely shared excerpt from his memoir, My Mistake, publishing industry veteran Daniel Menaker described his first experience trying to acquire a book at Random House. P-and-L. When I started working at F&W Publications (now F+W) in 1998, P&Ls weren’t required before signing a book unless the book had to survive primarily on bookstore sales. As an acquiring editor, it was my responsibility to put together the P&L for every title I proposed and to make sure it would hit the target profit margin before wasting the pub board’s time with a proposal. Things have changed dramatically in the 15 years since I saw my first P&L. Click on the image to view full size. The following P&L is my creation—a from-scratch, stripped-down version of the form a publisher might use. Title Data Why aren’t we going with hardcover? Profit & Loss
The Authors Guild Fair Contract Initiative: A Preview - The Authors Guild On May 28 we announced the Authors Guild Fair Contract Initiative. Its goal is to shine a bright light on the one-sided contract terms that publishers typically offer authors and to spur publishers to offer more equitable deals. This is not an abstract issue: today’s contracts directly affect authors’ livelihoods and ability to control their works. As standard terms have become less favorable to authors in recent years, their ability to make a living has become more precarious. Authors are among our more vulnerable classes of workers. “Standard” contracts—the boilerplate offered to un-agented (or under-agented) authors—are even worse than those that most authors with agents or lawyers sign. Why do publishers insist on offering their newest partners more than a hundred conditions so dubious that they’ll quickly back down on them if asked? It’s time for that to change. Fair Book Contracts: What Authors Need Non-compete clauses must let the authors writeAuthors must be free to write.
James Mathe – Entrepreneur, Designer, Publisher I run a Facebook group with over 5000 designers and run several prototype events throughout the year at , , and major conventions like GenCon and BGG.CON – I also run this blog about game design and publishing. As such, I have the ears of many up and coming game designers and publishers. I’m constantly asked about reviewers and who accepts what. So I thought I’d create a downloadable worksheet of game reviewers for all to reference. This survey was created to capture that data. Hopefully it’ll help you find the games you want to review and cut down on the amount of unwanted solicitations you may get. The last column of the table tells you if they will pre/review Kickstarter products and if they charge for that service. If you would like to get on this list, please send me all the info through the contact link at the top of this page.