Laura and I were at Dragon*con in Atlanta this last weekend and someone there recorded this reading I gave from the first book in the Dragon’s Bard series: Eventide.
Tracy Hickman reading at DragonCon from tyanna taylor on Vimeo.
Reindeer Gamer and Santa’s Sleigh
A few years ago, Laura and I designed a holiday board game as Christmas gifts for our friends and family. We grew up playing board games with our parents when we were children and found the holidays to be a special time to connect with our own children through the playing of games — and wanted that tradition to continue. This holiday season we decided we wanted to make that same connection available to you.
So we created Reindeer Gamer — a holiday games website –where we can make available family games for the holidays. This year we’re offering that same game we designed for our own family and friends; Santa’s Sleigh Ride. (Come enjoy the video for the game!) Santa has failed his Canadian Sleigh Driver’s License test and must find an elf to be his ‘designated sleigh driver’ until he can get his glasses fixed. It’s a race around the world to see which elf can deliver his presents the fastest — and they’re not above bumping a sleigh or two out of their way to get the job!
In the Hickman Holiday twist — you can download a completely playable version of this game and play it RIGHT NOW while waiting for your premium color board to arrive in the mail!
‘Santa’s Sleigh Ride’ is a holiday board game which you can download right now for $18 – AND we’ll send you the premium full-color game at no additional cost. The first 100 orders will even have the board signed by us!
Fear the Boot Interview – Part II
This is the second half of Tracy Hickman’s interview on ‘Fear the Boot’ podcast this week.
- (0:19) The role of online communities in finding, building, and sustaining an audience. If you’re interested in Dragonlance, be sure to check out the Dragonlance Nexus.
- (3:44) The value of art, entertainment, and ideas on the internet. Why free may not always be the best price. Tracy’s plan for nurturing new authors in this environment.
- (14:34) Tracy’s experience of co-authoring with his wife. The importance of a continual feedback loop in the creative process. The struggles of writing and the joys of having written.
- (19:43) The Dragonlance movie. Watching other people take over your creative properties, and the “original bad deal” that gets you published.
- (25:17) Whether Tracy ever plans to do anything more that’s directly in the RPG market. His new book series, starting with Song of the Dragon.
- (29:20) What’s up with the dragons? That question leads into a discussion on the monomyth, cognitive dissonance, and the human penchant for narrative.
Hosted: Chad, Dan, Pat, Wayne.
You can visit this episode on the Fear the Boot episode web page or listen to it right here…
Tracy Hickman on Fear the Boot
Tracy Hickman was interviewed on the ‘Fear the Boot’ podcast this week, with the first half of his interview available now.
- (0:32) Who Tracy Hickman is and where you probably know him from.
- (3:41) The story of how Tracy’s wife and a missed ride got him into gaming.
- (8:25) The current trend in complexity and execution of roleplaying games. Be sure to check out both X-treme Dungeon Mastery and Killer Breakfast.
- (27:41) Raising his son in the hobby, and the experience of co-writing X-treme Dungeon Mastery with him.
- (30:56) The strangest places he’s seen his own material, and the unique relationship between an author and reader.
- (36:52) The impact of social networking and new media on the publishing industry … with a discussion on the dragonsbard series.
I hope you’ll join us there for the second half of the interview next week in which we talk more about new media, Dragonlance (including the movie), community building, my upcoming projects, and more! Hosted: Chad, Dan, Pat, Wayne.
You can visit this episode on the Fear the Boot episode web page or listen to it right here…
The Dragonsbard comes to GENCON
The Dragonsbard came to the GENCON Convention held this last week in Indianapolis, Indiana from August 4th through August 8th, bringing many new subscribers into our village anxious to meet the townspeople and hear the stories of Eventide around the hearth.
The journey opened on Thursday in the Tayler Corporation booth (#1921) in the convention’s Exhibit Hall. There, Tracy and Laura began signing special bookmarks (shown to the left) and giving them away to everyone coming to the booth. In addition, Laura brought her netbook and there we offered what we called the ‘Where’s Laura?’ special: anyone signing up on the spot through her netbook received an additional special discount. Much to our delight MANY people instantly availed themselves of this offer. When our system repeatedly failed to process two men through our system on three separate days and using several different credit cards they came back with cash in hand from an ATM raid just so they could make sure they became subscribers before leaving the convention! Indeed, one subscriber at the convention had read up through chapter six by the time I next saw him in the booth.
One of the personal highlights for me of the entire convention came on Friday at noon when I gathered with our friends who had previously subscribed to Dragonsbard and had come to the convention. We made the journey across the street to the ‘Red Dragon Inn’ — a Marriott restaurant hastily remodeled for the convention. Over a private lunch, we got to chat about Eventide, our favorite parts thus far in the story and a bit about the future of Dragonsbard. It was wonderful to put faces to the names on the message board and especially to have that quieter and more relaxed time together in the middle of the convention chaos.
Eventide Lunch (Click to enlarge)
Of course, Killer Breakfast on Saturday morning was our biggest event. We had our Eventide video commercial as part of our lead-off and, if you can believe it, there were several players who came on-stage who deflected my mock-wrath from killing their characters by dropping the Dragonsbard hint. One came onstage with his ipod playing in his ears and told me he was listening to the Eventide Audio Book!
Laura Hickman, Felcia Day and Tracy Hickman
One final note … if you’re a fan of either ‘Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog’ or the internet series ‘The Guild’ as I am, then you’ll recognize this delightful woman who made an extra effort to come by our booth — Felicia Day. It turns out that we are mutual fans and it was thrilling to get to meet her at last.
We are home now from the convention, having spread the word about our wonderful little village of Eventide, the stories being told there and the wanderings of the Dragonsbard. We have many new friends who are joining us here and more each day. It was a thrilling time … but I’m sure both you there and Laura and I here are anxious now to get chapter 10 written and out to you early this week … so that we can be back on track with chapter 11 this coming Saturday. Let the writing begin!
Tracy on Sci Fi Saturday Night
The good folks over at Sci Fi Saturday Night had me on their show last week to talk about Dragon’s Bard, publishing and everything else under the sky. My actual interview is about half an hour in although I participated throughout the show. Here are my thoughts on the current state of the Dragon’s Bard project and the value of the written word. It’s also interesting in that in includes a false start and a bit of us all together after the show ended.
Evolutionary Publishing
In business, one must evolve or become extinct. Nowhere is this more evident than in the state of Book Publishing today.
Changes both in the economic market and in information technologies have left traditional publishing at a standstill, each waiting for someone else to make a move.
We believe this is due, in part, to many publishers misunderstanding the fundamental function of their business. Generally, book publishers believe that they are in the business of ‘making and selling books.’ This seemingly obvious conclusion is, in fact, misleading. Printers are in the business of making books. Distributors, wholesalers and retailers are in the business of selling books.
The fundamental function of Publishing is to be the Arbiters of Literary Quality.
Publishers and their associated editors have always been the arbiters of quality. ‘Being published’ was and remains a symbol of achievement precisely because it took a quality work to see print. It has never been an issue of censorship – publishers have traditionally been in the forefront of putting new and controversial ideas into print – but it has always been about whether the writing and presentation of the ideas was worthy of the book form.
This ‘mistake of the obvious’ has considerable historical precedence. The ‘Rail Barons’ of the late 18th and early 20th century believed they were in the ‘railroad business’ when, in fact, they were in the ‘transportation’ business and initially failed to evolve when air transportation developed as a direct challenge to their market. Because railroads were slow to understand that the fundamental nature of their business was transportation, passenger rail travel lost its near monopoly grip on passenger transportation and never recovered its previous market share.
Likewise, when the Hollywood studio system collapsed in the 1950’s, motion picture studios believed that they were in the business of ‘making movies.’ The direct challenge to them from emerging commercial television signaled what many in the entertainment industry believed to be the death of motion pictures and their studios. Only when studios evolved and came to understand that their true business was in underwriting, marketing and facilities for independent entertainment production did the motion picture industry recover and is now thriving.
While traditional publishing waits, ebooks and internet delivery systems continue to evolve and consume market share. There needs to be an evolutionary step in publishing to keep pace with the evolution of other information technologies.
Dragon’s Bard represents an evolutionary step in publishing – combining the classic form of the serialized novel with the power of the internet to provide a unique experience for the reader and a treasured book at the end of the journey.
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