Grabbing the Bird by the Neck

Songbirds is coming back~

I love printing books. Well, I love the process of designing books for print. I’ve been doing it for half a decade and throughout the process there have been many errors, learning curves, and setbacks, but it has never ceased being a blast. I’ve done everything from 25 copy runs of a magazine from a local printer, to 1000 copy runs from a large manufacturer. Those processes were similar in that they both revolved around communication and language, and different in that the upfront costs were separated by a fistful of digits.

To put it bluntly: printing books is expensive and time-consuming. There’s a reason most creators opt for going through publishers like Exalted Funeral, Space Penguin Ink, or Games Omnivorous, and it’s that beyond the logistics of storing, packing, and shipping books, the upfront cost of a print run increases the more books you want and the more decked out you want your book. Even the simple act of wanting thick paper increases price, let alone if you want to do some of the wicked stuff Mork Borg is able to pull off, with various types of paper scattered about, or the beautiful initial print run of Mausritter, with the cut-out cover.

GOD, BOOKS CAN BE SO SEXY!!

And if there’s one thing that I think sets our industry apart from a lot of other physical-media industries, it’s that we love our books. As visual media pull away from even offering discs, and audio media falls deeper into the clutches of streaming, tabletop games continue to exist and thrive in the physical realm. There’s something about a beautifully constructed book that begs you to hold it, to open it, to delve in and learn more about it.

The most intricate incursion into this space I’ve made was my print run of The Wizards and the Wastes, which was inspired by those old, dusty tomes on my father’s bookshelf. Dust cover, built like a hardcover novel from the 80’s, with uncoated, off-white paper, and gold foiling on the spine.

I want to push into that space again, but it’s genuinely impossible for someone like me to do that without kickstarter. I’m looking at some quotes from different printers right now, and for a 500 book run at the specs I want (hardcover, rounded spine, cloth cover with debossing, painted page edges) it’s going to cost around $10,000.

If I were even a small publisher, that’s the kind of cost that’d be worth taking, because you’ll definitely sell all 500 copies over a year or two and that 10k turns into 25k, which affords you another print run, and maybe even lets you get another book into circulation. The manta “you gotta spend money to make money” is very true. And that’s not even mentioning that it’d be way smarter to print 1000 copies (or more), because the more copies you’re printing, the cheaper each book costs to print.

Large production houses will put down 25k to print 10,000 copies of a book, knowing that they will distribute most of those to different outlets to sell over the course of 5 years or so, netting them 100k in the process.

These bigger numbers are partially speculation, but that’s the way it works in the print world. Spend large chunk of change in exchange for beautiful books that you hope to sell and make even larger chunk of change on.

I am operating as an individual, which often means that the profits from my books go to rent, groceries, and life expenses, PLUS whatever it takes to print and distribute the books. I am tired and don’t have a ton of connections to distributors to sell my books through (shout out to IPR for reaching out and making the process super easy). I am tired and I don’t run the most optimal business: I don’t run ads, I’m not on podcasts very often, I don’t do interviews rarely ever. I am generally reclusive, even online, and just find myself laying on my couch most nights, watching youtube, not wanting to do more work than I’ve already done.

I’m not saying this to garner sympathy or anything, just to demonstrate that there are different levels to this physical manufacturing thing. I spend 75% of my time writing and designing books. If I spent less time doing that and more time on running a business, I’d be doing the same amount of work and probably making the same amount of money. It would just be different work.

My goal when starting this whole thing was to emulate Super Giant Games, making quality projects and slowly accruing a small studio of folks to work on stuff with. I don’t know if I want that anymore because, to be honest, the business-side of things is not what I find fulfilling. You sort of have to make a decision when you reach a certain level, to either go all in on expanding your business, hiring other people, helping other people get their books made to expand your catalog, and generally become a distributor or publisher, or stay in your lane and hope people keep liking your writing.

I’m making a lot of generalizations and speculations here. All of it is rather personal. *I’ve* had to make that decision. I did the project manager/publisher thing for a year and it was just too much for me to handle on my own and too scary to loop someone else in fearing it might fail or collapse. I’ve sort of settled into this idea of “better to do it on my own” so that things stay my responsibility. So that I remain accountable to myself.

That doesn’t mean I still don’t want to reach for the stars in terms of books.

I’ve recently revamped the entire PDF of my adventure game, Songbirds. It’s just shy of 200 pages. All the ideas the kickstarter backers paid for and more: like a revamped dungeon section and a lifepath character creation that uses an entirely unique set of tarot cards. The first PDF was originally released July of 2023 for free-rpg-day. It’s almost been TWO YEARS since then.

That’s wild.

Since releasing the new PDF I’ve gotten a lot of questions about new prints. These questions have been filed away with the tons of questions and requests I’d gotten for reprints before that. The truth of the matter is that I either go to kickstarter and beg for the money (which is not beneath me at all), or I don’t reprint. I say “sorry, you missed out” to everyone asking and just move on. That’s what I’ve done for my entire career. I do a print run, I sell out, and I make a new game.

But I like Songbirds. It’s my baby. I have devoured every game, story, and world that’s inspired my 32 years of life and vomit-fed Songbirds with it. Like, no lie, I nursed this little PDF with ICO and Shadow of the Colossus after finding it abandoned in the street. I plucked the blood from its feathers with Blame! and Tower Dungeon. I licked it clean with a tongue roughened by Disco Elysium. I protected it with teeth (Mononoke) and claw (Metal Gear Solid). I divorced its deadbeat father and I raised it on my own (but no, thanks to everyone who has helped this project come to life, this is truly a collaborative effort and I love y’all).

I want to keep it going. I want to build it up and not lay it to rest.

What you’re seeing is one of Penguin Random House’s cloth cover classic reprints. You’ve probably seen them if you’ve gone into a Barnes & Noble anytime in the last two years. They are gorgeous. Like, genuinely. I adore them. I am salivating. I am again ingesting them and trying to force-feed this fucking bird with my puke.

I’ve been talking to printers. Getting quotes. Trying to see how close to this quality I can get.

I think it’s what Songbirds deserves. A cloth cover. Debossed art. Deep reds and blues.

But I don’t want to use kickstarter or backerkit or anything like that. I’m genuinely tired of all that right now. Exhausted.

If I’m continuing Songbirds, it’ll be because people want it and are willing to pay for it. And that’s honestly scary. To be able to afford a 500-book run (my goal rn), I need to secure 250 pre-orders (to afford a 1000-book run I need to secure 300, which is like, y’know, what I was talking about earlier). That’s half the copies. But, being able to afford that 500-book run means being able to pay some rent, and, when they’re all sold, being able to afford another print run.

250 feels like a big ask. I’ve sold more before, but that’s been with the help of Kickstarter. Asking 250 people to go to *my store* and purchase a copy of a book that might not ever reach print? That’s huge. That’s just a huge fucking ask. And the last thing I want to do is be cocky enough to hit “send” and then just never reach that goal. Never be able to order the books. Have those orders floating in the aether for all time.

So I want to sell you on the idea, okay? Come with me for a moment.

This is a very, very early mockup and is in no way the final cover. But this is the style I’m going for. This is using some of the graphics that I used in the book itself, but I’d want to fully design a new cover. But I’m using this so you can see the vision. Get the idea. The reds are debossed, sunken in slightly.

Beyond the stylistic change the front of the book will bring, there are a few minor tweaks I’d be making inside of the book:

1. I would be making the optional rule about HP the main rule: meaning, when you are reduced to 0hp, you mark a stress and regain your health. I think this makes the game dangerous but survivable. One of the biggest issues that was run into during playtests was that characters would die a lot after spending so much time on the lifepath character creation, and that was a bummer in a way that wasn’t enjoyable.

2. Luck would be replaced with a coin flip. I like it better.

3. Some tweaks and reworkings of the classes. I think there are a few that are lacking and some that are standouts—I want to make them all standouts.

4. Worldbuilding bits will be rewritten, added, and changed. Not to change the world, but to bring everything more in line aesthetically with what Songbirds is: sci-fantasy.

5. Rules verbiage will be edited and tweaked. There’s been a lot of new ways I’ve found to say things that I think the book would benefit from.

ALL of these changes are being made in a separate PDF that will be made available to everyone for playtesting and feedback. This is an iterative process and I don’t want to erase what’s already there, just bring it more into focus.

I want to lay the foundation for what will be future expansions and adventures. Things like Return to the Sun King’s Palace, to name just one. I want people to feel empowered to make more gifts/curses, more magic systems, and in general make it easier for people to go from reading the game to playing it. I’ve learned a lot over the last two years of running Songbirds and I want to pass that on to you.

I want to repeat that this is an iterative process. This will not magically drop out of nowhere. I will be doing these tweaks slowly over the next month or two and I will be very transparent about every step of that process. Songbirds is very precious to me and, again, I don’t want to erase what’s already there, just iterate.

SO! That’s the pitch. That’s the plan. Consider this me opening the floodgates and jumping headfirst into things. Pre-orders are up on the store. Again, there’s a threshold of pre-orders I need to hit to make this whole thing viable, so if you want to wait to see some of the changes or the completed cover, please do. Right now there is no rush.

Thank you all for your support. I’ll be doing updates here but you can also join the discord to chat with folks there and ask questions.

Until next time,

Snow