Out now on Amazon Kindle
Last Friday, October 14th we published a wonderful steampunk story, “I Made a Friend“, about a boy looking to fill the void left by his father’s death in the Great War. The author, Philip Athans, is a New York Times Bestselling Author and a two-decade veteran of the fiction and gaming industries. Having worked at Wizards of the Coast as Senior Editor for 15-years, Philip left WotC in 2010 to work on his own fiction and to develop his transmedia consulting firm Athans & Associates. We caught up with Philip by email and via Twitter to ask him about writing, the publishing industry, and gaming. This is Part 2 of our interview. If you missed the first half of the interview, you can read Part 1 HERE.
Jonathan: How important do you think it is to stay connected, in a creative context, to other writers? Are you part of any existing writers group?
Philip: I’m actually a pretty shy, closed-off, bipolar guy who generally doesn’t like people, but without a circle of trusted allies, I would simply disappear. I’m not a member of a writer’s group, per se, but I do have friends I can bounce stuff off and who know they can ask the same of me. This is absolutely essential for any author.
I’m currently working with my friend Mel Odom, who wrote a few books for me when I was at WotC, on the cooperatively self-published series Arron of the Black Forest. We share the credit, but we’re trading off writing books in the series, with the guy who’s name comes first doing the writing, and the guy who’s name comes second acting as editor. The first book, The Haunting of Dragons Cliff, is up for sale now for the Kindle and Nook, and I had a blast writing it. We went back to the sort of fantasy that made us love fantasy in the first place: sword and sorcery in the Weird Tales tradition.
I’ve also gathered up a bigger group of authors for a bigger-scale shared world cooperative we’re not yet ready to go public with but I’m freaking out, I’m so excited about the line-up and the weird, cool, story-rich setting. Look for the first book, a short story anthology, by Christmas.
Jonathan: What about gaming or trade conventions? What’s the best way to get the most out of a Con as a stakeholder (e.g. an author, artist or publisher)?
Philip: I’ve had a love/hate relationship with conventions for years, though in all honesty it’s more love than hate. I really feel like I’m “among my people” at conventions, and though I’m not too fond of travelling, especially alone, I’ve been to so many conventions over so many years, it feels like second nature to me.
As far as which cons to go to as an author, artist, or publisher, that’s ultimately going to be a decision made based on your immediate goals. There are two types of conventions: trade shows and consumer conventions. Trade shows like E3, GAMA, or BEA are closed to the general public and you’ll have to jump though some hoops to prove you’re some kind of industry insider in order to get it. The consumer shows like San Diego Comicon, Gen Con, etc., are open to the public. If I had to be pinned down to a “you must” statement, I’d say that you must go to at least one from each category every year.
This past year I went to the consumer convention Wondercon in San Francisco, and E3 for business contacts. Small publishers should think seriously about BEA (Book Expo America), and if you publish fantasy and science fiction then either or both of the Worldcons. If you aren’t a big player, you will get lost in the massive cons like San Diego. For that same reason, artists looking for portfolio reviews will want to look for smaller regional cons, and only go if the publishers you hope to work for are sending art directors specifically for that purpose. Authors should go to the World Fantasy Convention. If you’re in the pencil-and-paper RPG business in any capacity, Gen Con is still the place to be, and add GAMA to that if you’re looking to do business (sell a game, sell yourself as a freelancer or employee, or show off your business to distributors and retailers). And as with literally everything, smart advanced planning will help you get the most out of your visit. Contact convention personnel and ask about getting on a panel or two, or hosting one of your own. Make sure someone is selling your book in the dealer’s room, etc.
Wil Wheaton & Philip Athans
Jonathan: You do an excellent job promoting yourself and marketing your work. What successes can you highlight for us and what advice can you share for new authors?
Philip: The fact that I can’t really point to a clear success as an example is the reason I offer this advice for self-promotion: BE PATIENT! The social media universe is huge, wide-open, and free, and that’s great for anyone looking for any attention for anything, but it also means the field is spectacularly crowded. I hope you don’t need me to tell you that you will not be the only person out there with a Facebook page. In fact, “the field” is effectively EVERYONE.
You have to put the work in, and think of social media not as some sort of “advertising campaign” with a clear beginning and a clear end, but as a permanent agenda item. You can’t just open a Twitter or Facebook account and sit on it, you have to post, and you have to make your Tweets (etc.) something people find interesting. There’s always room for a little shameless self promotion, but also use social media to connect to people. Talk about movies you’ve seen lately or books you’ve read. Send out links to interesting things you’ve seen online that in some way or another relates to what you’re doing. I tweet and retweet all sorts of stuff about SF, fantasy, and horror books, TV, movies, and games, as well as publishing in general, space and other science news, and even my fantasy football team and personal nonsense just for fun. If you’re only saying some variation of “Buy This Book,” people will tire of that quickly, and so will you. Use social media to connect, occasionally to promote, and understand that this is going to be a slow, constant process.
Jonathan: Early in your career were you ever been directly mentored by another author who took you under their wing? If so, who and what sort of influence did they have on your craft?
Philip: As an editor, I was immensely fortunate to have been hired at TSR before it was sold to Wizards of the Coast and many of us—but not all of us—were moved from Wisconsin to Seattle. One of the people who didn’t make the move was veteran editor Bill Larson, who got his first job as an editor at Western Publishing (Golden Books) in 1964, which coincidently is the year I was born. (He hated it when I said that in meetings!)
They do not make editors like Bill Larson anymore, and I did my best to maintain his high standards as I moved through various stages of responsibility at WotC. I’m not sure Bill was conscious of mentoring me, but when he spoke, I shut my yap and listened.
Jonathan: On your personal site you mentioned you left Wizards of the Coast “bruised, but not beaten.” Can you expand on that a bit? Was there anything you discovered while at WotC that, in retrospect, you had wish you had known going in?
Philip: It’s impossible to overstate the positive influence that working at TSR and Wizards of the Coast has had on my writing and on my career. I learned so much from the authors, editors, game designers, art directors, graphic designers, artists, and other skilled professionals I worked with there, I couldn’t possibly list them all. When I said “bruised” I was referring to my last few years there, when what was my dream job (I came to TSR as a rabid D&D fanboy) had descended into office politics, administrative hell, and fighting against the increasingly bizarre decisions of a company that valued what I brought to it a little less every year. It was tough, in the end, but I have enormous respect for a lot of the people I left behind there, who are amazingly creative and passionate about the books and games that WotC produces, and are still fighting the good fight against the very people who should be empowering them.
What I wish I had known going in is to be wary of what I’ve come to call “Death by MBA.” Once a company—any company—decides it needs to “get serious,” and hires widget salesmen, it’s over.
Jonathan: Your comment on the changes in the marketplace both for consumers and content developers is spot on. How do you think the shift to ePUBs in the fiction markets will change the table top RPG publishing? Do you see any major RPG publishers going “completely digital” down the road?
Philip: During one of those Wednesday D&D games I pitched the idea to a friend in the sales department that WotC should sell D&D entirely in digital format, with handy apps to speed character creation and game play, and even buddy up with a hardware manufacturer to sell it pre-loaded on custom laptops that were made to mimic D&D’s “old tome” trade dress.
That might have been thinking a little big, but still there’s no question that the future of RPGs is in the digital sphere, in one form or another. In fact, I would submit that that’s not the future at all, actually, but the present. After a series of very strange decisions going back many years, the folks charged with managing the D&D brand really gave it away, and allowed first Everquest then World of Warcraft to literally beat them at their own game. And D&D has suffered greatly as a result, even though it still has enormous name recognition.
But yeah, if I were to get back into the pencil-and-paper RPG business there would be no printed books, that’s for sure.
Jonathan: Do you still play D&D? “Story gamer” or a “power gamer”?
Philip: At the time I left WotC I was playing in two weekly D&D campaigns at work, one at the end of the day on Mondays, which was my own Forgotten Realms game, and one during lunch on Wednesdays. I was having a ball learning 4th Edition, which is a decent game that I think has been unfairly maligned. But since leaving WotC I haven’t played D&D at all. My kids occasionally bug me to run a game for them, and I’ve been seriously considering the possibility—even going so far as to start reading up on some old adventure modules and whatnot. Lately I’ve really been getting that bug to get back to RPGs.
My favorites remain D&D (though in a sort of home-brewed combination of the really old basic D&D, first edition AD&D, and the ancient Judges Guild stuff), MegaTraveller, and Gamma World—I may pull out the latest edition of Gamma World to play with my kids. I think they’ll dig that. And it probably won’t come as a surprise that I’m much, much more a story gamer than a power gamer, and always have been.
Jonathan: What do you have coming down the pipe in 2012 that our readers can look forward too?
Philip: In 2012, look for the aforementioned secret collective anthology and follow-up book, another Arron book for sure (which will be called Blood Red Steel—you heard it here first!). I have a short story called “The City is Theirs” in the upcoming Warhammer anthology Age of Legend, and I’m currently talking with three different editors about as-yet secret projects I hope I’ll be able to start talking about publically very soon. Keep an eye on my Twitter feed (@PhilAthans) and my blog, Fantasy Author’s Handbook, for more on those projects and other stuff. And speaking of Twitter, if you follow me before I get to 1000 followers, you’ll be in line to win a signed copy of every one of my published books, which will go to one random winner, not number 1000.
Jonathan: Thank you Philip for your time. It was a pleasure!
