Looking to buy a copy of Solipsist? From today you can find it on the Un-Store alongside a raft of other quality games that are sold direct.
Of course you can also get hold of a copy by going direct to "http://www.solipsist-rpg.com, and if you do you'll notice some changes to our website, specifically that it's no longer just the site for the Solipsist RPG, but now the site for Solipsist RPGs the company.
Yes, I'm proud to announce that my 9 month collaboration with BoxNinja games has come to an end, and Solipsist is now being produced entirely by me, as will the upcoming Eekamouse in Atlantis and, I hope, many other future products. You'll see the new company name on IPR and RPGNow as well as the Un-Store.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Gregor Hutton for all his help in getting me to this point, he's been magnificent. Just this time last year I'd never considered the possibility of publishing my own game, and Gregor helped me get from that point to now, the official launch of my new company. Along the way I've learnt an amazing amount about the small-press world, and we've both learnt some fascinating lessons about how Indie publishers should, and should not collaborate.
Yes! This good news and people can find David on the un-store, LULU, IPR and (soon to be, I hope) OBS.
Basically, I see this as a great triumph for David and myself. I think back to over 18 months ago when David was first setting out to get Solipsist published. To David it seemed a huge, complicated step to publish, which I assured him it was not. He was unconvinced, but open to being persuaded (and to me publishing Solipsist in the first instance!). We worked hard to get the book done and in March it debuted at Conpulsion with much (justified!) success.
Our aims were to do a main print run and see if it would sell through and then re-evalute. We had a pencilled in mark of a year to sell through the run, but it has been embraced by fans in far better numbers than we dared hope. As a result we sold out an initial run of 30 copies from LULU in the first weekend and the main run of 150 from Fidlar Doubleday in the US is almost through now too.
So, for a reprint. The fact that it has sold approximately 200 copies in print and PDF since March, with relatively little fuss, allowed me to show David that he can and should keep publishing it. And it should be him, not me, building up his name and getting the credit. In fact, he does his own website and direct sales and has effectively been a publisher in all but name for some time.
I like to think that BoxNinja helped David find an audience and smooth the way into the world of Indie Publishing, but he now knows how to do it all himself and doesn't need me standing around in the way! With exciting books ahead for David (Eekamouse in Atlantis, for instance) it makes sense for him to have all his books clearly under his own umbrella.
Solipsist always has been creator owned. David paid for the books, made the decisions (after listening to my advice and experience) and took the profits. BoxNinja received a modest fee for co-illustrating and designing the book, and for publishing it (it wasn't all just laying out the book you know!). But, with immediate effect David has paid me a one-time fee for the art and layout. So future printings, PDF sales and so on are no longer my concern. It all goes to David and will triumphantly appear under his imprint, not mine.
In respect to your and Gregor's pleasure at this, I will stifle my own opinion about the one-man-show game aside from this single mention.
I'll be checking out your site in the near future, because discussion around here has intrigued me into looking into Solipsist, and just the name has made me curious about Eekamouse.
Oh, this is an interesting case with regard to collaborations and ongoing publishing, actually.
Solipsist is David's idea and work. On the game there was no more collaboration from me than I suspect any designer has with an Editor, a playtester, an illustrator and publisher. They help with these particular things, sure, but this is not a joint creation. At one point David was wary of this becoming something other than wholly his -- he need not have worried, that was never going to happen with me (though as I've seen in a rather lengthy thread on Another Site™ recently there are those who would have you create and write something then red-edit it and slap their name on it...). And it is not a collaboration like, say, Malcolm Craig and Paul Bourne have on their books -- where the words that Malcolm writes influence Paul's art and vice versa. They are two sides of a coin, a real creative partnership.
The collaboration we did have was to get David from being unpublished-and-wishing-to-be-published to being-published. In that endeavour we were full partners. I see this as having come to a natural end. David has seen all the "secrets" (of which there are none, but the suspicion is always there from anyone who hasn't gone through the process themselves to convince them that there are none). And he has more ambition for this and future projects. I would be dead weight in these things to be honest. And why should I get the "rub" from his continued success?
So I feel this falls between the sole lonely creative and creative partnership and collaborations. David needed help with a very specific thing and I was sure in my own mind to not overstay my welcome, and also similarly careful to make sure that David stood on his own two feet when he could.
In celebration of Solipsist's graduation I'm tempted to run a Solipsist/Best Friends mashup in which 4 best friends with world-changing powers shift reality to determine who is prettiest and coolest. Tuxedo Mask with rose optional.
I love the sound of that. Gregor always did ask why there were rules for resisting other Solipsist's in changing reality ... now we know, it's because they are backstabbing you :)