Hey, what a great surprise!

As I prowled through the Thrilling Tales stats this morning I found that Kickstarter has named my fundraiser their Project of the Day!

That’s wonderful news for all sorts of reasons. The Thrilling Tales fundraiser has gotten off to a good start in its first nine days – we’ve got nearly 20% of the target amount pledged and plenty of time, at that rate, to meet the goal.

Of course I’m a worrier, so I’m thinking grimly ahead. As far as I know, this week saw the last of the big site links to the Thrilling Tales site and so I expect my traffic there to taper off over the next couple of weeks. Naturally I don’t know about every incoming link, so something big could still be on the horizon. But, like I said, I’m a worrier and so I figure that the huge boost in traffic I’ve seen at the site has already peaked. That’ll make it harder in the coming weeks to get more excited eyeballs looking at the Thrilling Tales, buying books, and pledging to the Kickstarter drive.

But the news has been pretty good to date. The site’s had over 60,000 pageviews, for example, and the trailer has been viewed over 4,500 times (!).

That hasn’t converted to a lot of sales or support since these are mainly casual browsers looking at the Title-O-Tron, or even reading the first story… but then moving on. Most of my brain expected that – the whole idea behind a project like this is to offer free content as a way to draw in lots of visitors, and people who are happy to find things for free don’t necessarily become people who want to support those things. Like I said, most of my brain expected that. It’s currently explaining the facts of life to the rest of my brain, which was more optimistic. It’s a goofy, romantic thing.

So anyway it’s great to be featured by Kickstarter – the fundraiser is going to make a big difference to the next phase at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual… so long as we reach the goal. I’d cross my fingers but I’ve found from experience that’d make it really hard for me to type this.

So as I write this, Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual has seen almost 39,000 page views since its launch, just over two weeks ago.

I’ll take all the credit I can for that but the ball didn’t really start rolling until the site was mentioned at Dark Roasted Blend and Mental Floss. Nice!

As you might expect the Pulp Sci Fi Title-O-Tron is the most popular link and the most popular page, too. It’s been fun to watch the incoming links appear and to see where they’re coming from – often from conversations on forums.

I hate to pick favorites, but I will: there’s a fun conversation going on at Metafilter where people are posting random titles they like… to the point where they’re mapping out an actual series based on the titles. They seem to like a "Midshipman" trilogy that ends tragically with Lament for the Celestial Midshipman. But hey, folks, it doesn’t really need to end there: because with more titles like Gods of the Lieutenant of Phobos and Avenged by the Captain of Twilight there’s a clear path for promotion.

But this is why the Metafilter page stands out for me: John Scalzi chimed in with this:

I’m going to take one of these titles and write a science fiction story out of it.

SHUT UP I TOTALLY WILL.

You’ll see. You’ll ALL see.

posted by jscalzi at 6:56 AM on May 9

But which would it be? The Dancing Professor of the Worlds? Pursued by the Quivering Accountant? The Night of the Tentacle of Terror? or… The Song of the Accordion of Doom?

In other news, I’m happy to say that there’s been some response to my Kickstarter fundraiser for the Thrilling Tales. It may look like a small percentage so far… but at the rate we’re going we can certainly meet the goal. If, you know, we do keep going at that rate. So remember: Long arms and shallow pockets beat short arms and deep pockets!

 

The Thrilling Tales project is a lot like a web comic – the content’s available for free on the web or for purchase as printed books. The biggest difference is that because the stories aren’t linear I can’t post updates a couple of times a week. And going by Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves, those updates will be months apart.

For that reason I’m planning to add linear illustrated stories with updates once or twice a week. Although that will delay the big updates even more, it’s about the only way the site can build up its readership.

Of course… that means that the next Toaster With Two Brains update will be even later than it would have been otherwise. And on the practical side I’ve been supporting my many months of work on the Thrilling Tales with nothing but the sales from my web sites. Out of the nine months beginning in July 2009 there was just one month when I worked on anything else.

So here I am, gearing up for the next illustrated story – which now is two stories, one interactive, and one linear – while the web site is still percolating across the web and trying to draw an audience. This is where a corporate startup would look for what’s called "bridge financing" – investment to tide the company over until it grows into its market and can walk on its own tentacles. I’m not a corporate startup, of course, and so I’m rolling out a fundraiser at kickstarter.com.

(more…)

Item 1: In which I make an announcement

After nine months of work, the Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual web site has opened its doors to the public. By which I mean you.

The first story is Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves – that’s Part One of The Toaster With TWO BRAINS.

If you’ve been following my blog you’ll already know that the Thrilling Tales project includes the web site, where you can view the illustrated and interactive stories for free, and also the full color book versions of the same stories. Which may be easier to read on the porch, or in the tub, or wherever else you might like to read them.

The books, like the web versions, are interactive. You can choose which character you’d like to follow and influence what that character will do in the course of the tale.

Back at the web site, you can view embiggified version of the illustrations. You can bring up an inventory panel with close-ups and information about the objects you encounter in the story. You can also save and restore your place within the story. It’s a pretty neat system, and I’m glad I made it.

You can see the trailer for The Toaster With TWO BRAINS by clicking here, and then I hope you’ll visit the Thrilling Tales web site. Don’t miss the other areas of the site… most especially the Pulp Sci Fi Title-O-Tron in the Derange-O-Lab. In the downloads section there’s even a smaller version of the Title-O-Tron you can use at your own blog or web site.

Item 2: In Which I Ramble On

Don’t mind me. I’m going to keep rambling here, but there’s no reason you have to stick around. I hear there’s drinks in the lobby!

The only thing missing that I’d meant to include in the launch is a way to buy a signed book directly from me – my big box o’ books still hasn’t arrived. That type of ordering should go live next week.

And there will eventually be another type of story at the site: illustrated but non-interactive stories. That’s because the Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual site is almost exactly like a web comic site… except that it’s going to go for months between updates.

Due to the nonlinear nature of the stories I can’t just post the "next" page, because that one may not be the "next" page for you. So in order to get regular updates at the site I’ll need to create some linear stories, too. With updates once or twice a week the Thrilling Tales site will have a better chance to build its readership. Anyway… that’s for the future.

I’m still working on related merchandise: Thrilling Tales T-shirts are available but posters are still in the works. Those should go up over the weekend, I think.

So… it’s been a really long haul for me. I hope you enjoy it!

Update: hey, my box o’ books arrived this afternoon, after all! So the “buy from me” link works now, too.

[tags]thrilling tales of the downright unusual,retropolis,retro future,interactive fiction,art,illustration,pilp,science fiction,sci fi,retro,dieselpunk,retro futuristic,stories,book trailer[/tags]

Yes, it’s been very quiet at the Web-O-Blog, for reasons that should be obvious to those who’ve been reading it: I’m down to a very short list of things to do at the new Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual web site and I think that it’s shaping up awfully well.

At left is one of the images from the site’s Help page, where we see call-outs for:

A. The illustration. When you click on it, a larger version pops up in a draggable window (see the second picture);
B. The save/restore panel where you use bookmarks within the stories;
C. The character portrait for whichever character you’re currently following;
D. The menu of options for what you’d like to do next in the story;
E. The Inventory panel, where you can click on an object to learn more about it in another pop-up window. Those are draggable, reloadable, and can be layered with the illustration pop-up in a bevy of ways that are really cool for me, but probably less entertaining for anybody else.

As it stands, I’ve probably only got a couple of more days worth of work on the site itself. But it gets a little more complicated since I’m expecting the second – and probably final – proof of the book version, and it’s only when I approve that proof that the book can go on sale. So I won’t be able to hook up the purchasing links until that happens. The trailer has a similar dependency – I’ll need to re-export it and upload it to YouTube (and maybe elsewhere) and I can’t embed it or link to it until that’s done.

I also need to order some of the books myself, since one way I’m selling them is directly from me.

So there are a couple of possible bottlenecks and a few dependencies yet to resolve. Unless something unexpected happens I figure that the Thrilling Tales site should launch around April 23rd – and very possibly sooner.

Oh. And the IRS. I haven’t quite got around to my tax forms yet.

Anyway there’s as much stuff as I could shove into the site – desktop wallpapers, screensavers, a version of the random Title-O-Tron that you can install at your blog or web site, and… um, I forget what else. It’s neat, trust me.

And someday soon it’ll even be finished!

Update: the Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual web site is now alive (alive, I tell you!) at thrilling-tales.webomator.com

It’s nearly a book! Over the weekend I tested the links between the book’s pages… twice, because on the first time through I found far more errors than I expected to find. The second test turned up none at all, which was quite a relief. Laying out a nonlinear book presents all sorts of problems. I think I discovered most of them. I have an idea or two about how to do better next time but unfortunately there’s no really simple solution.

But with that all done, I wrote up and laid out the introduction and designed the cover (hey! That’s it overhead!) with which I am well pleased. You don’t see the back cover here because this is a dramatic re-creation of what the book itself will look like – all 128, full color pages of it!

I’ve been through one interesting round of revision with the printer – who knew that some fonts can’t be embedded into a document? – and it’s happily, probably, all sorted now. I just need to have them review the new files and approve them so that I can order a proof copy. And wait.

No doubt I’ll find a few things to finesse once I’ve got the proof because, you know, that’s what proofs are for. But for now I need to rotate my brain forty-five degrees and get back to work on the web site. So far, still on track for an April launch.

Update: the Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual web site is now alive (alive, I tell you!) at thrilling-tales.webomator.com

As planned, I’m working now on both the book layouts for the first Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual volume, and on finishing up the Thrilling Tales web site.

There are some technical features on the site that I couldn’t really work on without actual content (and boy, have I got that now!) There’s also a feature that I decided to add after I’d started in on the art. You can see that at the upper right: big pop-up versions of the illustrations.

That in itself wouldn’t have been difficult except that I had to retrofit the existing pop-up window code – not written by me – to be much more flexible. I was already using these windows for big info panels about items you pick up in the course of the story, and I plan to use them for the save/load panels, too. So I had to teach the system to be happier about taking content in different ways and to accept the dynamic content that is 90% of what happens on the pages.

The surprising thing is that although the technical tasks weren’t easy, they haven’t taken much time at all, now that I look back on them. Still some more of that stuff to do, but it’s going well.

At the lower right is a working layout for the book pages. Just arriving at a basic layout that looks great and works across all those pages is more difficult than you might expect.

Because book pages (unlike web pages) are all the same size. I need to present a certain amount of information like the items and options shown across the bottom of the page for each node in the story. In a few cases I’ll need to go to a two page spread – I’ve always known that. But I want to keep those to a minimum so there’s a lot of trial and error with the page layout to see how it works for a variety of story nodes. Inevitably there are some that are just slightly too long – way too long would have been better. Slightly too long is complicated.

Anyhow, that process is nearly done. Soon I’ll be laying out all of the pages for real. And then – because in its way this is an interactive book – I’ll actually have to test it. Strange but true.

Update: the Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual web site is now alive (alive, I tell you!) at thrilling-tales.webomator.com

With the last three "inventory" illustrations (which I haven’t been counting) I’m now, honestly, finally, completely 100% and no-foolin’ done with the art for the first story at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual. It’s ALIIIIIVE!

Or, you know, the art’s done, anyway. I still have two other tasks to wrap up before the site’s ready for the general public. But this single massive task has been keeping me going since late August. Out of the past seven months I’ve spent about one month working on other things. So forgive me for busting out the beer a little early. Or I would, anyway, if I could find Red Hook ESB anywhere in this county (state?)

So, yep, I’m still on track for a site launch sometime in April, with the live (free!) web version of Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves, the book version of the same story, various free bits and bobs like the Sci FI Pulp Title Generator (the Title-O-Tron), and all of that to be punctuated with the animated trailer which is still in its state of "maybe I’m done". That sly minx.

Update: the Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual web site is now alive (alive, I tell you!) at thrilling-tales.webomator.com

Still going, still going… my goal for the week is to finish both the Thrilling Tales trailer and the redos and post work on the story illustrations for Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves.

This was probably the last of the more difficult redos for existing illustrations. Probably. Most of them just need some adjustments to contrast and brightness: that might have been needed anyhow, but the matte paper for the book tends to dull down the contrast of the images and as I’ve seen, that means they need some more lovin’. I stand a pretty good chance of getting through the rest of them in the next couple of days.

The trailer may be finished. I’m not sure yet. There are a couple of things I might like to try differently but the thing that I like least is something that it would be very difficult to change, because it has to do with the pacing and length of the period musical score. That isn’t flexible. About all I could do would be to try a completely different score (after finding one I could use!) and that would lead to a brand new complete edit and, I’d guess, at least a week of new work. This idea does not excite me. So I watch it, and brood a little bit, every night. We’ll just see.

If I meet this week’s schedule, then, I can move on to finishing the web site – several technical things to do there, along with adding non-story content – and I’ll also get to work on the book layout for the print edition. Proofing and finalizing the book is likely to be the real bottleneck. I’m still aimed at a launch for the Thrilling Tales web site before the end of April, and I believe I’ll get there on time.

I’m not posting often here just now because I’m not thinking about much of anything else. Talk amongst yourselves. Confer. Relate.

Update: the Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual web site is now alive (alive, I tell you!) at thrilling-tales.webomator.com

Okey Doke. As milestones go, this is the big one: I finally finished the last illustration for Part One of The Toaster With TWO BRAINS.

For the moment, I’ll ignore the fact that I still have three inventory illustrations to go; and having ignored that so successfully, I’ll pretend that I don’t expect to redo ten to fifteen of the illustrations I’ve already done; and while this ignoring thing is going so very well I will also neglect to remember that with all the art done I’ll still have a few weeks worth of debugging and finishing to do on the web site. And extras, like desktop wallpapers, to make.

Hey! Ignorance really is bliss!

On the other fronts I am pointedly not looking at the trailer because I’ve looked at it so much I can’t really see it any more. It’s pretty close to being finished. But I need to look at it with fresh eyes so that I’m sure what changes I still need to make.

I have a test book coming from the printer to work out any kinks in the printing process… so that once the art is really, definitely done I can put together the print version.

And I’ve continued to work on the Pulp Sci Fi Title Generator I put together for the Thrilling Tales web site… it’s continued to improve and it’s gotten a spiffy graphical facelift. And I’ve even made a Mini Title-O-Tron that people can install in the sidebars of their own blogs or web sites, if they like: I want to do a Facebook app version but so far whenever I look at their docs, my brain hurts.

So I guess I can take a deep breath for a bit, at which point I’ll need to stop ignoring those things I mentioned above, get them done, and try to catch all these balls I’m juggling at about the same time so that I can launch the site.

Update: the Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual web site is now alive (alive, I tell you!) at thrilling-tales.webomator.com