Tag Archives: Phalanx

June 23, 2016 · 10:52 pm

Thoughts On Publishing – Infinitas Publishing Annual Report

Now that a full year has passed since officially starting Infinitas Publishing, it’s time to compile the annual report. So, for those of you who want to see numbers, here you go. 🙂

Since starting the business, we’ve released 1 book, 2 games, and 15 episodes of a serialized novel. (Plus, we pulled in one short story and a collection of short stories that I had published previously)

We had 4 appearances. A book Signing at the Readers World in Sedalia (January 29th, 2016), Game Room at Stealth Con (February 13-14th), Vendor’s Booth at Old Drum Days (April 9th), and the Book Signing at Hastings in Warrensburg (June 4th).

 

Now for the sales stats:

 

Magic’s Stealing

Ebook (Released September 17th, 2015) ($2.99)

September:

  • Smashwords: 1 Sale (Kobo)
  • Kindle US: 3
  • Kindle US (Pre-order): 5
  • Kindle UK: 1

October:

  • Kindle (US): 1

November:

  • Kindle (UK): (1 Sold and Returned)

December:

  • Smashwords: 1 Sale (Kobo)
  • Kindle (US): 1 Sale

January:

  • Kindle (UK): 1 Sale

February:

  • No sales

March:

  • Kindle (US): (3 Sold, 1 Returned)

April:

  • Smashwords: 1 Sale (Barnes & Noble)
  • Kindle (US): 1 Sale

May:

  • No Sales

June:

  • No Sales

 

Total Ebooks Sold: 18

 

Print Edition (Released December 1st, 2015) ($7.99)

December:

  • No Sales

January:

  • Amazon (US): 2 Sales
  • Readers World (Sedalia) Book Signing: 5 Sales
  • Readers World Sedalia (1 Prior to Signing, 4 bought by store after signing): 5 Sales

February:

  • No Sales

March:

  • No Sales

April:

  • No Sales

May:

  • No Sales

June:

  • Hastings Book Signing: 6 Sales
  • Hastings (Later Date): 2 Sales

 

Total Paperbacks Sold: 20

Total Copies of Magic’s Stealing Sold: 38

 

Ashes ($0.99)

Online Only (Short Story – Released prior to creation of Infinitas Publishing)

June:

  • No Sales

July:

  • No Sales

August:

  • No Sales

September:

  • No Sales

October:

  • No Sales

November:

  • No Sales

December:

  • No Sales

January:

  • No Sales

February:

  • Kindle (US): 1 Sale

March:

  • No Sales

April:

  • No Sales

May:

  • No Sales

June:

  • No Sales

 

Total Copies of Ashes Sold: 1

 

1000 Words – A Collection of Short Stories

(Released prior to creation of Infinitas Publishing)

(Note: All but one of these short stories are available for free online through Smashwords)

Ebook ($0.99)

June:

  • No Sales

July:

  • No Sales

August:

  • No Sales

September:

  • No Sales

October:

  • No Sales

November:

  • No Sales

December:

  • No Sales

January:

  • No Sales

February:

  • No Sales

March:

  • No Sales

April:

  • Amazon (AU): 1 Sale

May:

  • No Sales

June:

  • No Sales

 

Total Ebooks Sold: 1

(Note: I did not track sales of the individual free stories. If you’re interested in those, let me know)

 

Print ($11.99 – full color paperback)

June:

  • No Sales

July:

  • No Sales

August:

  • No Sales

September:

  • No Sales

October:

  • No Sales

November:

  • No Sales

December:

  • No Sales

January:

  • Amazon (US): 1 Sale

February:

  • No Sales

March:

  • No Sales

April:

  • No Sales

May:

  • No Sales

June:

  • No Sales

 

Total Paperbacks Sold: 1

Total Copies of 1000 Words Sold: 2

 

 

The Multiverse Chronicles

(Prologue and 1st 3 episodes released February 5, 2016)

(Online Only – Free Blog Series)

6 Followers

 

Battle Decks: Trials of Blood and Steel

(Released February 12-13th, 2016)

Deluxe Edition: ($37.99 – Online Only) No sales

Basic Edition: ($24.99 – Online Only) No sales

Total: 0 sold

 

Phalanx

(Released April 9th, 2016)

Cloth Edition: ($25.00 – Local Only) 4 sales (3 sold in April, 1 sold in June)

Wooden Edition: ($75.00 – Local Only) 1 sale (April)

Board Game Edition: ($28.99 – Online Only) No sales

Total: 5 sold

 

 

I suspect that having the games be primarily online only is hurting chances of impulse buys, especially given that it is direct from The Game Crafter website, rather than a site people are familiar with (such as Amazon). For Ashes and 1000 Words, these are older works, so I rarely advertise them.

 

Marketing

Twitter – Every so often, I tweet for Magic’s Stealing on my writer’s account. Also, Isaac and I created a Steampunk-themed curator Twitter account, The Dapper Pigeon, from which we occasionally tweet about Battle Decks and The Multiverse Chronicles.

Facebook – We created the Infinitas Publishing Facebook page, and I tried running a short campaign ($10.00, from Feb 19th-20th, 2016) but didn’t see any sales.

Word-of-Mouth – We have poker card-shaped business cards and fliers with the first episode of Multiverse that we hand out at events.

Newsletter – We created the Infinitas Publishing Newsletter on June 3rd, 2016. At the moment, we have 0 followers.

Goodreads Giveaway – I gave away 1 copy of Magic’s Stealing in January, 2016. 893 people entered the giveaway, but there were no noticeable sales based on the giveaway (I can attribute the print sales that did happen to people I know personally).

Rafflecopter Giveaway – I offered up 1 ebook of Magic’s Stealing during the first giveaway and 2 ebook copies during the second giveaway. The first had 3-5 people entering, and the second had one.

 

Let me know if you have any questions. 🙂

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April 9, 2016 · 8:34 pm

Thoughts on Publishing – Phalanx Release Day!

Today, Phalanx has been published! Okay, technically we published it late last night, but we debuted the game today at the Old Drum Days Festival. There, we revealed the board edition, along with the cloth bag edition and wooden board edition. We also had paperback copies of Magic’s Stealing available for sale, had a copy of Battle Decks on hand to show, and Syerra, one of our beta-testers, had a few pieces of her artwork available. We got to demo Phalanx for several of the fair-goers who visited our booth, and we had a lot of fun.

Old Drum Days Festival 2016 - Isaac and Stephanie

Old Drum Days Festival 2016 -The Booth

* * *

And now, Phalanx!

Phalanx - Wooden Edition

Throughout ancient history, the phalanx was one of the most formidable troop formations, famously used in war by the ancient Greeks. In this formation, soldiers interlocked their shields, forming an impenetrable barrier while thrusting long spears at their enemies.


In the game Phalanx, use movement cards to advance your troops, land on your opponent’s pieces to remove them from the game, and get four or more of your own pieces in a row to form your own formidable phalanx, which is immune to frontal assaults.


But be cautious—your opponent can still attack your flanks, or even attack from behind and break your phalanx.

Phalanx is the game that captures the strategic play of chess, the piece-turning excitement of Tetris , and the luck of the draw. With these elements, move your pieces and form your own formidable phalanx to capture your opponent’s city-state!

* * *

Click here to learn more about the game.

Buy the board edition!

* * *

The board game edition is available online ($27.99), the cloth bag edition is available locally in red, cream, and green colors ($25.00), and the wooden edition is also available locally ($75.00).

Isaac and I are debating whether or not to offer the bags and wooden editions online, though we would have to ship them ourselves. We may consider options for doing that (such as through Etsy) in the future.

Anyway, have a look, and I hope you enjoyed this post. 😀

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April 4, 2016 · 9:46 pm

Episode 10: A Friendly Game

The next episode of The Multiverse Chronicles is now up! (And this one includes Phalanx!) 😀

The Multiverse Chronicles

The Multiverse Chronicles

Season One: Episode Ten

“A Friendly Game”

* * *

The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel - A Friendly Game

* * *

Buford examined the black glass dragon tears sitting on the etched, wooden playing table before him. On either side of the table were two diamond-shaped slots, each covered by a silver coin. The diamond closest to him was his city-state. The coin was to buy the lady across from him a drink, while the glass dragon tears were to ensure he didn’t have to.

The general turned his attention to the cards in his hand. Each card had a path-symbol on its face, a series of black dots, dashes, and Xs. He placed one of the cards on the table, moved a dragon tear along the path of the symbol, and then replaced the card. He smirked. This game was going rather well. He already had four black dragon tears lined up in a row—a phalanx—the…

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April 1, 2016 · 11:55 pm

Thoughts on Publishing – Infinitas Publishing Status Report

Wow, hard to believe it’s time for another status report. Time sure does fly. Anyway, here’s what we’re up to with Infinitas Publishing. 🙂

The Shadow War: So… I’ve got a lot of plotting done for this (actually, I’m more-or-less working on the first set of edits), and a lot of plotting for the next two novellas after this (including a character that I am really looking forward to introducing), but not a lot of editing or writing. I’m hoping that I can make headway on this project in April. I’m tempted to try Camp NaNoWriMo to see if I can get the rough draft of the next book ready, but I know I’ve got a bunch of stuff I need to complete first.

As a side note, I’m testing marketing Magic’s Stealing as an upper middle-grade, lower young adult novella. We’ll see how that goes, and if it makes a difference than marketing it strictly as YA.

The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel: We’re currently on episode 9 and moving forward. We’ll need to make polishing edits on more episodes soon so that our beta reader has a chance to look them over. We’re debating doing one season a year, rather than trying to do one season every six-eight months. That way we have a little more time to prepare the second season and have the Battle Decks equivalent ready at the same time.

Phalanx: Isaac’s hard at work getting ready for the release of our latest game, Phalanx. It’s a board game that combines ideas from Tetris, chess, and the luck of the draw of various card games. You move your pieces across the board with the intent of capturing your opponent’s city-state. There are three versions of the game: the board game, which we will sell on our shop page on The Game Crafter site; wooden boards, which are carved by Aaron at Snyder’s Garden, a local woodcrafter; and game bags that Isaac sewed together, both of which we’ll sell at local events.

Speaking of which…

Old Drum Days Festival!  We got our Missouri sales tax licence and our Paypal Here this week (so we can accept credit cards) and we’re going to be selling Phalanx and Magic’s Stealing while we’re there. As a bonus, any of the Phalanx games we sell there will come with a set of “Friendly Game” cards, a special promo card for Battle Decks that are exclusive to the Phalanx games.

Old Drum Days Festival is on April 9th, at the old court house in Warrensburg, Missouri.

Battle Decks: Trials of Blood and Steel: We’re currently testing out possible card options for the deck building expansions, and having fun deciding which ones to include first.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: Still working on book covers. Still working on formatting. Yep. It’s a never-ending cycle.

Beta-Reading: We’ve gotten the latest draft of the book I’m beta-reading from the author, and we need to get started making notes.

Distant Horizon: Isaac and I have found a proofreader, and once we get notes back, we’ll make our edits and move forward with preparing to release this novel soon (which means a cover is coming soon, too!).

Video Blogging: I recently uploaded Chapter 16 of my reading for Magic’s Stealing, and I’ve been showing a lot of sneak peeks of the upcoming Phalanx game in the previous couple blog posts.

That’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed this post. 🙂

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March 23, 2016 · 10:12 pm

Thoughts on Publishing – A Video Blog Post – Reading Chapter Fifteen of Magic’s Stealing

Today I’m reading chapter fifteen of Magic’s Stealing. Also, we’re going to have a booth at the upcoming Old Drum Festival in Warrensburg, MO (April, 9th)! We’re going to be debuting our Phalanx game there, which we will be selling game bags (see the video for an example!) and the wooden board versions, along with copies of Magic’s Stealing.

Like our Facebook page if you want to hear all the latest updates. 🙂

Click here for the link if you can’t see the video.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

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March 9, 2016 · 10:27 pm

Thoughts on Publishing – Infinitas Publishing Status Report

Normally I’d have posted this last week, but since I was doing a cover reveal on the designated post day, I decided to do the report today, instead. 🙂

The Shadow War: Not much progress in regards to actually writing this one, however, Isaac and I have discussed the idea of splitting The Shadow War into two books. Seeing as how it’s already at 45,000 words, (with the series meant to be a set of novellas) and it’s only going to get longer, I’m inclined to agree.

So I’ve been doing a lot of plotting for what’s going to be the new book three, and I like where it’s going. As such, there’s a good chance that there will be four books in The Wishing Blade series instead of three. The Shadow War looks to be around 35,000 to 40,000 words, and by splitting it where I think it would have a decent beginning/middle/end, I can effectively say that I’m actually working on the second draft, rather than the first draft (since I had to go back reread what I wrote to continue writing the story).

While I still have a little ways to go before I release this one (as I’m not finished polishing it for beta-readers yet), it’s a whole lot closer than I thought it was.

The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel: There are currently six episodes out so far (Read them here), and more on the way. Missed last week’s episode due to lack of time to properly edit said episode (and due to a character’s dialect being difficult that may or may not sound Scottish), but if all goes well, the seventh episode will be released this Friday.

The season as a whole is a work in progress, and it’s entirely possible that we’ll make small edits to the season once it’s complete and before we release the ebook and print editions. So let us know what you think as you read the episodes. 🙂

Phalanx: If you’ve been following our Facebook page, or if you watched my latest video blog post, you may have seen us talking about our upcoming Phalanx game. This is a project Isaac’s been working on (I’ve mostly just helped with touch-ups). We still need to proofread the rules and have someone do a blind test from the rules (rather than us showing them how to play), but we’ve got the beta version of the game on order. This should be available by early April, since we’re hoping to have it available for sale at a local event during that time. More info coming soon!

Battle Decks: Trials of Blood and Steel: The starter game is available now, and Isaac has been working on creating rules and card ideas for a deck-building expansion. We’ve been meeting with our group of beta-testers to see how the new cards play and which ones we’re going to want to release in the first expansion. We’re still in the early stages of the deck-building part of the game, however.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: Majority of the book covers I’ve been working on are now complete. In the meantime, I’m working through several formatting projects. Or, I will be as soon as I finish writing this post…

Beta-Reading: Put on hold temporarily so author could make changes. We should be getting the new chapters to beta-read shortly.

Distant Horizon:  Finally finished working on changes to a scene later in the story. I need to proofread and polish that scene, check it with Isaac to make sure he likes the finished version, and then I’m ready to hand this off to a proofreader. I’ve also got to do a few more things for the basic ebook formatting, but the majority of this is already complete.

Video Blogging: I just released the audio reading of Magic’s Stealing: Chapter Fourteen on Monday, and I plan to continue reading Magic’s Stealing, one chapter a week, until the story is complete.

In other news, we just finished our partnership tax forms! All we have to do is give them one more look-over and then mail them in. Woot! 😀

That’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed this post. 🙂

 

 

 

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March 7, 2016 · 11:41 pm

Thoughts on Publishing – A Video Blog Post – Reading Chapter Fourteen of Magic’s Stealing

Today I’m reading chapter fourteen of Magic’s Stealing and showing off the first wooden board for the our upcoming game, Phalanx (Check out our Facebook page to see a couple sneak peek pictures!) Enjoy! 😀

Click here for the link if you can’t see the video.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

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February 29, 2016 · 10:55 pm

Thoughts on Publishing – A Video Blog Post – Reading Chapter Thirteen of Magic’s Stealing

Today I’m reading chapter thirteen of Magic’s Stealing, and I reveal a few sneak peeks of our upcoming game, Phalanx!

Click here for the link if you can’t see the video.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

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