Monster Academy Debut Day Roundup

Monster-Academy-3D-coverMonster Academy: I Will Not Eat People had a monster of a debut day yesterday. Spurred by the premiere day sale price of only $2.99, it leaped to the top of the DriveThruFiction.com charts and reached as high as #17 on Amazon’s Children’s Sword & Sorcery Fantasy Books list.

(That sale price ends tonight, by the way, so snag the book fast, if you haven’t already. You can grab it here or find it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and DriveThruFiction.com) 

A promotion from my pals at GeekDad.com also helped. They put the entire first chapter of the book up there for anyone to read for free, and they’re giving away 10 copies of the ebook too. That contest ends on Friday at midnight EST, so you still have time to join in.

A number of fantastic reviews rolled in too. Here are some excerpts from my favorites:

It is a book for anyone who wants a little escapism for the weekend, regardless of age. But, for parents of young adults who want to stretch their kids’ thinking, this is a must-read. The main character, Ruddy, is inquisitive and asks tough questions about life, death, and the nature of hate and  virtue. He is a frightening fire-breathing dragon with a heart too big for his magical human form and, at a time when most of our heroes are very flawed, it is lovely to have a hero who is innocent, true, and courageous.

– Alex at Mighty Distractible

I highly recommend this book. If the fact that Ruddy CAN TURN INTO A DRAGON isn’t enough for you, then get it for the witty dialogue, quick pace, engaging characters, and exciting mystery.

– Ellie Ann

This is a novel that works on almost every level for me… Matt Forbeck has another win on his hand. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from it, exactly, but I can say that it was a hell of a lot of fun. This is a great young adult book, of the sort that I’d have loved to read as a kid. 9/10!

– Abhinav Jain

This was a wonderful, enjoyable read. It is an entertaining way of exploring ideas celebrating diversity. I look forward to reading the next in this trilogy, as Matt Forbeck has created some wonderful characters, and I want to see what they do next.

– Ellen Forsyth

Matt Forbeck does an amazing job of integrating character qualities while keeping the story flowing with quick-witted dialogue, interesting plot points, and even some darker, mysterious tones. If you enjoy fast-paced books interwoven with fantasy and strange creatures, you’ll simply love Monster Academy!

– Mariah Beem

Thanks to every one of them, plus all my Kickstarter backers, and everyone else who helped spread the word yesterday, and for your ongoing support. I get to make a living at this because of your help, and I’ll continue to work hard to create stories worthy of that.

Why I Love Monster Academy

Back when I ran the Kickstarter to fund the Monster Academy trilogy, Jennifer Brozek asked me to write a guest post for her site, letting people know what I love about the series. I had a lot of passion for the series already, but putting it down for that essay refined it for me and helped me focus my thoughts on the books. Now that the first book’s out and on sale, I thought you might like to see it again:

Monster-Academy-3D-coverSo let me tell you about this tale of mine.

Monster Academy is set in a fantasy world in which the good guys win. They defeat the Great Evil and drive it from the land. Then they have to set to the less exciting work of governing the land and mopping up all the little evils left behind. This inevitably involves some young monsters that haven’t technically done anything wrong – yet.

The king, of course, thinks the monsters will turn bad given enough time. It’s their fate, decreed by their blood, right? So why give them the chance? Better to just kill them all.

Or so he thinks, until a vampire turns his granddaughter into a bloodsucking force of evil too. That’s when he decides that maybe there could be some good in such creatures after all – if they can prove themselves, that is – and he founds the Royal Academy for Creature Habilitation. Here, at what most people call Monster Academy, the students have the chance to become useful and productive members of society or face banishment or execution.

So, why do I love the concept? Honestly, I identify with those little monsters.

I wasn’t always the best student. I got great grades, but many times I didn’t behave the way my teachers would have preferred. I spent a lot of time writing lines and cooling my heels in the principal’s office.

Once you get that kind of reputation early on, it’s hard to shake it. I often found that some of my new teachers every year treated me as a rotten kid long before I actually did anything wrong. That’s the kind of prophecy that leads to it fulfilling itself.

Despite all that, I had a couple teachers who saw me for who I was, ignored the whispers from the other teachers, and gave me the chances I needed to shine and excel. One of them – Sister Cabrini Cahill – even encouraged me to try my hand at fiction and inspired me to make a career out of it. I can’t thank her enough for that.

So the idea of a school in which everyone expects you to fail, to do the wrong thing, and to be punished for it spoke to me. More important than that, though, I wanted to have students who seemed doomed to fail show how they could pull themselves together and – with the help of even a single teacher who believed in them – become the kinds of heroes that no one ever thought they could be.

That’s what Monster Academy‘s all about. It’s not a story of a chosen child who fulfills his destiny. It’s the tale of a bunch of kids who were supposed to grow up to be the bad guys teaming up to do the right thing in the end, despite all the odds arrayed against them.

That why I love it, and why I hope you will too.

Monster Academy: I Will Not Eat People on Sale Now!

Monster-Academy-3D-coverThe first book in the Monster Academy series–I Will Not Eat People–is available now! GO GRAB IT! QUICK! BEFORE IT GETS AWAY!

Ahem. You can purchase the ebook direct from me, or if you prefer, you can also buy it through:

I’ll add other venues as they come online. I’ll have print-on-demand copies available through DriveThruFiction.com later this month, in both hardcover and paperback.

To celebrate the launch, I’ve set the introductory price at a dirt-low $2.99 for the first day or so. After that, it’ll go up to its regular price of $4.99. Be sure to grab it fast, and tell your friends and neighbors too! 

Monster Academy: I Will Not Eat People Releases February 4

Monster Academy coverOn February 4, the first book in the Monster Academy series–I Will Not Eat People–will be released to the general public. It’ll be up first on Amazon, BN.com, DriveThruFiction.com, and even right here, with other venues to follow soon after. 

I’d like to give this launch a boost, so I’m going to set the introductory price at a dirt-low $2.99 for the first day or so. After that, it’ll go up to its regular price of $4.99. Be sure to grab it fast, and tell your friends and neighbors too!

Thanks!

2014 Conventions, So Far

It’s 2014 already, so it’s time to start talking about new conventions again. So far, I’m committed to two conventions:

Nexus Game Fair

Milwaukee, WI. June 19—22. 

This is a new show but with a lot of familiar faces, including Harold Johnson, Jolly Blackburn, Mike Carr, Chris Clark, Zeb Cook, Jeff Easley, Ernie Gygax, Dave Kenzer, James Lowder, Frank Mentzer, Merle Rasmussen, Jim Ward, and Skip Williams.

Gen Con

Indianapolis, IN. August 14—17.

This is my favorite time of year. I’m once again part of the committee selecting the Industry Insider Guests of Honor, and this will mark my 33rd consecutive Gen Con and 12th in a row as a guest of honor. I’ll also take part in the Gen Con Writers Symposium.

If you love games, books, or both, do not miss this show.

In the closer future, I’m planning on heading down to Love Is Murder at the InterContinental Chicago O’Hare Hotel to Bar Con it on Friday, February 8.

I’m also considering/on the bubble for the following shows.

  • Gary Con (Lake Geneva, WI. March 28—30)
  • Odyssey Con (Madison, WI. April 4—6)
  • WisCon (Madison, WI. May 23—26)
  • C2E2 (Chicago, IL. April 25—27)
  • Geek.Kon (Madison, WI. August 22—24)
  • GrandCon (Grand Rapids, MI. September 19—21)

I’ll update these on my Appearances page as the dates get closer. These are all great shows though, and whether I’m there or not, you should go if you can.

I hope to see you on the road!

Happy 40th, D&D!

Today is, as declared by Jon Peterson of Playing at the World, the 40th birthday of Dungeons & Dragons. It’s impossible for me to say how much this game changed my life and set me on the path to my career, but the best part about that is how many people I know that can say the same thing. For that, I owe a great deal to its creators: Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, along with the team of brave creative souls who joined them to help bring their game to the world.

IMG_4540Jon has a great video called “A History of D&D in 12 Treasures,” which reveals a lot of the background behind how D&D came to be. It’s well worth the watch. In that same vein, I thought I’d share some images from my own Players Handbook for the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. 

The Players Handbook became a great treasure of my childhood, and I brought it to my first ever convention, which was held in my hometown at Beloit College back in 1982. My friends and I played in a D&D tournament and somehow managed to win it. (While you can’t really win a D&D game at home, you could manage to triumph in a convention tournament by doing better than the other teams of players.)

I met Gary there for the first time, and he signed my book, as you can see. As our prizes for winning the tournament, my friends and I won memberships in the fledgling Roleplaying Gamers Association (RPGA), which came with a subscription to the Polyhedron magazine. (Polyhedron #9 saw my first published game design work: a gadget I designed for a Top Secret RPG contest, which came in as a runner-up.)

IMG_4539I brought that same Players Handbook to my first Gen Con (XV, later in 1982) and hunted down more autographs for it. Jake Jaquet, then editor of Dragon magazine, signed it on the title page too. But the list of names on the frontispiece (which was just a blank page before the title page) is even more amazing. It includes an all-star cast:

(There’s another one there below Phil’s, and for the life of me, I can’t make out who it’s from. If you have any idea, please let me know!)

It stuns me that many of those names–the ones that stuck with the industry, at least–are now my peers, and I’m honored to call at least a few of them friends. I’ve had a wonderful, lucky run as a creator myself, and games and the people who make them have been a huge part of that.

I turned fourteen just before that first Gen Con of mine, and I’ve kept going ever since. I had my first booth at Gen Con, selling a fanzine called The Quill and Scroll, when I was seventeen, and this summer will be my 33rd year in a row. It’s my favorite time of year: a family reunion, summer camp, and marathon of fun all rolled into one.

(Pre-registration for Gen Con badges opens today, by the way. Grab yours before they sell out, and join me there!)

I could–and maybe should–write a book about how D&D has changed the world in just four decades. It created a new art form and a new way of thinking about entertainment that will outlast every one of us. It’s seeped into just about every part of our lives, whether we realize it or not.

And it’s so much fun.

Happy birthday, D&D! And thanks to Dave, Gary, and all the other wonderful people who made you, continue to create (and recreate!) and play you–and the multitude of games inspired by you–to this day.

D&D and More for eBay

Late last year, I hauled a few boxes of things out of my father’s attic and discovered a whole horde of gaming treasures. My eldest son, Marty, is now putting many of them up on eBay for me a few at a time. While some of them have sentimental or historical value, if I didn’t miss them for the ten years or more they were in storage, I don’t think I’ll miss them much now, and I’d love for them to find homes with people who will treasure them.

The latest batch includes a Fiend Folio, Monster Manual II, Dark Sun: Dragon Kings, and Unearthed Arcana for Dungeons & Dragons, plus a Deadlands book and the core rules for The Babylon Project. If there’s anything that strikes your fancy, make a bid, and keep your eyes peeled for more fun stuff soon. 

Quick Bundle of Holding Encore

27R03Novels-MontageYou might recall that the Bundle of Holding ran an encore presentation of the original deal back at the start of the year. Two weeks later, they’ve now brought the Bundle of Holding +3 back too. This includes a number of fantastic stories by game designers, and it includes my own Dangerous Games: How to Play. This bundle expires at the end of the day, so be sure to check it out now and grab it fast.

If you’ve been following me for a while–or if you backed the Dangerous Games Kickstarter, or grabbed this bundle the first time around–you may already have a copy of How to Play. Since all the books in any Bundle of Holding are DRM-free, you have my blessing to give that extra copy away to a friend. Share the love!

To sweeten the pot, if you do that, be sure to let me know about it. Just drop me an email at matt@forbeck.com, and I’ll send you a code to download a copy of the second Dangerous Games novel–How to Cheat–for free. If you want to tag me on Facebook or Twitter and tell me who you gave the book to, that would be even better, but don’t put yourself out if you don’t feel comfortable with it. Either way, the offer stands until the end of January 17, 2014, so don’t wait too long. 

As a reminder, the Bundle of Holding +3 features:

That’s a lot of reading for not much cash, and better yet, a portion of the proceeds goes to two organizations that promote freedom of speech: PEN International and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Ironic bit of trivia: Allen Varney – the man behind the Bundle of Holding – is also a murder victim in Dangerous Games: How to Play. He not only agreed to have his fictional self get killed but then helped revise those bits to make sure I did it right. Here’s what he has to say about the book:

“In How to Play, Matt Forbeck writes a blood-soaked love letter to Gen Con and the roleplaying hobby. If you enjoy seeing famous game designers brutally slaughtered (and who doesn’t?), Dangerous Games is your victory condition.”

– Allen Varney, with the Lead Pipe in the Dealer’s Room

The Bundle of Holding Strikes Back

24R01Original-MontageAllen Varney launched the first Bundle of Holding earlier this year, featuring a bundle of novels and fiction collections written by renowned game designers. I helped him out with executing his ideas, even going so far as to run some of the payments systems through my own accounts until he could get his business banking properly set up. The whole thing launched in February and ran through March, ending while I was still in Shanghai (working on an iOS game for Ubisoft).

It did all right, but Allen worked hard and set up several more bundles. Some of these featured novels again, but others included packs of indie roleplaying games that sold even better than the fiction. Each time he launched a bundle, he studied the results to see what went well and what went wrong, and he devised ways to improve it all, dressing up the site better, polishing the backend, and turning it all into a well-oiled machine.

Now, less than a year later, Allen has a fantastic site that’s built a wonderful reputation for delivering excellent entertainment at phenomenal prices. And to celebrate that, he’s now offering a revamped version of the original Bundle of Holding once more. If you missed out on it last time around, here’s your chance to get stories by:

Go stop by the site and snap up that bargain. You get some of the books for the low price of $4.95, and you snag the rest of them if you beat the average price. The prices tend to go up as the drive goes on, so get in as early as you can. The deal ends on January 2, 2014.

My book in the bundle is Hard Times in Dragon City, the first in my Shotguns & Sorcery series. Coincidentally, I have that book (as well as Brave New World: Revolution and Dangerous Games: How to Play) on sale for only 99¢. 

Because of that, I understand if you already have a copy of Hard Times in Dragon City. Still, I want you to be able to grab this bundle and feel like you got your money’s worth. Since all the books in any Bundle of Holding are DRM-free, you have my blessing to give that extra copy away to a friend in the spirit of the holiday season.

To sweeten the pot, if you do that, let me know about it. Just drop me an email at matt@forbeck.com, and I’ll send you a code to download a copy of the second Shotguns & Sorcery novel–Bad Times in Dragon City–for free. If you want to tag me on Facebook or Twitter and tell me who you gave the book to, that would be even better, but don’t put yourself out if you don’t feel comfortable with it. Either way, the offer stands until the end of January 2, 2014, so don’t wait too long. 

I’ll warn you now though. Bad Times ends in a bit of a cliffhanger. You read that, and you’re going to want to grab End Times in Dragon City soon after. But that’s a fine problem to have, and I hope it helps you have a Happy New Year!

The Great Heffalump Exchange

Earlier this week, my pal Mike Selinker–the head of Lone Shark Games–asked a bunch of the people he regularly works with to join him in a holiday gift swap, something often called a white elephant exchange. Being Mike, he had a few twists on it.

  1. Since few of us live in the same city, we’d do the exchange virtually.
  2. Since this was short notice and meant for fun, we’d trade imaginary gifts, things we made up that didn’t cost us a thing.
  3. We’d do it in public, on Twitter.

He called it the First Possibly Annual Lone Shark Games White Heffalump Exchange. Mike explains it pretty well here:

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