Never heard of Drylor? You're not the only one. And that makes Ryan Tomasella one sad panda.
You see, Ryan wrote a fantasy novel called Drylor: The First Artifact. Then he self-published it. Now he expects to be viewed in the same light as J.R.R. Tolkien and Terry Brooks.
As some of you may know, I'm self-published. The key difference is that I am very aware of that fact. I don't assume that because some POD firm prints copies of something that I created, I'm now on a level with L. Frank Baum, Gary Gygax, or even Michael Stackpole.
Yesterday, he attempted to create a Wikipedia page about his fantasy world of Drylor. Within 20 minutes of the page's creation, it was flagged for speedy deletion because an editor presumed it was a hoax. Only after the page was deleted (and Tomasella made a few choice edits to a number of editors' talk pages) was it finally considered not a hoax. But the deletion stands because the content does not meet Wikipedia's notability criteria.
Word to the wise: Do not create Wikipedia articles if you are not notable. Stick to TVTropes, where there's no such thing as notability.
You see, Ryan wrote a fantasy novel called Drylor: The First Artifact. Then he self-published it. Now he expects to be viewed in the same light as J.R.R. Tolkien and Terry Brooks.
As some of you may know, I'm self-published. The key difference is that I am very aware of that fact. I don't assume that because some POD firm prints copies of something that I created, I'm now on a level with L. Frank Baum, Gary Gygax, or even Michael Stackpole.
Yesterday, he attempted to create a Wikipedia page about his fantasy world of Drylor. Within 20 minutes of the page's creation, it was flagged for speedy deletion because an editor presumed it was a hoax. Only after the page was deleted (and Tomasella made a few choice edits to a number of editors' talk pages) was it finally considered not a hoax. But the deletion stands because the content does not meet Wikipedia's notability criteria.
Word to the wise: Do not create Wikipedia articles if you are not notable. Stick to TVTropes, where there's no such thing as notability.
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6 comments:
A quick search on Google shows that someone's been humping a Drylor MMORPG. Ahem.
Considering his overblown expectations for his work, I am somehow not surprised by this.
I'm curious. Did you have a criteria in mind for what you would define as "success" for your Oz RPG when you started out, or do you just consider it success than you can get a somewhat niche RPG out there that others enjoy?
It is interesting to see quite a few folks self-publish via POD, etc. and then when they're *not* the next Tolkein or blockbuster author, this is used by those folks as evidence that POD/Internet/self-publishing/whatever is broken.
While I've never heard of Drylor or it's author, I feel the escapade with Wikipedia has more to do with Wikipedia's self-imposed false importance and pompous elitism than poor choices on the part of the author.
Indeed, the poor choice was to try to post on Wikipedia at all.
Brian: That's actually a very tricky question. On the one hand, yes, getting it published and out in front of everyone is an accomplishment and one that I'm proud of. On the other hand, I don't really consider the project a success until I have more people buying, talking about, and playing my game. My goal is 300 sales and I'm only about half-way there.
And I did a good bit of research into self-publishing and making it in the RPG business, so I entered into the project fully informed and properly cynical.
Northy: Call them elitists or just sticklers, but I knew that there was no way that his entry would last there. The main thing that surprised me was how quickly it all took place.
Although my self-publishing experience is in the Oz fiction realm, not an RPG, I too side with Doug on how I define success in the POD world. It helped going to Book Expo America 2009 and learning just how overwhelming the publishing world really is. As far as I'm concerned, I'm successful as an author of Oz. Now, if I can just get filthy, stinkin' rich, I gots it made...
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