GURPS books / authors

[Wicked Lurker]

Here is one for you guys who already wrote a GURPS book (or two, or ten):

How long does it take (hands on time) on average to finish a first draft of a GURPS book?

And, follow-up, how long does it take until it's fully edited and ready to be produced as a PDF?

Given the output mostly shifting to digital (understandably), and given the crunchy-ness of GURPS in general, it'd be great to compare across different systems.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Wicked Lurker

Here is one for you guys who already wrote a GURPS book (or two, or ten):

How long does it take (hands on time) on average to finish a first draft of a GURPS book?

And, follow-up, how long does it take until it's fully edited and ready to be produced as a PDF?

Given the output mostly shifting to digital (understandably), and given the crunchy-ness of GURPS in general, it'd be great to compare across different systems.

May vary considerably.

One can bang out a 16-page book in a remarkably short time if the subject matter is pretty well defined. Kevin Smyth wrote Nordlondr Folk in a sprightly fashion...and then went on to propose, write, and deliver Hand of Asgard while the one-month Kickstarter was going on. So it happened quite quickly.

If you have a REALLY good outline and are doing something concrete that's not nitpicky-mechanical (like books of templates can be nitpicky, and complicated power builds can be a nightmare), you can get 'r done fast.

My 128-page worldbook The Citadel at Nordvorn started, it would appear, in January of 2019. The art-filled pre-final PDF was delivered to backers by the end of April; the final text for the PDF seemed to have been ready by mid April.

Printing the book took two weeks of review, then four weeks of actual printing, then shipment to the UK, peel off the international books, then a month to the US, then two more weeks of physical distribution. Plus various "hey, why didn't anything happen this week?" time. So from "you have the PDF" to "you have the book" was an additional four months or so.

So Nordvorn went from "I have an idea" to "PDF ready to go" in about 3.5 months for 128 pages. That's about four pages every three days, with maybe 600 words per page. Note that also includes art.

So maybe 600-1,000 words per day for me. And that, of course, was "write it," "rewrite it," "rewrite it some more," "send it for editing," "edit it some more," "do layout," "get art," etc.

I also note that Technical Grappling took a very long time to write . . . and then the Ogre boardgame (or the Ogre Singularity) pushed out the release date for that book by . . . a LONG time.

The editing can be long or short. Depends on the quality and interconnectedness of the writing. A book that's perfectly written from a copy editing (grammar, syntax, clarity, punctuation) standpoint - and they never are perfect - could get a layout readiness review and STILL take a long time if the author didn't really hew to the layout template provided by the publisher from a formatting/input perspective.

Layout itself could take a short time for simple things, or what feels like forever being dragged across a bed of hot roofing nails if there are many monsters or templates in them, which unless you have a nice little script, can be a matter of "type a zillion individual things into individual cells."

So..."it depends."

Nordvorn should be an extreme example. It went from "I want to do this" to "PDF in hand" in about four months. It was another 3.5-4 months to go from "PDF finalized" to "shiny, smyth-sewn, lay-flat softcover." It was 128 pages when finished, and it was a fairly interconnected book, but without a ton of monsters, stats, etc. It had these things, but not (for example) a thirty-page Bestiary.

Most of THAT time was spent on a boat.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

This is highly variable, based on a variety of factors most notably including internal availability of internal people at SJ Games and how badly my brain wants to get things done. Here's the history of three of my longer works:

• Treasure Tables was pitched in late 2008 and writing started not long thereafter, not signed until early June 2009, first draft in late July though I'd started writing well before I had the contract in hand since it was clear at the time that it would be a formality, final draft in September, publication at the end of the year.
• Silk Road was pitched in late September 2015, contracted within a week (it was a convincing pitch), first draft in mid-November, final draft in February 2016, but not published until May 2017.
• Cold Shard Mountains was pitched in late February of last year, signed contract in early May, first draft in early September, playtest ended in late October, final draft turned in early November (very little needed to be done), published almost exactly a year after I sent in the initial pitch.

So why did Silk Road take so much longer than the other two despite being written more quickly? And why did TT take as long as it did to write? The delay for Silk Road was the DFRPG. Silk Road was all but done, with a few final production tweaks to make before release, but all the production and editorial attention was elsewhere for several months. As for Treasure Tables, the early stages of that overlapped with the last work on the Low Tech series. Conversely, there are a lot of other, shorter projects which take about the same sign-to-publication time for me, in part because I ask for very comfortable first draft deadlines, going for three to four months no matter if it's a big, research-heavy book like Silk Road or something brief and made up like Pagoda of Worlds.

Oh, and don't be fooled into thinking that there's inherent crunchiness here just because it's GURPS. The Hot Spots series carries hardly any rules at all.

[Alden Loveshade]

I pretty much have no business trying to answer the question now, as I'm awaiting post second draft edits on my first GURPS book. But I can fill in more once the book is published.

I can tell you that the first draft is far from the first step. I first wrote and sent in a query. When that was accepted, I wrote and sent in a formal proposal. When that was accepted, I wrote and sent in an outline (with writing samples for the proposed book, as it is my first for SJGames), which I then revised based on suggestions. Then the outline was incorporated into the contract--then I began the first draft.

[Refplace]

Yeah there are a lot of variables! One place to get some answers is the current W23 Digital speculation threads. Prior threads less useful because once they were published a lot of rumors were cut for space but you may find a few full process ones.
http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=166780

My first book Totem and Nature Spirits was Pitched Feb 20 2018, First draft sent in April 30 2018, Published May 23 2019. There was a line for playtesting, then I think it got caught behind some Kickstarter stuff.
It was template heavy and likely required heavy editing.

My second book was proposed multiple times but once we got the outline hammered out (half the book was rejected in favor of hoping someone else would tackle the subject at a future time, plus we had some back and forth mostly due to my inexperience) it went like this...
Outline proposed Jan 2020, Contracted May 2020, and First draft due next week. I dont expect it to be published till next year. Also crunchy, but the real delay between contract and sent in was rethinking a lot of things to meet the new guidelines and writers block. Rewriting is harder than writing, especially after something sits for awhile.
My expectations are the third book (fingers crossed) will be written much faster but my fourth book will be written slower. But that is based on future totally unapproved plans.

When pitching my advice is follow the guidelines, send in the query letter, then the proposal based on feedback, then start writing. Allow yourself plenty of time in the contract, usually they are not in a hurry for freelancer work and have plenty to get through so you have leeway here. I tend to have to write stuff before doing the outline as I just dont have the experience to know all the section headings and word count without writing something down.But the least you write the better as when negotiating you may have to change stuff. Allow extra time for template and stat blocks.

[whswhs]

I signed the contract for my current project on 21 August. I asked for a deadline of 31 October; the contract deadline ended up being 2 November, that being a convenient day of the week. This was for a fairly long project (by current GURPS standards), but even for a short project, I think I'd ask for a month or six weeks.

As of today, I've written 23% of the book.

In my experience, the prose passages are the quick part of a project. Doing the mathematical modeling and analysis takes extra time; for example, in GURPS Furries, I spent some time on working out suitable scaling rules based on the way anthropomorphic characters are usually portrayed, and then revising them after playtester discussion. Plan to add extra time if you need to do calculations, not only because they take time, but because it can be hard to free up an interval for sustained concentration on the analysis and writing; it's not something you can fit in in odd moments of a daily schedule.

As for post-first draft work, in my experience there are multiple stages. Review by an editor (usually Kromm). Revision of the first draft. Approval for playtest. Playtest. Further revision to produce a final draft. Submission. Review by an editor. Page layout. Review of page layout by the author, and submission of pullquotes and art suggestions. (Personally, I start compiling possible pullquotes about the same time as writing the first sentences of the original draft; I have 46 for GURPS Furries, more than I expect to need . . .)

[Wicked Lurker]

DouglasCole, Turhan's Bey Company, Alden Loveshade, Refplace, Bill Stoddard thank you so much for the detailed answers! I really appreciate the glimpse you offered there.

I was tempted to search for a "like" button for each post there but, anyway - you have my gratitude.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Wicked Lurker

DouglasCole, Turhan's Bey Company, Alden Loveshade, Refplace, Bill Stoddard thank you so much for the detailed answers! I really appreciate the glimpse you offered there.

I was tempted to search for a "like" button for each post there but, anyway - you have my gratitude.

You are, of course, quite welcome.

If you are considering writing for GURPS, then first of all: yay! More support is good.

However, please keep in mind that it's challenging. GURPS publishing has a "pinch point" issue in that Sean Punch is, no matter how amazing he is as an editor, a person, and a mixologist, only one person. So your role as a prospective author is to make it easy on him and any others who come into contact with your proposal.

Getting Ready


The best thing to do is to study study study the process for writing and submitting a GURPS manuscript. There are suggestions, templates, formatting guides, and writing style guide recommendations.

They really, really don't want new folks to show up with an already-written manuscript and a query of "do you want it or not?" Their answer is "no we don't" at that point, because willingness to take and act on editorial feedback is a key performance indicator of a successful working relationship between publisher and author(s).

So:

Go here: http://www.sjgames.com/general/guidelines/authors/

Look over all the helpful suggestions.

Read ALL of the stuff under "Breaking In."

Maybe twice. Pay attention to their Style Guide. It matters.

OK. Good. Actually, no: go read David Pulver's timeless advice for freelance writing for games.

Choosing your Topic

Start from the Wish List. This is the list, updated monthly or quarterly, of topics that are pre-approved. If you write to this, you're already acknowledging that SJGames has needs for GURPS and has written them down. It was last updated Aug 2020...so it's current, and the preamble contains a lot of what I've already written here, and more.

Or, in their own words: "If your idea isn't on the wish list, we're only going to consider it if you're a published GURPS author. Experience has its privileges."

If you have an idea that's NOT on the Wish List...write a short wish list item first ANYWAY. Better make your mistakes on something you KNOW they want to see than poison your (possibly) good idea with a poor first impression.

Formatting and Presentation

Download the Formatting Guide.

This is a very long and detailed document. You WILL want to read it.

You will also want, when it comes time to do your thing, to open it up, "Save As" your working filename, and then write your manuscript in that document, using the formatting headers and styles already pre-loaded for you into Word. There is also a last-updated-in-2014 WYSIWYG template.

USE THESE STYLES. This is how one imports Word into InDesign in a way that makes it easy for the SJGames team to make your stuff into PDF format, insert art, etc. Every mis-formatted paragraph or mis-applied character style costs the editor and layout pro time, and time is money...and in the RPG industry, there just ain't that much money to go around. There's cost and there's revenue...you want to be low impact on the former and high impact on the latter.

OK, Great! You've read the Style Guide(s). You've read the formatting guides! You have an idea. You're ready.

For the Love of all that's holy: Outline

Good. Stop. Follow David's Rule #2: Write an outline. A DETAILED outline. Go all the way down to D-HEADS if you can. Think about how many words each might be. Don't know? Oooo. Go find some existing GURPS books and use your PDF reader's Word Count feature to see what the typical range and variation is for how much material tends to fall under each heading. You're writing to a target wordcount, always. Keep brevity and clarity in mind.

Outlining is vital. It provides guidance, structure, and allows you to constantly ask the question "does what I just wrote belong here?" with variation of "here" being (a) in this small section of the text, (b) in this larger portion of the book, and (c) in the book AT ALL.

Your publisher is very likely to look at your outline, maybe read a writing sample, and then make a hard call about where to spend their time. Make that call as less-hard as you can.

Make an outline
Polish it.
Polish it more.
Show it to other folks who will give honest feedback and then act on it.


Then once things get farther, write to the outline.

If you manage to get to the "first draft submitted, feedback received" stage your editor may have provided feedback that leads to outline changes.

That's fine and good! But sit down, REVISE THE OUTLINE, and only then really dig in.

Game Writing is Hard

Anyway, there's lots of good information out there to help you write SJG-acceptable books. And following their guidelines is likely to make you a better writer anyway, and learning how to follow a publisher's particular directions makes you more likely to be successful. If you're already a successful writer in other modes (prose, fiction, etc) it still behooves you to check things out, because game writing is a brutal combination of technical writing (to keep it logical and easily digested) and storytelling (to keep it interesting).



Good luck if you go down this path!

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Approval for playtest. Playtest. Further revision to produce a final draft.

Originally Posted by Wicked Lurker

... thank you so much for the detailed answers! I really appreciate the glimpse you offered there.

One thing to add: an SJG playtest is a pretty exacting review. You find yourself on a mailing list with some very experienced gamers, who will ask difficult questions, and look for holes in logic and writing.

Playtests are often too short for them to run campaigns using the material, but you get a strict peer review. I'd recommend taking part in a playtest before taking up writing for GURPS.

[Refplace]

I'll second Douglas and Johns advice,
Participating in a play test helps you in a lot of ways,including seeing a prospective book in Word format which can help reinforce and clarify the Style Guide.
Style Guide: Even experienced GURPS authors miss stuff in it sometimes, I keep mine in my projects folder for quick reference and review it when doing my edit pass.
The Outline is make or break for getting your proposal accepted. When you send in your query ask for a sample if they accept it. Steven sent me the one for Martial Arts and I saved my approved outlines for reference also.
Look at a related book in PDF and if its in the Table of Contacts it was probably in the proposed outline.
Editing
If you can have someone review your draft before submitting do so. Its likely they will catch errors, though they may not understand the proper house formatting so have them comment without making changes and the style guide is the rule to go buy. However they should be able to help with clarity and typos.
Speaking of editing... Remember SJG is basically your customer and boss. All authors have their own vision and writing style. You can see different styles in the GURPS books but SJG is successful in part because of an overarching stance on the house style and that consistency helps reduce their costs and makes reading and referencing the material easier.
Play Testing
When I help another author as a play tester or pre draft review I offer my suggestions and if appropriate the reasoning behind those suggestions. But its the authors call on what they do, not a reviewer. On every project I have participated in some of my advice was ignored and some taken. My job as reviewer is not to sneak in my ideas or material but to help the author write a better book. Mostly I suggest for clarity, sometimes for adding or changing content. But I understand its the authors call in that process. A good author will listen and seriously consider all feedback, not take it personally, and hopefully make the best call. They are limited in changes by the contract they signed which includes a specific word count and outline. Any changes to those must be approved by management. However I personally think of play testers as potential customers and let that guide me in my writing.
When sent in SJG staff is the boss so they do have full control over the project.
I have debated a few changes, but mostly its because something I wrote was not as clearly understandable as it should have been (usually in the outline) but mostly I go with what Steven or Kromm says and move on.
An example from my current book, I added stuff to the outline, changed tags and more based on their feedback. A few items I was asked about that required me to clarify (Now I know I can put comments in the outline!) such as cutsey titles or trait names. Likewise I was told two traits seemed redundant, best I use just one and I counter proposed they were different enough once you see the details to keep in so I prefer that and will cut if you want to after you see the first draft. Better believe I remember that and if Kromm stills thinks one should be cut, it will be.


Very long reply but hope its helpful to any potential authors.