Wednesday, November 2
The Well of Stars in Print & Kindle!
What if the fuzzy little fat guy decided to keep the ancient evil artifact instead of destroying it? What if the elf, ranger, and dwarf were the bad guys? When the world runs out of heroes, it turns to a necromanceress and her zombie servant, a one-eyed villainous prince and his incontinent pondscum dragon, and a rebellious captain of the guard to save Welstar. These second-string heroes might just find love, life, and happiness along the way...if they survive!Labels: author news
posted by Mike Tresca at
9:30 AM
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2 Comments:
Congratulations on the release of your latest publication! I've been reading your blog for some time and wanted to take a moment to wish you and yours a happy holiday season.
I have a writing question, one that resurfaces from time to time. I'm currently working on a 3pp product for D&D 4th Edition. It seems that the name I wanted for my product has already been used, albeit for a product that is similar only in name; it's OGL and my product is GSL. It was published in 2009, my product is expected to be released next years. Otherwise, they are two completely different products is scope and content.
How detrimental is it that my unique product will share an identical name to another, different product? A search by title on RPGNow or DrivethruRPG will place them side by side.
Should I be worried?
Thanks again for being an inspiration!
James
By
James Glover, at Monday, December 26, 2011 4:40:00 PM
Hi James,
I'm guessing you're referring to the fact that there's another Well of Stars book in science fiction. I've always called my book The Well of Stars – for over two decades since in my high school Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign. It never even occurred to me to check if there was another book with the same name.
Your bigger concern should probably be Search Engine Optimization. What are the odds the other product will show up more frequently in searches? I didn't take that into consideration (and you'd think I would, because SEO is part of my day job), which means The Well of Stars search term is quite crowded. My book is not on the front page of Google. The other problem is "well" and "stars" are common nouns, so there's no guarantee even searching for those words will find my book.
I also published a book, The Dancing Hut for 3rd edition way back, and there's been several publishers since who have produced their own take on the subject. It seems that in the RPG industry, few people (except perhaps Wizards of the Coast) really lays a strong claim to titles.
I'm not a lawyer! My opinion is that if the products are substantially different and utilize two different systems, you should be fine. If you're concerned, contact the other publisher and ask. It's a small industry.
You still might want to consider changing the name if it's a popular product, however, so that you can claim more hits from someone searching for the title on Google.
Hope that helps. Happy New Year!
By
Mike Tresca, at Thursday, December 29, 2011 10:02:00 AM
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