The domain is pointing here so this is the place for LotFP now. There is the bit of anxiety with it all. In the past weeks I’ve heard the same things over and over and over: It is a good thing to get off of social media. Also, if your company isn’t on social media, it won’t work.
Wonderful.
(oh, I want to say that a helpful individual made me away of these things called extensions for my browser that fixes all my problems with Youtube. I won’t see shorts, comments on any videos I look at, or recommended videos on the sides when I’m watching something. I haven’t actually fiddled with it yet because it’ll take some concentration to figure out how to add an extension, but if all that works then I’ll have no problems continuing with Youtube.)
But I can’t see the redeeming value in any of it anymore. Even the good places are like hanging out with like-minded people in real life, and I don’t do that. It’s like that George Carlin bit:
“You wouldn’t know it from some of the things I’ve said over the years, but I like people. I do. I like people, but I like them in short bursts. I don’t like people for extended periods of time. I’m all right with them for a little while, but once you get up past around a minute, minute and a half, I’ve got to get the fuck out of there.”
A person, I can deal with. People? Fuck off.
So then there’s the question of what to do with this place. I want it to function as a blog, the way it used to be back in the day, but that’s not going to work. I would put up completely throwaway posts back in the day, basically using the blog like it was twitter at points to just post errant thoughts. Don’t want to do that here.
I have to be cognizant of the fact that this is where people who are curious about LotFP are going to end up as a first point of contact… and for the past day or so the thing they’d see is the post where I’m plugging Wagner’s Voivod book. What are people going to make of that?
But I also know that having every post being strictly informational or persuasive and on-point about LotFP is going to mean I only update a few times a year, plugging new releases, sales, and convention appearances. That would make this place sterile and dead, if I’m only posting mandatory things because they are mandatory.
Yes, I’ll be running columns but it remains to be seen whether anyone will care or if it will have all the value as “TOS obligations so we can not run afoul of the spirit of Substack” might suggest.
(I suppose all my hand-wringing about how to promote and market LotFP, considering how all the promotion and marketing I’m exposed to in the world makes me think that promotion and marketing are things people should treat more harshly than pedophilia, might satisfy Substack’s demand for “high quality editorial content” if I go into it enough… but “I hate marketing” essays, no matter how well-written, are hardly going to move RPG books. Welcome to LotFP, newcomer! I swear the game is worth your time! Even though I think the methods at hand to reach and convince you are irritating and perhaps even immoral, and the way my mind works I can’t even tell you the game is fun! )
There’s also the issue of the email list here, and when exactly to use it. Posts that I don’t email out, die in comparison to the ones I do. And the ones I do, you know, the ones that are nothing but links to the posts since the last email, those posts do very well, and all the posts they link to, don’t. It’s all very odd. But I hate websites that feel the need to email me ALL THE DAMN TIME and I always unsubscribe.
The things I want to do, and the results I want to have, seem to be completely at odds. Every indication is that successful marketing means hammering and saturating the market with bullshit because the fact is that in the internet world, hardly anyone ever sees any of it, so you have to be relentless just so someone sees you even once. But that leaves the people who really care, who really pay attention, the people who always buy everything on the day of release, absolutely deluged with marketing horseshit. And I know how I feel when I get exposed to that firehose from other people: I get resentful and stop paying attention real fucking quick.
There are two things I do know about LotFP, even if how to best communicate these things to other people sometimes escapes me:
When we’re on our A-game, nobody can fucking touch us.
Even our B-game releases give you something different than anyone else in this space ever has, and they’re different from each other.
In a perfect world, that would be enough. But the world isn’t perfect. No, in this world I have to struggle to do people the favor of telling them about the game that will destroy their minds and reap their souls.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ahhhhh not good, the change has also screwed access to the EU webstore. Working on that presently.
Use this as a blog, post whatever you like. Company news, house rules, album reviews, whatever. But ALSO:
1) Send important LotFP posts (and anything that isn't necessarily LotFP-company but also isn't throwaway fun) out in the emails.
2) I don't know if Substack supports this, but consider some sort of "sticky" post that is always at the top as a landing page. This is what LotFP is, this is what this blog is about, HERE IS A LINK TO THE SHOP(s), here's how to sign up for updates. That sort of thing.