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This episode, Keepers Bridgett and Evan discuss ten things to remember when publishing on the Miskatonic Repository!

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The Discord Plug

MUP has a Discord and we are all there! We invite all of our listeners to come and enjoy the community of horror gaming and cute pet pics. Link in the show notes: MU Discord server invite link: https://discord.gg/vNjEv9D

And thank you to our editor NATE for editing this episode.

Bridgett’s Pet Pic Shout Out

Did we do this already? I don’t think so. Trouble the Cat, by Rach! Sleeping in the sewing basket! What a helpful cat.

Main Topic

Hello, and welcome everyone to the main topic! Tonight, we discuss Ten Things to Remember When Publishing on the Miskatonic Repository.

Evan’s 5

Write for you
- Write what you like. If you don’t like it, you absolutely are not getting paid enough to do it.
Have an elevator pitch
- Before you get deep into writing, you should be able to say in 1 or 2 sentences, of moderate length, what is most exciting to you about your product (scenario, source book, resource, art too!). This is what will excite others
You can build off other peoples’ work
- One thing we can take from the example of Lovecraft and the early weird fiction writers is that they all collaborated all the time. You can co-write with people, you can build off an idea or a setting or a creature or a spell found in someone else’s work, you can create a Shared Universe. It’s polite to be in touch if you’re using someone’s material, but it’s absolutely OK to do as long as you follow the clear credit rules.
Have realistic expectations of investment vs reward
- You probably know you’re not going to make a ton of money off this.
- When you’re new, and you aren’t super known in the community, you also won’t get a ton of recognition AT FIRST. So figure out what reward you’re looking for, have a reasonable expectation of how much of it you’ll get, and put in the effort accordingly.
Write at your own pace, but get it done
- Life is life, and writing is writing, and only occasionally the twain shall meet.

Bridgett’s 5

Surrender Perfect
- There’s no pre-check or approval process before you upload; you’re responsible for reading and understand the guidelines
- Perfect isn’t real; don’t gatekeeper yourself
- Successfully publishing, even the imperfect, is a very real requirement by most publishers (even if it’s a pamphlet adventure)
Community Support
- You don’t have to do it alone
- You can use a self guided course at the Storyteller Collectives
- Symphony, MUP, MR, MRCon, Chaosium Discord, and various online hubs on facebook and BRP forums, conventions (Chaosium Con, GenCon, Impromptu Con, MRCon). Find your people. There’s value there.
PWYW – Don’t do this
- It sets a temperate that your work doesn’t have value
- Most people will pay $0
- You don’t receive metal credits for free products
NO AI – Free or affordable art alternatives
- Unsplash, WikiCommons, Pixbay (make sure that you toggle human created)
- CHC Gig Directory
Clear Credits – What’s Off Limits?
- Our best advice is to check the detailed credits at the front of any Chaosium book: if something in the book is listed as being used “with permission” from an author or their estate, you can’t use it in community content, because we can’t delegate that permission to you. (We’d love to! But we can’t.)
- If you’re using something that isn’t found in any Chaosium book, then you will have to do your own research. We strongly advise you to stay away from any original creations by Ramsay Campbell or Brian Lumley, as they / the estate jealously guards their rights (which they have every right to do), but the general rule is that anything that isn’t clearly in the public domain is off limits for community content.

Homework

What is your favorite Miskatonic Repository publication? Drop the link into the Discord on episode Channel 362.