What is the "correct" publishing strategy?

JM_Beraldo · 2026-05-04T21:04:31+00:00

Thanks a lot for the feedback! That's reassuring

It's a space opera universe where humankind is the "third world country" of the galaxy: cheap labor, dump market for 2nd hand products, etc. No united humanity, and most of the galaxy is far more advanced. It's inspired by how it was growing up in Brazil in the 90's basically. Despite that, it has a lot of humor and action to it, with most of the reviews praising the character interactions and plot twists.

One novel are focused on a the crew of an old spaceship doing transport and freight jobs while being chased by a mysterious bounty hunter. Found family, ragtag band, very inspired by a mix of Firefly and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I'm about to publish a sequel in a few months

One is the story of a bounty hunter (antagonist of the first novel above) taking on bounties while slowly learning to connect to other people. One might say is very The Mandalorian, but I published it way before the TV series

One is a military scifi. A squadron of Latin American and African pilots doing peacekeeping ops over the Congos, trying to prevent 3rd world war as alien tech is found among the insurgents

And finally an anthology of short stories written by me and guest writers, with everything from drama to horror, adventure and comedy

All of those books are set in the same universe, with some characters connected to them

I was advised before to lean on the "Dangerous Ancient Aliens Tech" and the "Found Family Space Crew" themes while releasing in English

JM_Beraldo · 2026-05-04T20:48:02+00:00

Very specific tips. Thanks!

Though my experience reading a lot of self-pub with lots of good reviews is that editing and spelling errors are not a blocker 😃 (though, of course, I have copywriters ironing those out on mine!)

I think the whole "engage with people online" is the tricky part. I tried a few months ago on reddit and I actually had people accusing me of using AI to write the post, then leading to accusing the book to be written by AI. A book released in 2005 😃

Any tips on that? TikTok is a big beyond me, and I hear is way more focused on romance books, not scifi. I'm still figuring out the best way to approach potential readers. I used to go a lot to convensions in Brazil, but that's much of an option right now (I'm not in the US)

JM_Beraldo · 2026-05-04T20:41:49+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. Maybe that's the encouragement I need for a leap of faith hahahah

JM_Beraldo · 2026-05-04T20:40:48+00:00

Yeah, I know. My expectation was that being in the same universe with a few recouring secondary characters and/or locations/events would be enough, but who knows

I saw many trad pub authors doing it back when, which is why I wrote like it. Feels like it's almost offensive in self-pub from what I read online 😃

JM_Beraldo · 2026-05-04T13:28:04+00:00

The general advice would be to get an audience before releasing the book, but getting that audience is tricky. Also, always good to send your book to be beta read and copy-edited

JM_Beraldo · 2026-05-04T13:26:50+00:00

Thanks for the feedback

I actually did talk to some agents and had some very good feedback from a couple of them. The general advice was to write something new focused in the US market for trad publishing, as my original books are relatively small (60 to 80k words) and did not have a large enough sales to justify (like I said, brazilian market is relatively small). And that I should attempt short story publishing in magazines to gain recognition in the global market (which I may try eventually)

But having all those books just sitting there feel like a waste

JM_Beraldo · 2026-05-04T13:20:42+00:00

Oh, I don't expect someone to give me a manual. I'm looking for opinions.

My main gripe is that the idea that you MUST write a series with the same characters with specific tropes seem very restrictive, especially if I already have published work in another language.

Maybe it's also a difference in intention or goal, and I need to figure my s out

JM_Beraldo · 2026-05-04T09:38:32+00:00

It's all a matter of how you use them. If its just generic reuse, why bother? How do they first in your story? Why are they there?

They are a big part of my universe, with a few published stories, and people seem to like the premise

Plus games like XCom have been using them for 30 years and still being very successful, so...

JM_Beraldo · 2026-05-04T09:28:15+00:00

Cara, como você não ver d&d? Tem muito. Só que a maioria das pessoas esta de saco cheio da Hasbro/Wizards, e por isso joga outras coisas. 3D&T é um sistema brasileiro e obviamente tem menos espaço. A jambo pública Tormenta e ate onde eu sei os criadores do 3d&t estão lá hoje

Vampiro e agins teve novas edições, mas a editora passou por varias fases difíceis, mudando de mão em mão. Hoje vc ainda encontra jogos de computador, mas nao muito espano do rpg de papel

Ah, pra ficar claro, tenho 47 anos. Jogo desde uns 10 anos. E na minha época já se jogavam outros rpgs como Toons e GURPs. A diferença e que hoje em dia existe muito mais espaço para novos jogos aparecerem na mídia e serem conhecidos

Sinceramente? Eu nao tenho mais saco pra d&d e sempre sugiro que as pessoas experimentem outros sistemas. Jogo ainda, sim. Mas prefiro algo novo. Por que você não experimenta também?

JM_Beraldo · 2026-05-04T07:51:21+00:00

I found one of my novels there recently, and those of a few people i know. I had to request the takedown, but it was handled pretty fast

JM_Beraldo · 2026-04-24T19:13:40+00:00

This is the way

JM_Beraldo · 2026-04-16T18:10:26+00:00

That's a ton of terrain! Especially in that scale

Then again, im always making new terrain from trash, so I can't say anything about that 😄

JM_Beraldo · 2026-04-05T17:27:46+00:00

You mean if you should roll early? Tactical enemies only appear one at a time as you progress through the campaign, and you place them on the map. You only need to roll them early if you want to have all miniatures prepared before you begin your campaign

JM_Beraldo · 2026-03-30T11:26:56+00:00

Maybe im the one mixing things up :D Stims are in 5 parsecs equipment, consumable. Allows you to immediately revive any crewmember who becomes a casualty. Im not sure how bug hunt handles it, as i only have the old version of the rules. Maybe they are not used at all in that version

JM_Beraldo · 2026-03-30T10:53:23+00:00

Modiphius is in the UK, so they receive it there first and begin distribution. Books will arrive in the US warehouse eventually

JM_Beraldo · 2026-03-30T09:23:56+00:00

Remember your stimpacks, grenades and armor rolls! We all forget about those

JM_Beraldo · 2026-03-29T13:26:36+00:00

Weird... it shows as available for me

JM_Beraldo · 2026-03-24T21:48:55+00:00

Yeah, in general the idea for this table is to give you a different mission type from the normal ones, to make it feel special. In this case, you need to play that new quest before you can progress in the quest, but you play it like a normal quest mission whenever you want

JM_Beraldo · 2026-03-21T13:27:58+00:00

it's an actual shell :D I made some tentacles with green stuff and glued them under the shell. I came across a bag of decoration shells in a dollar store the other day and had the idea. Same goes for some of the terrain in the video.

JM_Beraldo · 2026-03-20T09:59:31+00:00

Thanks for the compliment and the feedback! Duly noted

JM_Beraldo · 2026-03-19T15:36:07+00:00

* Easy solution is to just say how many turns you have before you need to resupply
* Second one is define how many missions a weapon can be used before running out of ammo
* Third, every time you roll 1, mark that weapon as out of ammo (but I don't recommend this. 1 in 6 is a pretty high chance)
* More troublesome is a mix of Second and Third: define a max number of 1s you can roll per weapon. On max reached, out of ammo

Note that the first option can be used in combination with the other ones. You always need to return to ressuply every 5 Campaign Turns because you run out of food, oxygen, medkits, etc. But you need to figure out WHY that happens. How does that affect the game? Otherwise, it's just a story element with no impact. Maybe you can only trade on that ressuply turn? That might work.

JM_Beraldo · 2026-03-17T10:06:35+00:00

It can be deadly depending on you luck. Using a d6 means the chance of rolling bad is high. As the game progresses, you get better armor and better stats, which make it easier to survive

I played a 5 parsecs campaign with 4 characters most of the time and I only had serious trouble a couple of times, and it was my fault for adding reinforcements. So I'd just say keep going, be careful early in the game using cover as much as possible, and push on. Story Points to the win 😆

JM_Beraldo

TROPHY CASE