075: From Herbalist’s Primer to Geologist’s Primer with Anna of Geologist’s Primer

Courtney: 0:08

Hello and welcome to Roll Play Grow, the podcast for tabletop entrepreneurs, creators and fans. In this show we dig into processes, challenges, tips and really look at how to grow a business in the tabletop role-play gaming space. Sit back and join in as we learn from the creators behind your favorite brands about who they are and how they are turning their passion for gaming into a career. Hey everybody, we have another repeat guest today, anna of Double Proficiency. You may remember her if you’ve been around for a while, from episode 23, which released two years ago, when her first book, Herbalist’s Primer, was kickstarting. We’ve come full circle now, as that book is out in the wild and the next book in the series, Geologist’s Primer, has had a very successful kickstarter run as well. I really enjoyed getting to catch up with her and hear about what the past two years have been like. I highly recommend you pick up a copy of Herbalist Primer and stay tuned as Geologists Primer comes into existence. Double Proficiency also has some other cool projects out there that we talked about as well in today’s episode. If this is your first time tuning in to Roll Play Grow, I want to give you a special welcome. The show allows me to chat with so many amazing folks about business marketing, hardships, lessons learned, how-to guides across a wide spectrum of industries within the TTRPG scene and, as of last week, I have a lovely co-host on every other episode my co-host is Matt Joro, aka Dungeon Glitch, and alternating weeks where we are doing a deep dive into business-related topics and how they intersect with TTRPGs. We’re currently in a three-part series on growing your social media accounts, a topic I think we all find rather relevant right now and also a topic that Matt is an expert at. I just get to drink in all of his knowledge. We have plenty of great topics coming up, so be sure to subscribe to role-Rplay grow on your favorite podcast player. Lastly, before we get started, I want to shout out one of our favorite dice companies, Dice Envy. My very first interview on the show was with David Derus, the founder of Dice Envy, and we’ve gotten so many dice sets from them over the years. I highly recommend you check them out, as they have dice in all sorts of materials present metal, wood, like at Chonky-20s really cool shapes for their divorce. We are affiliates with them, so if you go to DiceEnvy. com and use the code LIGHTARTADV, you’ll get 10% off your order, have some snazzy dice and help support the show. Thanks for hanging out, y’all, and enjoy this chat with Anna. Hello, we are back with Anna, Graphic designer, writer and co-founder of Devil Proficiency. Welcome back, anna.

Anna: 2:59

Hello, it’s a pleasure to be here again.

Courtney: 3:02

Yeah, it was wild when I realized how long it had been. The last episode that you were in was number 23, which came out in August of 2021.

Anna: 3:13

Yeah, it’s been a while. It’s almost two years. I did not realize that this is how much time has passed. I mean, I know things happened meanwhile, but it feels wild that it’s been two years.

Courtney: 3:26

Honestly, ever since Chonky-20 hit it’s just been one big blur of like nothing’s happening, except actually way too much is happening.

Anna: 3:36

Yeah, I feel that I’m working from home, so I haven’t left my house in quite a long while, for most of that time.

Courtney: 3:44

Yeah, I kind of tend to be similar. I’ve worked from home since 2018, and so then when everyone else started working from home, it was like, oh, okay, hi.

Anna: 3:57

Well, I do actually like this influx in remote options. I wish they stayed yeah same.

Courtney: 4:07

Well, the last time that we talked, Herbalist Primer was just on Kickstarter, which was a smashing success. You have since fulfilled that Kickstarter, done a bunch of other things with double proficiency. You’re in the middle of the geologist primer Kickstarter, which is again wildly successful. It’s doing well. Yeah, like, how are you?

Anna: 4:31

Well, I am slightly overwhelmed, but in general I’m doing fine. I literally spent. I know where the last two years went because I spent a year and a half writing another book, so I’m very excited for it to be out. But, yeah, the previous Kickstarter was basically. It turned my life upside down. It doesn’t even cover you know how much money we raised or whatever. It just changed my entire work life because I used to mostly work freelance for various clients, just making book layouts and stuff, and you know those little graphic design jobs every now and again, and over the last two years I mostly faced doubt, having to work on commissions. I still pick up every now and again a project if I’m actually very excited about it. So I’ve done a bunch of really cool stuff with HatchLinks games, for example. I don’t know if you know they’re in spirals. It’s an RPG for people of each every age that teaches you sign language as you play and it’s super, super cool. So I’ve worked on some projects, but I’ve been able to mostly focus on writing and illustrating my own books and, of course, working with Jakub, my partner, on other games that we’re just about to publish soon, I hope. So, yeah, it’s been exciting and it’s been such a massive shift in my life, you know, switching from working on other people’s projects to working on my projects almost exclusively. I love it. There is no hiding the fact that everything’s going really, really well.

Courtney: 6:25

Like I just I love this for you, like it’s so exciting. But yeah, I would love to just hear about, like you know, after Herbalist Primer funded and you know, you’re able to like move past the actual fundraising side of it and get to finishing the book and fulfilling it. Talk to me about what that was like, you know what, if there is anything that surprised you and just kind of how you went about fulfilling a book like that.

Anna: 6:55

Yeah, so my part was mostly just writing and illustrating and I’m very glad that that was it. Jakub was covering a lot of additional writing. For example, he was writing an adventure and he was writing a bunch of adventure seeds that we released as one of the stretch goals in the campaign. And we decided to cut cut the stretch goals rather quick in the campaign because they topped out at 300,000 and then we raised 500,000 more. But I’m very glad that we limited the scope that time because I had no bandwidth whatsoever. It still took us about half a year to finish off everything that was a part of the kickstart, including the stretch goals, and then it was basically a year of actually getting everything printed and distributed because, just our luck, this is exactly when all the pandemic related supply chain issues started popping up big time and all the prices of printing and distributing that. It just went through the roof. We had a very small team and by team I mean like literally what Jakub and myself on the creative side, plus our lovely editors and the science editor and the exalted funeral team that was taking care of the project management and distribution and printing and everything I don’t know 10 people tops. So we were. We were stretched rather thin and I was very happy that we decided to just make a book with a bunch of smaller add-ons instead of going all in on stretch goals and just draining ourselves completely.

Courtney: 8:53

Yeah, it feels like with Geologist Primer, you guys have a lot more stretch goals this time.

Anna: 8:59

We do, we do. We changed our partners and now we partnered up with Hunters Entertainment. We actually signed a deal with them for years going forward, so no further changes here. We just decided on a partnership. That’s very much in line with what we want to do, with double proficiency in regards to games that we want to publish and potential other stuff that I can’t talk about yet, but it is very exciting and I’m looking forward to it. And, yes, now we have a bigger team, so I’m no longer responsible for all the graphics for the Kickstarter and writing the updates and taking care of all the comments and answering all the emails. So, yeah, I have more time to write and I have more time to actually work on the book and all the stretch goals, so we can put in more stretch goals and reach the heights that have never been reached before, at least as far as my second Kickstarter goes. But, yeah, it’s super exciting and I love working with Hunters. It’s a great team.

Courtney: 10:13

Okay, believe me, I have lots of follow-up questions. I suppose, before we get too far into those, though, for the sake of our listeners who may not be familiar with Herbalist Primer and now geologist Primer, can you just give us a little overview of what these books are.

Anna: 10:27

Yeah, absolutely. Those books are basically well, the end goal of my 30-year-old obsession with natural science and RPGs. So I just smashed both together. And Herbalist Primer was a book on real-world magical plants described from the perspective of folklore and occult. Well, mostly modern occult, but also, you know, 15th century Europe, because I am European and it is what I feel mostly allowed to talk about. I was always trying to incorporate folklore from different parts of the world, but obviously I am very, very Slavic and there are just some parts of culture that are not mine to talk about. So I’m living space for other people to talk about their cultures. So mine are mostly European focused. It would just feel wrong to talk in detail about stuff that’s not mine. So yeah, that’s Herbalist Primer. It covers magical plants from Acomite to you, basically because we go off alphabetically, and it includes hundred entries about those real-world plants and the folklore that is connected to them. And Geologist Primer is a very similar book. It has basically the same structure but it covers metals, minerals, crystals, mineraloids and other types of jewelry material like ivory and corals, for example.

Courtney: 12:01

I got the book for Herbalist Primer Gosh like a couple, I don’t know, maybe a month ago at this point.

Anna: 12:09

Maybe a little longer. Well, thank you for your support.

Courtney: 12:14

Yeah, yeah. And so, just saying the announcement, I’m like, oh, it’s finally here. Like Shawnee Rocks, yes, I was very excited that when this Kickstarter launched and to be able to back this next one, thank you. Did you get to take any kind of break between finishing the writing of Herbalist Primer and then starting writing and drawing for Geologists, or did you just jump straight into it?

Anna: 12:42

For the sake of the wider public, who should be aware of the fact that rest is very important and you shouldn’t just jump from one project to another. I took a break, by which I mean that I started researching different topics because I wasn’t really sure what is the second book I would like to write about. So I just started delving into geology and into mycology because mushrooms are cool and into a couple other projects, just to check which one is actually going to hold my interest. But I didn’t really have a break per se. I just had, let’s say, restful time for personal investigation into what is currently interesting to me, because I knew that if I’m going to jump straight into one specific project and announce it to the world, I may as well lose interest within a week, and then I’m gonna be in a pickle. So I didn’t take a break, but I took a quiet time away from other people’s eyes, so I can figure out what is it that I’m interested in, so I can actually write this book. Because I knew it’s gonna take a year and a half to two years to do it, and that’s a lot of time for somebody to lose interest, especially if somebody is like me and can either hyper focus on a thing or lose interest completely. It’s not something I can control. So, yeah, after about I don’t know two, three weeks, I figured that the gems are gonna do the trick. So that’s what I did.

Courtney: 14:25

I mean, honestly, I like that answer, Like I think that makes a lot of sense. You know, like I’m hoping it was at least restful to do that research. But yeah, like this, these books look like so much work, like they are beautiful, they’re super interesting. But yeah, I have to imagine that like it had to be kind of exhausting to just keep up with the same topic for so long.

Anna: 14:49

I mean, it is thousands of hours of research and then hundreds of hours of drawing and hundreds of hours of writing. I don’t want to. I mean, I am very grateful I can do this job and I don’t want to come across as somebody who is complaining about doing the work of her dreams. But it is allowed and it is sometimes monotonous, I suppose, because you know, especially when I’m working on those hundred main entries it’s just day one. We are writing about this. Okay, let’s open all the websites I need and all the books that I need, and then just write it down for a couple of hours and then next day do the same thing with another gem. So it has become tedious at some points, but that’s the moment where I know that it’s time to take a break and just read up something cool or just I don’t know go gardening.

Courtney: 15:47

That’s always an option. Yeah, no, that makes so much sense. Is there anything that you’re doing differently this time when writing this book than what you did when you were doing it? Or will this primer? I think so.

Anna: 16:02

My work is definitely more organized. I am a person who organizes everything on like multiple lists and then uses all of them to attack the project. So I think I have like seven different trackers for this project so I can give myself hits of dopamine just crossing the same thing off seven times. I feel that yes, I definitely have a more focused approach this time, so I actually did the research first and then assembled myself a list of sources that I use the most, and then I use those sources instead of digging through the internet for every single entry separately. There’s, of course, a lot of digging through other sources, but the core is more organized. I have found sources that I trust, which are mostly, in this particular case, scientific geological websites like Mindat and Geomology and others like that, that’s. I can trust them that the data about physical properties and chemical properties of all of those minerals is actually on point.

Courtney: 17:19

Yeah, I had to imagine that, since it is kind of like a sequel, like you at least have the layout from the first book and you figured out like having to stumble through everything the first time, I would hope that it would be a lot easier this time. It is easier.

Anna: 17:36

The layout was basically a matter of removing the existing text and just typing in different headers. Yeah, yeah. So once I knew what I wanted to have in the book, the layout was super easy. I also write already in design, so the layout exists at all times. I don’t have to spend additional hours doing layout later and trying to fit the text to space or space to text. It’s just a daily thing, yeah.

Courtney: 18:10

Another thing I’m curious about is and sorry, I realize I’m kind of jumping back and forth between the books- no, jump ahead. Yeah, so another thing I’m curious about is what it was like to work with a science editor.

Anna: 18:26

Oh, that was awesome. I am so glad that we had a science editor. Rishi Masalia, the biologist botanist that we hired as a science editor for herbally primer, has been basically invaluable. Rishi was going through the whole book, leaving me hundreds of comments about how there is this one specific study that shows that what I’m writing about isn’t true. Oh, no, no, no, it is all very. It is actually a great experience because I have learned so many additional aspects to what I was writing about, because obviously my knowledge is more well. I do come to all of this from more of a folklore background and a library background, so my botanical knowledge was sourced from other books. I do not have a degree in biology, so having somebody with a doctorate in botany was just a blast. I have learned so many things while reading Rishi’s comments and I would never. I just knew that we need a scientific editor for this book as well, because I just love learning new stuff. That was so exciting. I loved it. I loved every second of it.

Courtney: 19:50

Kat, so you’re saying she left you like hundreds of comments, like were there a lot of herbs that you just had like completely rewrite?

Anna: 19:59

Oh, no, no, no, it was. I mean, I was using respectable sources for writing all the botanical information, so there were no giant rewrites, but there were, for example, specific aspects of, and, for example, the chemical base for specific elements of photosynthesis that I haven’t realized, but they could be very nicely turned into something that’s magical for people who aren’t that deep into biology. So it was a great experience, because Rishi is also a fan of role-playing games, so he knew what I’m after. He knew perfectly that I am looking for those cool and interesting facts that are facts but also can be very easily turned into something that sounds exciting for people who aren’t that much into natural sciences and who are more into games and magic and all kinds of occult traditions.

Courtney: 21:05

I love just the merge of all of it, of the science, the folklore, the fantasy.

Anna: 21:13

And the modern bridgecraft.

Courtney: 21:15

Yeah, it’s just such a cool resource to have and I love having the extra adventure and I think, with the stretch goals, that you guys are going to have two adventures now.

Anna: 21:27

We will. Yes, one is already written. It’s called Bedrock Lullaby and it’s about a little geode called Pebbles who is going on an adventure. Because, well, pebbles’ backstory is that a witch was messing around doing cantrips, but she couldn’t really read cursive and, instead of casting light, she somehow put the spark of life into a geode on her bedstand. So Pebbles is now fully conscious and is just experiencing life, because they never had one. So now they want to learn who they are, and the player characters are helping Pebbles along the way, doing adventures and figuring out what the future should be and what Pebbles could be.

Courtney: 22:13

Oh my God, I already love him.

Anna: 22:15

It’s adorable. Of course, the story is a very silly spin on Frankenstein and the witch is called Sheila Murray because Murray Shelley was already taken. So, yes, jakub had plenty of fun writing this adventure and I hope, because I know hunters have recorded an actual play. But hash, I mean it’s gonna go out soon. So there will be an actual play for Bedrock Lullaby which is going to be released soon. I don’t know when this episode lands, so it might be around that time. I think the actual play is actually going to be released in 10 days, so 25th. Okay, got it, so we’ll see, and I hope they had plenty of fun playing it.

Courtney: 23:11

I do not know, but I hope I will learn, okay well, I look forward to watching it because Pebbles sounds like amazing and I already love him.

Anna: 23:22

They are absolutely adorable.

Courtney: 23:25

So that is the one that’s already written.

Anna: 23:29

Yes, the second one is in works. I don’t yet know what Jakub has planned for it, because he says he’s thinking on it. I’m sure it’s going to be adorable as well, because this is the vibe we’re usually going for, just like with the song of the hedge in the previous campaign, where you were helping along a hedgehog to find a magical plant while turned into mice. So things are happening and I’m sure the next adventure is also going to be in the general vibe of fey and little animals and taking care of each other and being all over in both. We just like some nice breaks from life.

Courtney: 24:17

Yeah, I mean, those are like totally my vibe and what I like in play, so I’m excited. Hey, entrepreneurs, I love introducing you to new creators every episode, but I could really use your support. I would love to invite you to join our Patreon page, where you’ll gain access to behind the scenes content, add your questions to upcoming interviews and you can even receive a shoutout on our site and an upcoming episode. To learn more, go to Lightheartadventurescom. And now back to the show. So something else that I wanted to ask about was and you’ve already mentioned moving over to Hunter’s Entertainment for this go round, but I would just love to know, like, what the kind of decision process was in looking for a new publisher and how you found them and how you chose them.

Anna: 25:10

Well, it’s not that we had a problem with the previous publisher. It’s just that we as a company have a specific plan for what we want to be doing and what types of games we want to focus on, which includes, again, stuff that’s just fun and friendly and upbeat and connected to environmental sciences and to general green type of a thing, because we care about the environment and we care about sharing those values. So we wanted to connect with a company that has those values at the core, including the. I don’t know if you played any games that were published by Hunter’s Entertainment, but they did. For example, alice is Missing, which is a really interesting role playing games in which there is no talking. Everything is played out via text chat, like group chat of text messages, where you are trying to investigate the disappearance of one of your friends, and it’s a nice time gated scenario in which everything can change and you discover different clues and just have to communicate via chat. So it’s very interesting and it’s different. And they also made kids on bikes, for example, which is this cool 80s style adventure that has this fresh atmosphere of having fun and being a young teenager during a summer, while just being on a holiday and enjoying the time with your friends. I feel like Hunter’s Entertainment is just a company that covers a lot of the same ground that we want to cover and they have similar values and they have similar expectations and I don’t know just general I don’t want to use the word vibe but we have similar outlooks on what we can do as a company and how our games would be best presented, because we have some big plans. We have plans and I can’t talk about them. It’s very hard to answer this question without spilling the beans, but I’m contractually obligated not to spill the beans. That’s okay. Rest assured, we are very excited to partner up with Hunter’s Entertainment and we have so many great things planned. I can’t wait to be able to tell people about them, but it’s coming. It’s going to come in a couple months, I hope all the announcements and it’s going to be great and it’s going to be amazing, but I can’t tell you more. I’m sorry.

Courtney: 28:01

That’s okay. I’m just excited, it’s like a little tease and I’m just like, oh okay.

Anna: 28:10

Yes, I’m afraid a little teasing is all I can do in this case. It’s just a teaser trailer. The proper trailers will arrive later. Perfect.