One of the greatest things about visiting your local independent bookstore is that you never know what you’re going to find. Sometimes a hidden gem might jump off the shelf at you, sometimes you can be drawn in by a staff recommendation. One example of this phenomenon might be Critical Path: How to Review Videogames for a Living by Dan Amrich. I mean, who hasn’t dreamed of getting paid to play their favorite games?
Chris recently spoke with Dan about Critical Path, the writing process, and the long journey to book took from idea to publication.
Q: You've been a part of some major gaming publications in your career. In a few sentences, could you give a bit of your professional background?
Sure. I started as a freelance writer in 1993, tackling game reviews for a mix of computer, sports, entertainment, and lifestyle magazines, plus the then-novel realm of America Online. I got a good reputation by sending copies of my reviews back to the companies that had supplied me with games, so by the time I got a staff position at GamePro magazine in 1997, I had a good industry reputation. I stayed there and wrote under the pen name of Dan Elektro for seven years, then branched out to Official Xbox Magazine, GamesRadar, PC Gamer, and any other publication that would have me! All told I put in 15 years as a game reviewer and magazine editor before writing Critical Path.
Q: You live on the West Coast now, but you spent a bit of time here in Upstate NY, not far from our store here in Saratoga Springs. Can you talk a bit about your time on the East Coast?
I grew up in the Philadelphia area, which is a euphemism for Trenton, New Jersey -- but I went to college at Ithaca, married my wife outside Rochester, and I love every trip I've taken upstate.
Q: What was the inspiration to write Critical Path? Is it something you were always thinking about doing, or did you decide one day "I should really write this stuff down!"?
It was largely driven by the letters we got from magazine readers. I was in charge of the reader mail at GamePro, and every month, we'd get letters asking the same question -- "How do I get your job?" Usually it was from teenagers whose parents were telling them they had to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives, so they were curious about what career surrounded by something they loved -- videogames -- might look like. The more I got these letters, the more I wanted to answer them, but the more I realized that the answer was potentially very detailed. Some people who wrote in were really just looking for a way to get free games, but there were enough serious letters asking for real-world advice that I was convinced it was something I could definitively answer for the hopefuls who really didn't know where else to start.
Q: Did you experience any challenges when writing? Was it difficult to move from magazine, and short-form journalism, to a fully fleshed-out 300 page book?
I chipped away at the book over about eight years, and I'm glad I did. My first draft was started after I left GamePro, and I'd spent about 10 years in the industry. But the next five years of my career included a lot of the transition from print media to digital media, and I was still learning with every new issue. I wound up with a much more useful book outline, offering soup-to-nuts advice about a lot of different aspects of writing, editing, and surviving an always-changing industry.
I chose a very casual, conversational style for the book and decided to keep my segments short, so it just kind of flowed out of me. I didn't find it too hard to write, because I was writing in short, focused bursts on very specific topics. That helped it from feeling too intimidating.
Honestly, the toughest part of writing the book was buckling down and finishing it, because it's always more fun playing games than writing about writing about playing games. I always believed in what I was writing, and when I got into the groove, it felt great -- but it was simply more fun to play World of Warcraft with my wife than sculpt a chapter or two on a weekend.
Q: It's been a few years since your initial publication, do you wish you could go back and edit anything in the book? Did you end up cutting anything out, that you now really wish had been included?
I have a bound copy here with notes of things I'd like to revisit or revise -- mostly small things, or phrases I'd like to tweak for tone or clarity -- but overall, I am actually very happy with how the book reads. I think it's still useful and fresh, and I tried to consciously future-proof it, knowing that I might never get the chance to make a second edition. I did find an earlier draft of the book, and all that content did get used -- it's just much better organized now than it was originally!
(Editor’s note: Here’s Dan’s look back, a year after publication: http://criticalpathbook.com/one-year-anniversary-and-the-hidden-chapter/ )
Q: What was your feedback like after "Critical Path" came out? Are you happy with the audience it has found so far?
Feedback has been generally positive. It meant a lot to see colleagues say "Finally, someone wrote the book that answers the questions we always get" -- if it felt like advice that other editors would want to give, that was serious validation for me. I've heard from people who read the book and applied its advice to establish their own writing careers so that's even better. And it's also been great to see a lot of reviewers say "This writing advice is great even if you're not into videogames." I was writing with a specific audience in mind, but I wanted to try to offer guidance for any aspiring writer. My secret hope was that it might one day be used as part of a teacher's writing curriculum. I wanted to write the most fun textbook out there. But I had specific, achievable goals and I wound up hitting them, so everything else that has followed that milestone has been a source of major gratitude.
Q: Can you talk a bit about your decision to self-publish? Had you shopped "Critical Path" around to many traditional publishers?
Only a few, really, and even though I approached publishers with a specialty in videogame books, nobody was leaping out of their chairs to sign me up. I'd written PlayStation 2 For Dummies a few years earlier and found that the editors on that project only had a limited knowledge of games; it was a very frustrating process, and the Dummies books follow a very strict formula -- that's part of their success. But the stuff I felt was most valuable in that book was the stuff they felt was the least valuable, and vice versa. I vowed that the next book I wrote would truly be my book. So after a few mild reactions while the book was still being completed, I decided to focus on just writing the best book I could write, then shopping it around when it was complete -- I was on no deadlines other than my own, though I was hoping nobody would beat me to market with such a specific topic. When my friend Hugh Sterbakov said he was planning to self-publish his first novel, City Under the Moon, I started considering that path more seriously. That was probably around 2011, and by that time, I wasn't far from finishing my final draft.
Self-publishing ultimately made a lot of sense in my case. I was writing about a very specific topic for a very specific audience, and I was capable of doing a lot of the things a publisher would normally handle: Distribution, marketing and promotion, polish, even design. I already had a good reputation, a small network of followers, and plenty of friends in the gaming press, so I wasn't convinced that a larger publisher could do a better job of targeting my audience or getting the word out than I could. A lot of self-published authors don't know much about design, but my wife is a graphic designer with years of print publishing experience, so she laid out the book and designed the cover as well. And when my final draft was done, I was able to get valuable feedback from the writers and editors I'd worked with for years, and then hired another ex-coworker to fully copy-edit the book. And because of all those connections, I was able to make my book without compromises. And Critical Path will always be a priority to me, whereas a larger publisher might forget they owned it. I know there will always be an audience of this -- just like the endless stream of letters I got at GamePro and OXM, there are always new gamers looking for career options. By self-publishing, I can easily keep Critical Path in print for new generations.
Q: If you were going to write another book, what would it be about? Have you ever tried your hand at fiction?
I've never been bitten by the fiction bug; I am more interested in documenting the things around me. There's one major videogame franchise that I like very much, and I've always threatened to write its definitive history, but I have never actually gone about doing it. Maybe someday...!
Q: And finally, 3 books. One desert island. What do you bring?
Zen Guitar by Philip Toshio Sudo, Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons, and of course, How to Survive on a Deserted Island by Tim O'Shei.
Dan Amrich is an American writer, author, actor, musician, and social media expert. He graduated from Ithaca College with a major in Audio Production and minor in Writing and became a professional journalist and critic with numerous video game and music magazines and websites. He currently works for Ubisoft as Community Developer, and resides in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. (Wikipedia.org)
Chris recently spoke with Dan about Critical Path, the writing process, and the long journey to book took from idea to publication.
Q: You've been a part of some major gaming publications in your career. In a few sentences, could you give a bit of your professional background?
Sure. I started as a freelance writer in 1993, tackling game reviews for a mix of computer, sports, entertainment, and lifestyle magazines, plus the then-novel realm of America Online. I got a good reputation by sending copies of my reviews back to the companies that had supplied me with games, so by the time I got a staff position at GamePro magazine in 1997, I had a good industry reputation. I stayed there and wrote under the pen name of Dan Elektro for seven years, then branched out to Official Xbox Magazine, GamesRadar, PC Gamer, and any other publication that would have me! All told I put in 15 years as a game reviewer and magazine editor before writing Critical Path.
Q: You live on the West Coast now, but you spent a bit of time here in Upstate NY, not far from our store here in Saratoga Springs. Can you talk a bit about your time on the East Coast?
I grew up in the Philadelphia area, which is a euphemism for Trenton, New Jersey -- but I went to college at Ithaca, married my wife outside Rochester, and I love every trip I've taken upstate.
Q: What was the inspiration to write Critical Path? Is it something you were always thinking about doing, or did you decide one day "I should really write this stuff down!"?
It was largely driven by the letters we got from magazine readers. I was in charge of the reader mail at GamePro, and every month, we'd get letters asking the same question -- "How do I get your job?" Usually it was from teenagers whose parents were telling them they had to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives, so they were curious about what career surrounded by something they loved -- videogames -- might look like. The more I got these letters, the more I wanted to answer them, but the more I realized that the answer was potentially very detailed. Some people who wrote in were really just looking for a way to get free games, but there were enough serious letters asking for real-world advice that I was convinced it was something I could definitively answer for the hopefuls who really didn't know where else to start.
Q: Did you experience any challenges when writing? Was it difficult to move from magazine, and short-form journalism, to a fully fleshed-out 300 page book?
I chipped away at the book over about eight years, and I'm glad I did. My first draft was started after I left GamePro, and I'd spent about 10 years in the industry. But the next five years of my career included a lot of the transition from print media to digital media, and I was still learning with every new issue. I wound up with a much more useful book outline, offering soup-to-nuts advice about a lot of different aspects of writing, editing, and surviving an always-changing industry.
I chose a very casual, conversational style for the book and decided to keep my segments short, so it just kind of flowed out of me. I didn't find it too hard to write, because I was writing in short, focused bursts on very specific topics. That helped it from feeling too intimidating.
Honestly, the toughest part of writing the book was buckling down and finishing it, because it's always more fun playing games than writing about writing about playing games. I always believed in what I was writing, and when I got into the groove, it felt great -- but it was simply more fun to play World of Warcraft with my wife than sculpt a chapter or two on a weekend.
Q: It's been a few years since your initial publication, do you wish you could go back and edit anything in the book? Did you end up cutting anything out, that you now really wish had been included?
I have a bound copy here with notes of things I'd like to revisit or revise -- mostly small things, or phrases I'd like to tweak for tone or clarity -- but overall, I am actually very happy with how the book reads. I think it's still useful and fresh, and I tried to consciously future-proof it, knowing that I might never get the chance to make a second edition. I did find an earlier draft of the book, and all that content did get used -- it's just much better organized now than it was originally!
(Editor’s note: Here’s Dan’s look back, a year after publication: http://criticalpathbook.com/one-year-anniversary-and-the-hidden-chapter/ )
Q: What was your feedback like after "Critical Path" came out? Are you happy with the audience it has found so far?
Feedback has been generally positive. It meant a lot to see colleagues say "Finally, someone wrote the book that answers the questions we always get" -- if it felt like advice that other editors would want to give, that was serious validation for me. I've heard from people who read the book and applied its advice to establish their own writing careers so that's even better. And it's also been great to see a lot of reviewers say "This writing advice is great even if you're not into videogames." I was writing with a specific audience in mind, but I wanted to try to offer guidance for any aspiring writer. My secret hope was that it might one day be used as part of a teacher's writing curriculum. I wanted to write the most fun textbook out there. But I had specific, achievable goals and I wound up hitting them, so everything else that has followed that milestone has been a source of major gratitude.
Q: Can you talk a bit about your decision to self-publish? Had you shopped "Critical Path" around to many traditional publishers?
Only a few, really, and even though I approached publishers with a specialty in videogame books, nobody was leaping out of their chairs to sign me up. I'd written PlayStation 2 For Dummies a few years earlier and found that the editors on that project only had a limited knowledge of games; it was a very frustrating process, and the Dummies books follow a very strict formula -- that's part of their success. But the stuff I felt was most valuable in that book was the stuff they felt was the least valuable, and vice versa. I vowed that the next book I wrote would truly be my book. So after a few mild reactions while the book was still being completed, I decided to focus on just writing the best book I could write, then shopping it around when it was complete -- I was on no deadlines other than my own, though I was hoping nobody would beat me to market with such a specific topic. When my friend Hugh Sterbakov said he was planning to self-publish his first novel, City Under the Moon, I started considering that path more seriously. That was probably around 2011, and by that time, I wasn't far from finishing my final draft.
Self-publishing ultimately made a lot of sense in my case. I was writing about a very specific topic for a very specific audience, and I was capable of doing a lot of the things a publisher would normally handle: Distribution, marketing and promotion, polish, even design. I already had a good reputation, a small network of followers, and plenty of friends in the gaming press, so I wasn't convinced that a larger publisher could do a better job of targeting my audience or getting the word out than I could. A lot of self-published authors don't know much about design, but my wife is a graphic designer with years of print publishing experience, so she laid out the book and designed the cover as well. And when my final draft was done, I was able to get valuable feedback from the writers and editors I'd worked with for years, and then hired another ex-coworker to fully copy-edit the book. And because of all those connections, I was able to make my book without compromises. And Critical Path will always be a priority to me, whereas a larger publisher might forget they owned it. I know there will always be an audience of this -- just like the endless stream of letters I got at GamePro and OXM, there are always new gamers looking for career options. By self-publishing, I can easily keep Critical Path in print for new generations.
 |
| Amrich featured as a hidden character in NBA Hangitme. |
Q: If you were going to write another book, what would it be about? Have you ever tried your hand at fiction?
I've never been bitten by the fiction bug; I am more interested in documenting the things around me. There's one major videogame franchise that I like very much, and I've always threatened to write its definitive history, but I have never actually gone about doing it. Maybe someday...!
Q: And finally, 3 books. One desert island. What do you bring?
Zen Guitar by Philip Toshio Sudo, Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons, and of course, How to Survive on a Deserted Island by Tim O'Shei.
Dan Amrich is an American writer, author, actor, musician, and social media expert. He graduated from Ithaca College with a major in Audio Production and minor in Writing and became a professional journalist and critic with numerous video game and music magazines and websites. He currently works for Ubisoft as Community Developer, and resides in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. (Wikipedia.org)
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