The State of the Tales by Bob Empire 2026

It's the turning of the year, so you know what that means! It's time for my annual:

State of the Tales by Bob Empire!

The Big Picture: Meh?

That is a little harsh. To be clear it was not a bad year. From a business perspective, I increased my gross income by like, 30% I think? Got to be happy about that right?

But on the flip side, I didn't have a book come out. I had some zines come out, sure, but 'game designer' is not my primary title, 'author' is. So any year that I don't have a book come out is a bad year. And when you consider that last year all I really had come out was Create Your Way To Freedom, no fiction at all, that makes for two years in a row without my main focus not happening.

And what makes that more frustrating? I've written whole ass books in that time.

I did make one major change though that has been steadily righting the ship. Starting back in...October? I began waking up 4 out of 5 week days at 4am. In theory I am supposed to be doing it every week day, but I usually give myself one day of grace a week. 

But yeah, I wake up at 4am, go grab a quick shower and some breakfast, and then write until 6. Then from 6 til 630 I work on stuff like laying out zines, making promo images, that sort of stuff. Initially I was just writing until I hit 1k words, then swapping to other things, but the past couple of weeks I have shifted to a flat, write until 6 sort of flow. Because fuck me, I need to get these books done and dusted. 

So yeah, that is the big picture: I made more money, but creatively was unfulfilled in a lot of ways, and I'm making moves to fix that.

Breaking it Down

In each of the sections below I will address one of the major avenues of the Empire, basically looking back over the year. For more forward looking type things, that is all in a separate section down below. 

Writing

This is the reason for the season, as it were, so just what did I write this year?

Capital of Nightmares: I spent a significant part of the early months of the year doing heavy edits on this. My editor from Falstaff had provided the initial round of edits, so I had to go in and do some heavy massaging of the book. I actually ended up fairly dramatically restructuring the thing. 

Crimson Horror 3: I did get a good chunk written on this. It's just shy of 50k words long at the moment, meaning I wrote around 25k new words on it. But I reached a point where I hated it. To be clear, I start hating everything I write, usually once I cross the halfway point. But this I could tell I was hating extra hard. That's my warning bell that something is wrong, and until I can get that parsed, I had to stop working on it. 

Blackwater Requiem: I have written a bit over 50,000 words on it this year, the bulk of that in late Q3 and Q4. I am estimating that I am 3/5ths done with it. Maybe. This feels like something that could get away from me. Which, since initially I thought it might just be a novella initially, clearly is the case. 

So, I'm guessing I wrote somewhere in the neighborhood of 85k words for the year. 

Publishing

I already talked about how I didn't publish anything (outside of zines) in 2025. That doesn't mean I was totally inactive on this front. There were two major developments.

First, I put out second editions of all my novels. This meant:

• Redoing the covers. I kept the same core art, but added some texturing, made the back blub bigger and easier to read, added a publisher logo to the spine, added blurbs, and added isbns.

• Purchasing isbns for them all, for all formats. I had just been using the free amazon ones, and I hated it.

• Normalizing the back matter.

• Tweaking the dedications.

• Totally remaking the cover art for Southern Saudade (love my bone heart).

• Using Atticus to spice up the interiors a nudge. 

• I also went wide with the print editions.

Secondly, I started the ball rolling on getting a super fancy collectors editions of my two omnibus editions. I commissioned someone to make the covers, complete with foil and such. I freaking love them. Now I need to actually, you know, get them made. 

Lastly, I will say that originally my horror novel Capital of Nightmares was initially set to come out in Q3 of this year. That didn't happen, obviously. As far as I know it will be coming out in 2026, but I have not received an updated release date from my publisher.

Events

In 2024 I sold something like 8500 bucks worth of books. 2025? More like 14,500. So yeah, events were good to me this year.

The biggest success here was Dragon Con. It is now the biggest event I have had in total numbers of books sold, as well as income. I made over 2500 bucks and sold 85 copies. Hell yeah.

Otherwise, it was a good year on pretty much all fronts. I taught some more paid gigs, I spoke to some book clubs, did some new events, revisited some of my usuals. All in all it was great.

I only had one event where I lost money, Multiverse. That was on me though really. I tried out being a sponsor, which meant it was a fairly expensive event for sales not being what I'd hoped. Still one of my favorite events of the year by far to be clear. You can read about it HERE. 

Tales by Pod

So for the most part I didn't do a ton here. In fact I think I guested on things more than I actually hosted. But there were two nice things:

My partnership with GoIndieNow is moving right along with Page Numbers! This is a show where I interview creatives about the reality of how much money they make. You can see it HERE. 

Secondly, I stood up my actual podcast network website and such! You can check it out HERE. 

Otherwise I recorded a dab of Southern Fried Fantasy, and not much else. This should be changing in the coming year, but I'll talk about that below.  

Bearded Bard Inkworks

At the tale end of 2024 I stood up Bearded Bard Inkworks. Over the course of the year I have been tuning it a bit, without making too many super major moves. 

I did release two new games, The Buried and Flint, Blood, Bone. Each are 20 page zines that you can get from me at events in print, or snag digital copies from the website or Itch.io.

That was one development: I set up a webstore on my site so that I can sell the digital copies of all my games. I've even had a couple of sales through it. 

I did close down my DriveThruRpg stuff however. What I ended up deciding was this: I only have so many spoons. So maintaining a website, a DTRPG, and an Itch was too much. The site is non-negotiable, and Itch is easier to use. So my Drivethru got closed. Maybe one day I will reupload all my stuff there. But that day is not today. 

Collaborations

I have big dreams. To get there I will need to do some collabs to fill the gaps in my ability for sure. There are a few I feel comfortable talking about that are underway:

• I have enjoyed working with Joe Compton over on GoIndieNow with Page Numbers. The 4th episode will be live by the time you are reading this in fact!

• My screenwriter friend is still shopping around the pilot she wrote for the Redemption of Howard Marsh. As soon as I know something (something I can tell you at least), you will know something. 

• I have started working with some author/creative friends to put out a series of adventure zines for my game Cryptid Containment Corp. I have some really great submissions already. 

Transparency

I hope you have taken the time to (from a desktop) check out the new Data page. I spent a lot of time building a dashboard to allow folks to somewhat dynamically see all my transparency data.

The are also a bunch of new things I will be tracking in the new year, such as:

• Monthly word count.

• Monthly hours spent writing/spent working on business.

• All expenses will be going on monthly recaps.

• All my zine stuff will be broken out separately, so BBI will have it's own section.  

Marketing

The only really new thing I did was order some yard signs. Which sounds like a small thing. But holy shit, they have helped me sell a ton of books at cons. They have already paid for themselves many times over. 

Otherwise it was business as usual. Order stickers, give away stickers, order business cards, give away business cards, rinse, repeat. 

Now that my books are orderable from Ingramspark however, I plan to start ramping things up in the new year. 

Assorted Little Victories

• I had a few 'interns' in the booth over the year. Four in fact (one returning). This is where I let folks come shadow me at an event, and if they have books I usually let them sell them through me. I love doing it, and they seem to get a lot out of it. 

• Folks have been gassing me up on panels and the like, telling folks that they use me as a resource on how to increase their sales and the like. 

• A few folks I have mentored in some way reached out to let me know how their sales had increased and the like. 

• I got to meet some folks big name author folks like Robin and Michael J. Sullivan and James Hunter, who were super kind to me. 

• Dragon Con had me on something like 12 events/panels. I got to do a book signing with Charlaine Harris, and panel with Charlaine and Sherrilyn Kenyon at the same time. What even is this world? 

• I got to meet in person a couple of authors I have been friends with online for a long time, Martin Shannon and Michael J. Adams. Good times!

Next Year

So below this section I will break down the goals I set for 2025, and the goals I am setting for 2026. But first let me talk more broadly, without specifics. 

Next year I will put out books. This is my number one priority. My boss at my day job is fond of saying 'The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.' He said it for years without me really taking it to heart, but now, I have. I literally have it as my desktop background.

My job needs to always be keeping the main thing the main thing. And the main thing is publishing novels. Which means I have to write them. Two years in a row with no books coming out is totally unacceptable to me. 

As I said above I have made moves to 'fix' my writing production, and so far it's working well. I am debating doing the occasional 'sprint' where for a month or so I get up at 4 each and every day, including weekends, and write. Doing two a year would add about 30k words to my word total (I'm estimating). I may start off the year trying to do 100 days consecutively. We'll see. 

For Bearded Bard Inkworks, I have enough content in the tank, plus the collabs I am working on that it should be no problem to hit my goals there. I am considering doing some kickstarters on that front, but if it looks like doing that will add too much complexity, then I will just release them my usual way. 

For podcasting, I am toying with the idea that I will set Tuesday evenings aside as a 'work' night. Currently when I get home from work, once dinner has been had and chores are done I either:

• Watch stuff with the LadyWife/have a date night.

• Have a work night where I work on Tales by Bob stuff.

• Play a computer game. 

Currently I just sort of see how the night takes me. What I think would work better, and help me maintain a better balance, would be saying only Tuesdays can be a work night. But, because of that, it's sacrosanct. Tuesdays ARE worknights. Period. And my plan for at least half of them is to make them podcast recording nights. One episode a week recorded, for maybe 25 weeks out of the year? That would be fantastic. 

We'll see how it all plays out!

Last Years Goals Update

Here is what I said I would do in 2025, with the status:

• I will finish book 3 in my Crimson Horror trilogy and publish all three books. Hoping to send all three to my editor at the end of February.

  • Failed. I did make some headway...but then I got stuck. This book is 'broken' in some way that I haven't been able to figure out, and until I do it's on hold. 

• I will start writing the next arc of the Howard Marsh books in the Jubal County Saga. Soft goal for having the next book out by Christmas.

  • Failed. I decided to 'clean my plate' first so to speak. This means getting all three Crimson Horror novels and Blackwater Requiem written first. 

• I will put out at least three more rpg zines.

  • Success. I did! Sorta. I put out two totally new ones, The Buried and Flint, Blood, Bone. I also put out second editions of all my current games, which was a major undertaking. 

• Hit 5,000 books sold.

  • Success. I hit this goal, and you can read about it HERE, if you are interested.

• Officially launch the Tales by Bob Podcast Network. Tentatively set for June.

  • Success. I did. You can go see the website HERE.

• I want to put out one short story anthology. I don't care what. Either steampunk, southern horror, or fantasy. Safe money says southern horror.

  • Failed. I decided that my focus needs to be on something novel length. I think these will be a 2027 project at this point. 

• I want to start the groundwork in earnest for putting out the first multi-author Jubal County short story collection through Bearded Bard Inkworks. The plan is for it to be invitation only for this first anthology, probably ten authors besides me.

  • Failed. I have talked with a couple of folks about this, but nothing concrete. Until I figure out the finances of it this is on hold. And again, I need to focus on getting a book of my own out. 

• By god all my books will be wide in print, with new covers, interiors, blurbs, back matter, etc.

  • Success. Fucking finally. And I think they look amazing, and the first one got blurbed by Faith Hunter. How cool is that?!

Goals for 2026

Here are the book goals I am setting for 2026:

• Complete writing Blackwater Requiem.

• Complete writing Crimson Horror 3.

• Send all three Crimson Horror and Blackwater to the editor.

• Publish all four books. 

• Publish my fancy collectors editions. Possibly using kickstarter.

• Start writing the Redemption of Howard Marsh 7.

Here are the Game Design goals I am setting for 2026:

• Publish at least two CCC adventure zines. 

• Publish at least two other zines. 

Here are the Podcasting goals I am setting for 2026:

• Record all six episodes of season one of Spookier than Fiction.

• Record two more episodes of Page Numbers to complete the season.

• Record at least one episode of Southern Fried Fantasy.

• Record at least six episodes of Books, Beards, Booze.