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An Interview with Travis Bagwell · This Dad Reads

• Jason: Welcome back to This Dad Reads. I'm your host Jason. Today I'm joined by an author who's helped build one of the most recognizable series in lit RPG, bringing together virtual reality, fantasy, gaming mechanics, and a protagonist who's not exactly your traditional hero. His Awakened Online series has grown into a sprawling 15-book universe, and he recently launched the Madness Reincarnate series. It's Travis Bagwell. Welcome to the show, Travis. Travis Bagwell: Thanks for having me. excited to be here. Jason: yeah, good to see you again. We recently hung out on your whirlwind of a tour. I wanna hear all about how that went. Travis Bagwell: Yeah, I think you just caught me at the very tail end of it. I remember I was like, Yeah, I am like here and body, but maybe not soul. Or like what I'm telling people, I'm operating in third person right now. It's an out of body experience. Jason: Totally fair. Yep. Travis Bagwell: what it? Jason: How did that go? And y and you're still going, right? Travis Bagwell: God, yes. I mean it never ends. no that that tour was it was a lot of fun. It was me and Andrew Givler, the author of Ironbound. and he's just a delight. Like we did a we basically did like an entire week together. which was fun because like we would go do these panels and we had no plan. Like you you had like an intro and right there, right? Like we we had nothing. We basically winged every single panel. we had people come up afterward and they're like, that was great. how long have you how many years have you guys known each other? We're like, we met maybe Tuesday, Jason: Ha ha ha. Travis Bagwell: so I think it's maybe just an author connection or something. Jason: There you go. yeah, and I same thing, fellow nerds are fellow nerds. I started realizing that when I was going to conventions. you make friends so fast when you just have such a common interest. It's so easy to make make book friends and author friends. Travis Bagwell: It is indeed. I went to Lit RPGCon last July and I was sitting there thinking to myself, wow, this is well, it was it was odd because a lot of industry, mostly litRPG authors, right? basically Jason: Mm-hmm. Travis Bagwell: all of them. and we like almost immediately circle the chairs of some sort of support group, you know? Like it's just like let's compare our imposter syndrome. You know, how have Jason: Yeah. Travis Bagwell: how have readers and fans hurt you this week? Jason: Well, that's a great segue into talking about into our chat. Let's just talk about all of your imposter syndrome, all of your horrors as an author. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. We're not gonna do sometimes that Travis Bagwell: Sure. God. You didn't tell me this was a therapy session that I was coming to. Jason: happens. I'm just saying. Sometimes that happens. It usually creeps up on me. Anyway, as we get going, I mean it is a segue. I do want to learn more about kind of the reader behind the writer. Like, what did reading and engaging with books like for you at a young age and kind of what sparked your interest in all of this. Travis Bagwell: well I've been re obviously reading for a long time. I actually haven't gotten into this in a lot of the interviews, but I but I've been doing. But I was actually homeschooled through middle school. the school Jason: Okay. Travis Bagwell: district that I was in was terrible. I mean, like they had just they had like a combined middle school, high school, and they had just split them apart, right? So the high school cannibalized everything from the previous school, like the teachers, the resources, It was it was just awful. so my parents they're both engineers and they my mom ended up homeschooling me and my siblings for a little while. but I read a lot. 'cause you know, like libraries are free, you know, from a Jason: Mm-hmm. Travis Bagwell: from a teaching standpoint. And they had a pretty good size like personal library of sci-fi and fantasy they'd collected over time. So like, you know, Asimov, just really everything. I'm thinking like Pern. What was the author for Pern? Fuck it's forgetting now. The top of my head. Norton, Andre, McCaffrey, something like that. Anyway, read a ton. Ender's Games, I and SciFi, Asimov, ton of fantasy. I don't think I ever thought I was gonna be like an author or writer. Although if you asked my parents, they would be like, we knew. we knew when you were like in seventh grade or something, right? which I think was a little bit pressured of them, maybe. But really it it it was many years later before I started doing this. And it was actually part of the tour. We had a we had met a family and they were like, tell our kids, how you, you and Andrew, you Travis and Andrew, how you got started. you had a clear plan, you had a path, right? their Jason: Mm-hmm. Travis Bagwell: 16-year-old daughter, this one couple was like trying to get into writing. And they were like, they wanted her to have picked her creative writing program. They wanted her to have outlined basically the book she was gonna write and sell. And I was just like, holy shit, that's that's That's a lot, right? almost everybody I've met that's doing this, almost everyone did not start out writing. I mean, very few. Like, and e the two of us were the kind of same when we were on that panel. Like, I was I was a philosophy major and then an attorney, and then I just wrote a book because my wife sort of was like made a bet, kinda. And Andrew was like, Well, I was a YouTube star and I've got a million and a half subscribers. And then, by the way, I just decided to write a book, ten years later. so we're both sitting there looking at each other, yeah, this is not a linear path by any by any stretch of the imagination. and I wandered completely away from your question with that, I I suspect. Jason: No, that's totally okay. I guess I do want to delve a little bit deeper. Like what drew you into were your parents into like science fiction or fantasy? Were they like guiding you towards those genres or did you kind of just naturally gravitate toward Travis Bagwell: they were available, right? Because they were into them. So that that, is 90% of it, probably, right? if you have, the foundation trilogy sitting on a bookshelf in your living room, probably that makes it accessible. but it was also just fun, right? Jason: Of course. Travis Bagwell: like I had a parent, well, multiple parents have asked me some variation of this question, but I had a parent ask me a question like, how would you get I think it was actually the panel that you attended. they asked me like, How would you get high schoolers into reading? You know what I mean? Jason: Mm. Travis Bagwell: or encourage them to read. And my answer is the same one I gave there. It was just maybe make it fun. Yeah. Jason: Yeah. Travis Bagwell: I mean, not to say that, you know, like nonfiction or like really heavy literature isn't fun. I mean, it can be. but for me, like those stories were not as like I didn't want to read them a second time. And if there were a sequel, I probably wouldn't have wanted to read. I mean, like I enjoyed the experience of reading them, but like I don't really wanna relive the Vietnam War from the perspective Jason: Ha ha ha. Travis Bagwell: of the Futsoul again, interesting perspective, totally worth the read, but like maybe not the most fun example Jason: Right. Well, and I feel like it's funny 'cause people asking those questions in like a modern day setting, right? But I feel like I'm forty three, I think we're probably around the same age. So I was like grow Travis Bagwell: Thirty eight. Yeah. Jason: okay. Dang. growing but like growing up our age, like the library was a thing. I grew up it was not a digital world, right? And so it was like the stuff that you gravitated towards was the stuff that was available, was free and Travis Bagwell: Mostly that, yeah. Jason: And stuff that your parents were recommending you, right? And so I feel like it's so different to be like, How do you get them into reading? We're like, Well, we weren't on screens twenty four seven. we were watching T V, sure, but that was a very different thing. So I'm just Travis Bagwell: It's ironic that access is now so ubiquitous, but also that creates Jason: Yeah. Travis Bagwell: this insane decision paralysis where you just don't even know what to select, I guess. Jason: There's too many choices. Yeah, exactly. And remind me, are you a parent? I don't remember. Okay. yeah, sometimes they Travis Bagwell: No. unless unless fur babies count and then yes, but I have three. Jason: do. Well, a lot of my perspective is like, how do I then like to me it's so generational, right? Like nerds can begin nerds, and most of the time someone who's like tripped into Narnia or Star Wars or whatever is because, you know, a parent or someone like in that in their lives introduce it to them. So that's always my goal is to be like, okay, how am I gonna introduce my kids to the nerdy things that I love too? So I always just want to ask that because I am always curious about how people are doing that. But it's interesting that you still get asked that for from parents out there 'cause I'm like, there there's ways to do it, guys. You just have to remember your own childhood, remember what that was like. You need to like you need to recreate that for your own kids. Travis Bagwell: And and I think the parent that was asking, to some extent, you don't always have control, right? you can recreate that environment at home. But she Jason: A thousand percent. Yeah. Travis Bagwell: was asking in the context of an English program. And my perspective is clearly biased. Cause right, I came from homeschooling. Then I actually went back to school in high school. I remember trying to encourage my parents to send me back. I I guess Jason: Ha ha ha. Travis Bagwell: I was under the impression like maybe I was behind in some way. That was not the case. Jason: Okay, okay. Travis Bagwell: I I got in and I was like, I'm two, two, three years ahead of all of you. Cool. I mean, like I I literally spent the first two years of high school like just kind of coasting. Like I basically, Jason: Yeah, chillin'. Yeah. Travis Bagwell: yeah. Like I remember we took chemistry, but I already finished it all. And the teacher realized Jason: Nice. Travis Bagwell: that early on that I didn't need to study or listen. So I remember just sitting in the back of the classroom on the computer for the whole year. I was an it was an odd experience. But from a social standpoint it was interesting. but I was also became very apparent to me that like I had gone from an environment where I got to basically choose what I wanted to do in a lot of ways and what I wanted to read to an environment where I didn't have really any choice at all in many ways, right? and once your choice is constrained, I mean it doesn't feel fun. I mean, you have to read this thing. Regardless of whether it's interesting to you. and I think that in a lot of ways kills some of the joy. I mean, not just of reading, but maybe just learning in general. so Jason: Yeah. I hard agree. Like teachers can really make or break anything that you're doing, right? And obviously I I had a similar thing. I had a bent towards literature and books and that was like I majored in that in college because that I was just trying to do the study the thing that I enjoyed the most. I wasn't trying to like find my career. which in what? How so weird. But Travis Bagwell: You didn't have a clear plan at sixteen of your entire life trajectory? Jason: even in high school I will never forget I had the best English teacher and AP English was like I was such a nerd for books that but she knew what was up in hindsight. She was like we read Tony Morris. We were reading modern authors in there mixed in with like classic stuff. So she Travis Bagwell: Huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jason: was a huge reader and loved reading and I think could tell some of the like things that were going to be classics in the future. So I remember reading Beloved having my mind blown. Like that was such a modern book. And then Travis Bagwell: Sure. Well you're really lucky and I hate you. Okay. That's cool. That's such a cool story. Jason: Well all that to say is that like teachers can make or break it because that really like nurtured my passion, right? And then gave me the reason to go and like look for those things on my own. And even in if my own kids, it's like, yeah, read graphic novels. Like I don't care. Like I even my son this year, he's in seventh grade, they're gonna read Hunger Games. I'm like, beautiful. Like get kids to like Travis Bagwell: Sure. Yeah, could do it. Jason: love books, please. Like, yeah. Travis Bagwell: Although I have gone to some dinners in conventions and stuff, and when you're sitting around with these other authors or other other book influencer, bookstogrammer people, and I'm not judging, that thing you said about like manga or comics, like that is not always. It's like I read sci-fi and fantasy and I've read every book. And then sometimes, you know, when I'm cheat like on a cheat day book, I'll I will deign to read something with pictures at it. I'm like, okay. Jason: I'm not about that. I'm not about that. Audiobooks count, comic Travis Bagwell: yeah. Jason: books count, everything counts. Just engage with stories. Like not there's no there's none of that around here. Shame, shame, shame. Travis Bagwell: Say. Same with television stuff too. that's just writing at the end of the day, from my point of view. Jason: Right. And dude, like I'm off the and we're just like we're just talking now. I'm just giving you my philosophies. I'm like, like what you like and like don't hate on what other people like. Like there's something for everyone and there's enough content to go around. Like, come on. Like it's so stupid. Yeah. Terrible. We're not Travis Bagwell: I'm with you. Gatekeeping, you know, I I've never never understood that. Jason: about that here. Travis Bagwell: Well, especially as an indie or self-pubbed guy, I and I guess we haven't really covered anything about me, but I that part. Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna circle around to it. Jason: we're getting there. Travis Bagwell: but like I've I've seen that now for what 10 plus years. I mean, I I've done conventions even really early on, and it was like a bunch of traditionally published authors, and then me, right? And like he did have someone like everybody kind of like looked down their notes. They were like, you're self-published, okay, and it's crap. I was slop before AI, I guess is what I'm saying. Jason: And there's the title for this podcast episode. Excellent. But I I do want to talk about Travis Bagwell: Glad I could help. Jason: that because in talking with more lit RPG authors and progression fantasy authors and authors who have really cut their teeth in the indie world. I feel like the tide is turning and I feel like a lot of that is changing and I do want to talk about that at some point. But I I do feel like things are kind of flipping, right? Like publishers are now like, we gotta look over here 'cause there's already built an audience for so many titles and you've done it Jay and Cheney's done it. a whole bunch of other authors have been doing it that I I haven't even dipped my toe into yet because the exposure has been so different. But I feel like now there's such like a hunger for story and no matter where it comes from, the audience has just a better pathway to finding it, I think. Travis Bagwell: You want to talk about gatekeeping between traditional publishing and indie. Yeah. Jason: Yeah. Travis Bagwell: that that has been a been an experience. I mean, like, because I'm coming like to give a little bit of background on myself. So now I'm homeschooled, high school, college philosophy major, and I was like, I don't want to be broke. So attorney. and I actually did business and tax planning for like a long time. international stuff, big companies, usually more entrepreneurial than like super huge corporations. and so from a business perspective, that was where I started, right? Before I wrote book one, I was very much a business tax attorney. from a business standpoint, like indie authors have a complete product, right? Like we've already produced a product, we've already done the marketing and built it up for it. We have a marketing platform of our own. We've already demonstrated the viability of it, right? I mean, we've sold a lot of books, most of us. and then you go to basically an investor, what I would think of as a traditional publisher, the big five, and you're like, hey, look, I've got this whole product. You should invest in it, launch it into bookstores. And their their reaction is generally, nah. We're like, we're okay. We actually Jason: We're good. Travis Bagwell: don't want your your very profitable product. I mean, like in any other business context for me, this would make no sense. Jason: Yeah, yeah, right. Travis Bagwell: yeah, it's clear. if you do the Shark Tank version, we're we're we've nailed it. We could go in with numbers, we have a clear product. I remember I think I might have said this at the panel that you were at too. I remember year two or three for me. Like it was just me and a couple other lit RPG guys. Like it was very nascent the genre. and I remember talking to a big five publisher and I got all the way up to an editor, one of the few men. And traditional publishing, which is pri predominantly women, because Jason: Mm-hmm. Travis Bagwell: there's a larger market for romantic, etc. and I was like, Yes, this is it, right? I've got this, you know, perfect. It's kismet, the universe the stars are aligning. And I was like, show him in the book, I gave him some of the data on it. He comes back to me, he's like, We're not gonna pick this up. And he gave me two reasons. one was he didn't think there was a larger market for literar PG slash progression fantasy, which is aged. so well. and the second one, which just really upset me, I just felt viscerally angry hearing it. He was like, Your audience is primarily men, and men don't read. I mean, to to have started off the podcast with how do we get people into reading, right? And I'm like, sit Jason: Yeah. Yeah. Travis Bagwell: there thinking like, you're a guy. Like, not only that, but you're a guy in a position to change the thing you're pointing at. Jason: Don't you want to change that? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Travis Bagwell: And I have a product Jason: Wild. Travis Bagwell: not exclusively targeted at men, but that men in general find enjoyable. and you don't wanna publish it? it's just staggering to me. I I should look up his I I've now told this story so many times. I ought to go look up his name again and be like, hey, I just wanna Jason: What is he up to now? Let's see. Travis Bagwell: are you still are still an editor? Yeah. Jason: Let's take that offline. I wanna go do some research. I'm just kidding. Travis Bagwell: I I probably should not name and shame a person. Yeah. Jason: Go do some trolling. I'm just kidding. Travis Bagwell: this is his name, this is his address. If you would like to dox Jason: Yeah. That's funny. Well, I wanna go back to that because was I wanna hear the impetus this your first book and then kind of how it all grew. Was Awaken Online your actual first book? Okay, cool. So I I wanna hear how about how that all came to be and then kind of how it grew and took off. Travis Bagwell: yeah. So I was I was working, I went from law school to working at the I basically one year graduated from law school, got married, bought a house, basically made partner because I've been working for six or seven years there already. and I was already bringing in a ton of money. and then I had like free time, sort of, right? I went from like, I don't know, a hundred something hours a week to like, you know, 70 or 80, right? I almost had like a whole job worth of. time per week and clearly no life beyond working. and I started getting really into this genre. Like I had read Ready Player One, I had watched Sword Art Online, and I was like, well, hell yes, this is awesome, right? I've never seen this before. And I was like, is there more? And there was, but very, very little. Like it was a lot of like Eastern content, like Japanese and Korean. And they were like terrible fan translations, right? Because this was pre-AI, it was just some like super fan who happened to speak both languages. And then when I ran out of that, I was like, there's fan fiction. I found that website, Royal Road, which is actually the name of the VR MMO from a little RPG story called Legendary Moonlight Sculptor. and so I read probably everything that existed on that platform. and I said to my wife one night, I was like, I finished reading a story, and I didn't I was like unhappy with the direction they had taken it. And I was like, you know what? I could write one of these. Right. I've read all of them. My wife turns to me. She's like, then just do it. it must have been the thousandth Jason: Ha ha ha. Travis Bagwell: time I said that to her. So I was like, you know what? Fine. So I I remember I got out of bed, went to my computer, and I was like, chapter one. and then I did that every night for a month, and I had the first book of Awaken Online. So that actually was me in a month at night after work of writing obsessively at my computer. Next month I edit it and posted it online to Royroad. I was like, I wonder if anyone would like this, right? the next test of I can do this is, you know, can I actually do people actually enjoy the story I wrote? and it took off. I accidentally kind of did a bunch of things right about how I posted it and built up content now in retrospect. and I was like, okay, well, I'm like top five or something on the site now or top ten, I can't even remember. And I was like, well, I wonder if people would buy it. Right. This is this is the business attorney in me, right? Yeah, I was like, they like this. Okay. Well, what if I just and then I was like, can I self publish it? So I looked at Amazon. I was like, but yeah, I can, right? Really easily actually. so I got my sister in law to do a cover. I edited it, threw it up on Amazon. So three months. It was like wrote it in May, published or posted it in June, and it was published in July. I think that was the rough timeline. and I had no expectation. I was like Just see what happens. And it just exploded. I remember watching the sales rank just go crazy because I did a whole bunch of things right. I just didn't know why. Right? what I'm describing that write the book to Royal Road, build an audience to Amazon is now just a funnel. that that is how many people now launch into litter RPG. I guess you I'm not saying I invented that, but I was clearly one of the first. first people to do it. And it was so bad because I was doing a panel with Drew Hayes last weekend in Dallas at Half Price Books. And he was he the moderator there had asked him to tell his story. And it was like I worked on this for three years and I was like a long suffering project and I hated Jason: Ha ha ha. Travis Bagwell: my job and I didn't monetize and I didn't think it would become ever anything. But eventually after like four three or four years or something, you know, I I could become a full-time author. And then he turns to me is like Travis, how was your story? And I'm like, just nailed it first try in three months. yeah, yeah, whatever. No problem. so Jason: Couple months, Travis Bagwell: so the just juxtaposition was not was not great. but luck, I think, in a lot of ways is what was happening there. Looking back on it and being honest with myself. Jason: f fair enough. I but I just sp spoke with Seth Ring recently and his story is really similar to yours. same thing. I could write something as good. I like as I like taking this in as content and so I'm gonna I'm gonna try my own thing at it. So that's really cool. Travis Bagwell: Okay, Seth is a sociopath, though. amazing guy, but he writes a book in a week. Jason: Right? The amount of writing he does? Yes. Travis Bagwell: like what did he say to me? Something like, I just sit down at my computer, he dictates his writing. and I just tell a story that no one's heard before, like, and then I close the book and I publish it. And I was like, all right, first off, I hate you. Jason: Ha ha ha. Travis Bagwell: Second, give me your magic. Like Jason: So I want to talk a little bit about that happened a while ago and Awaken Online ha is been so beloved for so long, but it's getting introduced to a whole new audience now because of, you know, the hardcover edition coming from Athon Vault. I was I was only introduced to it recently too. I read the first book because of that. I loved it. So like how does it feel kind of experiencing and exposing this book to a whole new audience in kind of this more traditional way, I guess? Travis Bagwell: I mean, first off, it is really cool to to f I feel like maybe ten years was longer than it needed to take, but still Jason: Ha ha ha. Travis Bagwell: really cool to see it in bookstores. And like I was mentioning with RPG Con, like to see that the whole genre has really just grown up, like around me, right? I've seen it from nothing, basically. to now it is pretty much an established thing. that being said, it is still a little nascent. On the retail side, right? and there's a couple titles that have big reach, but we don't have a genre. we don't really have great discoverability in store. Barnes and Noble, for example, tags us just randomly across fantasy, sci-fi, RPG, which puts us next to Halo in Star Wars. you'll have a title like The Wandering Inn, which is just fantasy from my perspective, next to Halo. so like we're there. But we're like on the beachhead, we s there's still a ground war to to be to be waged. I bet Barnes and Barnes and Noble employees are looking at this. I am not w waging s waging war on your stores. But there's still I think a lot left to kind of hit the open market because people they'll I I've learned over ten years, you know, a person's not limited to one series, right? Jason: Mm, mm-hmm. Travis Bagwell: So, a fan of DCC or who you fights with monsters or something, for example, which stole cats from me and my character name. I'm looking at Travis and Matt. Yeah, they're watching this. Yeah. it totally Jason: Ha ha ha. Travis Bagwell: came after me. but like if they're looking for the next book after that, right? That's a finite thing. that's hard, right? Like if you walk into a store right now and ask an employee, unless they're a super fan of the genre, Jason: Right. Travis Bagwell: it's gonna be difficult for them to point you in the right direction. Jason: Yeah, and unless there's a dude in there, so many of these bookstores are there's women everywhere, which no not harping on that at all though. Travis Bagwell: Well, okay. I will say there are some serious women litter RPG fans. So I am not I actually Jason: Amazing. Travis Bagwell: push back at what that original original guy said to me. This is not exclusively a male focused genre. Jason: Right right. I hard agree. Travis Bagwell: and I think there's a lot. I mean, I've even had people say this to me. My wife writes romantices, the Temperest Jason: Mm-hmm. Travis Bagwell: series, or first book is called Charlotte, sort of a friends to lovers version of Romanticy, which is pretty rare. but like within that genre, what I've heard from her fans and to people I've spoken to is that they're tired of the same recycled tropes Jason: Mm. Travis Bagwell: over and over and over again. and there isn't typically a strong progression element. Usually, like, you know, your protagonist just sort of lucks into everything she wants, typically. I mean, with a veneer of, you know, we're a We're a slave or something or mistreated for a little while until we're all powerful, right? but I think that that piece, that little more of a progression fantasy piece, is missing in a lot of ways from that genre. and I think that was something that was really appealing when those readers come over to like DCC or something, for example. Because now they're getting, you know, a fun story. It can have romance in it, but it also has something that is appealing to everyone that kind of Dopamine cycle of seeing someone face challenges and improve, right? And I think a lot of romanticy maybe leans too hard on the wish fulfillment and a little bit less on this feeling of progression across the story, which is why my wife and I, we're gonna team up, right? We're gonna team up. We're gonna write a lit RPG romanticy. Yeah, we've already started on it. Jason: okay. Nice. Or I was gonna say a progression romanticy? Yeah, yeah. Travis Bagwell: Well, kinda, yeah, probably more progression fantasy romantic. But I don't think there'll be a ton of explicit statics. But that idea for that book is so cool. yeah. Jason: That's fun. And see, I was just talking to who else was I I just had someone on. Maybe it was Jeff Cheney, but like I feel like there's so much gonna be much more merging of genre going forward because like you said, it it ha it's happening in all genres. Like people kinda get bored of the same thing, whether it's maybe in fantasy or in sci-fi. And I feel like lit RPG and progression fantasy kind of introduce these new mechanics and new ways to get you interested in a story and to keep you going and going and wanting more. Travis Bagwell: Well, I think we made explicit and and made a priority a thing that was really fun about other books, right? Like if you read something like Magicians by Feist, right? Great story. Too much of it, in my opinion, is focused on stuff I don't care about, right? Like it's too political for me. But the parts I remember about that story and loving were the power progression moments. He had some banger scenes. Right. Or I take a book like Ender's Game, for example, which had just an amazing narrative structure with the twist, right? At the end. but there was also like a really fun like power progression fantasy to it. I mean, really, if you think about it, it fits the style. So I think what we've done is we've really lifted the pieces of existing stories that were already there, and we've made that part like real explicit. We've made it the focus of the story, and we've cut a lot of the like the chaff. in my opinion. Jason: Yeah. And I think in a modern way it's kind of like speaking the modern language, if you will, 'cause there's like fast consumption, right? And like fast everything needs to be kind of moving to keep attention. So I feel like it's I feel like it's but most books like that are written in a way to like keep you going and wanting more, which to me is just so much fun. That's part of the fun I've always had with books like I wanna be turning pages, like I wanna know what happens next. Travis Bagwell: Yeah, a lot of these guys, because this genre evolved, not out of the like when I'm pointing at feist or something, right? those guys were sitting down writing a book in its entirety, then someone consumed it, right? A lot of what you're seeing now are books on the indie side that have adopted more of a serialized serialized TV style of of writing, right? Pacing in a sense, right? So each chapter kind of has a mini cliffhanger, the books have a cliffhanger. They keep pulling you through the story, right? So once you focus on the parts that are fun for people and you change their the structures so that you're really adopting this much more streamlined, serialized approach, it's very easy to get into like that's why you have Hugh Fights with Monsters book fifteen, right? Or Awaken Online book fifteen. You have these just colossal series. and people are so into them, right? They make it to book fifteen. I'm not sure you can say that. Maybe Wheel of Time or something. there were probably these sweeping epics that were as long, but well, Jason: Dune. There's a whole bunch of Dune books. Travis Bagwell: that's true. Although most people like tend to peter off after book like one or two. Jason: That's true. very fair, fair. Hey, so it might seem kind of trite for you to do, but for people who are listening who don't know anything about Awaken Online, book one, like what is your like elevator pitch about it? I wanna talk more specifically about like the meat of the book, like what is the book about? I wanna hear it directly Travis Bagwell: Sure. Jason: from the author himself. Travis Bagwell: Yeah, we've we've gotten what is it, 40 minutes into this. And what did he even write? Jason: Ha ha ha. Travis Bagwell: so Awaken Online is kind of the OG litter RPG approach. So it's VR MMO. So near future world with a very hyper-realistic VR environment. That's classic litter from my point of view. I mean, it's now there's system apocalypse, there's isekai, there's reincarnation, there's a bunch of variants of it now. But this is the original setup. And my protagonist has is really not having a good time in the real world. And so when he enters the game, he sort of starts to act out, I guess is the best way to put it. the title is Catharsis, so that should you know be telling. And he becomes essentially like the villain of the game. So, like a lot of my readers would question whether he's truly a villain. I mean, I would say more the antihero setup. From his own perspective, perhaps not. I I I the philosophy major in me would propose that most villains to themselves probably are not that villainous, right? but it's a matter of perspective. Like morality is kind of relative. so for to other people that he's tormenting or stealing all their shit or killing them over and over, I mean, he would look just a tiny bit villainous. so I that would be my pitch for the book. Anti hero necromancer with very few constraints. Jason: And I would agree, Catharsis is an amazing title because if you are of someone who feels like some you might be powerless in your everyday life, powerless against, the man, things out of your control. It's very rewarding and feels good to watch him just go nuts in that world. Travis Bagwell: That the i I agree. I'm obviously biased. but that kind of autonomy agency angle, I think it's the core of a lot of literature PG2. taking control. the game elements are way are essentially a systematized way to have that sense of control, right? it's looser in real life, right? Still exists, but like I don't get the prompt when my skill level's up, you know? It's not quite the same reward feedback loop. but I think I was trying in that story to say the same basic message I was telling myself. Right. Because I'd gone through law school, I'd done all this stuff. And on the front end of all of that, it looks insane. Right. Like, I mean, if you're like this sort of like the 16-year-old with their parents trying to tell her how to plan her entire life. Right. And it looks impossible. and so I was saying to myself, okay, I've got to compartmentalize, right? Like there's this thing I want, like a goal, right? And I'm just gonna define that, and then I'm just gonna start. the same way I just started writing the book. granted, my wife egged me on, right? sort of a bet. but I think that's really powerful, right? Because I was basically saying the same thing to myself. If there's something I want, stop talking myself out of it. Just just go do it. and keep doing it. Believe it or not, that's that's the core of every person that I've seen achieve success, right? I mean, lock. And all these other variables that you can't solve for aside, that's really the core thing, you know. And I and Jason: And that's such a good message, because there's so many people who have found themselves. I'm the same way. I grew up as a creative person. I knew that in my heart. Like I the arts was so what my like leanings were towards. But real life sometimes doesn't really that doesn't really pan out. Like I've been in having l a regular full time job my whole life. So similar story to yours. Like you have to, you know, make money, you have to support family. and then trying to find a way to still feed that part of yourself that really is feels soul refreshing and feels like an extension of who you are. So that's amazing advice because so many people so often are like, I'm afraid to, you know, even as little as like make postbook content online or like just do it and just have fun and find the joy in it, right? Travis Bagwell: And I feel like a lot of people feel trapped by a circumstance or a problem. And it to some extent they might be. I'm not saying that everything can be overcome, right? Like, but I think in general, when I've heard people say this stuff to me, I I often think to myself, there is a solution and there is something you can do. It just is gonna be painful, right? and hard. And you're kind of just talking yourself out of. Fixing it. I mean, it's again, not perfect generalization, right? Like if you're stuck in a prison or something, yeah, you be there's probably very little. I'm not advocating for you to tunnel your way out. but I think that's really powerful in a lot of ways. Jason: Yeah. Yeah. And I think we do have a lot of agency and a lot of we do have a lot of freedoms in our own lives. You know, not to be not to say that people aren't in tough circumstances and I totally agree with you there. But, you know, most of us on any given day have so much freedom to make choices. We all can make choices, right? We can make choices to not even try and give up, or we can make choices to create the thing and go and try and not and keep going. So yeah. Yeah. Travis Bagwell: At least try. Yeah. don't don't look at the problem as insurmountable until you've at least attempted to solve it. I guess I know, I know. Jason: Exactly. See, I told you this would turn into a therapy session. See? I where did the growth for not only the Awaken Online series how did that go? And then I also want to kind of know other books that you've written, like where did ideas for those come from and kind of where are you at right now? So that's kind of three questions. But I just want to kind of hear the progression of all of your all of your writing everything. Travis Bagwell: That was a lot. so what was the first one? Growth. Jason: So what how did the growth for Awaken Online go? Were just writing book after book after book, or were you strategic about where you want the story to go, or was it a natural progression? Okay. Travis Bagwell: Bit of both. kind of in the plotter, or was it a panzer versus plotter kind of approach? Like I lean kind of some sort of hybrid, right? Like I have an idea of where I want to go, and I have events that I want to have happen, and I just kind of work my way toward them organically. on a practical level, I also wanted to be able to switch over to doing writing, which requires, you know, some level of hamster wheel. I mean, Andrew. Givler said this and I, made fun of him on a panel. He was like, there's not much difference to being like a YouTuber or a or an author, right? We're kind of both just creating serialized content. And I was like, no, we're not the same. But he's right. We are, in a lot of ways. I mean, the next book is how book sells, and you need to sell books to keep writing more books. So I mean, practically speaking, But I and I think for a lot of authors, they tend to they'll say it's just about your passion. it's not just about your passion, right? It has to be some hybrid of commercial consideration and passion. which leads into my second series, I guess. I wrote this it's so weird. I I have so much trouble talking about this. I wrote a series called Hollow. the mine I don't even know how to pitch this. maybe Deadpool in a spirit world, kinda. usually my response is just don't read this thing. like it will be bad for your mental health. Like it is just crazy. It's an example of me doing something I'm just passionate about. I mean, insulated the commercial side of it because I'm committed to five books with a publisher. but it is so weird. I met some fans in Dallas and they were like, You shouldn't say that. why would you say that we shouldn't go read this? And I'm like, All right, you do the elevator pitch, which is not fair, right? For for me holding the microphone to single out this fan, right? But but they didn't they did not come up with a good way to describe this thing that apparently came out of me. it is very, very weird. that is I guess my best And I don't remember what the third question is now. Jason: Sold. I was just gonna say I know there's other s you've written other series as well, so where do some of those ideas come from and where are you kind of right where are you right now with like what you're writing currently and what's on the horizon? Travis Bagwell: Well, I'm writing the third book of that holo series. So there's actually Jason: Okay. Travis Bagwell: two already, and I'm committed to five. So Jason: Okay. Travis Bagwell: apparently I'm gonna continue the crazy train. how it's again, so weird. Do not do not look it up, maybe don't Google it. Definitely don't read it. or listen to it, even though Nora Noah Ward did a fantastic job on the audio. in terms of next steps, I gotta finish that, assume I ever find free time. I want to write probably one or two more Awaken Onlines and then I might wrap that series up. My wife is starting, like I mentioned, this co-writing project, which I don't have to write the first draft of it, so that's easier for me. I just get to edit. but I think that's gonna be a blast. like it is just I I've helped. She did the romance part, obviously. I did the magic system. world building. mutual thing, but mostly that was what I had ownership of. And it is so cool. Like I don't want to spoil it. but there's like kind of grimoire magic, but it's gonna be fucking amazing. and then I guess in terms of next steps, it's really this retail side and promotion, which is sucking up much more time than I ever expected. That part is a lot harder. I have to say, the indie side of self-publishing digitally is a lot easier. I don't have to leave my house for one. and it's I just throw up some ads. This is just a whole different ball game. with a lot of gatekeeping and like really kind of a vertical stack of monopolies from a business standpoint, across you know, the retail, the distribution, and the the Even the data or telemetry side of it is crazy. so that's that's been an interesting experience for me. Like I I bet people watching this would be like, I don't care. but for my business brain, I'm like, wow, this is an optimization problem, right? Like for a for a litRPG fanatic, right? this is just sitting there going, like, wow, I can solve this if I had more resources and time and maybe a clone. So that's pretty exciting in some ways. Jason: Well, I guess on the reader side too, Travis, have there been any titles that you have been reading lately that you have been particularly enjoying? Travis Bagwell: okay, so I'm gonna I'm gonna make an admission. My free time to sit down and read a book cover to cover has become more limited over time. So I love that you're accepting that any other form of storytelling counts. you you set me up there. and I do think it counts. And unf unfortunately, some of those formats make are a significantly more efficient for time to story ratio. So a lot of what I've been watching is actually tends to be anime and manga. and I I think I'm drawn to it so heavily in part because it takes a bunch of existing tropes or pieces of stories. Cause I don't think there's like the elements of a story don't typically tend to be new. It's the composition of the story over time that becomes as a person who's consumed just an absurd amount of media over his life. and anime and manga particularly are adventurous. When it comes to just coming up with weird combinations that shouldn't work when you describe them on paper, I'm thinking like, what's the word I'm looking for? Love is war, Kaguya Love is War, for example. Two A-type students who are like madly in love with each other, but are like unable to admit it and are spending the entire show story essentially trying to convince the other one to admit it. it's it's basically a stalemate war, but in the context of a rump heads, but it's fucking amazing. It's amazing, right? I stole that element. Maybe I shouldn't say steal. I borrowed and was inspired by that element. And I incorporated it into Holo. because I really liked it, right? I had never seen that done. And like in Western literature, I I can't even point to a, I mean, I guess. Rivals to lovers, kinda, but not even really, in a way. Not not really. or for instance, we were for this book that my wife and I are working on, Witch Had Atelier, which is also a series of light novels, if you prefer to read the text version and you have that amount of time on your hands. absolutely fantastic narrative. I like I love the magic system. I kind of love and and on the anime and manga side, it the art is just exquisite. it's a good story to begin with, but it also has a Hal's Moving Castle vibe to the art and animation, which is just, clearly was a love child of many people. You know what I mean? as as the end user looking at it and a kind of content creator myself, right? So I that's tends to be where my focus ends up. It's fast and it Just really cool novel ideas that someone was very much not afraid to just smoosh together and throw out into the world. Yeah, yeah. And also Jason: That's awesome. And pretty to look at, Travis Bagwell: beautiful art, which to be fair, as someone self published is a big part of my business also. I still have to advertise, I still have to do covers, I you get to you get to wear mini hats Jason: Yes. Travis Bagwell: as a self published Jason: Well, if people have listened to this conversation and been intrigued by what you're putting out there, where can they find and interact with you online? Travis Bagwell: my website has kind of all of my mini social media thing. I'm on all the places that everyone else is. I would suggest in general that the best places to kind of keep up with my work is probably like my Discord, which there's a link on my website, my Facebook group, another link, or a newsletter, which is also on the website. And generally speaking, those are easiest because like so I mean you can attest to this. Social media now is not an information channel. it's more about reach through like something like conflict in a lot of ways. So something very, you know, sparkly. Like, so I can't really tell you, hey, I'm gonna be in your city on Friday. That doesn't get reached. That's too boring. unless I guess I'm in a mock war with the authors that I'm ditching the panel with or something, right? just an unfortunate reality. Jason: Right. Well, on that note as well, I know the year is wrapping up. I wanna know what's on your calendar coming up. Like if people do want to interact with you in person, obviously I will link to your website and to everything in the show notes of this episode that so they can go find it out themselves. But I do think it's a good time to I always ask where are you gonna be in the coming months? I know there's a really fun event coming up in Salt Lake pretty soon, so where can people find you? Travis Bagwell: so I have a full event list on my website, so it's one place to find everything. but I'm gonna be in Vancouver, Canada, not Washington. That confused me at first. on the 13th, I think, and I'm doing a panel with Chatfield and he's gonna hate me. I wanna say JM. No, that's not right. Another author who writes RuneSeeker, and his name is escaping me, and I feel so bad. it's gonna be great though. the next after that, I'm gonna be in like right before Thanksgiving. I'm gonna that weekend, I'm gonna be in San Diego and then LA with Andrew again. I think we're gonna be at Mysterious Galaxy and I can't remember the venue off the top of my head for LA. but that'll be a lot of fun too. because again, he's always fun to hang out with and we we just sit there and mess with each other. so if you wanna come and help me heckle him and you're seeing this. Do it. I need more teammates. He always has like a legion of YouTube people. and then after that, as you mentioned, we'll be at Dragon Steel, Nexus and Salt Lake. I'm gonna be there for like five or six days, probably. I'm gonna be there for most of the con. Jason: Have you been before? Travis Bagwell: No. So it'll be interesting. I've Jason: It's so fun. I went for the first time last year. I'm so sad I'm not going this year. You're gonna have a blast, I think. It's so fun. Travis Bagwell: I think it'll be cool. And I get the impression like that RPG's in the past has not gotten much visibility, but we're baiting this year. full scale invasion of Sanderson con. so like the night before the con starts, we're doing Athon's putting on this huge event. I think it's at the King's English bookshop or something like that. I think that you're like on my website you'll see it. There's tickets. It's a 400-person venue. It's gonna be 10 of us, it's gonna be Me, the other, one of the other Travis's, the Deveril Travis, who stole my character name, remember. and then a whole bunch of other authors. it's gonna be a blast. I think I'm thinking of dressing up as Deverl. I don't know, have you met him at all? Jason: No, I I haven't met him yet. Travis Bagwell: no, he's he's very Australian, super nice guy, like but he's got the he's got a vibe, he's got like a style, right? He's got the straw hat and the the Hawaiian Jason: The hat, yeah, yeah. Travis Bagwell: shirt. I'm I'm thinking that's easy. To imitate, right? I need a hat and a shirt, and maybe a name tag, and I'll just cross out the Devril and put back. Well, if he stole my character name from me and the Edgelord thing, I think I should steal his style or his vibe, right? Seems fair. Jason: And I do I feel a special kinship with you guys because I have the same name as all of them. So it's it's the Jason crew. Yeah. Travis Bagwell: Yeah, yeah. But you're not gonna be there to represent, yeah. Jason: I know, I know. Has anyone I I Travis Bagwell: But it'll be a lot of fun. Jason: just thought of this. Has anyone like cosplayed as your characters? Have you seen anyone dressing up? Travis Bagwell: yeah, I have for Jason and Riley. I mean, not this Jason: Nice. Travis Bagwell: Halloween. It tends to be more like necromancer zombie, is kind of the the vibe I'm getting. but I definitely have in the past. I Jason: Yeah. That's so cool. That's so cool. Travis Bagwell: I even brought costumes for us at this last event. I was a necromancer, I had one minion. It was it was a stuffed minion. I put Drew Hayes was there because he's launching Rover Powered, right? Jason: Yeah. Travis Bagwell: so it's like a overpowered Corgi. Yeah, yeah, beautiful cover. And so he was in this bright orange suit. And we didn't plan this. I just brought costumes for me mostly to heckle them, kinda. but Jason: Yeah, yeah. Travis Bagwell: I pulled out I was like, We didn't come in costume. He's like, Yeah, I'm wearing my suit. And I'm like, That doesn't count, but it matches. I pulled out some Corgi ears. they were Jason: perfect. Travis Bagwell: I think half price actually posted the photos of him. He looks adorable. Jason: That's amazing. Great promo for him. Travis Bagwell: Yeah, and a great book. I if you want an all ages completely different version of my story, that is definitely something to check out. Jason: Yeah. I do want to say I don't want to forget to mention that if you loved book one of Awaken Online like I did and you are kind of loving the hardcover vibes, book two is coming out next year, I believe, right? Q one ish, I think. Travis Bagwell: more like May eighteenth. Yeah, and I'm Jason: May, okay, okay. Okay, okay. Travis Bagwell: in the process of planning some significant touring around that. Maybe less West Coast sla central and more east coast central. I I well I know, but Jason: Boo. I'm just kidding. Travis Bagwell: they didn't get any touring. This like no Florida, no New York, no Pennsylvania. Jason: Fair, fair. We gotta spread the love. That's fine. Travis Bagwell: so we're we're gonna move around a little bit, maybe even go up into Canada a little bit. Jason: fun. Well, personally, I am chomping at the bit because I am just tempted to go buy everything and read it all. But I'm I have so many other things in my reading queue that I'm letting myself be patient. So I'm excited to dive into book two. And I I'm gonna say on the show right now, I recommended your series to one of my it's my cousin's wife. I got her she's a huge reader. I got her into Red Rising, loved it. I got her in D C C loved it. I got her I just recommend she reads everything I recommend. Like perfect. No, sh I told her, I Travis Bagwell: Yeah. And then she read mine and she hated it. Is that the Jason: said don't Do Awaken Online next. And then she randomly just texts me. We don't talk that much. She's 75% into book one. I was like, dang. Killed it. And then literally, it's her birthday the other day. It's like happy birthday. She's like, I celebrated by finishing book two of Awaken Online. I was like, You're welcome. You're welcome, Travis. No. Travis Bagwell: Whoa, whoa, you made a convert. Yeah, thank you. So so where should I send the commission checks? Jason: All that to say, she will far bite past me before I even get to book two. So anyway. Sh I just I love talking about books so much and she's like someone in my real life who just already loves it too. So I wanna just I wanted to mention that. So she's enjoying it. Yeah, man. Travis Bagwell: That's fantastic. And I guess one more thing is though I don't have plenty of events and books to to to post or talk about. Soundbooth has done the first season cinematic of Awaken Online, which is on their Soundbooth Jason: nice. Travis Bagwell: at multi-narrator. It has a bunch of big names, Jeff Hayes, Travis Baldry, Andrea Parsnew. Hoping I'm saying her last name right. it is absolutely amazing. The soundtrack is even Bernie Burns, one of the founders of Rooster Teeth, was involved in it. Jason: how fun. Travis Bagwell: and I am getting close to convincing them to commit to season two. So I'm I'm hopeful maybe we're gonna see a season two sometime next year, maybe toward the end of the year. so I know a bunch of people have been hounding me about that. It is potentially coming. And if you want to speed it up, tag Jeff Hayes and his entire team and be like, where the hell is this cinematic? Jason: So fun. Well, Travis, thank you so much for hanging out. I had a great time chatting. Hopefully our paths will cross again at some point in the future. Travis Bagwell: Yeah, me too. I bet. I bet. I'm probably gonna be down in California again. We need to hook up again. Jason: Okay, amazing. We'll make it happen.