A Peek Behind The Curtain

Happy Wednesday, folks! 

It's been radio silence here on the blog for the last few weeks which simply won't do. When I finished the new website I told myself I wanted to be posting here regularly, so I can't let that goal fail so soon out the gate.

So today I want to give you a peek behind the curtain and talk about some of the behind the scenes stuff that's been happening here at Icarus HQ. 

Out Of Sight

I've not been doing nothing during the last several weeks, far from it. 

My big goal for the second half of 2025 has been doing foundational work to help me run Icarus more smoothly moving forward. 

It started with the Website, but that was only the beginning. During the process of rebuilding the website I went on a not-so-little detour to remaster the entire SIDEQUEST catalogue. This was an unexpected hurdle, but absolutely worth it to make sure everyone who purchases an issue or annual from here on in gets the best possible product. 

Then, throughout September I have been focused on getting that updated catalogue uploaded to multiple third party platforms, so whether you prefer to buy your TTRPG goodies from me direct, or through DrivethruRPG, Patreon, or Itch.io, you'll have the most up to date files. 

This is all part of my goal of making my work as accessible as possible, because accessibility isn't just about elements like alt text and screen reader compatibility, it's about making sure my work is available where the people are. 

I think the Icarus Games website is the absolute best place to buy my products, but of course I do, I'm hella biased! I would hope that you'd agree with my assessment, and have tried to make sure that's the case with things like free UK shipping over £30, or the 3 for £10 deal on issues of SIDEQUEST - but if you prefer to get your TTRPG products elsewhere then I want to support that. 

More Work To Come

I'm making this BTS blog talking about what I've been up to of late because the work isn't finished and I still have plenty to do in the background.

I want to get the three SIDEQUEST annuals listed on Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing platform so that you can pick the books up on Amazon worldwide. I don't love lining Bezos' pockets, but it's all part of being where the people are, and especially internationally I know that this will be the only way for plenty of folks to get their hands on the books. 

I also have a bunch of work I need to do with my social media posting schedule in the coming month.

I use a scheduler to automate a lot of my social media posting to make sure I've got content going out every day. Trying to be "active" on half a dozen or more platforms is a full time job in of itself, so this is an essential tool in a creator's arsenal to keep us from going insane, but it also means I know there's always content going out even when my health flares up and I can't be online. 

I recently maxed out my current plan's capacity for scheduled posts, so I need to upgrade to the higher tier to allow me to start sharing more of my older youtube catalogue, more posts about different products, promote the discord, and more! 

Speaking of which. . . 

Discord

Among the many behind the scenes things I've been working on in the last few weeks is my discord server. Just this week I revamped a bunch of the channels, cleared out a bunch of the unused stuff, and generally did a bit of (not) spring cleaning to get ready to start actually promoting it again. 

Discord was one of the main casualties as my has health flared up - I just haven't have the capacity to promote and engage with it properly. But myself and the wonderful mod team have been hard at work lately to make changes, and there's going to be a lot more going on over there, so you should absolutely stop by to get GM advice, share your homebrew world, or talk about all things TTRPGs. 

The Goal

I expect to still be doing much of this behind the scenes work through the end of the year, but the intention is to build a strong foundation for an Icarus that almost runs itself. I want the mundane, everyday element of the work to take care of itself to free me up to spend my time creating and doing the fun cool stuff. 

I want to get back to being able to make videos on a regular basis, releasing regular PDF content, and get back to crowdfunding those bigger ideas I have, but you can't build a house on sand, so I have to make sure these foundations are solid!