John Wilson - Zenobi Software
...In His Own Words

John Wilson, "The Rochdale Balrog", El Supremo of legendary ZX Spectrum text adventure publisher Zenobi Software died on the 31st May 2021 at the age of 74. I've known John since the 1980s; first as one of his customers, later as a Zenobi author, and more recently as a collaborator on various text adventure projects.

John was a fan of my text adventure profiles and had told me he hoped that the one I did of him would paint a similarly "glowing picture… when you eventually get around to writing it…". Given the recentness of his passing, I don't feel in a place where I can yet do that. However, here's the next best thing… or possibly even a better solution… an archive of John himself talking about Zenobi Software…

…ON EARLY ADVENTURING DAYS…

The first adventure I every played was 'Black Crystal' on the ZX81… still have the original tapes with the fancy box, instruction booklet and 'help-sheet' from Carnell… [the game was] where I got the name of 'Zenobi' from…

[Zenobi was one of the characters in the game, which John named his cat after… and then he later named his software house after that cat.]

…ON HOW ZENOBI CAME ABOUT…

[John's first published game was The Secret of Little Hodcome, which started off as a collaboration with fellow adventure-fan Richard Hewison. The early version of the game, written in 1985, was published by Your Sinclair in 1986 on a mail-order DigiTape. Hodcome (which was later revised and re-released as a Zenobi game) was followed by 'An Everyday Tale Of A Seeker of Gold'… originally titled 'The Boggit' until Fergus McNeill announced a game with the same name]

I actually had a contract with 'Smart Egg' for them to release/publish 'An Everyday Tale Of A Seeker of Gold'… even did a complete 'rewrite' of the game to meet with some of their suggestions/amendments… but the royalties offered were sh*t…

Harvey and the lads had actually signed the contract but I sent it back 'unsigned' and in pieces… indirectly THEY (Smart Egg) were the reason I set up Zenobi… with a view to paying out decent royalties…

…ON SALES…

…it was through sharing solutions that I built up my first 'mailing-list' that I used to publicise my first game-release…

I sold in excess of 36,000 cassette tapes back in the day…

I also used to sell +3 disk and plusD disk versions of the majority of the games… as well as numerous compilations… not to mention the Amiga and Atari stuff which also came on disk…

I actually supplied... 48k/128k/+3 Spectrums, Sam Coupe, PlusD, Atari, Amiga and even Mac (for a brief moment). I also supplied the PC brigade with ample emulations, so I guess I did not do too badly back in the 80s...

…I eventually had in excess of 200 different titles on my books…

'88/'89 were my peak years and we were probably doing about 200-300 sales per week.

Back in the day I used to walk around to the local Post Office carrying 6-8 carrier-bags full of 'jiffies' and my weekly postal costs were in the hundreds of pounds… never mind the cost of the damn 'jiffies' in the first place…

Everything was 'produced by hand' and the thought of the hours of work I used to put in 'typing' labels and duplicating tapes has just given me a headache… wonder where all that 'product' is resting now…

I seriously doubt if any of the +3 stuff sold more than 150 copies… there were not that many +3 adventurers out there, most folks stuck to the tape format… they only 'upgraded' their machines if they were technically-minded and the rest were quite content to stick with what they knew… apart from which tapes were so much cheaper than disks… and in those days £1 was a £1…

The typewriter I used was a Smith-Corona electronic one… with interchangeable print-wheels "Regency 10", "Tempo 10" and "Script 10/12"… I typed everything on it… cassette labels, cassette inlays, disk labels, newsletters, information leaflets, price-lists and of course… letters…

…ON ROYALTIES…

I used to keep a weekly diary of sales and tot the figures up at the end of the month in order to pay out the 'royalties'… it was easy at first because of the fact that I paid out advance 'royalties' on sales yet to be realised…

These advances ranged from 100 to 500 games (depending on the author and their previous selling-levels). So until these limits had been attained I had nothing more to pay out.

The vast majority of authors went on to sell more than their 'advance'… thank goodness for that… and then it was simply a case of paying them the royalty per copy sold… one or two NEVER managed to reach that level though…

Had a quick (rough) check and only two 'third-party' games appear to have sold in 'four figure' amounts… "Agatha's Folly" and "Crack City". Don't wish to brag but my "Retarded Creatures and Caverns" was my best-seller…

Best selling authors… not including myself, of course… 1) Linda Wright 2) Jack Lockerby 3) Steve Clay

Best selling games… from others… 1) Agatha's Folly 2) Crack City 3) The Taxman Cometh

The worst selling games… and I won't be naming names… were those games I took on from other software houses and not ones that we had developed 'in-house'… but sometimes you have to go with what is available.

…ON REVIEWS…

Back in the day I used to send out between 4-6 'review' copies of every game Zenobi Software published… this would amount to between 1500-2000 tapes…

The games were sent out in their full state… complete with 'information-sheets', 'cases' and 'printed labels'… and each one cost me a 'jiffy-bag' and a 'first-class' stamp… us Balrogs are generous sods at times…

Before anybody asks… they were sent to the likes of 'Crash', 'Your Sinclair', 'Adventure Probe', 'From Beyond', 'ZX Computing' and whichever other fanzine was in vogue at the time…

They were all marked clearly with the words… 'Review Copy'… or 'Review Only'… or simply 'Review'… but I have never come across a single one of them since… wonder where they ended up…

…each copy counted towards the 'royalty' payments… the authors got their agreed fee for each and every game that I put in a 'jiffy-bag'… whether they were 'purchased' or simple review copies…

In all the years I ran 'Zenobi Software' the customer was always right ... that is just part and parcel of running a business ... you just have to clench your teeth when the bad reviews come in and smile to yourself when you get a good one...

The funny thing is that in all those thirty (30) years people were always quicker (and happier) to voice their disapproval than they ever were to say 'Nice One!' ...something to do with 'human nature' I suspect...

…one [review] I received back the 80s ...went along the lines of "Childish, puerile, immature toilet-humour that will never appeal to anybody" ... the 'BCD' [Behind Closed Doors] games soon proved that tw*t wrong.

…ON ZENOBI'S CUSTOMERS…

Contrary to popular belief the 'adventure-game' customer was NOT a 'spotty 14 year old'… it was the 'spotty 14 year olds' that were sending me in the games that I was publishing ... with the 'odd' exception of course...

…the vast majority of my regular customers were 'adults' and some very 'professional' ones at that…

The greatest percentage of them all were 'housewives' and 'ladies who lunch'… not that I ever complained…

[John commented on a mention in Your Sinclair that a Pakistani intelligence officer was one of his regulars…]

The 'Captain' was a good repeat customer and many a 'jiffy-bag' went out to him over the years… used to have a 'sheep-farmer' in New Zealand and a 'surgeon' in Cardiff amongst my other regulars… takes all sorts…

Very few 'jiffies' went West though… guess the Yanks weren't into the Spectrum…

…ON ODD PROMOTIONAL ITEMS…

The things you do... I once bought the entire stock of black g-strings (with the face of a cat on them that looked just like the old ZENOBI logo) from a market-stall in Bury and sent them out to loads of my female customers... got quite a response I may add...

One rather elderly lady asked me what the 'eye-patch' was for and another lady hung hers on her bedpost to remind herself of better days...

The wife left hers on the back-seat of a coach coming home from a Christmas 'do' one night... luckily I was with her at the time otherwise we would have been having words...

…I also sent out two dozen 'Green cheese sandwiches'… real ones… to the various fanzines/magazines of the time in order to promote Mike Gerrard's 'One of Our Wombats Is Missing'…

…I sent the wife to the 'cheese-stall' on the local market and got her to buy 5lbs of 'the greenest-cheese she can find' and a batch of wholemeal loaves… spent more than three hours making the sandwiches and sticking them in 'jiffy-bags'…

Most folk were okay with it (they saw the joke) but one or two got 'uppity'… the cheese was rather 'smelly' and a couple of days in a sealed bag really 'improved' the aroma!!

…ON FEATURING ON MAGAZINE COVERTAPES…

Zenobi Software had a 2 or 3 [games on] 'cover-tapes' and I never received any payments for them ... maybe because I submitted the games to them in the first place...

…ON STRANGE REQUESTS…

…I once had a vicar over from Todmorden way call here on a Tuesday night, wanting me to write him a game and then provide him with a thousand copies of it that he could sell for charity at his garden-fete the following Saturday…

It is amazing how many people have asked for the same thing… one guy wrote me and asked me to write a game for him that he could submit (on his own behalf) to his tutor as his end-of-term 'computer-studies' project…

…ON COLLABORATIONS…

Mike Gerrard sent me the first version of 'Wombat' [One of Our Wombats Is Missing] (about 80% complete) and a carte blanche to add what I liked to it… within reason… I added some extra locations, routines and loads of text before releasing it in his name…

[Similarly, Behind Closed Doors 4 was a collaboration] …George Hoyle produced the initial version… I then adapted and enhanced the whole thing in my own special way but gave George the full credits for it…

…ON THE TIME HE NEARLY GOT ARRESTED…

One day I noticed a gentleman walking up and down outside my gate and looking at my house... I went out to him and asked if I could help...

"Is this Zenobi Software?" he asked and when I said it was he handed me one of my price-lists and said "I have just driven up from Birmingham and am interested in purchasing some of these ".... "Which ones?" I asked...

"Those 'Deep Waters' compilations look good value, do you have any?"... I said I could run him off copies now if he wished and offered him some tea and biscuits while he waited... everybody gets biscuits when they visit...

He was a very smartly dressed man but something about his appearance was bugging me... anyway he declined my offer and said he had to get back to Birmingham but that he would be in contact quite soon...

As he walked back up the path my eyes went down to his shoes... which were very, very shiny, polished and looked exactly like the sort of shoes that were usually worn with a 'dress uniform'...

Sad to say, I checked the post-code on all incoming orders for the next couple of weeks but none ever bore the 'Birmingham' stamp...

About four-weeks later there was a knock on the door and when I answered it there stood two people… a man and a young woman…

They introduced themselves by showing me their warrant-cards (police) and then asked if they could come in. We talked for a bit and then the man asked if I would mind him asking a few questions ... ask on I said...

He showed me one of my advertising leaflets and underlined in red were the titles "Deep Rivers Vol.1" and "Deep River Vol.2"... he then asked if I had any copies of them available ...I laughingly said "About 500 in a box upstairs"...

(…believe it or not I was in the process of boxing-up 250 of each volume for a shop in Scotland when they knocked on the door ... coincidence or what ...)

He looked at his partner and then asked if he could use my toilet... "Sure" I said and told him where it was. He left the room and the young woman engaged me in idle chit-chat whilst we awaited his return...

I was just about to suggest I put on the kettle when I heard the floorboards above my head creak and I then knew that he was NOT in the toilet but walking about my office...

I shot up stairs... clearing both flights in about four strides and was just in time to see him opening a filing-cabinet. When I questioned him he said was just 'curious' and then brushed past me to go downstairs again...

Once downstairs he asked me some more questions about the "Deep Rivers" stuff and then asked if he could have samples of them both for his 'investigation'... I was now under suspicion for 'something'...

I handed over copies of both tapes (along with their relevant documentation) and then I signed something to say that I had done so. The man told me I would be hearing from them soon... and they left...

About six weeks later I received a manilla envelope containing both tapes and the documentation and a hastily-scribbled note saying that there would be "No further action"....

I later learnt that their investigation had been part of another investigation into the distribution of illicit videos and tapes... mainly those featuring the sexual practice of 'Golden Showers'...

I told Jack Lockerby (whose games featured on both compilations) and he had a good chuckle about it...

I only learnt what the "investigation" was all about when I asked a mate of my lad if he knew who the man was… I had taken note of his warrant-card number… the mate was a serving officer in GMP…

…ON ZENOBI AS A BUSINESS...

…it earned me a living for the best part of 30 years… not a great one but it raised a family of four and put the food on the table… as well as putting a few coppers in the pockets of the various authors…

Zenobi (in one form or another) was my ONLY source of income from 1986 up until the day I retired in 2013…

…ON WRITING GAMES…

Writing a game was just a means of transferring the damn stories out of my head and bringing them to others ... I never pre-planned any of them, I just used to sit down and type them in to The Quill…

I used a 'rubber-keyed' 48k to write the likes of 'Seeker of Gold' and 'Bulbo and the Lizard-king' and the others like 'Behind Closed Doors', 'Retarded Creatures & Caverns' and 'From out of a Dark Night Sky' on a 'toastrack' ... still have both machines…

I am so proud of my +3 Spectrum as it is the one that Essential Myth used to produce the 'Dr.Jekyll & Mr.Hyde' adventure-game... I bought if from them when I purchased the publishing rights to the game...

I often wish I had been the sort of author that kept 'meticulous notes'... but my system of 'writing on the hoof' meant that all I ended up with was a head full of fragmented memories...

A good friend and an even better programmer... once told me that the essence of a good text-adventurer is that it is like an 'onion'... you first peel off one layer only to disclose another and so on...

Somebody asked me the other day… "What is the best game you have ever written?"… "To be honest, I don't know as I haven't written it yet."… was my reply.

At my age (73) you never know how long you have left, so everything is done in a rush in order to make sure you complete it before you pass on your way to the next great 'adventure'… wherever that may be…

To paraphrase an old TV programme, I am definitely a "Can't Code - Won't Code" type of guy and over the years I have relied on the 'clever buggers' to provide me with the platform to tell my stories ... that they have done and my stories have been told...

…So a huge 'Thanks!!' to all the 'clever buggers' that enabled me to make my journey so enjoyable...