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Every so often a success story comes along that makes you root for the person behind it. Matt Dinniman is one of those stories. The Dungeon Crawler Carl author started out writing for fun, put his book online for free, and ended up with a publishing deal, a TV adaptation and millions of copies sold. Here is how it happened, step by step, with sources for every claim.
I thought of the idea for this article adfer hearing Dinniman share in a discussion panel on stage that he actually self published DCC to start with. This made me interested in digging into this “Rags to Riches” story, and find out more.
He wrote it just for fun
Matt Dinniman was not a newcomer. He told Page Six that his first book came out in 2003 with a small press, and that self-publishing carried a stigma back then. “Back then, you didn’t self-publish because if you did, it meant you weren’t good enough. That stigma still exists,” he said. He tried it anyway in 2017 with a LitRPG called Dominion of Blades, while making his living selling drawings of cats and dogs at conventions. He attended 42 of them in 2019 alone!
Dungeon Crawler Carl started in December 2019. In an Audible interview, Matt Dinniman said he began writing it on December 26, 2019, “for fun,” and did not expect anyone to read it. He later told Seattle Met: “I’m just writing something stupid and fun. But I’m still gonna put everything I have into it.”
The pandemic forced his hand
Then 2020 hit. Matt Dinniman said in the Audible interview that the pandemic stopped his convention income right away, and he had little choice but to lean into the book and hope to earn something from it. He had been serializing it on Royal Road, a free web-serial site, and the story climbed the site’s trending lists, according to Seattle Met. In October 2020 he self-published it on Amazon. The audiobook followed a few months later.
Readers started doing the talking
This is the part that matters most. Matt Dinniman told Seattle Met that when book two came out, “it started to get a little more popular. I would go online, and I would see someone mention it without me having to do anything, without me being the one that started the conversation. That was really cool.” He called the LitRPG community “kind of a micro niche” at the time.
He also built a community on purpose. In the Audible interview, he explains that his Patreon members vote on things inside the books, like the contents of loot boxes, and that their picks keep throwing his plans off. He adds that fans “have become friends with each other,” and that he loves seeing the new relationships form around something he created. The Page Six profile says Patreon started with “50 bucks a month.” The Seattle Times quotes him on the slow build: “Halfway through 2022, I woke up and realized I’d sold quite a few copies.”
Audio did the heavy lifting
In the Audible interview, Matt Dinniman shared that he sells more audiobooks than print and ebooks combined, which he says is common for the genre. At signings he asks who first met Carl on Audible, and he says it is usually 75 percent or more of the room. He credits narrator Jeff Hays and Soundbooth Theater, saying the audiobook is part of why the series is so successful. Page Six also says his journey “really took off” once the audiobook was released. If you want more on that narrator, we covered him in our list of fantasy audiobook narrators who make the whole book.
A big publisher, on his terms
By 2023, Matt Dinniman had sold hundreds of thousands of copies when Penguin Random House came calling. “When they published it in August of 2024, it was selling in every store in the country. TikTok discovered it, and it’s been exponential for years.” Seattle Met reports that the Dungeon Crawler Carl author signed with a literary agent and took an unusual deal: he kept the digital rights, while Ace Books, a Penguin Random House imprint, handles print editions.
Millions of copies and a Peacock series
The numbers keep climbing. Seattle Met says The New York Times reported in December 2025 that the series, then seven books deep, had sold over six million copies. In July 2026, Page Six put the total at 13.5 million, though its own photo caption says “more than 13 million,” so treat that figure as a rough one. Seattle Met says the eighth book, A Parade of Horribles, arrived in May 2026.
The screen deal is real too. The Seattle Times reported that television rights went to Seth MacFarlane’s Fuzzy Door Productions. Per Page Six, it is a Peacock series with Matt Dinniman as an executive producer, alongside MacFarlane and writer Christopher Yost. Audiobook narrator Jeff Hays was announced as the voice of Princess Donut, as reported by Deadline. At San Diego Comic-Con, Matt Dinniman also told The Comics Beat: “Maybe it helps a single person think about how they treat people who are different than themselves, then maybe the whole thing will be worth it.”
What this story shows
Matt Dinniman, the Dungeon Crawler Carl author, did not wait for permission. He wrote the book he wanted to read, posted it where readers could find it, and kept showing up for them. The deal, the show and the sales came after. If you are sitting on a project, that is worth remembering.
Our take: What I love about the Matt Dinniman story is how little of it was planned. He started a book for fun, and readers did the rest. Mentions, votes, audiobook fans and a community of people who like each other. A publisher and a TV studio showed up once the readers were already there. If you want to support the next author like him, tell a friend about a book you love. Tell us your favorite Dungeon Crawler Carl moment and we will share the best ones.
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