Module Writing – Done

So I spent the entire last week with my nose stuffed in the Madrid Run module.  Writing, writing, writing and even doing a bit of play testing with some friends.  I like the result and the whole thing has been shipped off to the editors computer for scrubbing and editing over the next week to two weeks.

So now I am playing catch-up with emails and forum posts.  This weekend I hope to finally get the changes ready to go for the website up and “live”.  I would also like to get our books posted up on one of the new e-stores we now have access to.

So lots and lots to do.  June is coming up.  I think in June we will go ahead and bite the bullet..pushing our fiscal year to the six month mark instead of five.  We launched in February so technically we are only entering our fourth month of operation.  Has it only been four months?

We are closing in on 225 members on the website.  250 does not seem that unreachable.  In fact 300 by the end of the year seems more than achievable at this point where before it seemed like a dream within a dream.

I am excited to get the new book out and break ground on the next one.  The Other Woman / Tramp Freighter source book.  That will be a lot of fun both to finish writing and to have at the game table.

 

CHARGE!

After a little speed bump it is time to strap into the cockpit of our personal hurricane starfighter, make sure the g-suit and life support is functioning and punch that full thrust button.

Work is going great on the module despite having my boss give his notice at work last week.  Yikes!  That was out of the clear blue sky, let me tell you.  Over the course of the last week I’ve found more and more stuff rolling my way which means more time working and cleaning machines and the shop at work and less time for emails, checking the rocketship forums etc…

Does it mean less time for writing?  Heck no!  Are you kidding me?  I start to twitch if I can’t sit down and write something for Rocketship Empires for a few hours every day.  What it does mean is that when I get off work from the graveyard shift at 7:00 or 8:00 am that I wind up at the coffee shop writing -then- for a few hours before heading home to collapse.

Hopefully that will not have to happen for more than a few days or weeks as it does -definately- tire this poor writer guy out. 

I will do a crazy man happy dance this weekend if I can get my e-commerce shopping cart up and finished.  What a great thing to get off my plate.  I have a few other things I want done this weekend as well so I can just finish the book, play through the changes I made with my friends and see how it all shapes up…get it into editing and then out. 

Unfortunately with everything going on this month there has been minimal time for editing books one-three although I’ve had some freaking outstanding volunteer help from Gary and others.  I want to get the website basically finished this weekend so next month I can totally focus on getting those edits done on the first few books.  That will limit our output in May to the tramp freighter source book but that is ok. 

We’ll still be at six great books in four months and that is an awesome thing.

Yes…yes he’s a loon…mad totally mad…

Why do I say that?  Because as a break from writing Rocketship Empires when my brain just won’t write jetpacks and nazi bashing and dinosaur hunting any longer…I’ve been secretly working on my fantasy material.

Ok, ok.  Not much.  Very much on the side but still.  I find having the fantasy work to mix things up helps keep Rocketship fun and fresh.  The variety helps keep my A.D.D. self from getting burned out.  I had planned to just wait on doing anything fantasy until 2009 but with Gary Gygax passing and everything i thought I might dust off all my old 1st edition books and pick up some I’ve not had in a long, long time and work on writing one last 1st edition campaign setting.

This will be the 1st edition campaign setting to end all campaign settings…at least in my book.  It will include all the classic elements of alignment influences, all the classic races but in a more sword and sorcery style than anything I’ve written in years.  This will not be Skybourne.  That I’m holding off on until 2009.  This will just be a limited run.  One last salute to good old 1st edition as a tribute to Gary and everything fun that was and remains 1st ed.

It will be dark.  It will be more along the lines of something conanesque in style than lotr. 

No word on when I’ll put something out for it but probably I’ll put out a little mini booklet with maps and background and such for the world as OSRIC material in May.

Ed

The latest skinny…

Spent this week with two sick boys.  My wife mostly handled things during the heart of the daytime hours although crying boys with fevers got me out of bed several times to try my best to help out.  Last night I plowed through seven new pages of the adventure book and a few maps.  A great night!  Considering that a book like this is right around 80 pages that is very nearly 10% drafted out in a single night.

 Can we cook or what?  A few things have been put on temporary (2 day) hold while I sort out my kids and their flu bugs.  Sorry to the couple of people left hanging on emails and paperwork.  I will try and get that off to you either late tonight or tomorrow night.  Definately before the end of the week.

 We are plowing right along on artwork for the next two books.  The cover for the adventure book is well under way.  No it is not the currently posted one.  That is just a placeholder.  We have a MUCH cooler cover coming from Mike soon.  You guys will -love- it. 

 I found a decent free source RPG map program.  I am playing around with it for the adventure book.  It has a very old school feel and look to it.  I think I like it.  Not sure if anyone else will get a kick out of it though.

Buried an old and very rusty hatchet with someone.  The dispute goes way, way back.  It seems that we are both long past it.  It always stinks to have a falling out with someone you respect and consider a kindred spirit in many ways.  I think we both thought we were right but we both also could have handled the whole situation a lot better.  We were both a lot younger and a lot less wise.  It is important to me to somehow put to rest those sorts of things from life. 

 We are all, after all, blood brothers under the bright stars.  Every last one of us.

Fwaa…Gen Con

Gen Con is expensive.  Crazy, crazy expensive.  Hopefully it will be crazy, crazy good exposure for us and we can make more than enough sales to pay ourselves back for going.

$1,600.00 just to get the basic, no frills booth. 

 Sixteen HUNDRED dollars people!  If we divide this cost up between three months of sales from our books it becomes semi-affordable.  Still.  That is a WHOLE lot of artwork and writing for game books being tossed into the booth.  Probably two entire books worth…no make that more like three.

Yes, there is a cheapy booth where you sign up for “maybe” getting one at a cut rate depending on if Gen Con decides to give it to you or not.  I am not a big fan of the “maybe” scenerio no matter how cheap it is.

 Returning vendors also get a deal.  Only $1300 for them.  With the price this high it makes me wonder just how many of the other small vendors and Indie people we will see at Gen Con.  Hopefully a bunch. 

 Ed

The other guys stuff…

Very occasionally I will get a question about whether I have read this or that book or game book about something related to Rocketship Empires.  To be honest, outside of diving into a few very specific types of books, World War II and 1930’s era history books and such, I have not had any time over the last three or four years to indulge myself.

 Why?  Twins.  Imagine the upheaval having a single baby causes in your life.  No times that by two…except that they do not sleep at the same time for the first year.  So basically you, as a parent, always have at least one infant awake and ready to rumble almost twenty four hours a day and seven days a week.  I think the first year there were entire weeks when I could count my -total- hours of sleep during the week on two hands.  There are entire months that are nothing but a big empty space  as I no longer have any memory of them.

 Not to say having twins is bad.  I love it.  They are awesome.  Still.  Good friends ask my wife Val and I if we have seen this or that movie or read this or that book and all we can do is laugh.  Only in the last year have we really had a chance to start to get out occasionally to see a movie.  We used to go every other week.  Now we are lucky to go once or twice every six months.

 I used to be an avid reader of fiction of all sorts years ago.  I am starting to dive back into that, which is nice.  Still, I am just getting caught up on my old favorites I have missed these last years.  I am re-reading everything I can find by Phillip K Dick.  For an unrelated writing project I decided to read some of the Conan books.  The older stuff is good.  The later stuff, eh.  Too predictable for my taste.  I really think the sword and sorcery stuff has been done so many times it really takes a creative writer to come up with something fresh.  I can’t say I am very excited about writing a story about yet another brooding misunderstood barbarian.  Having to think about how I want to approach the subject from an entirely different frame of mind.

 I am not too concerned about what the other guy is doing out there.  His projects are his own business.  I make it a point not to compete with anyone else.  I only compete with myself and try to improve with each new book.  If another writer got jazzed about pulp stuff and wrote some books about it.  Cool!  It would be awesome to meet them.  We would probably get along great.  My buddy Mike has been into pulp forever.  I imagine it takes a certain quirky individual to love that stuff like we do.

Silver and Coppers

 Rocketship Empires 1936 is a silver medal seller now and so are all our other books, including the Ship compendium that just went out last weekend.  Pretty good stuff for a couple of rookies.  Not bad at all.  Still we have a long way to go.  No time to pat ourselves on the back until we emerge on the far side of Gen Con this year and take stock of how things went.

Gen Con will be a big milestone for us, as I expect it is for many Indee publishers.

…more to come. 

New Milestone – Fan Hate Mail

Somewhere after crossing the line into reaching a certain number of customers, having enough reviews out there I suddenly entered this surreal world where I now rate wacky hate mail.

 I know.  Its a roleplaying game.  Hate mail over a roleplaying game?

Don’t get me wrong.  This is like two out of probably five hundred positive, hey good job, keep up the good work, maybe fix this or that issue emails.  I remember some other publishers and writers discussing this sort of thing before and it always boggled my mind.

I mean.  Hate mail over a game?

It boggles the mind.  There are some wacky, wacky people out there.

Ed

The Big Push…

Crunch time again. 

 Were we not here just two or three weekends ago?  Starting tonight through Sunday night is the big damn push to finish the Starship Compendium.  Also launching a major marketing push.  We earned a LOT of ppp points on RPGnow from last months sales and intend to expend all of them on banner ads, page views and all kinds of other promotional goodies.

Going to try a variety of different bundles as well. Should greatly expand our offering and hopefully kick up our sales another notch.

Applied to YourGamesNow.com.  A great group.  Here is hoping we get a shot and they let us on board.  That should boost our customer exposure and sales a good deal.

 Been meaning to get some pictures of the books up (hard copy) but technical snafus keep getting in the way.  Also time is tough.  When I balance finishing the next book versus some of these other things the book usually wins.

 Pushing out a book is a major big deal guys.  The last three to five days I usually sink another 40 to 50 hours into it.  Usually late at night burning all nighters.

 Just wanted to post a quickie update.  Oh the cover for the Ship book is spectacular.  The best cover we have so far.

 Thank you Mike Doscher. 

more to come…

Freezer time revisited

     Did you know that licensed psi must either be rated to travel safely in jump space or must submit to travel restricted to a freezer birth?

     Why is that I wonder? 

      Kidding.  The answer rests somewhere within the mystery of why some phantoms and nightmares in the dark between the stars remain merely phantoms and why some become very, terrifyingly, horrifyingly real.

      Clearly the Ministry of Parapsyche under the general offices of the Order of the Golden Dawn has some clue or they would not know what to test for and who to order into an ice box for the duration of the trip through space.  Quite a few Captains won’t tolerate a Witch or a Warlock aboard their vessel and who can blame them.  Dealing with the aliens is darned peculiar enough without having a member of your space station’s officer staff able to intuit where you’ll be or what you are thinking.  Handy that he knows when the enemy is laying an ambush but damn skin crawling to have him “just happen” to show up at the level two service corridor during your morning jog, because he had a question for you.

Oh some of the psi are not too bad.  The inactive ones are almost human.  Almost.

 The more active they become, the greater the aura that something is not at all right about them dogs their heels like a cloud. 

 *Working on ideas for the Psi book.  Can you tell?  In a few minutes going to hop back into the ship book and stat out some more starships.  By tonight I should be down to five or six ships remaining. 

 All is going reasonably well. 

 Wish someone at RPGnow had informed me about this GM’s day sale thing.  I am sure it was something announced months ago.  Far too early for me to sign up.  I learned about it when I logged on.  It will be ok.  I will make it up to the guys by offering the new book solo and also as a bundled book with the In Fury book and Gunslinger Betty at a discount.

When the adventure rolls out maybe we’ll figure out another bundled set of options.

 more to come..

Woo Hoo

Worked very hard this weekend on the ship compendium.  I have all of the rough artwork plugged into the book to help in doing the final layout.  I have about half of the ship write-ups finished and some pages sent off to a proof reader.

 I have most of the rubber physics pages done.  Only two or three more.  They are the most difficult pages for me to write as they encompass such abstract ideas.  Once I finish the book i am going to go back and redo the illustrations for that bit or have someone give me a hand with them.

 Spent a good amount of time playing with my kids.  Took my wife to dinner and a movie at the $1.50 movie theatre we have here in our one horse town.  Watched the Golden compass.  Awesome.  Enjoyed it very much. 

 Ed

Be the ball…

Looking at Rocketship Empires (the core rule book and not so much the rest) I realize just how huge of a rookie I am in this whole publishing game.

 These are mistakes that would cause me to bang my own head against my keyboard as a reader and here I am making them.

 I’ve been new to things before.  It is never a fun experience.  I remember as a kid the first year I played little league and whiffing the bat at the air more often than I connected and how that felt.  I remember being a rookie cop and how insanely difficult that experience turned out to be. 

I guess what I have learned so far and what I am learning again here is that no one enters a new thing with the savy of an old hand.  GMing for 30 years does not a seasoned RPG publisher make.

Still.  I survived my other rookie experiences and I will survive and even thrive after this one I suspect.  I am working hard to address the eratta and get it all turned around before the end of the month.  Maybe I can make up for my gaffs by having a winning edge of “turn it around and making it work” and quickly for my customers.

Also the RPG community by and large has been awesome.  Letting me take my first wild swings at bat like my own home team in that little league dug out, cheering me on instead of jeering at me.

We are all on the same team here after all.

 Every one of us.

Everyone who dreams and rolls dice, loves to imagine and play and make and build instead of investing time in the power games, wars and suffering abroad in the larger world…I’d say all of us in this hobby are bound together by a certain bond that transcends our differences.

At least I believe that and always will.

I am also pleased as heck that all of my next books are beyond the realm of trying to figure out how to do ship conversions and plug ins and just focus on the campaign.  That is after all what I’ve always been best at.

Plus all of the remaining books in 2008 are shorter.  40 to 60 pages and in varying states of outline or finished product.

Finally.  Sticking your hand in the fire is a really good way to learn what not to do the next time.

Still a rookie but not for long.