GreatCreators

Okay, still a bit of delay on some of these. I have some ready to go, but not exactly in the order I was hoping to release them. Oops!

The White Tankard released on time, just after Midnight yesterday morning. I need to hit a few more message boards about it and see if that helps sales for the weekend.

While I am not thrilled with the sales of the .pdfs I have released so far, I am not crushingly disappointed either. This is partly because of my very low expectations based on the comments and info I have had from other publishers. I am hoping that trying to hold to a fairly regular release schedule will eventually keep GU in the minds of some customers and begin to drive sales. Once I have enough of a "backstock" I plan to do a bit more advertising and possible some sales to help get product sold. When I do this I hope to provide a special benefit to those customers that were loyal to me and bought the smaller .pdfs as they came out.

I am hoping that sales will continue to improve, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Aw Crumb!!!

Well, I am back from vacation and I did get some work done this afternoon but I didn't get to the website update I really needed to get to. I was asked for a recommendation for someone that I happen to think is a fantastic person as well as a great worker and writing a GREAT letter for someone like that takes time. I mean, if they asked me to write a letter for someone I didn't think so highly of, it would be easy. Anyway, that letter has chewed up a bit of time this evening.

I should have a website update finished later tonight or sometime tomorrow. The next City Streets release is going to be The White Tankard on Thursday (Jan 29) and the next GreatCreators release, is, well, in limbo. We might change the layout format we have used for those books despite the fact that several are already through layout. Basically the two-column landscape layout that several research studies suggest for onscreen reading aren't completely "acceptable" to certain fiction eBook vendors (long story).

Anyway, February is going to be "Planetary Romance Month" for the GreatCreators line. One way or the other, we'll get Lt. Gullivar and John Carter out to you during Feburary. Stay tuned for more.

Vacation

I will be on vacation from January 16th-January 25th. There will be no posts during that time. I will be completely "internet-free."

I had some problems with a few uploads yesterday. I don't know if it was the cable modem on my side (most likely) or something else. In any case, I was shocked to find that somehow I deleted the entire description of The Lord's Kennel which released early this morning. I will have to go through the other products and see if other mistakes were made.

The next City Streets release is January 29th.

Tomorrow ...

Okay, I admit it, I got distracted by several different projects as well as a few things for the upcoming vacation. The City Streets releases are still ready to go, as are a few GreatCreators books but I got distracted and haven't uploaded anything yet.

I might still have a GreatCreators release tonight (Around the World in 80 Days-Jules Verne), if not, it'll be up tomorrow morning.

I haven't decided the exact order of the City Streets releases, when I peg that down I will have that information on the website. Basically, I was going to release "The Lord's Kennel" by James Ludwig, the same author/artist that did "The Black Ape," this Thursday. However, the other two releases that are ready to go are both taverns (or a tavern/inn) and I think it is probably best to separate those a bit more. I know I won't have time to finish off some of the other locations this week. I might have time before the 29th. You can see some of the truly boring decisions that go on behind the scenes. Thrilling isn't it?

Quick Update

Well, I should have a number of GreatCreators releases scheduled into the OBS system sometime tomorrow. I thought I'd have it done tonight but the thumbnails got messed up so I need to go back to the desktop machine (I am posting from the laptop) to fix that. The GreatCreators line clearly isn't going to go well through OBS and the contracts/etc. for other efiction vendors is clearly going to have to wait until I get back from vacation (or later).

When I schedule some of the GreatCreators releases (all Jules Verne right now, JT is a HUGE Verne fan) I will also be scheduling some City Streets products. I haven't decided the exact order of release, but I have 3 City Street minibooks ready to queue up for release. I should have time to get all of the information up on the website sometime tomorrow.

Moving along

Well, things are going fairly well. I have a few GreatCreators books (mostly Jules Verne) in the docket but I don't want to release them yet. Why? Well, sales for these on the OneBookShelf (OBS) sites are clearly going to be slim to none and a publisher can only have so many new releases up on the "new releases" page. The honest part of it is that my Thursday releases are toward the bottom of that page right and by releasing something else I will knock my own releases off that page. This pretty much means I am going to wait.

This week I am in town and will be working away madly on several projects. Okay, let's face it, I'll be working away madly on trying to get things ready for vacation next week and trying to tuck in work on GU anytime I can. I plan to schedule some releases to go out while I am gone but still haven't decided exactly which releases those will be. Vicki Potter has been helpful enough to give me some advice on the tools at OBS so I have been trying to get familiar with those while working on other projects. I have some ideas for a few things to boost sales in the future but right now I guess I am just trying to get a semi-regular release schedule going so GU looks like it is taking this whole publishing thing seriously.

I started this at one of the worst possible times in terms of the RPG industry. I guess it is a good thing I heard all the negativity, that set my expectations low and, well, that is a good thing ;). No matter what the final result is, I am constantly learning new things and gaining new skills so I look at this whole thing as a huge bonus.

I thought I would close with some related news: I will be doing at least 1d3 4e compatible products. I still don't know if I will do them with the GSL or do them in a way that the GSL isn't needed. This evening I realized that about 3 product ideas I have could avoid the GSL altogether. The bonus is, one of them could be done in a way that is compatible with both 4e and 3e products (but using the OGL). I am going to be taking my time on this as the whole GSL vs OGL thing is, well, a pain. I have one product already sketched out in a notebook in enough detail that I really feel like writing it up. I figure that if I don't publish it myself, I can probably sell it to someone that will.

That is the news for now. I should have another small website update on Tuesday and a new City Streets location available on Thursday. I leave for vacation on Friday and will be gone for a little over a week. I plan to schedule some automatic releases through the OBS system while I am gone.

Latest Releases

Okay, products are finally being released. I decided to go ahead and release 2 City Streets locations today (actually last night) and might release 2 next week. I would release one next week and one on January 22nd but I will be on vacation the entire week of Jan 19th and won't really be able to check on it or anything. I might still schedule some GreatCreators releases that week though.

On a different note. The GreatCreators line is likely to be released through several online vendors in addition to RPGNow/DTRPG/OneBookShelf. I will announce that when it happens but it isn't likely to happen until February. The earliest it would happen would be after I get back from vacation. Basically, RPGs are a niche market whereas fiction books have a a greater audience and therefore more vendors trying to serve them. The truth is, we knew that the OBS sites weren't the best fit for these books and have been actively planning to release through other sites. I'll let you know more when I have things finalized.

News, what news?

Okay, I hoped to have more news to put up, but that just isn't the way the night is going. I guess I'd rather get a few more things done than tell people what I am actually DOING. I Hope this poor drawing of the "Black Orchid" helps people deal with my lack of news.

Now that she is here in front of you, don't you wonder who she is and what she is up to?

Back-ups 'n stuff

Okay, it is a New Year so it is time to back-up all of the computers. The truth is, I tend to back-up about once a month but I haven't done a full back-up of everything lately. The New Year is a good trigger for that. So is the amount of work I have done the past 6 weeks for GU.

The website update went "okay" I found a series of broken links as soon as I finished the upload. I should have those finished tonight. ENWorld goes back to putting news up tomorrow so I am hoping to get more work done on the site, future releases, the forums, and press releases & message board posts. Of course, I'll be doing this while starting to take down Christmas decorations, etc. No, I don't like sleep.

I should have more information on future releases put up on the site and the blog sometime this week. I am hoping the revised GSL will finally be out this week so I can review it. Tomorrow I want to spend some time reviewing product plans with the aim of making some decisions. I am going to be trying to recruit a few more writers. I don't know if I want to go the Open Call route or if I want to approach specific writers. The problem is, I know I can't pay well. Anyway, more on that another time.

Website Update

Okay, I made some serious progress on the website over the weekend. Being at my in-laws allows me to get a bit of work done sometimes because there are more people around to watch the kids. Basically, I have been planning a transition to Dreamweaver for a while now but my last update had a huge number of links just plain break and this pretty much forced the issue. The timing was ... inconvenient.

I hope to have the website update completed tonight. I might not upload until tomorrow. I also want to change around the Yuku message boards that I set up months ago for the company. I want a different color set for it that matches better with the new site.

THEN I need to post to message boards about the fact that I have actually opened the doors and started releasing products. I hope to have the boards and site done in enough time to make those posts sometime tomorrow afternoon/early evening.

I am certain that something will slow this whole process down so I am going to get as much work done tonight as I can.

Happy New Year!

We are finally live. Products have been uploaded to OBS and are available now at RPGNow and DriveThruRPG. Right now it is limited to Gior's Glassworks the free preliminary City Streets release and The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle released as part of the GreatCreators line.

This said, the website update "went south" for some reason. Links on the GU website to the products themselves simply aren't working. I am concerned that this is due to using older software for the website. I won't have time to try to fix it until Saturday because we are taking a short family trip to Houston to visit my wife's family. This weekend I should be able to repair the links and finish uploading new products. I am looking at releases on Tuesdays or Thursdays. It depends a bit on how things get pulled into newsletters, etc. Depending upon the product I might be able to release one item on a Tuesday and an item for a different line on a Thursday. I don't know if I can keep up everything on a weekly basis though, so it might be bi-weekly.