Still Working ...

Well, I am just about ready for the re-launch, the problem right now is having new products ready too. I don't, and I don't want to "spring into action" until I have the primer ready, two additional products fully completed (one for later release) and a minimum of one more 80%+ ready.

Needless to say, I am not there yet and oak pollen is NOT helping things along.

Springing into Action??

Well, I had several possible goals for introducing the Sparks Primer and taking the Sparks introduction out of existing products AND introducing a new product. Initially, I hoped to "re-energize" on time for GM's Day March 4th but it became clear that would not happen. The second goal was to go with the first day of Spring and "Spring into Action" but clearly that hasn't happened either.

It generally seems best to introduce a new product(s) on a Thursday in hopes that they'll stay on the new product list on the front page during the weekend. This Thursday is highly unlikely due to conflicts with family events. This leaves next week Thursday which would be March 31st, the day before April 1st, you know, April Fool's Day? Not sure if I want a re-launch to be a joke.

Right now I want to focus on having products ready for release and then worry about the timing of their release. It has been so long now that it would be best to have products lined up and ready to go so that I am certain I can have at least one product per month for the 3 months following my re-launch giving me time to focus on creating more new products.

When I am a bit further along I will update the website (finally) with more information and some tentative release dates. Well, this is a child-free work day for me so I had better get back to it.

Over a year later ...

Okay, it has been over a year since the last post. While some work has been done, I honestly got so frustrated with some aspects of the "business" that I basically ended up taking a long break. I will explain some of the reasons in the future but the main reason for this post is that GU is indeed getting ready to come back to life.

(1) I have been able to get some "game time" in lately. I guess I just feel odd writing material for games when I am not getting a chance to play them. Now that I have had a chance to play some games lately, I am also getting more writing done.

(2) The outlines and plans I had one year ago are still viable now, and this makes some of my planning much easier.

(3) Artwork- okay, this was (and sometimes still is) one of the main reasons for the long break. The products GU puts out simply aren't profitable enough to hire the more known, dependable artists leaving me looking at stock art and "new" artists.

Hmm, wasn't going to get into it now, but why not. Last year at this time I purchased "stock" art that ended up being someone's copyrighted artwork. I got my money back, and that company is nowhere to be seen, but it was a major hassle, and really a big concern for me. Then I contracted with an artist for cover art for a new line I was planning, no artwork ever arrived, artist disappeared. Same thing happened with a contract for maps and some interior art-THAT was frustrating as I paid 50% in advance when the artist turned in several rough sketches to make certain he was on the right track. I think everyone sees where this is going.

(3.1) Future products are going to be even more "art-lite" than the earlier releases. I do have an artist that can do some work for me-- but alas, my son has competitive soccer, high school soccer, and a full load of high school classes and I don't want to overburden him.

Time Table???
Well, I thought I was going to get some products revamped and new products launched before Spring Break (March 12th) but that is unlikely to happen. In addition, I will be out of town for a week and don't want to release material before leaving town. I would say "April 1st" but considering my track record the last 18 months that would have to be a joke wouldn't it?

I am leaving the time table open ended for now. Things will happen soon, but I am giving myself a good 6-8 weeks if necessary. This should allow me plenty of time to finish the Sparks module, remove the Sparks info from products, edit a few products, and prepare some new products. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Stock Art ...

Okay, yes, things are definitely cooking under low heat lately. I hope to have a nice "meal" ready sometime though. I do need to turn up the heat though don't I?

I recently spent a great deal of time searching through art and stock-art and finally found some nice pieces that fit what I was looking for and purchased them. Several hours later I noticed a message board post about the "company" selling that artwork and became very concerned.

I'll make the long story short and say that I have my money back and that "company" is no longer selling art on that site. SIGH!

I guess that means I'll be spending a bit more time looking at artwork.

I am still aiming at making the switch to having the Sparks primer separated from the City Street locations and having everything updated before the big GM's day sales coming up next week. We'll see how it goes.

Late February

Well, artwork problems are slowing down a few things right now so I am going to set a goal of late February to have the Sparks primer done, new layouts of some of collections offered for POD as well as new City Streets locations.

Art is a real hold-up for me right now and I am trying to get a handle on the situation. Unfortunately, my sales are not high enough to afford the artwork I would really like to get. Yes, I would love to think that if I spend more money on artwork that this will drive increased sales but I am pretty sure that is not going to be the case.

I still don't have a website update completed which pretty much makes GU look dead (or barely breathing) for the moment. I hope to get a bit of an update on that tomorrow (Tuesday). I am planning for a website design overhaul next summer, but right now the present site will just have to do.

That's the news for now.

Getting Back on the Horse

I am sorry that there haven't been any posts here lately, but really there hasn't been much news. I plan to be "back on the horse" in January with some product line changes, and hopefully some new products. Here are some of the things I am working on, planning for, etc.

(1) I am trying to nail down some artwork for the Sparks Primer which will be a free electronic release that takes the place of the introductory material in the City Streets locations as well as other Sparks products. I wanted to have better artwork because I need to have print quality work for ..

(2) I plan to have compilations ready and scaled for Print-on-Demand (POD) offerings through OBS (OneBookShelf) stores. These compilations should be a minimum of 48 pages but will include the Sparks Primer as an introduction. Electronic products and print products need to be treated differently in terms of a variety of little things so this isn't going quickly.

(3) I have some potential OGL/4e GSL products coming up in the pipeline. I am still tweaking how these products will be offered. I hope to have more information in the future.

Now the big thing, how do you know you can start getting this work done when nothing (visible) has been done for several months? Well, my youngest is going to be in Day Care/Pre-school at least 2 days a week starting this January. This is going to free up a lot of time for me to get other work done. I hope to have a much stricter work/writing schedule when this begins.

Those few of you that keep this blog flagged and/or check it once in a while, thank you for your patience. I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year.

Well behind ...

Okay, I am far, far behind where I wanted to be at this point on just about every project I have ongoing. Hey, I even just posted this as a blank post a second ago (hit the return key by mistake).

Work has only been done in bits and pieces and usually on different projects/books as the fancy has struck. While I have been very busy with "real life" I have no real excuse as I have had free time here and there with which I could have accomplished quite a bit more. My youngest is now 2 1/2 and the weather here has improved to the point that, quite honestly, we have a lot of fun together going places or just playing outside. The good thing is that this helps spark a number of ideas for me, the bad part is that it really does use up my time.

My goal for this year was to have 24 releases, 20 of those as City Streets locations. Four of those are releases in the Great Creators line which I put an end to because they simply weren't selling and the person doing the real work on them has been relocated several times. I have a fairly lengthy list of titles/outlines right now, I just haven't taken the time to really flesh out these locations as I need to.

I am still working on the Sparks Primer. I am planning a new layout for this, some additional information, and I am hoping to have new artwork for it. Tomorrow is Veteran's Day and my dear wife has off from work. This means that maybe I can convince her to watch DS#3 while I go have some work done on the van. Ideally, I'll be able to write in the waiting area while the van is being worked on. It also means that maybe she and I can have a nice lunch date (with DS#3 along, but that is okay) someplace.

I will try to be better about posting here in the future, but in general, no news tells you pretty much what you need to know.