Progress Report
about 4 years ago – Fri, Jan 31, 2020 at 12:55:18 PM

So, it's been a short bit since I've posted an update, so here we go.

1. Dragons of Rosgarth

DoR has five chapters plus the Bestiary (20 pages of creatures planned). Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 went through my first-pass adjustment and edit, and Chapter 1 has also been edited by Emily. She'll move to Chapter 2 soon. Chapter 3 and 4 are both fairly short (less than 5,000 words each), and I did a preliminary read-through of both last night. I hope to attack those this weekend. If I'm really efficient, I'll get them both done and ready for Emily today.  Chapter 5 is perhaps 10,000 words, but it's laid out more akin to a dungeon map, so each paragraph or so is its own thing. I find it easier to edit those.

I also received the list of monsters, and my goal is to get descriptions of action scenes made and get those pieces of art commissioned right away. I don't need layout to know I want an image of each critter. So that is 20 pieces of art that I can spread over my art team. That usually means a fast turn.

Once the book is edited, edited again by Emily, and then one more time by me on a word-for-word read-through basis, I'll pour it into a graphics-free layout. From there, I should be able to see how close or how far away I am from my 80-page target, and then adjust art spaces to match.

I won't say I'm feeling good about it; it's taken too long for my comfort, and yours. But I will say that it seems that as long as things stay on track, the "words" part of the book is shaping up and moving forward. I'll follow the same proofing pathway I used for Forest's End, and those that have provided outstanding feedback in the past will be tapped again.

I'm not sure if I'll make the deadline for "to the printer by end of Feburary," because it's already the end of January, and there's only so fast I can ask the artists to work. But . . . I'm going to do my best to make that date, and I'll let  you know how I do.

2. Con of the North and Fnordcon 2

There are two conventions coming up. 

Con of the North is here in the Twin Cities, Feb 14-16. I'll be there behind the booth the entire time. 

FnordCon 2 is in Austin, TX, with Steve Jackson Games. Sean Punch (Dr. Kromm) will be there, so will I (again, booth-bound), and look for some fun announcements and maybe some discussion of the Dungeon Fantasy RPG and perhaps even other things.

3. Other Books and Mailings

Yesterday I received a giant pile of cardboard. This refreshed my book mailers and map protectors, so I will be able to send out the large maps to the PROPER destinations, and also fulfill all of the US-based packages for "not the Nordlond Sagas" materials. So orders of Citadel at Nordvorn, Hall of Judgment, Dragon Heresy, my TFT work, etc can be packed up and shipped, and I'll try and get a bunch of those out each day.

4. Printing and Shipping of The Real Books

I've asked my usual printer for quotes and they're doing their usual "we'll get to it eventually" thing. Their output is nearly always outstanding, as are their prices. But wow . . . they make it hard sometimes for me to give them money.

I've also been steered to a new printing company which is basically sorta-kinda-POD but with super-good prices, for both color and black and white. For the 16-page books, that means I can print locally in both the UK and the US, and that means some of the really, really high fees for moving large volumes of books by sea - which also takes bloody forever - becomes a matter of days. If I ordered the books today, they'd be ready to ship in less than a week, probably in my hands (or Kixto's) a few days after that, and then into USPS via Media Mail. Folks would have their books before they'd even finished printing overseas, much less making their way to the US via slow boat. 

So I've got some attractive options either way, and I have to consider them because relatively speaking, I only have to print up fewer than 300 copies of each one. The thicker books are likely still best done by short-run digital printing overseas. The shorter ones I can use the newfound printer. I'll keep you guys in the loop on this as my quotes come in from the vendor(s).

12x18 Maps Sent!
over 4 years ago – Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 10:29:14 PM

The Good News (for everyone that got 12x18 Maps)

I received the new proof for the 12x18" paper maps today, and they look good. So I processed the order for them and you should have received a note from DriveThruRPG . These go out even to international folks, but alas for me, they don't print locally for cards. So all of my "international/domestic" machinations were for naught.

The Bad News (for me, but not for certain folks)

I also received, and sent out, over two dozen copies of the large cardstock map. The good news is they all went into USPS this morning.

The bad news is at least some of them went to the wrong folks. So these lucky 28 people will get a 16x20" map of northern Norðlond on me. If I'm lucky, some of the recipients are actually intended to get them. If not...well, hope you like your map!

For the rest of the cardstock maps, I will need to order more protective cardboard, but I'll get busy processing these this week and get them into the mail.

The Rest of the Add-Ons

And as noted in a prior update, I've got all the inventory I need now to get the rest of the add-ons into the mail. I'll be working on getting those out this week as well.

Any Work on Actual Books?

Yes, actually. There are to be five chapters plus a substantial bestiary in Dragons of Rosgarth. There was quite a lot to flesh out in the chapter on Jarngarðr, the small city/large town that is the starting point for the adventure. As is typical with these - and as you saw in Nordvorn, Hall of Judgment, and now Forest's End - I like to give some more setting with each book.

Well, Jarngarðr is a bit of a big deal. It's a major crafting hub, a port and trade town, and it stands at one of the gates through Audreyn's Wall. It's normal population is 5,000 folks . . . but there are usually another 5,000 passing through doing trade at any one time. 

So the chapter on Jarngarðr got big. 16,500 words big, which is probably about 32 pages, at least until Emily gets finished with it. She's editing my edits, and I gave her instructions to tighten up any redundancies and really be sure that the thing isn't repetitive.

That's basically a short book by itself, and she's banging away at it. We'll continue to play editing ping-pong with the chapters until the text is solid, and then I'll turn to first layout, and then graphic design and art spaces/art direction. I think the book is going to wind up around 80 pages...but the bestiary is looking like 20 pages by itself, so we'll see.

But I'm not idle. Insane, perhaps. But not idle.

Forest's End: Complete File Distributed
over 4 years ago – Mon, Jan 20, 2020 at 12:52:58 AM

I just pushed the button and sent out Forest's End u20200119 (might have forgotten the "u" for update). This is a complete file with hyperlinks, index, 100% of the art in place, and several rounds of proofing.

I've had a bunch of stuff going on, but many of the "incidentals" that have been plaguing my progress are out of the way. I've filed and paid my MN state sales tax remittance for 2019, I've compiled my 2019 Revenue and Expense statement, and taken delivery of maps and books for the "secondary" distribution, which I'll be boxing up today and tomorrow.

This leaves the Dragons of Rosgarth, and Kyle and I are interacting on this daily. We started working the rough sketches of the maps, which we'll get to Glynn and use to revise and tighten descriptions of rooms and scenarios.

All this while, naturally, my computer has decided to have a thermal cooling problem. Thanks to much help by my inner circle, I've found that the CPU cooler seems to be malfunctioning some of the time. When that happens, the chip idle temperature spikes to over 100C and the thing just shuts down instantly to save itself. This saves the computer (yay!) but frequently causes me much angst due to lost work (boo!).

I've installed - and keep a close eye on - HWiNFO64, which gives me a real-time graph of these things. Now that I know what to look for, it also helps that I can now hear the cooler laboring a bit. I am not going to down the system before Rosgarth is done; I have a delivery to make and I will make it.

My goal is to hit Rosgarth final material editing (the chapter for Jarngardr, which is the "launching point" for adventures the same way Isfjall and Nordvorn and Skogurenda were) has surpassed 12,000 words, which likely means something close to 20-24 pages of material. I've got a bit more to go there (I'm the "lore guy," so it's up to me to supplement that out), but I expect to finish it today. Then I will start the editing of the remaining chapters. I hope to knock that down significantly over the coming week.

Once I've got a first full edit, I can do layout and see where the art spaces are. Filling those will likely take the better part of a month, during which I'll be working on the graphic design and layout. I figure preliminary files should be available by the end of February. They might not have all the art, just like Forest's End didn't. I'll send that out to the preview squad, get feedback, integrate and finalize art, and hopefully get out a version by mid-Feb. I'll ask for a quick turn on any "hey, you missed this!" and get all the files to the printer by hopefully the end of February. A month to print, a month to six weeks to move around the world. Likely delivery of books in May. I hope.

Maps, Secondary Books, Financials
over 4 years ago – Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 01:03:34 AM

I had a nice verbose friendly email typed up, but my computer died for the third time today. This does not fill me with joy.

1. I took delivery of a crap-ton of inventory for Hall of Judgment (2nd Edition) and Citadel at Nordvorn today. This means I am stocked up for Con of the North, and I can also fulfill the rest of the "I have those already" books.

2. I published a giant 2019 in Review post covering the financials of GB in 2019. If you care about the ins and outs of an RPG company's profitability, it might be worth a read. 

Ballistic’s Report: 2019 Financial Overview

3. The cardstock maps arrived today (the 16x20" ones), and I also got notice that the re-do of the 12x18 paper maps shipped from the printer today as well. Should get it in a few days.

These are the packing materials to try and keep it from being destroyed. The map, two sheets of 16x20 cardboard to make a sandwich, and an 17x21" flat mailer.

That's it. Back to work for me.

Forests's End Preliminary File - Distribution underway
over 4 years ago – Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 01:22:02 PM

After long last, the Forest's End preliminary PDF is queued up for distribution. It will go out more or less five minutes after I send this update.

It is substantially complete, though there are a few lingering items, some of which I know about, others which can use some eagle eyes. In particular, one very much known item is that some artwork is still missing, but all is under commission and being work.

If you see one of the following "watch for this!" list items, please email me at [email protected] if you see something. (PLEASE email rather than reply to the update, slap it on Discord, or anything else. So very much easier to ensure the correction is made and I can attribute it properly this way).

I'd appreciate it if each correction suggestion were 

• On one line
• started with the page number formatted as P. XX (capital P, period, space, actual page number)
• Then list enough text that I can use "FIND" to get to where you want me to be, 
• Then suggest your change and a quick reason why. 

Things to watch for

• Kickstarter Attribution. Make sure your name is (a) there, and (b) listed the way you want.
• Typos, grammar, or unclear prose. Some of this is stylistic, so there are judgment calls. 
• Comma/punctuation note 1: I use the Oxford comma, so blah, blah, blah, and/or blah is "correct" for this manuscript, rather than blah, blah, blah and/or blah.
• Colon/punctuation note 2: I use what I believe is the APA style for colons. If the thing after a colon is a complete sentence, it's capitalized. If it's not a complete sentence, it's lower-case. If it's a proper name, it is, of course, capitalized. 
• The index could be missing a few items, so I'll take suggestions as to what to include. Not a lot of space there, so be judicious.
• The index might have been over-enthusiastic listing every single instance of, say, Vaesukir or Dalmar. If there's a mention-in-passing that you think doesn't need to be there, point it out. Dalmar, Tobias, Djanka, Vaesukir, Ravym, and Freythor get a LOT of mentions, not all of which are vital.
• Not all of the Icelandic/Nordlondr language bits are defined. Some of that is for the purpose of intentional humor. There's no room for a full-page glossary, so if there's something that you feel is really important to know that isn't clear from context clues, I'll look at it. For example: hvitur hvalur (p. 34) is not defined. It means 'white whale' and is a reference to Moby Dick. But that's a wink-and-a-nudge thing, not a vital to the adventure thing, so it's not exactly crucial.
• Finally, there are a bunch of hyperlinks staged. Not all of them 'took,' and are functional. Let me know which ones work and don't.
• Hyperlinks that you think should be there are also fair game.

Sorry this took so long, but I think it's shaped up nicely. I won't be posting repeated updates to the file via Backerkit, but I will be making changes and every now and then I post a file update to my "internal development" discord channel.