PDFs of the New Stuff - It'll Be Awhile

Short version: It'll be awhile. Here is an earlier PDF (taken down because with the project finished, an old slapped-together thing should not be representing the project). It's rough and not identical to the final text but all the ideas are there. Download it here.

Long version because I just woke up and am stalling the start of work:

It might be awhile before the PDFs are available. Dealing with the physical version has to be a priority.

The print version is A5 size, and PDFs can't be that format. Well I suppose they could but that would be weird and there would be a ton of complaints. So the whole project has to be laid out again.

The final materials for the box just came yesterday (the photos on the pre-order were done with the final proofs). I managed to assemble just 31 of them yesterday. I hope to do 100 today (up at 6:30am!, and 100 for the next several days until all 600 or so are done.

There have been 54 orders so far, and those have to be packed. A 5 page customs form (for tax purposes) has to be filled out for each one leaving the EU (over 75% of them). I'll have at least 3 very large packages going to Noble Knight, IPR, and hopefully a regular distributor in the US as well. And when they're all ready it'll probably take hours and hours to mail them because the post office requires this long label to be filled out at the counter for overseas packages. There's also a ton of comp copies to go out (contributors mostly) that need packing but those don't need the extended customs forms but will need those labels.

There's Ropecon, which will take up the entirety of next Fri - Sun. Of course I hope to sell tons, which means the accounting and such will take up a chunk of the following Monday.

The wife has already booked us a vacation in a cabin in the middle of nowhere for the first week of August. I've basically turned the entire apartment into a warehouse (the wife is doing her sewing out on the balcony, and even the couch is filled with empty boxes because there's nowhere else for them right now and we don't know if we'll need them for shipping stuff yet so we can't toss them) so no working, at all, during that trip or she'll kill me. :D

I expect to be able to get to work on the PDFs after returning from that trip, but then there is the hope that the people who made the original batch of orders will be receiving them around that time and starting to post their reviews, which should trigger a new round of orders, which will monopolize my time. I don't have a staff here, it's just me and whatever I can con my wife into doing (and she's got a full-time job and has been more than patient enough with all this shit as it is!).

I also have to deliver a dungeon level that I promised to Otherworld Miniatures by the end of August, and it would be good if I didn't wait until the end of August to start it.

But eventually, PDFs of everything will be available, including the free formatted PDF (but art-less! I'm copying Labyrinth Lord!) with the Rules and Magic booklet material.

I don't expect to even look at the next LotFP project until September, which probably means a November release if I don't fart around too much and if art and cartography can be done in a reasonable time. Oh wait, wasn't I going to deal with a higher grade of graphic design as well? That'll take time figuring out.

Oh hell, and this is with me doing this full time?

yeah, no complaints if things are active enough to keep me this busy - better than working at the quickie mart, but things will take time. Hopefully not as much as I'm figuring and things can get done here and there earlier, but who knows. Part of the fun is not knowing what the hell I'm really doing and have people get excited about it anyway. :D

edit: I also want to explain why there are no free pdfs with orders of print material. I wanted to offer that (even though the PDFs would come later), Evil Hat's program they set up for The Dresden Files RPG is awesome, but... well, the sales tax here is 9% on books, 23% on other goods - including PDFs of books. Orders taken from within Finland or the EU need to have that tax applied, which is why the box costs the same going to European addresses as it does going overseas even with very different shipping costs.

Orders going outside of the EU don't have that tax applied (but I have to fill out that 5 page form I mentioned so that it doesn't apply - the simple green customs form, or the fact that overseas shipping costs are very distinct from European shipping costs at the post office, don't matter to the tax man). Or should I say, physical orders going outside the EU don't have that tax applied. PDFs would require the tax to be applied no matter where it's ordered from.

Now it's one thing if RPGNow or YourGamesNow is selling my PDFs. Those sales are happening in other countries through other agents and I'm just getting royalties from the sales they make. But if I advertised a PDF with every sale made direct from me? That "free" PDF would increase the cost 23% for all overseas orders of everything, and European book-only orders, since it's implicit in the purchase of the item. So... no "Free PDF with Purchase!" here.