Everywhere That I'm Not

[tracker7]

I think a good part of today will be spent at the library.  Spykeetom is meeting her dad for lunch, and I need some inspirational reading material.

A few months ago, Palladium Books issued some pleading press releases - apparently, the company is in dire financial straits and desperately needs help from the fans to raise some cash to stay alive or some darn thing.  Lots of emotional appeals and "now you can be a hero" stuff.  I'm no fan of Palladium, but I know its products do a lot to keep game stores in business, so, to some degree, Rifts and its stablemates subsidize my part of the hobby.

Still didn't throw 'em any money, though.

Yesterday, Green Ronin makes a similar announcement, without the whining and pleading.  GR explains that the Osseum implosion caused a real kink in their business - 3 or 4 months with no money coming from their biggest distributor hurt a lot.  GR, though, instead of begging for donations and offering a sorry-ass "special edition" print for $50, is cutting prices on their print and PDF products, and offering a pretty nifty pre-purchase deal on some upcoming projects.  The biggest difference, though, is why GR is doing this.  The company is in good enough shape now that there's no immediate danger of it just collapsing.  GR wants to raise some fast cash to pay off the freelancers it owes money to.  GR's chief, a guy named Chris Prama, wants to pay what's owed and reestablish goodwill with the writers.

I think I'm getting a copy of Damnation Decade pretty soon.

Comments

[rosepurr.livejournal.com]

I have Blue Rose and love it.

[fishxxiii.livejournal.com]

Wow, Pramas is a great guy. I might see if there is anything I need or could use.

[tracker7.livejournal.com]

Blue Rose is pretty neat. Damnation Decade is one of the coolest setting ideas I've seen in a long time. Skull & Bones wasn't exactly the pirate game I wanted, but I liked what I saw of it.

[kingyak.livejournal.com]

You know, I think Green Ronin's the only company I've actually paid for a new product in the past 3 or 4 years (the True20 rules, when we were working on Fort High). Now I'm kind of glad I did.

Osseum* screwed over a lot of people when they up and disappeared. I know one guy who was owed over $8,000 by them, and that's without counting in all the product he never got back.

*Like Wizard's Attic before them. We managed to get our product back just in time because (1)their warehouse was in Louisville; and (2)a little birdy told us something to the effect of "Go get your shit NOW!"

The fulfillment house crapshoot is one of the many reasons we stopped even trying to deal with distributors--there's one fulfillment guy I trust, and he requires minimum sales and regular products that we just can't promise. On the up side, Hex has made more money and been under a lot less pressure since we gave up on distribution. The Old Farts tell us we're fools, but they also tell us to join GAMA (which has exactly the same effect as setting fire to around $400).

[tracker7.livejournal.com]

Osseum's implosion hurt a lot of good people in this business. Chad Justice over at Mythic Dreams is my usual immediate example - something like half of the print run of the Spycraft version of Dark Inheritance is lost to him, and he received next to nothing on the copies that did sell. One of the best Spycraft Family product lines is now completely stalled out.

I certainly think you and Carter and Leighton are doing the right thing. With the Net's ease of commerce, there's no need at all for a small press, especially one with an established fan base and constant con support, to rely on distributors and the book trade system.