I spent the morning cleaning the house up in preparation for my wife’s parents coming to visit.  I had the time to whip up three covers for some upcoming April releases.  Now I am off to fencing class.  Later tonight I think we are going to go see Blades of Glory; which looks really funny!  Anyway, enjoy the covers….

I posted a new Sketchbook of Modern Figures at all the usual places.  They are selling pretty well, I am pleased.  I invest a lot of our money in good artwork, and I think it is worth every penny.  But some of our projects will take forever to turn a profit if I rely on just the PDF sales alone.  The Sketchbook sales will help re-coup the costs a little bit faster, and let some other publisher’s have access to high-quality artwork.  (Lots of it in full color!)  I spoke with Anthony and he may begin doing some illustrations specifically to be released as stock art; with him getting the lions share of the proceeds and me taking a small “cut” for handling the publishing and promotional aspects.

Got the D&D game tonight which should be fun.  Tomorrow I am taking my wife some place special.  Saturday her parents are coming over for a visit. (As well as to help with the taxes; her father is an accountant!)  I’ll also be going fencing again in the afternoon, which I am really looking forward to.

On deck for April I have three Dept. 7 Advanced Class Updates with the artwork back, so all I need to do is do the layout and the Audio Commentaries.  I have artwork for at least two more Sketchbooks, as well as three other projects that are nearing completion.  April should be a solid month for new releases.

We are winding down the month here, but I think we will have at least one more release before it ends.  I have some artwork that is ready to go for another Sketchbook.  Look for that in a day or two.

Went to that Fencing Club last night for the first time.  My lame hadn’t come in so I had to borrow one from the club, and they threw me right in with the  other people doing Foil.  Once upon a time I was a pretty good fencer (like back in 1992!) but today, not so much!  :-)  You know it’s bad when you score only one touch in a bout and you think you are doing well!  (To be fair, it was against a very good, nationally ranked fencer so even one was worth celbrating.)  But one touch on my first night back to fencing after a couple of years off; I’m OK with that.  A little more practice and we’ll go for two touches, then three etc.  The truth is I would rather be fencing against people who are far better than me, it makes the learning curve steeper which is good!  Theres a tournament in three weeks at the University of Maryland; I don’t think I’ll attend that one.  But it gives me something to strive for so I can be ready for the next one after that!

Oh, and when I got home, my new lame was waiting for me!  It had just come in the mail that day.  So I think I’ll go back on Saturday and break it in.

I have a D&D game tomorrow night with some folks I go to church with.  It’s far different playing a 3rd level Dwarf Cleric in a “standard” D&D setting (with a church crowd!) as opposed to DM’ing 7th level uber-characters in our Ebberron campaign.  Plus I have played with those guys for like 20 years; so theres lots more cussing, joking and mayhem with them!  Still, its nice to switch things up and play with a different group.

Today we released the latest PDF in our Adventurer Essentials Line: Rope!

To hear a publisher Audio commentary about this product, click on the player below.

Listen Now:

 AE: Rope: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Spent all day Saturday at the Virginia Renaissance Fair. It hasn’t started yet, but my daughter landed a “job” as a part of the revelers guild for the fair this year. (No $$, strictly a volunteer gig.) So I am stuck out near Lake Anna at a vineyard where this thing is held, with no internet access, but I did bring my laptop, a couple of DVD’s and an adapter to plug it into the cigarette lighter. I watched the new OO7 flick, and wrote the script out for the Publisher Audio Commentary. I plan to record that later tonight, and publish it in a day or two.

Last Thursday after work I went by that Fencing Club I was thinking about. I was pleasantly surprised! They are in an upstairs room at a Washington D.C. recreation center. I saw four permanent electrical scoring set-ups, a storage closet full of club equipment and the members looked very competitive. (The last place I checked out only had a hand-full of fencers and was a pretty small club.) Most of the fencers there had full uniforms with their names stenciled on the jacket or on the thigh, which is required for national level competitions. There was a good mix of college-aged kids and older folks. I signed up, but wasn’t ready to fence that night. So I ordered a new Lame and a body cord when I got home since I knew I would need them. I am going on Tuesday night for the first time to fence.

I am also buying a car. My wife’s car is leased, she got it right out of college and her lease is up in July. So we need to start deciding if we want to buy her car, turn it in or some other option. She got a call from the dealer she bought it from (in Boston!) offering her a “deal” if she would lease a new car from them. I have been telling her we should get out of debt, so we decided to buy my boss’s car. He just went on Friday to get a new car, and they played games with his trade-in price so he didn’t trade it in. I hear all this about an hour after I got off the phone with my wife about her car…so I told him we were interested. An hour later after we speak to our respective wives we have a deal. So we are getting a used Honda at slightly below Blue-Book and saving about $140.00 a month on the payment. (And should pay it off within a year!)

I put up our third stock art Sketchbook last night.  I also finished the layout and created the PDF for our next Adventurer Essentials release: Rope.  I just need to record a publisher Audio Commentary and that is ready to go.  The flip-book demo is here. I’ll probobly do that after work, but before I go home.

My wife is having a friend over to watch a chick-flick or whatever so I will just stick around here at work and let rush hour traffic die down while I finish it up.  I also have enough artwork for another few sketchbooks.  I know I can do one or two more Modern figures pretty easily, as well as some Fantasy Figures, Sci-Tech & Robots and Fantasy items.  I don’t want to flood the front page of any of the sales sites so I’ll pace myself with the releases.

I put our second Sketchbook up last night before I left work.  I also prepped a lot of the other artwork I have for additional Sketchbooks.  I think I can put another two out this month without too much fuss.

I looked at my wife’s flight info and she wasn’t getting in until after 11:30pm so I did actually go home from work before going to pick her up.  Of course the plane was late, so we didn’t end up getting to bed until about 1:00am!

I checked the vendor rankings and Skortched Urf’ Studios is #28 for the month (so far) on RPGNow!  With almost two weeks left in the month, and a slew of products ready to be released that puts us in pretty good shape.  (I blame the GM’s day sale; we had a really good opening weekend for the month.)

I just ordered my Gen Con Indy 2007 ticket online!  This will be my third Gen con and my first as a publisher.  Last year I was already in preperation to begin publishing but hadn’t yet put anything out.  I even attended a seminar on electronic publishing that was pretty useless as far as PDF publishing was concerned.  But it was fun, so that’s a plus.

Of course I still have a ton of WARMACHINE figures I got at the 2006 Gen Con that still aren’t painted.  With only five months to go I need to get cracking so I can field a well-painted army.

Looking forward to actually meeting some of the people I have interacted with via email and message boards.

Plan to get another Sketchbook up later tonight.  My wife’s plane doesn’t fly in until after 10:00pm, so rather than go home I am going to work late here at the office and maybe catch a movie or do some shopping before I head to the airport to pick her up.  Then we need to go get her car and head home, so it will be a late night for sure.

Today we are having the Hangover Sale for everyone who celebrated St. Patrick’s day with gusto yesterday.  25% off our entire line.

I’ve been sick all week, which really sucks.  I slept most of the day yesterday, but I did manage to watch The Boondock Saints in honor of the holiday.

The d20 Modern game introduced an occupation system that adds minor advantages to characters while providing a lot depth. Characters have a background, and they gain benefits from their occupation past making a simple skill roll.

Unfortunately, the occupations are very specific to the modern setting, as most reference skills and feats that don’t translate well to the fantasy setting. This profession system is the Fantasy version of the modern occupation system. It fleshes out the things a character’s profession skill stands for, and gives the character’s life before she became an adventurer a little more meaning.

The occupations presented in this PDF include:

Academic Wizard
Adventurer
City Guard
Clergy
Farmer
Hedge Wizard
Hospitality Worker
Noble
Pickpocket
Sailor
Samanera
Squire
Troubadour
And
Woodsman

The second section of this PDF deals with Astrological signs and a way to introduce them into your campaign.

The sign under which a person was born can be very significant. The fact that practically every newspaper published in the US has a horoscope section speaks to the fact that even if we don’t believe that the position of the stars effects us, we’d very much like to.

The mechanism for including astrology into your games is simple by design. Two moons, Luna and Io, travel through the thirteen zodiac houses. The moon Luna grants a minor bonus when it is in a character’s house, and the moon Io bestows a minor penalty. Several methods of tracking the moon’s location during a given adventure are also presented.

Included in the sales listing is a full Flash Demo of this product, as well as a Publisher Audio Commentary. Avaliable at all the ENWorld download Shop and Your Games Now !