The Echoes of Heaven Developer's Journal

Defendi · September 20, 2007

It’s been a busy month or two. Let me try to get it all down, so you can catch up a bit.

My last job was becoming a nightmare, and it had destroyed my ability to work. The hours a day I was able to put toward writing had plummeted. It was a good job in the early days, and I took it despite the poor pay because I was often able to do four hours of work on the company in a single shift. However scheduling issues and, more importantly, a rise in business made things more and more busy. I couldn’t begrudge them any of this, and I’d never shirk my duties on shift for other work, but things were getting difficult. I still love everyone there and value the time I spent there. I gladly go in to help them fix little problems and will continue to do so until they’re up to speed.

Recently a new job opportunity came up at Verio Web Hosting. The job was only two days (though I sleep a third just to recover). In that I work 22 hours and earn more money than I did at my old job. This leaves me 5 days off in a row (four with the day lost to sleep) to work on writing and publishing projects. So once that started moving forward, my path was set.

That left some new time issues. I had to teach my old boss how to do my job. Then I had to do full time training for my new job. Things have finally settled and this week I’m getting quite a bit done. I’ll brief you on the final state of things at the end.

Since I’ve last posted, Wizards announced 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons, I’m sure you all know. At first, I was a little worried. I’ve spoken to people at wizards since and while licensing stuff is still up in the air, I’ve become relatively certain that the new system will work with The Echoes of Heaven (the bit about martial adepts had me a touch worried at first, but it seems I can make it work). If I can get a timely look at the SRD, this could even make the company. Being able to release early enough might even launch the company like the early adopters of 3.0.

It’s too early to tell if that’s likely, or even possible, but I’m working on it.

Here’s the status of everything else.

I finished the master pagemake of product 4 today. If all goes well that puts us within two weeks of release. I have one proofread still outstanding but that should be done before I pagemake that version.

I had proofed, edited, and pagemade the first product for print release. I made the HARP version first this time and ordered soft and hardcover versions. The softcover looks wonderful. The hardcover has slightly poorer quality on the interior grayscales, but the hardbounds physically look to be great. I intend to contact Lulu about the grayscales when I have a new version ready for upload, so that minor changes will be reflected in a new copy.

This morning I finished re-proofing the softbound from cover to cover. I’ve input those edits as well. Tomorrow (I work an hour a day on the print versions), I hope to have first runs on the new interiors ready. I go over them several times before I declare them done, usually spotting new pagemaking flaws each time, so that will probably be up next week. After that, I’m guessing, we’re within a month of me ordering a complete set of proofs of all four versions in preparation of going live.

So, that puts Bestiary (The Hell project) out around the end of the month or beginning of next and the print versions for product one for sale sometime around Halloween, barring major disaster.

Tomorrow I should finish pagemaking the RM version out of the master. I hope to have the HARP version pagemade as well before I launch into the weekend, but half-done is probably more likely.

Well. That’s it for now. I’ll be able to update more often now.

Here’s the countdown of stuff to do before product 4 release:

Get d20 doc back from proofer.

Pagemake RM Version

Pagemake HARP Version

Pagemake HERO Version

Pagemake d20 Version

Pagemake CC Readme

Get CC Readme proofed

Get all the maps ready for packaging (some them out, hide one of the grids, etc.)

Build the Zip Files

Upload the Zip Files

Build the Product Pages

Get Product Pages Activated.

Announce release

Defendi · November 19, 2007