Robotech® New Generation™ is done!

[Kevin]

Robotech® New Generation™ is done.

I don’t know about you, but we feel like cheering. It was so frustrating to have the art and writing finished, but stuck in approval hell for weeks on end. We had gotten our part done so it could be released in October, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

Wayne Smith and I were here till 11:00 P.M. yesterday working on getting the layout for Robotech® New Generation™ done. In between, I worked on Rifts® Lemuria while Alex Marciniszyn worked on other things.

Robotech® New Generation™ looks great, is packed with good stuff and will be sent to Harmony Gold on Monday for final approval of the layout. We hope to get that approval in a day or two so we can send it to the printer.

It is Sunday afternoon, about 5:00 PM as I write this Murmur. Wayne Smith is at the office putting in the final touches on the Robotech® covers and checking pages for any corrections to be made.

Julius Rosentein is in doing a final proofread on Robotech® New Generation™.

Artist Chuck Walton is at our office right now trying to finish the cover for Rifts® Path of the Storm – One writer’s vision of the Rifts® Movie. Wayne will start on the layout of Rifts® Path of the Storm on Monday. It should be finished and sent to the printer by Wednesday or Thursday.

Alex is here too.

I got to the office around 11:00 this morning and I have been working all day (and most of the weekend) on Rifts® Lemuria. Man, this is going to be an awesome book. I’m finally in the zone and working away on it like crazy. I have to wonder if that is due, in part, to the fact that the telephones haven’t been ringing. Something is wrong with the telephone lines and we have not had telephone service since sometime Saturday morning. We should have service back by Monday night. Hopefully sooner. The weekend is usually busy with calls from gamers wanting to place orders, so I guess we lost those sales. Hopefully, they'll call back later in the week or next weekend. It's out of our control.

At any rate, I’ve been writing like a maniac on Lemuria. The way the author set things up, data is spread all over the place so I have been working on six different files, each partially edited and retooled, but none of them yet finished. I’m loving what I’m seeing and so will you. My tweaks and additions are making good stuff better and even more expansive.

We’re all working hard to get books into your hands. I wish I could say working through the weekend was special and uncommon, but it is pretty much par for the course. That’s why we laugh when some Palladium detractors suggest we don’t care about getting books out nor care about our fans. I’ve been working seven days a week for something like three or four years now. Let me tell you, it sucks and can become very disorienting. It takes real effort to know what day it is, and everything tends to blur together. If I didn’t love what I do and wasn’t dedicated to getting Palladium back on its feet, I probably would have gone loco or quit a long time ago.

As you can see, the Palladium crew is just as dedicated and caring. They come in and work on the weekends whenever it is necessary and never complain about it. Even freelancers like Chuck Walton, Mark Dudley, Nick Bradshaw, Mike Mumah and others will bust their tail to get art done in time to meet a deadline. Thank you guys.

Don’t care? That's just crazy talk. Unfortunately, the creative process takes time, especially when you are intent on releasing the best RPG products possible.

Still, I get it. I understand that from the outside looking in, I’m sure there are times when things at Palladium may look like they are at a standstill or a disorganized shambles. I can’t tell you everything going on every minute or on every project, but we are busy all the time working to create amazing new products for you. Right now, we have a dozen new books in the pipeline. And if my freelancers come through on their end, there are another dozen being written and designed right now. Heck, good ol' Greg Diaczyk is finishing two more right now, with two others in his mind for future development. That doesn’t even count the comic book projects we’re trying to launch.

All of this takes work to coordinate and keep on track. Heck, I can lose half a day talking to artists or helping a writer work through a problem. There is a lot of logistics going on all the time. Toss in the day to day business demands, the fact that there are only six of us on staff, and the string of bad luck Palladium has weathered these past several years, and there are times even I wonder how we manage to produce anything at all.

For a while, Chuck Walton was one of Palladium’s harshest critics behind the scenes. But since the Creators Conference and more importantly, since he has been coming to the Palladium office to use our facilities and seeing what actually goes on for himself, he has gone from, “Why isn’t Palladium doing X, Y and Z,” to “Kev, I don’t know how you do it.” Funny.

All I want you to know is, we do, indeed, care about our fans and the company. We always have. We work hard to release one great new book after another, and I’m feeling confident that books will be released at a faster pace from this point forward through next year, and hopefully, from now on. Each new release should also make Palladium stronger and stronger. My goal remains to release one or two new books every month. Hopefully, that has started as of right now.

So please, be positive, keep orders for new releases, back stock titles and Christmas Surprise Packages coming, and let us take your imaginations and gaming experiences to new heights of adventure and wonderment.

I hope your weekend has been a good one. Mine has been great, because we are that much closer to releasing the next four books. Game on!

With Appreciation to All Palladium Fans,
Kevin Siembieda
Publisher, Writer, Game Designer and Surrogate Santa

© Copyright November 13, 2011 Palladium Books Inc. All rights reserved.

Rifts®, The Rifter®, RECON®, Splicers®, Palladium Books®, Phase World®, The Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game®, Megaverse®, Nightbane®, The Mechanoids®, The Mechanoid Invasion®, Coalition Wars® and After the Bomb® are Registered Trademarks of Palladium Books Inc. Heroes Unlimited™, Beyond the Supernatural, Dead Reign, Warpath, Shemarrian Nation, and other published book titles, names, slogans and likenesses are trademarks of Palladium Books Inc., and Kevin Siembieda.

Robotech® and Robotech® The Shadow Chronicles® are Registered Trademarks of Harmony Gold USA, Inc.