MIni-update September 21 2009

[Kevin]

Mini-Update

My Dad spent the last week living with me when his girlfriend with whom he shares an apartment, took seriously ill. After a week long battery of tests and care in the hospital, both she and my Dad are back home together. With him and his girlfriend home, Dad is also much more at ease. The doctors are keeping a close eye on both, but the two of them are, for the moment, doing okay.

Having Dad with me for a week was a mixed blessing. Half the time was wonderful, half the time we were the “Odd Couple.” There were some truly nice moments and it was good to be spending more time with Dad.

Chemo went super-easy last Wednesday, so he is much less worried about subsequent treatments. I offered to take Dad to breakfast and chemo every Wednesday for the next 7 weeks. My taking him out to eat, visiting and clowning around helps to keep his mind from drifting into that dark place he likes to go to. I'll be losing half a day's work, but it makes my Dad very happy and I’m thrilled to do it.

I was sorry I didn’t have more time for him last week. I wish I could have taken the entire week off, but I couldn't. I was also sorry that Dad was here to see the layoffs and the worry from fans about it online. In some ways, last week was a harrowing whirlwind of emotions and events.

To illustrate what a good guy Dad is, he insisted on doing what he could to help out while he was here. He spent half of Friday and Saturday (about 5 hours each day) signing books for the upcoming X-Mas Grab Bags – nearly 600 of them. He also helped in other small ways, sorting and collating, watching the door for deliveries, etc. I think signing and helping around the office made my Dad feel more vital and alive, because he was in a much better mood by the end of the week than at its start.

As for me, I go from sad and depressed to positive and gung-ho, to exhausted, to frustrated, to okay, to feeling stressed to being creative. I just wish I didn’t have sooooo much to do. We need to keep the books coming.

There is tremendous excitement and anticipation for Mysteries of Magic™. Preorders continue to come in strong and we've seen a lot of Fantasy book orders coming in.

Sales for the last week have been about double what they were the previous 2-3 weeks. That's still a bit below what we need to be making, but it's a significant improvement.

An interesting telephone call

Something unexpected happened today. I got a call from an independent film producer in Hollywood. Of course, he was interested in Rifts® which isn’t available because it is optioned by Disney and JB Films, but we had a nice chat. Though he is a Rifts® player himself, he was not aware of Palladium’s other RPG product lines, so I’ve thrown together a small selection with a catalog and will be shipping it out to him tomorrow. I doubt anything will come of it, but you never know. Fingers crossed.

The 2009 Christmas Surprise Package description is going up in the Palladium online store a bit later this evening. You can place orders now, which will give us the luxury of time to make the first batch or two extra special, but they probably will not ship before October 9, 2009.

Brian and Allen Manning volunteered to do sketches for this year's grab bags which got a bunch of other artists (and me) doing likewise. What a great group of guys.

The Rifter #48 is nearing completion and will go to the printer soon.

Other stuff is happening, but nothing cosmic. Just pounding away on books and business. Keep the faith and game on.

Sincerely,
Kevin Siembieda
Publisher, Writer & Game Designer
Palladium Books®, Inc. – 28 years of RPG Publishing

© Copyright September 21, 2009 Palladium Books Inc. All rights reserved.

Rifts®, The Rifter®, RECON®, Splicers®, Palladium Books®, Phase World®, Palladium Books®, 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, Fleets of the Three Galaxies, Mysteries of Magic, 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.