This week went by in the blink of an eye

[Kevin]

This week went by in the blink of an eye.

Last Saturday, I enjoyed a visit with my dear friend and fellow game designer, Erick Wujcik.

Erick has been living and working in China the last year or two, but was in the States doing interviews with several videogame companies interested in his unique talents. Erick is looking for a new position as lead game designer and idea guy. The first company to snap Erick up is the lucky one, because he is a true genius when it comes to game designs and is a quality idea-cranking machine.

Saturday Erick was between interviews and in town to visit his girl and a handful of friends for a couple days before flying out to the West Coast for interviews at three other electronic game companies.

As usual when we get together, hours flew by like minutes as we discussed our lives, aspirations, recent events, hopes, dreams and game ideas. While we talked, Erick signed a couple hundred books for the Christmas Grab Bags (coming up soon). Before we knew it, four hours had ticked by and Erick was late for a lunch date. I love that guy and wish him all the best. He deserves it.

That was last Saturday . . . and next Saturday is TOMORROW!

Bits and pieces from a week gone by

We got a lot done since then and now, but it’s never enough and none of the work involved my writing a darn word for any Palladium title. Arrgh! It is so frustrating, because the work we are doing is vital, but it means we slip farther and farther behind deadline. It’s frustrating for me on a personally level, because I live to write and I have many stories to tell, starting with Rifts® Sourcebook One, Expanded. Stories I think you’re going to love.

I reviewed a half dozen business contracts. Review meaning going through them thoroughly, making notes, making changes, rewriting portions, negotiating those changes, making compromises and new changes, talking on the phone and with the Palladium staff and attorneys, and reviewing it all again (and sometimes again) to make sure it's all good and nothing was missed.

Another big part of this week was working with Tony Falzon to set things up with getting our products distributed to the book trade. That involved some of the aforementioned contract reviews, discussions and planning. Things are looking VERY GOOD on that front. Very good, indeed.

I also spent time reviewing manuscripts, filling out Palladium contracts, and assigning artwork to freelance artists for the next few books.

Reassessed scheduling for the rest of 2006 and the first quarter of 2007, and made some new strategies and target dates in that area too.

Communication, in one form or another, seemed to be the theme of the week as I spoke to my agent, Hollywood, printing reps, a hotel manager, distributors, some freelancers, friends, investors and advisors.

2007 Palladium Game Convention – aka the “Palladium Open House”

We’ve been so ridiculously busy these past few months that we were surprised to realize that the 2007 Palladium Open House is only SEVEN months away (May 4, 5, 6 – including VIP Friday). I had promised people more time to plan and order admission tickets for the 2007 event than they had in 2006, so I spent half the day writing up the description. Wayne will be posting the 2007 Palladium Open House details sometime later tonight (Friday, October 6, 2006).

We plan to make the 2007 Open House bigger and better with longer hours, more guests (maybe even Erick Wujcik and John Zeleznik!), a bigger, better VIP Friday (with food catered by Kathy Simmons, or as we call her, “Emiriletta” – think a Polish wedding type set up, and she’s a fabulous cook!), costume contest, anime area, and all kinds of fun things to do and see.

From what we can tell, most of the gamers who attended this year’s event plan to come back in 2007. Awesome! Heck, we’re doing the 2007 Open House only because we were deluged with more than 150 requests that we hold another Open House in 2007. On top of that, fans we met at many conventions who missed this year’s Open House said they’d make it to the 2007 event. Cool.

We estimate 400-500 gamers will attend the 2007 Palladium Open House (we had around 250 or so in 2006). I hope so. Everyone is welcomed, and we may have plenty to celebrate. Besides, we were as blown away as our fans at how wonderful the 2006 Open House was. We can hardly wait till next year’s event. Oh, I’ll be running at least 3-4 games too.

Survival Strategies . . .
could Palladium recover sooner than later?

Tony, Alex, Wayne and I spent time this week discussing and plotting strategies and tactics to keep Palladium Books alive.

Palladium is dong much better than we were at the beginning of 2006, but there are a few major hurdles we have to navigate to insure the company’s survival and future. I’ll be posting an announcement about that and what you guys and gals can do to help sometime next week.

The good news is that I think Palladium is at a crossroad and MAY be able to recover faster than we hoped, provided we can leap those hurdles. As always, money and time are our greatest problems, but if we can beat ‘em we might – that’s might – be in excellent condition and solid position by February or March of 2007 (much better than our original projection of Summer 2009). Let’s hope so.

Palladium is so close . . . yet, at the same time, so very fragile and vulnerable. These next 3-6 months could be “make it” or “break it time.” More on this in my announcement next week.

Behind the Scenes

A great deal has been going on behind the scenes these past few months, and some have been picking up momentum over the last couple of weeks. Some are small, some large, most are yet unrealized, so we don’t want to tell you what they are. Bad enough we've endured plenty of disappointments over the past year, we don't want to build you up and drag you down too. All these efforts have been worth pursuing and some of these initiatives could be critical to Palladium’s quick recovery. On the other hand, they might drain a lot of time and effort and lead to nothing, but we have to follow them and see how they’ll play out. Keep your fingers crossed and the prayers going (they seem to be working!), and we’ll clue you in as things are realized.

There’s more to tell, but it is getting late. I still have things I must do tonight (I’m working till midnight, sleeping over at the office, again, getting up early and working 12 hours Saturday).

We are working hard and thinking of you, our fans. Keep the faith.

Sincerely,
Kevin Siembieda
Publisher Guy, Businessman, Strategist, and Gaming Geek
© October 6, 2006