Christmas 2008

Had lunch with Doc – we found one of the Chinese places that were open.  For Christmas Eve I was planning on making a really good stew (sure, not Christmas food classically, but, it was something different), but ended up going to a gathering of some of Doc’s friends.  I figured if I was going to make it, I’d pick a day with nothing going on 🙂  I finally got around to making the stew today.  I LOVE cooking a good stew – the house is filled with the awesome aroma 🙂

Christmas night I spent with Dad, Jay, and Vanessa.  I hate to say it but… I really like going to other people’s family Christmas’es better.  Dad and Jay are both so damned bull headed that they always seem to be on the verge of a fight of some sort – and have been that way for years now whenever I see ’em.  Drives me bat shit nuts.

I didn’t buy a whole lot of Christmas presents for people this year, but I bought two for Vanessa. A big honkin’ coloring book / activity set and some 3D markers.  Probably the real gift here though was setting down for about an hour and coloring with her – she loved the hell out of that 🙂  She doesn’t get to see “Big Brother” very often, and when she does I’m always headed this away or that – so a little quality time was a good thing.  Probably the hardest part was reminding her multiple times NOT to try and beat on me – the broken rib problem 🙂

I caught up with Meredith and Erin for lunch, and gave Erin her present.  I’ll have to admit – I couldn’t think up something REALLY good for her on a tight budget, but realized that music is always a hit with her.  So I bought her a $25 iTunes gift card 🙂

Everyone else just got cards.  Yeah, boring and bland, but, it says “Hey, I was thinking of ya’!”  🙂

As for me – well, I got a new pair of shoes (black) and three shirts (black) from Dad & Jay.  Hey, at least they got ’em in black this time – they are learning 🙂  And one of the shirts is really cool.  Doc got me a pack of three LED flashlights.  At first that sounds like the lamest gift ever, except I’m always looking for one.  So now there’s one in my computer case, one in my tool case, and one in the glove compartment 🙂

Now I’m prepping for the New Year.  Got a party to go to New Years Eve, and a product release on New Years Day.  Fountain Street Productions represents more time on any single website than I’ve ever done before.  I’m not sure I’m fond of the “grungy underground look” to this day (I didn’t design it – and the designer went for a totally different look originally, but they wanted “underground” really bad.  That’s gonna bite them later, I think.)  After that, I’ll do the last bit on the book, and start the release cycle for it (IE, getting it out in book form, Kendal eBook, iPhone book, and audio book – the last one will require the help of a friend I made at Fountain Street who owns a recording studio.)  

I’m curious to see how many copies of the book I sell over the next year.  My prediction is:  50 copies of the physical book, 100 copies of the Kendal book, 500 copies of the iPhone book, and 100 copies of the audio book (actually there’s two more release platforms down the line – a “standard” eBook format for the other eBook readers and PalmOS / Blackberries, and I’m going to rework the website to host the full book – you can read the first chapter for free, then purchase to unlock the rest.  Neither of those will represent a large number).  Each product platform has different quirks and profit levels, but at a guess, the best I expect to see for income over the next year from the book is $2,000.  Yeah… not exactly big money.  But I’ll have done it once, know the process behind each release platform, and turn around and do it again in a couple of months.  If I’m lucky, I might have as many as 6 books in me before I quit writing ’em.  If I’m unlucky, that number will be two – but that still means I’ve written two books than most people have 😉

Right now I’m worried about the upcoming months.  I’ve got projects that are SUPPOSED to be happening, but, things really seem to have come to a standstill.  Of course, I say this during the holiday season – it’s hard to tell if the standstill is because of the holidays, or because of the economy.  I’ll have to wait and see.

Meanwhile I’ve got my iPhone developers license, so if I don’t have projects on the table I’ll be writing books and digging in the iPhone gold mine with new Panic! games and apps.  Given the speed at which things sell on there, I’ll probably sell more copies in a month than I sold in the entire history of Flip Panic! and Tile Panic! put together.  And then I’ll also be offering two iPhone services (one to a publisher is already in discussion) to try and round out the income figures.

Kinda funny – looks a bit like Midnight Ryder Technologies has come full circle.  It wandered away from custom software development and video game development ages ago, and here I am working back into it again after a decent run at web development.  Sheesh.