FINISH LIKE A PRO

When a new product is finished, being printed, and on its way to the wholesalers, retailers, and consumers, it is still not totally finished. There are several steps to take which are necessary, even if they aren't part of getting the product on the market.

For one, we have to put the product (including a suitable photo) on the shopping cart. Leanna then has to add the various options, such as loose-leaf vs. bound, hole-punched or not, and sometimes large print editions. She also has to list the spare parts and "double-category" the item into the "new releases" page of the web shopping cart. This also requires us to delete the older items on the new release page and rearrange the order of the products on that list. Leanna also has to change the front page of the cart to mention the new products.

The copyright documents have to be filed.

In some cases, a product information page has to be created (or updated) for the website.

Many documents have to be updated, including the website new releases page, the next newsletter, the list of product updates, the data files for the Greater Games Industry Catalog, the on-line text catalog, and of course our own catalog. For SFB products, we have to update the Master Ship Chart and Module G3. For FC products, we have to update the Reference Rulebook, the scenario indexes, the Master Ship Chart, and several product information pages. For F&E products, we have to update the Ship Information Tables.

We have to issue awards, free copies, and (sometimes) checks to individuals who worked on the product. If the product is done under a contract, this is a good time to actually make sure the contract got signed.

Review copies have to be sent, which means we have to check the list of reviewers and see if those sent review items actually reviewed them (and did so fairly). We also send a press release about the new releases to the media.

A Captain's Log is probably the hardest product to "finish" since it has elements of all of our games, requiring us to update the charts and databases for each game. It is also one of the few products for which we do a large print edition, which means about a day of reformatting (adding) pages and moving text around. We have to update the promotion records for those who write the various kinds of tactics articles, and we also have to post a list of who got published and reorganize the files of papers not yet published. We keep a master index of Captain's Log, and that has to be updated. Certain articles from each Captain's Log (input guide, the Star Fleet Battle Force article, table of contents) are PDFed and put on the website. We have taken to writing and posting a separate designer's notes file for Captain's Log. Captain's Log is where we publish updates and the answers to rules questions, and those files have to be put on the website.

So, a "finished" product is often two or three entire days of designer work away from being "finished". We have to be firm (and kind) with customers who have been desperately waiting for one product to be finished so they can start talking to us about the next product, because until the product is "finished" (all of the post-printing list done) it is not "finished" (time for us to move to the next product) even if it was "finished" (printed and shipped). If we let such customers talk us into starting work on the next product without completing the "final items list" then those items are much harder to do weeks or months later when the memories of the just "finished" product are no longer fresh in our minds.