Week 881
Day 6161 - 5/14 - Tired, but ok
Today I am pretty tired, but not too tired. I did have a bit of trouble thinking clearly, but I did do some important stuff for my pen and paper things. I've decided to kind of put the third on hold for now, though my brain is still pondering things. But at this point I'll just wait less than a week for launch, see what is in there, look at things like layout and design, and shift to adopt ideas for the third thing before I finish it. The remaining few days will be spent on last minute polish for the first two things.
I'm hoping to get notice of shipping soon and I will get it ahead of the 20th. People have been posting their shipment estimates and a few have the 19th, and I have seen as early as the 16th. Getting it ahead of the 20th would be awesome as it would give me time before official launch to adjust critical things and have it immediately ready to be put up online on the 20th, as soon as possible.
I have no control of it though and can only hope for the best, both in arrival and how my content will be received.
Day 6162 - 5/15 - So very tired
Today I am so very tired and exhausted. For some reason I couldn't sleep and so I probably only got about 4.5 hours of sleep. I have a decent amount of focus, but needless to say I am having a difficult time.
Day 6163 - 5/16 - On the way
Today I finally got news my pen and paper game is on the way to me. It's supposed to get here 'some time before 9pm Monday.' So I hope it comes earlier rather than later to make whatever changes I need to in order to have my stuff I've been working on ready to go as early as possible on the 20th. As always things are out of my hands, at least until it arrives, so all I can do is hope for the best.
Day 6164 - 5/17 - Lost sleep, but good
Today I got about 2-3 hours less sleep than I could have, but I'm surprisingly good. I had good focus and did what I was hoping to with my pen and paper stuff. At this point the two are ready to just sit and wait for final changes. I'm supposed to get the book Monday, but I'm hoping that comes early, or at least earlier in the day. That way I can get my stuff final for release as quickly as possible, then release it to the people. Hopefully that will go well and I hang on ok in the meantime.
Day 6165 - 5/18 - Bouncy package
Today the delivery passed through my local facility at 6:41 in the morning and then went up to S.F. for 2.5 hours and then came back down. It makes no sense. Why not just drop it off when you first passed through the local center? I'm happy that means it will possibly get to me earlier rather than later tomorrow. I did just now notice this is "USPS", not "UPS", so I guess that means there is effectively zero chance of delivery today. And if it comes with the regular mail tomorrow that means it won't come until around 4-5.
I'm pretty tired still. I got closer to a regular amount of sleep, but I'm still exhausted from losing sleep lately. Hopefully I can sleep better and start feeling more balanced soon.
Day 6166 - 5/19 - Probably delivery
Today I should probably finally get my pen and paper game. It seems crazy that it's finally happening after waiting, well, years since first announcement, though something like 10 months since my purchase. Hopefully it comes early enough I have to make final release adjustments to my stuff quickly.
Day 6167 - 5/20 - Full release
Today the pen and paper game is finally out and I can finally give my stuff to all the people. (I'll edit in links here once it's up.) It will be strange to have my two big things finally behind me and just be waiting for feedback to continue them. (Though as I read through release rules there are a few things I may add or change. There were things I didn't really 'get' with beta content that might be made more clear with full release.) I still have my third thing to try and finish, but that may still be on pause for a week or two while I absorb the released rules and see how best to move forward with making my own stuff for people to play with.
Week 882
Day 6168 - 5/21 - Waiting for approval
Today I was waiting for approval on my pen and paper stuff. Somehow, even though there were upwards of a dozen others talking about publishing their stuff, I seem to be the only one with stuff ready to go. I guess though it could take all week before it's approved. I don't know if that's because I am a new seller or becasue It's for a game system they don't have in their database.
I did spend 5 hours updating today though. There was something pretty important that half disappeared in a previous edit I did and then I edited all the spells and abilities to better match the released product.
The editing was just all cut and paste, while I listened to stuff in the background, but for some reason I'm completely exhausted now. I feel like I only got 4 hours of sleep again last night. (Though I'm pretty sure I got around 6 or 7.) So it was ok, but apparently an exhausting day. And now I just continue to wait.
Day 6169 - 5/22 - Unexpected reaction
Today I am exhausted. My stuff went visible sometime early evening last night, which is super exciting. I guess I was pretty excited because I couldn't really sleep. I started looking through the rulebook and was like 'crap' becasue I noticed a section of character sheet that I forgot to check and it had changed. I figured I'd get to it in the morning as early as I could, but I guess my mind couldn't let it go because I effectively didn't get sleep until I got up and fixed the changes. Which now that all is said and done leaves me with 2-3 hours of sleep.
But I guess all the quickly changing as fast as I could after getting the release rules was ok. When I left the library and it hadn't even been up for 24 hours it was already showing 70 downloads, which is totally crazy. I was thinking I'd be lucky if I saw more than about 25 in that first week, maybe 100 in the first month. But at the rate it's going it will soon be over 100.
And that's not all, a few people put in a non zero number for the 'pay what you want' value, so I actually "made sales." It's nothing to 'write home about' yet, but it was rapidly approaching enough for an on sale video game, which I figured I'd see enough for a new full priced game in probably a year if I were lucky.
Does this mean people like my stuff? It's too early to tell. For sure a few do. But will it get comments and reviews? I don't know. And this unexpected burst of people because the system is brand new, and after a couple of months downloads will die down to nothing? Only time will tell, but it certainly seems this first week will blow any expectations I had. I do hope everyone has fun with it.
Day 6170 - 5/23 - Not many more
Today there aren't very many more downloads of my stuff. I think over the past 24 hours there have only been like 10 more. So that may have just been an initial burst from my mentioning it places I've been talking about them for a while, I'm not sure.
Mostly today my brain needed a day off. I did think up something to update on the pen and paper stuff, so that was about 45 minutes, then the rest of the day my brain just meandered around. I am still pretty exhausted.
Day 6171 - 5/24 - Five star review
Today started pretty exciting. I checked to see if there were more downloads of my pen and paper supplement stuff, and one of them has a five star review. 
That was super nice. 
I don't expect that will hold forever, but if they stay at 4 and 5 star I will be super happy. If someone does 3 or lower it will be sad, but hopefully they will say why so I can fix it or improve.
Other than that it was a pretty basic day. I still feel pretty exhausted, so I can't think great. But it seems at least one person super likes what I did. And if it keeps going as it has been I'll probably be at 100 around noon tomorrow.
Day 6172 - 5/25 - Over 100
Today my stuff has over 100 downloads. I didn't think I'd see that much in maybe a year, at the very least I expected a month if it were super popular. I don't know what to think anymore. I didn't think people would really grab my stuff, let alone do so this quickly.
I'm still really sleepy from trouble getting to sleep, but my brain is starting to think up important stuff to add to one of my things that I wanted to add before release but couldn't think up. So that will hopefully solidify a bit more and then tomorrow when I have a ton of forced offline time I can think stuff up and make lots of notes tomorrow solidifying the idea.
I don't know how the rest of my day will go. Tummy is being upset by my food, so that's not great. I'm still exhausted and feel like I may flop over at any minute. But I suppose overall I'm ok.
Day 6173 - 5/26 - Outside Monday
Today will be a forced outside day. Hopefully it won't be too bad, but there won't be any easy spots to sit and be connected with my laptop. The food store I started doing that at is still shut down for health code violations, so I expect today will probably be completely offline save for maybe an hour taking quick peeks on my tablet. Hopefully brain can think up some stuff for adding to my pen and paper stuff that I can move to the actual files in the coming days.
Day 6174 - 5/27 - Hopefully regular Tuesday
Today will hopefully be a regular Tuesday. Hopefully I have pen and paper stuff to put into the file. Hopefully I got better sleep. And hopefully food I eat is ok.
