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Upcoming Products

Updated 17 June 2010

As you may have heard, publishing a book is not a simple process. It may sound easy—you write, you slap in some art, you sell!—but the better you want a book to be, the more work it takes. And at Arc Dream Publishing, we want our books to be great.

Here’s a simplified summary of the steps that go into releasing one of our products. This ought to help you make sense of the gigantic list of projects that is to follow.

  1. Writing: Usually, we need this step to be done—at least a complete first draft and the author’s commitment to do revisions quickly—before we even put a book on the calendar. If you see anything with a status of “Writing,” it’s because the project will take relatively little work so we’re confident of its timetable. Otherwise, there are too many variables in the writing process to predict when a manuscript will actually be ready to handle.
  2. Editing: The editor of the project goes back and forth with the writer on “big picture” issues that ought to be resolved before it goes any further. Usually the artist starts creating illustrations at this stage.
  3. Playtesting: Volunteers take the manuscript and actually run it for their friends, and draw up detailed notes on how it went and where it can be improved. (If it’s not a game, obviously, there’s no playtesting.)
  4. Revisions: The author revises the manuscript based on playtester and editor notes.
  5. Copyediting: The copyeditor reads the manuscript very carefully, correcting typos and grammar and highlighting things that don’t seem to make sense so they can be corrected or clarified. (Sometimes the copyeditor is the same person as the editor, but for large projects we try to split the jobs up for the sake of quality control. A new set of eyes can catch things that the first reader missed.)
  6. Layout: A page designer takes the finished manuscript and and art and lays them all out in a book suitable for reading. Artwork must all be finished at the same time as copyediting for this to work, so art is done during the editing process.
  7. Printing: If it’s a printed product, we send it to the presses and rejoice!

With that in mind, here’s a list of the projects that Arc Dream Publishing has in the works right now, what format they'll probably take, and what the status is for each of them. We’ll try to update this list once a week or so to keep it current.

Note that Arc Dream publishes a number of products under its own banner, mainly to sell them directly to consumers, but also develops products to be published by other companies. As of March 2010 our publishing partners include Cubicle 7 Entertainment, Pagan Publishing, and Atomic Overmind Press.

To Be Published by Arc Dream

Bigger Bads (June 2010)
Monsters and Other Childish Things. A supplement featuring truly gigantic monsters and a host of new antagonists, by Benjamin Baugh. Format: Paperback. Status: Printing.

The Adventure of the Red-Handed Man (June 2010)
Wild Talents. A mystery for The Kerberos Club, by Benjamin Baugh. Format: PDF. Status: Editing.

Murders in the Rue Orleans (June 2010)
Wild Talents. A New Orleans mystery for This Favored Land, by Allan Goodall. Format: PDF. Status: Playtesting.

Occurence on Lookout Mountain (July 2010)
Wild Talents. A battlefield adventure for This Favored Land, by Allan Goodall. Format: PDF. Status: Editing.

The Missing (July 2010)
Wild Talents. Talent activists in the World Gone Mad plot a heist that goes very wrong. By Shane Ivey. Format: PDF. Status: Writing.

Delta Green: Denied to the Enemy (July 2010)
Arc Dream brings Dennis Detwiller's novel of horror in World War II to e-readers such as the iPad and the Kindle.

Wild Talents Essential Edition (July 2010)
The streamlined rules for Wild Talents come to e-readers such as the iPad and Kindle.

Better Angels (August 2010)
Wild Talents. A sourcebook featuring heroes and villains are empowered and corrupted by supernatural forces. By Greg Stolze. Format: Paperback. Status: Editing.

Black Devils Brigade (August 2010)
Godlike. The American and Canadian Talents of the First Special Service Force battle for Italy in World War II. By Allan Goodall. Format: Paperback. Status: Editing.

Progenitor (August 2010)
Wild Talents. The modern world undergoes cataclysmic changes after a single woman develops superhuman powers -- and passes them along to others when she uses them. By Greg Stolze. Format: Paperback. Status: Editing.

Road Trip (August 2010)
Monsters and Other Childish Things. A handful of kids and their horrifying monsters embark on a quest across the American highways to save the world. By Ross Payton. Format: Paperback. Status: Writing.

Operation TORCH (November 2010)
Godlike. Talents lead the way in the American invasion of North Africa, 1942. By Allan Goodall and others. Format: Paperback. Status: Writing.

The Unspeakable Oath #18 (December 2010)
The legendary magazine of Cthulhu Mythos gaming returns! Format: Paperback; also available on e-readers such as the iPad and Kindle. Status: Writing.

To Be Published by Cubicle 7

eCollapse (June 2010)
Wild Talents. A retail edition of the setting sourcebook by Greg Stolze, featuring superpowered mutations for sale in a world gone down the tubes. Format: Paperback. Status: Layout.

A Dirty World (July 2010)
A retail edition of Greg Stolze’s roleplaying game of mystery and betrayal in the gin-soaked tradition of film noir. This standalone game uses its own version of the One-Roll Engine. Format: Paperback. Status: Layout.

Monsters and Other Childish Things, Pocket Edition (August 2010)
A digest-size retail edition of the Monsters and Other Childish Things core rulebook, by Benjamin Baugh. Format: Paperback. Status: Layout.

The Kerberos Club, Hero System Edition (August 2010)
Hero System. A conversion of Benjamin Baugh’s setting of superhuman adventure in Victorian London. Format: Paperback. Status: Writing.

Bigger Bads, retail edition (September 2010)
Monsters and Other Childish Things. A retail edition of the sourcebook, by Benjamin Baugh. Format: Paperback. Status: Layout.

Better Angels (November 2010)
Wild Talents. A retail edition of the sourcebook featuring heroes and villains are empowered and corrupted by supernatural forces. By Greg Stolze. Format: Paperback. Status: Editing.

Progenitor (December 2010)
Wild Talents. A retail edition of the sourcebook in which the modern world undergoes cataclysmic changes after a single woman develops superhuman powers -- and passes them along to others when she uses them. By Greg Stolze. Format: Paperback. Status: Editing.

To Be Published by Pagan Publishing

Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity (June 2010)
Call of Cthulhu. A collection of horrors, some of them dating back to the earliest days of Delta Green. By Warren Banks, Adam Crossingham, Dennis Detwiller, Adam Scott Glancy, Kenneth Hite, Shane Ivey and Greg Stolze. Format: Hardback. Status: Printing. Preorder here.

Delta Green: Through a Glass, Darkly (August 2010)
A Delta Green novel by Dennis Detwiller. The Delta Green conspiracy is shaken and transformed in a confrontation with its greatest rival. Format: Paperback. Status: Editing.

Delta Green: Darkened Rooms (December 2010)
Call of Cthulhu. A collection of scenarios by Dennis Detwiller. Format: Hardback. Status: Writing.

To Be Published by Atomic Overmind Press

Adventures Into Darkness, Wild Talents Edition (around July 2010)
A conversion of Kenneth Hite’s setting of superhero comic books as if written by H.P. Lovecraft. Format: Paperback. Status: Writing.

The Day After Ragnarok, Wild Talents Edition (around July 2010)
A conversion of Kenneth Hite’s setting of pulpy action after the Ragnarok of legend becomes reality at the end of World War II. Format: Paperback. Status: Writing.

Status: Writing—Details TBD

Aeon Mall
A Wild Talents setting by Benjamin Baugh.

'Basic' Monsters and Other Childish Things
A simplified version of the game, by Benjamin Baugh.

The Book of Voodoo
A Wild Talents sourcebook of supernatural powers, by Shane Ivey.

Delta Green
We have a LOT more material for Delta Green in the works. We’ll announce titles as each project gets a little further along.

Drachenritter
A fantasy game of knights and their dragons, by Benjamin Baugh.

Godlike 2nd Edition
A revised update of the classic game of World War II action, by Dennis Detwiller and Greg Stolze.

The Kerberos Club, Savage Worlds Edition
An adaptation of the setting of superhuman adventure in Victorian London, with conversions by Dave Blewer.

Legion
A roleplaying game of soldiers and sorcery, by Shane Ivey.

Sense of the Sleight of Hand Man
A Call of Cthulhu campaign by Dennis Detwiller. Heroin addicts in 1920s New York are pulled into the terrors of the Dreamlands.

Eschaton Inc.
An adventure for Grim War by Shane Ivey, combining the rules of Wild Talents with the Company rules of Reign. Private-sector superheroes and sorcerers face terrorists, rivalries, and horrific curses in war-torn Afghanistan.

Cultbusters!
A Monsters and Other Childish Things adventure by Shane Ivey. Like so many terrible things, it all starts with a trip to the library.

We'll update these lists from time to time as things proceed.

ABOUT THE RELEASE DATES

If you have been an Arc Dream customer for a while, you've noticed a tendency toward slippage when it comes to release dates. This is not a good thing. We try to avoid posting release dates as long as possible, to prevent customer confusion and frustration. Then inevitably interest in a project builds until customers get frustrated with us for not posting due dates. So we post due dates. Then we miss them. It's terribly unprofessional and embarrassing. But in all honesty, it's not likely to change. Tabletop roleplaying is a small industry, and Arc Dream is a small company; it consists of two partners — one full-time and one part-time — and a number of freelancers who usually have other, better-paying, more reliable work that might (understandably) take priority. All of which is meant not to evoke tears and heartache, but to beg your patience. Once we make a game available for pre-orders, you can count of the fact that it WILL come out in the foreseeable future, even if doesn't come out exactly on time.

Please bear that in mind when you read the expected release dates. If worse comes to worst and you just can't stand to wait any longer, remember that we offer a full refund on any order that is cancelled before it ships, no questions asked. But of course we would much rather send you the finished product and hear how much you enjoy it after all.

Shane Ivey
Arc Dream Publishing