From:	Geoff Skellams geoff.skellams@*********.com.au
Subject:	SR Books Online
Date:	Tue, 16 Feb 1999 10:04:48 +1100

On shadowrn@*********.org, Gurth[SMTP:gurth@******.nl] wrote:
> According to Starrngr@***.com, at 11:26 on 15 Feb 99, the word on
> the street was...
>
> > Those of you on the playtest track with FASA, I have a question: If
WE
> > (meaning the people on the list, or perhaps those of the Plastic
Warriors or
> > NERPS) did all the work for them, and pretty much gave them a
finished product
> > basicly ready for printing, would that help convince them to reprint
a
> > Shadowbeat 3?
>
> A minor snag here is that I don't think many people on this list have
> experience in this area, let alone know how to lay out a page (want
proof?
> check out just about any net.book) which means that giving FASA "a
> finished product basicly ready for printing" would be somewhat
difficult.
>
Au contraire. I have such experience. I do the layout for
DEMONGROUND: The Electronic Magazine of Dark Conspiracy. I'm in the
process of laying out issue 3 now. This is the first I have used Adobe
Pagemaker for doing the layout (I used Word97 for DG 1 & 2) and I am
much happier with how DG3 is turning out.
When we set out to create the fanzine, I wanted to create
something that is professional quality. I've since had a few people tell
me that I should be doing this for a living. So saying that no one on
this list knows how to lay out a page is a bit rich. I may not do it for
a living, but I can do a pretty good job of it IMHO.
If you want to have a look at DEMONGROUND 1 & 2, then check out
the DG website http://www.42north.org/~demonground/. The fanzines are
PDF files that you can download for free. It's worth having a look at
anyway - Dark Conspiracy is not that far removed from Shadowrun,
especially if you are still using the Horrors in your campaign (I've
brought ideas across before).
DG may not be perfect, I'll admit that. But it is MUCH better
than your average net book. It's even better than TSS (sorry Adam - TSS
is great, but I used TSS as a yardstick so that I had something to do
better than).

> A bigger problem is that I doubt FASA would see this as a viable
> proposition. For starters, if they'd be interested in printing a third

> edition update of old sourcebooks, they would have done it themselves
> already, don't you think?
>
This is probably more the sticking point. Everything else
becomes moot really.

> That said, though, I wouldn't mind doing some of this stuff if I'd get
the
> chance...

I'd think about doing layout IF and ONLY IF the text had been
edited by someone who has decent spelling and grammar skills and it was
ready just to be dropped into Pagemaker. I have enough headaches having
to edit the DC stuff before I lay it out, and I wouldn't have time to do
both. I may not have time to do it anyway. But, if this project gets off
the ground, then I'll think about it.

cheers
G
--
Geoff Skellams R&D - Tower Software
Email Address: geoff.skellams@*********.com.au
Homepage: http://www.towersoft.com.au/staff/geoff/
ICQ Number: 2815165 (Eynowd)

Hili hewa ka mana'o ke 'ole ke kukakuka
(Ideas run wild without discussion)