Doing business without travel

[Michael Hopcroft]

After the car wreck I was in, I am thinking about canceling the rest of my travel shcedule for the year. I have several reasons: medical bills, my general financial state, the state of my physical and mental health and the fact that I won't have a paper product to sell.

The question is how I am going to do my business without traveling this summer and whether I'll really be hurt on my current scale by skipping Origins, GenCon and the other convention I'd signed up to do.

What should I do in this situation?

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Michael,

For starters, you can get your game promoted at GenCon, I think. E-mail Ron, hook up someone with some copies beforehand, and I think that should work.

With that said, perhaps changing your business model would work well. HeartQuest is Fudge-based, and most Fudge fans (from my limited knowledge) order direct from Grey Ghost and spend a lot of time looking at other Fudge websites. Promote selling direct from your website and focus on online forums. (And - and this is meant to be nice - don't denigrate yourself in those places. Lack of confidence in yourself can result in lack of buyer confidence.)

[Michael Hopcroft]

I know how bad the accident was now, and it looks like it'll be a while before I am at all comfortable traveling outside of Oregon. My doctor estimated it would take me about 6-8 weeks to recover from my sprained neck and shoulders. The psychological shock could take a bit longer -- a friend drove me to and from Wilsonville to watch some anime and I was a very uncomfrtable passenger, especially on the freeway in the rain. And this guy I'd ridden with almost hundreds of times.

I've already informed two of the three conventions I'd signed up for about the accident and that I might have to cancel my travel plans. This could get very awkward, but I may have little choice for the benefit of my health and my sanity.

To make matters worse, I may have passed the window to get anything from the driver's insurance and may be on my own as far as the medical bills go, much less any compensation for pain and suffering. (How does that work, anyway? Do I need to get a lawyer?)

I'm curious about my next step and wonder how people would handle a situation like this.

[ace pilot]

To make matters worse, I may have passed the window to get anything from the driver's insurance and may be on my own as far as the medical bills go, much less any compensation for pain and suffering. (How does that work, anyway? Do I need to get a lawyer?)

I'm curious about my next step and wonder how people would handle a situation like this.

Sorry to hear about your accident, man.  Regarding what you should do, I think that you would need to make the facts and circumstances of your case clearer.

Also, if someone else caused your problem, you might be able to sue them for negligence, and you might be able to recover damages that you sustained (e.g., hospital bills, physical therapy, lost wages).  How good your case is depends on the facts and circumstances and the law for your jurisdiction.

Also, what do you mean "the window to get anything from the driver's insurance" has passed?  How long ago were you injured?  Is the "window" the same as your state's Statute of Limitations for personal injury?

If you've waited beyond the Statute of Limitations, your claim will lapse regardless.  For many jurisdictions, the Statute of Limitations for personal injury is 1 year, though California recently increased the SoL for personal injury to 2 years.  I have no idea what the SoL for personal injury for Oregon is.

I'm not a lawyer and none of this is legal advice, just some hopefully useful musings on your situation.

[Michael Hopcroft]

The driver's insurance company has sent me a form. I should get it in the next week or so. My case is complictaed by the fact that in the state accident report I was listed as uninjured. (At the time, I didn;t know I'd sprained my neck).

What it looks like will happen is that the insurance may pay the doctors and hosptials I saw in Washington State but won't pay me any personal compensation. Which is a pity as I feel as if I am entitled to something to all the pain and suffering I am enduring, not to mention the mental trauma and lost business.

[Valamir]

So contact a personal injury lawyer.  Many will work on contigency and they can tell you what needs to be done.  Just don't sign anything until you meet with one.

[Michael Hopcroft]

I have somewhat more pressing concerns. Some of the cons I can't go to I've already paid for. I also have events scheduled that I cannot attend due to my recovery process.

I'm in for an awkward few weeks to say the least. Insurance is the least of my problems, and the impression I got from talking to the adjuster is that they are not willing to give me any compensation beyond paying my medical bills. Which is fine with me, except that I have not yet received my bills. I don;t want a meal ticket or a new computer out of the deal. I just want to concentrate on getting better, writing, and getting my books out.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to do as much typing as I do with a sprained neck?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Michael,

I really strongly suggest that you're not going to get legal advice here at the Forge, and I think you'd be best served talking to insurance and lawyer people about issues like accident damages - not to us.

Best,
Ron

[talysman]

Do you have any idea how hard it is to do as much typing as I do with a sprained neck?

have you tried dragon naturally-speaking or one of the other speech-to-text systems? or one of the cheaper alternatives? heck, I think there's a speech recognition system built into some versions of windows XP... I seem to remember that there's a microsoft "fix" for problems caused by that being turned on by default on certain systems even if there is no mic hooked up, and random characters were appearing in people's documents.

I only have experience with dragon, but it actually worked pretty well. speech-to-text is never perfect, but it could reduce the amount of typing you need to do.