ALMOST DONE :D
about 6 years ago – Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 09:27:43 PM

For those of you who may have missed it:

https://twitter.com/JesseNeon/status/1232424300285714433 

Honestly, if you found me HERE but don't follow me on social media, I'm actually kind of confused as to where you came from - BUT, that's not an excuse for not being as diligent as I ought to be with updates on here.

Tracking #s are going out, but there just wasn't enough time to get them all done today. 

That said, we're up to 65% fulfillment, and I'm taking a day off work to go right back to the post office tomorrow to get'em out there!

LETS GET THIS CAMPAIGN OVER WITH ALREADY, AM I RIGHT? :D

FINAL UPDATE
about 6 years ago – Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 10:15:54 PM

That's right, FINAL as in LAST - cue the orchestral sting!

As you all know, the last update had us sitting at 50% fulfillment thanks pretty much entirely due to me f***ing up in regards to Media Mail/shipping and just being too poor to be able to do anything about it. I tried to do what I could, and I have to admit I cut some costs to make things work - which meant trying to send some parcels without tracking. 

It worked out exactly as well as you think it did.

Everyone who has reached out has been more than patient, and I can't thank you enough for those who have offered to pay more for their shipping or donate funds to go towards shipping, but this was my mistake and I was determined to fix it alone - which is the point of this update.

If you don't already have a tracking number or a copy of the book already, you'll have one or the other by next Tuesday, no exceptions.

Admittedly, I called this the 'final update', but I will post one once 100% fulfillment has been CONFIRMED. In the meantime, I can't say enough how appreciative I am of the continued patience. This was my first time taking a book from start to finished product, and I clearly needed to learn a TON of lessons along the way. From hiring processes to marketing to scheduling, there isn't a thing I would do the same way the next time around, and as painful of an experience as it's been it has also been a very educational one. 

Fulfillment Update
about 6 years ago – Fri, Jan 24, 2020 at 01:20:43 AM

So far I've been primarily responding to people on a one-on-one basis, but unfortuantely that means those of you who have reached out have been left in the dark, and that's both a mistake on my part and profoundly unfair.

Unfortunately, we're still only sitting at 50% fulfillment, and the reason why is simple - I was vastly incorrect about the shipping rates, but I'm sending them out as quickly as a I can. 

Media mail, while a fantastic option for sending books to people at a reduced rate of shipping, only works for people in the United States sending packages to other folks in the United States - which is to say, everyone was charged $7 (CAD) for shipping, which was meant to cover the costs of media mail and packaging, when in reality the cost of sending 8 books to Australia was a little under $300 while the cost per book here in Canada was roughly $15. Most Canadian backers have received their copies at this point, Australian backers should receive theirs this week or next, and I'm picking away at the EU and other countries. 

You've all been more than patient putting up with all the delays caused by the art, which then cascaded into the holiday season, and I'm very sorry to have to ask for a bit more understanding. Because I only live a few hours away from the US border, I'm planning to drive across and ship the remaining US copies as soon as I am able to, with EU and the few sporadic countries getting dealt with by the end of the month.

tl;dr, I fucked up on the shipping costs, but am doing my best to get these out the door. 

The books have arrived, the signing and shipping begins!
over 6 years ago – Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 05:12:34 PM

THEY MADE IT.

Unfortunately, they arrived with a few minor issues, which I started looking into immediately.

MINOR ISSUE NUMBER ONE. The cover isn't the updated file. If you look at the line directly behind Zephelous (the sword in the image) and compare these two files, you'll see what I mean:

I'm told this happened because I updated the image file a day too late, and holy cow I wish I had been told that in advance. The good news is, only this first batch of print runs has that line, the rest will be without it. The optimistic way to look at this would be that you can tell at a glance if it was a first print run, the pessimistic way to look at it would be that it's an imperfection. Personally, I'm trying to stay in camp A, but I see it as a camp B issue and am trying to see what can be done about it.

Now, when I say 'what can be done about it', I don't mean any more delays to this process, I mean more so trying to get a voucher for a replacement copy or something for those of you who might prefer the finalized cover. 

MINOR ISSUE NUMBER TWO: Some unusual formatting choices were made that I did not have a say in - namely, this: 

Whenever a chapter ends at the very bottom of the page, the next page is left blank as some kind of buffer before the next page starts. I don't know why this is like this, and I don't like it. I've reached out to Tablo to see if it can be fixed, because 1) it's a waste of space 2) it's a waste of paper 3) I just don't like it. 

A few folks have suggested using those spaces as room to write (for me, to write things to you) or to be used to let people draw snippets of their favorite scenes (honestly that delights the heck out of me), but I'm hoping it can be nuked from motherloving orbit, because ugh.

SO, with all that said, surveys will be going out to ask what you want me to write in YOUR copy of the book, and the shipping begins! 

We are... 11 days into December, so a very unfortunate reality is that many of these may not arrive by Christmas, and for that I am truly sorry. This has been a tremendous learning experience, and I only wish that I could have had the foresight to see the issues that this book ended up encountering before it did. 

Still, despite those issues, the book is HERE, and that's still very exciting :D

Printing complete, shipping ETA!
over 6 years ago – Fri, Nov 29, 2019 at 12:19:40 AM

Hello, all! It has been a long time since I've had anything to update y'all with, but I have two (2) pieces of news to deliver:

The first is that the books are slated to arrive at my house on Dec 3rd, provided nothing goes horribly awry with shipping. Surveys about the type of message you'd like included in your copy (if anything) will be going out tonight, and specific ETAs to different countries will be available some time next week!

The second is for any and all PAX U ATTENDEES - IF YOU WILL BE ATTENDING PAX U AND ORDERED A PHYSICAL COPY, PLEASE REACH OUT TO ME SO I CAN BRING YOUR BOOK WITH ME! 

I will happily pack an extra bag full o' books in order to expedite the shipping process if at all possible!