Need to make any T-shirt decisions by tomorrow night!
over 6 years ago
– Wed, Nov 08, 2017 at 05:59:58 PM
Hey all, Robin here. Just a reminder, after tomorrow (midnight EST), I'll be locking down the T-shirts for
- The Rose and Thorn Unisex shirt in Black
- The Montemorcey Unixes shirt in Black
What does this mean? It means that I'll be taking a final count so I can place the orders so the shirts are in when the books arrive. So here's what will happen.
If you have t-shirts in your cart your "add-ons" will be locked down and you won't be able to add or remove any shirts. So you are committed to whatever shirts you have in your cart as of end of day tomorrow.
I will be adding a few of the most popular sizes so people who haven't added shirts yet MAY find a few in various sizes so they can still order, but once those are gone, that's it. If you want to guarantee a given shirt in a given size you MUST get it in your "add-ons" before tomorrow night.
For those who are curious, we currently have orders for
- 96 Montemorcey Shirts
- 123 Rose and Thorn Shirts
So, it looks like it was a good decision to do both. Of course if you have any questions, feel free to ask. That's what I'm here for.
Names, Names, and more Names
over 6 years ago
– Wed, Nov 08, 2017 at 05:23:19 PM
Hey all,
I've been working on the section of the ebook where the names of the backers will be listed. You can find them on this page. If you asked to have your name included in the ebook, then please go to this page and look for yours and verify that it is correct. A few things to note:
- This is not all the names. I started doing the preliminary work during the morning of November 7th and these were the names available at that time. If you filled out your survey after the extraction time, you'll have to wait for the next update to verify your name.
- If you haven't filled out your survey, you need to! We are locking down the surveys at the end of the day (11:59 EST) on November 17th, and anyone who doesn't have their survey filled out by then won't have their name included in the book. So fill out your survey!! At this point we are only missing 5.8% of the surveys but that still amounts to 121people, so please don't miss out.
- Names are listed alphabetically based on the last name. In the case of people who specified two names such as: George Washington & John Adams, it's the last name of the first person who is used for determining what group the entry will be in. So in the example, you'd find that entry in the "W" section.
- If your name isn't correct, please go into your BackerKit survey and edit your pledge answers. I'll be re-extracting the file once we are locked down so any changes you make between now and the 17th will be reflected in the future "name pull." If you don't know how to get into your BackerKit Self-service Portal, then send me the name you want, and I'll fix it for you.
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Important: I think there was something buggy about the BackerKit survey because I found about 5 -6 records where it looked like only a portion of the desired name was typed. So, for instance I found "St" rather than "Stacey." I contacted the people whose records looked suspicious, but I'm sure there are some I missed.
- Also, if your name uses letters not in the English alphabet (for instance if your name is Vyšniauskaitė), then I had to do some substititions to use the appropriate ascii value for those letters that don't fall between a-z.I know that may sound like Greek to some people (pun intended) but what that means is I had to do some "fixing by hand" and whenever that happens there is an opportunity for mistakes. So if your name uses non-English alphabet characters, pay particular attention to your name to make sure I didn't mess it up.
I think that's it for now. The surveys are slowly coming in, but I really need the few outstanding people to get theirs in. As I said, if you miss the November 17th deadline, your name won't be included in the ebook.
By the numbers...I look at where we are currently at.
over 6 years ago
– Mon, Nov 06, 2017 at 06:40:43 PM
Hey all, Robin again. Thought I would update you on where we are these days.
- We lost 11 backers and $277 to failed credit cards - not bad at all! If you were one of the 11 and you still want to participate in the Kickstarter, let me know. You have a few choices. (1) I can setup a record for you in BackerKit and send you an invitation. Once there, you can make payment for your pledge through it. (2) You can send your pledge amount through PayPal to [email protected] -- make sure you add DOWD Kickstarter to the note and we'll get you re-instated.
- We've had 397 backers who have bought various add-ons (t-shirts, posters, books, audio) contributing another $10,704 to the project. Total funds are now up to: $90,759!
- We have 1,886 surveys answered and are waiting on 182 people - Come on you last 8.8%, do your surveys!!
- We've added a few people to the project who paid via PayPal. Either for errored cards, or because they aren't a fan of the Kickstarter payment system.
- We've had some people who missed the Kickstarter but are doing pre-orders though BackerKit. If you know of someone who is disappointed they missed the Kickstarter they can join in getting the story in December (rather than June) by going to the pre-order portal. Feel free to share that link liberally ;-)
- As it stands right now we will be shipping 1,131 packages which break down as follows: 34 tubes with poster | 737 with one book | 149 with multiple books | 42 with just t-shirts | 169 with books and t-shirts. To make things easier on the fulfillment company we'll probably have them do the 737 one-book orders and Sarah and I will take care of the 394 other orders. But we'll see where we after the project locks down and based on what kind of turn around we can get from the fulfillment house.
In other news, you should have received an email about content posted to your Digital Download area. Four files are there now, and I hope to do some additional screen savers in the next day or so.
Some important upcoming dates
over 6 years ago
– Fri, Nov 03, 2017 at 05:11:43 PM
Hey all, Robin again. Well, it's been 2 weeks since the Kickstarter closed, and a lot is going on. Here's some important date-related things.
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Nov 5th - Are you a Goodreads member? Did you read and love Age of Swords? Well if so, this is the last day you can add it as write-in vote for the Goodreads Choice Award. I've had 5 of these nominations in the past and all but one came in round 1. Age of Swords didn't initially get picked, but if enough people enter it as a write in, it'll be added for round 2.
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Nov 6th - I'll be distributing the ebook of The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter! Yes, you'll get to read it a full month earlier than you thought! Now, this version WILL NOT have your names in it, because we aren't to the "lock down" stage yet, but I'll distribute another version of the ebook after all the surveys arrive. Right now we have 497 unanswered surveys.
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Nov 8th - I'll be distributing the screen savers and wallpapers via the digital download area of BackerKit. We have the first set made, but people requested some additional resolutions and it'll take me a bit to make these, since I'm concentrating on the ebook at the moment, releasing them a few days after that seems doable to me.
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Nov 9th - I'll be locking down t-shirts, which means if you've not gone through the BackerKit survey and added them to your cart by then, you won't be able to add them at all. Why is this? Well, I need the shirts to be here by December 5th (the planned shipping date) and that's when that date will fall. I may order a few extras of the most popular size/styles so you "might" be able to sneak in a shirt or two, but it'd be better to just take care of your shirt purchasing now.
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Nov 12th - The bookmarks should be arriving...and I'm going to twist Michael's arm to sign them. As a reminder every book will have one bookmark in it. As of right now that means 1,290 signatures. So, if you order a Death of Dulgath hardcover to your Disappearance of Winter's Daughter hardcover pledge, you'll have 2 bookmarks. Also, see my note below regarding bookmarks as there was a mistake in the Backerkit that caused a problem that needs fixing.
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Nov 14th - Nov 16th - The Death of Dulgath ebook will be free. Yes, that's right, I said it will be free. This is an excellent opportunity to get your friends and family hooked on Riyria because you can gift them a copy through Amazon and it costs you absolutely nothing! Just (1) go to the link, (2) click on "Give as a Gift" and (3) enter their email address. For those that don't know, The Death of Dulgath is a standalone novel, and no prior knowledge of any of the other Riyria books is necessary to enjoy it to it's fullest. What if your friend doesn't have an Amazon account? No problem. You can fill out this form and we'll mail it to them directly.
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Nov 17th - I'll be locking down the completed survey records in BakerKit, so please have all your excess pledge $'s distributed to the add-ons you want to receive. After the lockdown occurs, you'll still be able to adjust your shipping addresses, but you won't be able to add or remove items from your carts.
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Dec 3rd -address lock down. So we can provide the files to the fulfillment house for importing into their systems.
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Dec 5th - the day shipping begins --I hope. When I got the printer quotes I took into consideration when the books could be delivered, but of course printers can't guarantee dates until the job is in, the paper is on hand, and other jobs being printed at that time are scheduled. We do have "final proof approval" but we are still waiting on expected dates for the books to come off the presses and ship to us and the fulfillment house.I'll keep you updated as I know more.
ABOUT BOOKMARKS
I made an item in BackerKit for bookmarks and added them to the various reward levels. So, if you had the Paper Chase level, you'd see 1 bookmark in the list of items you're receiving, and if you had, All in as a pledge level, you'd see two bookmarks.
But I forgot to hide the bookmark item from the additional item screen. As such, people added them to their carts...I'm sure in a desire to get extra bookmarks. Doh! This was never my intention, and in fact it can't work that way. Here's the deal.
The fulfillment house charges an extra fee for each item added to a shipment. If they had to add 5 bookmarks each one of them would have a processing fee that would make the bookmark ridiculously expensive...not to mention they may forget the bookmark (as they are small things) and they might not include the right number of bookmarks. So, our plan was to make it so the fulfillment house didn't have to worry about the bookmarks at all. How were we going to do that?
Well, we were going to "pre-process" each book. In other words, we open a case, take the books out and have Michael sign them, add a bookmark, put the book back int he case and send the case to the fulfillment company. The company only has to select the books (and because the bookmarks are inside them and their workers don't have to "touch the books") they are included without extra processing fees.
The fulfillment will go smoothly because they just have to worry about 1 - n books and nothing else (we are going to process the orders with t-shirts). So, while I realize you may want extra bookmarks, we can't do it through the system we established.
I've changed the bookmark item to be hidden so we won't get any more "cart adds" for before I discovered that mistake many of you already added the bookmarks to your carts and that's a problem. So, if you did add a bookmark, can you please remove it form your cart? I've already started to do some of these but it was time consuming and I was concerned with accidentally removing a "real item" in the process. When lock-down time comes, if there are any bookmarks still in carts we'll have to remove them ourselves, and it would be easier if you guys took them out rather than us. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
As for getting extra bookmarks, Let's wait until after the Kickstarter is all shipped and Sarah and I have a few days to decompress. At that time, I'll set up a way for people to request additional bookmarks...which may or may not be signed, depending on how many requests come in. Michael's hands are already going to be pretty sore.
Again, I'm sorry for the mistake in BackerKit. It's an incredibly detail-oriented process to setup and I'm sorry I didn't notice this was hidden when we went live.
