Not-the-USA Fulfillment (Technically) Begins
about 2 years ago – Thu, Apr 14, 2022 at 06:11:45 PM

I've finally seen movement in the not-the-US books and packages.

One package to Brazil is in the hands of the carriers. Since there's ONLY one physical package to Brazil, well, you know who that is. 

The other 96 have been "Presented to Carrier," and the next step is "Despatched." In the US, it would be "dispatched." Armour up, it's going to get rough.

Anyway, due to UK bank holidays this weekend, it looks like the books will finally hit their carriers on Tuesday morning...but that's like 3am here in Central Time Land, so it's REALLY EARLY Tuesday morning. That means that it's likely that all the UK books and packages will arrive by the end of next week. Yay!

More on the US stuff when I make some next steps, but I'm still told port date is May 1.

New Gaming Ballistic Webstore!!
about 2 years ago – Fri, Apr 08, 2022 at 05:01:10 PM

Gaming Ballistic Migrates to Shopify

As of today, I have migrated my online e-Commerce presence to a new store on Shopify.

Right now, it's got all of my books in PDF, Print, and bundles. It also has several "one click" options already built in, and I'm open to suggestions for more. 

It's faster, smoother, the search and filtering actually work, and from now until the day after FnordCon (May 2), everything on it is on sale at 13% off.

Some of you kind folks have asked about donations and whatnot to help offset some of the costs of shipping and staging on the project, which have run over by several thousand dollars. I'm always hesitant to accept such things, but Shopify has a nifty Gift Card capability...so that becomes win/win.

If you want to help, buy someone a gift card for my stuff. That introduces new people to my products, and it's something for something.

You'll be seeing a bit of a marketing blitz on the new store (though this will be the only such thing here, at least), as I try and point folks to the new location. Although only folks with special account types can see it, there's even an option for retailers to get bulk purchases. Something I'll be working on over the next week or so.

Shipping Update

Good news on the International front. ShipQuest is ready to start picking and packing the international orders, hopefully this weekend or (more likely) next week. I've paid for postage on that, and honestly I think I was within a few hundred of what I collected. So that was to plan.

USA-bound orders are still expected May 1, but we'll see what else goes wrong. That means I won't  have books at FnordCon, but I have some ideas there for pre-orders.

Shipping Update
about 2 years ago – Sat, Apr 02, 2022 at 06:20:01 PM

Very briefly.

USA Shipping

After a whole lot of pain I have expected sailing and arrival dates. Loading date is April 10. Discharge from port expected May 1. 

Yes, if you've been keeping track as I have, it means the books sat in Riga for freakin' a month. If this angers you, join the club. It means the books will not arrive to y'all before the second or third week in May, and I won't have the surplus books at FnordCon because ducks were not lined up on the part of those whose job it is to line up said ducks.

But at least we have an itinerary.

Rest of World Shipping

I've asked for an update. All materials should be in hand. The information I provided to ShipQuest ten days ago does not seem to have been entered into their system yet. I provided it to them AGAIN and hopefully I'll hear back by tomorrow what the status is. With luck and some strong e-nudging hopefully we'll see books start to be picked, packed, and shipped yet this week.

Ballistic’s Report for Week Ending March 25, 2022
about 2 years ago – Fri, Mar 25, 2022 at 11:16:54 PM

This two week update was basically “head down, all the time.” Mentally exhausting, a bit depressing, but in the end, there’s some significant light.

• Did my taxes. Holy cow I owe a lot of money. Must change plans on reserving some cash for taxes and paying in advance; I learned things about LLCs this year that I should have known but didn’t.
• Shipping was a freaking nightmare with my Freight Forwarding company for the better part of two weeks.
• That being said, we are starting to get to the end of that tunnel. All not-the-US materials will be where they belong by the end of today. I finally resolved all of the issues with Freight Forwarder and they will book shipment from Riga to Baltimore. Books have been sitting on the docks needlessly for two weeks.
• Got my advance copies of the Bestiary! I’m super-happy with them and I think you will be too.
• Last update I said I was tired of my WooCommerce store; THIS update…I am in the middle of testing and refinement for the new Shopify webstore and it’s going to be
• I expect to have a month-long “Grand Opening Sale” for the new webstore in April.
• I have made progress on several new projects, including translating the Bestiary to Portuguese for that market. That’s a new thing for me, but the Brazilian GURPS community is active and helpful. Also: Portuguese-Portuguese is not the same as Brazilian-Portuguese.

Gaming Ballistic Patreon

To help with ongoing funding of art and speed eventual time to delivery, Gaming Ballistic started a Patreon in January 2021. Here’s the weekly update on Patreon status.

• Membership status: 63 patrons and $492 per month.
• Special Content: The Bestiary unboxing video and preview access to the web store.

No change from last time.

Gaming Ballistic in Media

• Unboxing video for Bestiary quick reference cards
• Unboxing video of me fondling the books.
• I got a very nice comment on my blog about the book:
  “An absolutely fantastic product that is worth every penny! It more than doubles the monsters available in Dungeon Fantasy. He provides exhaustive examples, advice, hand-holding that enables the new game master to get up and running very quickly. All of these are the product are part of a coherent vision, yet they are easily broken apart and usable for many other campaigns. He has done a superior job and is very much keeping the flame of Dungeon Fantasy alive! Very well done!” -Scott Shafer

Currently Manufacturing/Fulfilling/Shipping

Projects where hardcopies and PDFs are going out or scheduled to do so.

Nordlondr Ovinabokin: Bestiary

• All not-the-US product is staged for shipment; books arrive at ShipQuest today (March 25)
• Really had some rough water with the Freight Forwarder; that was really irksome. Things are supposedly moving now. Next step is to get visibility to the actual shipment, which hopefully includes sailing and arrival dates. This is actually where I was expecting the delays to occur, which I was hoping to minimize by coming into a non-traditional port (Baltimore).
• I am told Nick and Nose are close to a full-feature beta on the VTT Module.

Crowdfunding and Product Launches

• The Bestiary Kickstarter is in the fulfillment stage
• I was encouraged to look into a translation of the Bestiary into Brazilian (Brasilian!) Portuguese. I'm looking into it, meaning "I'm doing it." The Real is hard-hit these days, so it's a tough proposition, not to mention that I don't speak Portuguese (let alone the Brazilian variety). But I'm working it it day by day, and I hope to see a Kickstarter for a PDF version of the book soon. Maybe very soon.
• Definitely going to be launching a new store grand opening event in a week or so. The new store is amazing relative to my old one, and while I need to spend a good bit of time working out kinks in product entries...the core of the thing is functional and I am well pleased.

Product Announcements

The full Product Catalog has been updated for Spring 2022. It now includes Delvers to Grow, Tower of the Moon, and the Nordlond Bestiary. Any pre-orders for the Bestiary will be filled roughly April 2022, once the shipment comes in. I will be changing my retail discount structure to be much simpler, with only two discount levels: 30% and 50%.

I have embarked on a project to convert the Nordlond Bestiary to Brazilian Portuguese. I’m getting amazing volunteer help from several people and I’m excited to see what happens here, if anything. First step will be a PDF-only book to see the best way to reach the audience. A print book will follow, after a suitable time to allow backers to comment on my poor Portuguese.

In Development

Writing and content creation for announced projects. Some of this may be cryptic.

• Inns and Taverns, by Marshall LaPira. Systemless. Revised tavern submitted on Nov 11, returned with comments in early November. Poked author recently on progress now that Bestiary is in finalization.
• Two Warring Houses, by Douglas Cole. Systemless. Actually saw some writing over Valentine’s Day.
• Nordlondr Bestiary, by Douglas Cole. Dungeon Fantasy RPG. See above, workin’ hard.
• Portuguese Nordlond Bestiary, by Douglas Cole. Workin’ hard.
• Secret Stuff: Exchanged many emails with an author to schedule out multiple projects. This is the same report but with a lot more impact to it. TFT and OSR projects scoped out.

Friction

Bits of news and items that put a monkey in the wrench.

• My freakin’ taxes. Such large sums of money owed. My bad.
• The shipping issues are really unforced errors on the part of my Freight Forwarder. I hear this is the rule rather than the exception these days, but between unannounced vacations, lack of designation of authority, and total siloing on the part of the company (Oh, I can’t charge you, because accounting does that…but not before they get an official invoice from billing, and despite you asking for all of this on March 3, the books have been sitting on the floor in Riga for 10 days and we need new forms from you…). I was only able to resolve the issue by threatening to fire them, and I meant it. That resolved the issue for now. But it was a huge time sink and really frustrating.
• Still back to viking, but need to stay focused on exercise. Always having shipping over my head has been a crushing energy drain.

Fair Winds

Information about things that move GB forward.

• Eventually I did hear back from “ghost company,” as we determined my voice and emails were going into a low-priority folder due to VoIP filtering gone awry. Once that was solved, they made rapid and excellent progress. The new store is so much more responsive than the old one already, though I have a lot of minor work to do to ensure all of the product information is correct.
• I just (literally a moment ago) got word that the books have been scheduled for pickup in Riga, which means presumably that there’s a boat for them to go on.
• I finished the sword commission, and it went really well. Shield is actually a much-less-expensive training shield, so glad that was clarified.
• The Brazilians are really happy I’m translating the book to Portuguese…but the Brazilian Real  has taken a real pounding lately, so their purchasing power is low. I’m going to cut the cost as much as I can, especially for the PDF.

More Shipping
about 2 years ago – Tue, Mar 22, 2022 at 04:40:04 PM

Update from yesterday.

International Shipping

The international books seem to be cleared through UK Customs and are expected to hit the distributor loading dock March 25. I believe I have provided updated order information to ShipQuest to account for slightly different packaging than the SKU-driven initial indication showed (basically, everyone who got an expansion deck also got a core deck, and they're packaged together). I also updated weights and such now that I have the books in hand. So...I'm hopeful that the books should start to hit the street next week.

Domestic Shipping and Import

Sometimes you just have to put the hammer down.

I let the freight forwarder know that they had yesterday to fix the issues on their end or I was going to fire them and find another company. The issues were rapidly escalated up to the VP level and the shipment was cleared to book transport, and I should get an official invoice on their company letterhead today. 

I don't yet have the details on the actual ship, departure date, and arrival date in Baltimore. It seems to take about two weeks on the water, and then there's loading and unloading time.  Of course, at 20 kts, the straight-line distance is only about eight days. So we'll see. I hope to have more information on the Riga to Baltimore leg of things later this week.