Surprise! The Cards are Done!
about 2 years ago – Sun, Mar 06, 2022 at 01:04:00 AM

I got a lovely surprise today. My card vendor had said "probably on or about March 7" as the date the cards would be complete...and they called me today with the news that they're ready.

I live 30-40 minutes from the manufacturing site, so I grabbed my eldest daughter (both as a load-lifter as well as it allows me to use the HOV lanes) and went and got them.

So ... now the only thing not in hand are the actual books. And the first off the press are expected next week!

If you don't hear from me, I'm dying of sticker shock
about 2 years ago – Thu, Mar 03, 2022 at 08:58:54 PM

I just got the freight quotes to get the books from the printer to the USA.

Holy. Wow. I thought I was being properly conservative, having set aside more than 2x the usual budget for staging. Turns out actual quotes are more like 4-5x. 

Yeesh. I planned a cushion for that as a "just in case," but was really hoping not to use it.

Alas.

That being said, when last we left our heroes, things still seem to be running on schedule, if not on budget.

The books started printing a day before I thought they would, so that's good. I've asked for updates on completion of both books and cards (estimated for both between Mar 7 and Mar 11, assuming nothing goes wrong...and we absolutely should NOT assume that). 

Freight to the UK and to the US is being arranged as we speak (thus the dying of sticker shock) and while the prices are 2-3x higher than I was expecting per book, well...I did put away a slush fund to act as an airbag for such things. I was hoping not to have to use it, but I was honestly expecting to.

The US contingent is 313 backers, 137 of which are "not media mail." That probably means my initial estimate of that portion of fulfillment is going to be close to accurate, I think. The wildcard is the international, which is basically four countries (UK, Canada, Germany, and Australia) and then a bunch of onesy-twosy orders from everywhere else.

Once I get updates on print finalization from cards and books, I'll be able to get the appropriate boxes of goods ready. As frequently happens with the Gaming Ballistic supply chain, the first folks to get the books will almost certainly be in Great Britain.

If all goes to plan, all materials should be landing at ShipQuest and then moving right on out to GB backers the week of Mar 21-28. My experience with Royal Mail is it's fast for most customers. The "slow-boat" from Latvia to the USA is probably a month, so there's a good chance that we're looking at "before the end of April" for the USA stuff...but as we all got a reminder of recently, life changes pretty fast.

I'll keep you up to date, including a bit of a shipping post-mortem, so that any decisions I make about pricing or international availability in 2022 will be as transparent as possible. I try and do no better than "break even, small loss" on shipping, and usually fail (taking a substantial loss on most projects for shipping) ... but the magnitude of the shipping cost outstrips printing cost (for a 200-page hardback and a low-volume run of cards!) by 1/3. S ... so adjustments must be made (and passive voice must be used).

Time to update your Address! Also: Pre-orders shutting down.
about 2 years ago – Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at 07:39:41 PM

Manufacturing Starting!

All of the printable files are now at various printers. Also, if things to go to plan, the first books will start production this Sunday.

Pre-Orders Closing!

That means it's time to close pre-orders. 

Click.

Closed.

Shipping Address Update!

It also means it's time to update and finalize your shipping address.

If you're getting a physical thing, please update your shipping address if you need to do so.

Special Alert for Brazil and Russia!

(Sorry, there was a sale on digital exclamation points and I got too many.)

If you ordered physical goods and live in Brazil or Russia (there are only one or two from each country) my shipping partner has begged me "no, please no."

This is because for Russia, even before the current situation, orders that are not to a business address are rejected by customs, or just disappear. It is also possible that because of said situation, mail be be late, unreliable, or simply not allowed.

For Brazil, extreme "books held hostage" or "we swear we have no idea what happened to your book but my nephew is really into this new game thing you play" have reduced physical shipments to "courier only."

In any case, please reach out to me if you're from one of those places and we'll see what we can do. My shipping partner has basically warned me that packages to these two countries in particular (and Italy for different reasons ... usually said packages run weeks to months late) are basically the postal equivalent of "you might as well burn them." Delivery Duties Paid is also a pointless exercise there. :-(

Anyway, that's the very exclamatory update for today.

Quick-Reference Print Your Own released
about 2 years ago – Thu, Feb 24, 2022 at 11:44:00 PM

I pushed the print-your-own Quick reference file today.

If you ordered both the Expansion and Core decks, you got two identical files. I promised that the QR Print-Your-Own would go to anyone who got either deck, so the easiest way to do that was assign the PDF to both items. No need to keep both files. The files are in the same order as the card decks: first the 100 cards of the core deck, in alpha order, then the 89 cards of the expansion deck, in alpha order.

Right now, in the background, the last remaining digital item is the Foundry VTT module, which is being worked.

I've also got print approval for both cards and books, and printing is to start on Sunday, assuming things keep going as usual over in Latvia. No guarantees there these days.

I'm trying to figure out shipping the hardcovers to their staging points, as well.

But...at this point, it's almost all production, and the VTT pack is the only content creation task left.

Cards, Files, and VTT
about 2 years ago – Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 10:42:16 PM

Very brief but meaningful up date.

• The transfer of information from the book to the 4x5 cards is finished, with a file ready to spool out. There's 100 cards in the first deck, and 89 in the second.
• As part of that transfer, a bunch of small errors were found and corrected in both cards and print files
• Accordingly, I have updated the PDF to version Nordlond Bestiary u20220221
• Once I get the actual print card files out, I'll make the big QR print-your-own PDF, which is mostly just a heck of a lot of cut-and-paste
• Finally, this means Nick and Nose and I can start doing whatever work is required to make the VTT pack for Foundry, as promised.

Tomorrow is "get cards ready for production." Then Wednesday is likely "get QR PDF ready for distribution."