CARDS: CHARGED
about 5 years ago – Wed, Apr 03, 2019 at 09:13:15 PM

Just a short one: we've charged the cards through Backerkit now, and released the PDFs for everything aside from Strata itself to folk who are eligible to receive them. (Which includes Book of Masks, so go ahead and read that!) If there are any issues with your order, please leave a comment below or send us a message and we'll sort it out as soon as we can. (If you don't get the email alerting you to the new files, try logging on to Backerkit directly - you should have access through there.)

Strata is in layout (half of it is done, and we're moving onto the scenarios now); we're awaiting a second batch of samples from the newspaper printer after the first ones were too faded to really be legible; all the art prints are with the distributors, awaiting delivery; generally, all in all, we're storming onward towards our eventual goal.

More when we know it,

- Grant

March Update: Book of Masks, Newspapers, BREXIT
about 5 years ago – Mon, Mar 25, 2019 at 10:20:29 PM

SLIGHT DELAY.

Brexit, huh? Brexit. We’re doing our best to play it safe around the omnishambles that is our country at the moment, so we’ve delayed locking down the payments for another week while we get everything in order. Here’s what’s happening now:

We’re going to lock down orders on Wednesday 27th March. If there’s anything you want to add or subtract from your pledge, or if you need to change your delivery address, do it before then.

After that, Mary is going to sort through the orders and calculate more accurate shipping costs. And by “more accurate” we mean “lower” or “the same” - we aren’t going to charge you any more than is currently indicated. We’re currently planning on charging the cards on April 3rd once the shipping is totally correct.

BOOK OF MASKS

It’s beautiful! It’s pretty much done, too. Here are some excerpts from it:

NEWSPAPER

The newspaper is complete, and we’re currently ordering samples from our printer. Here’s an example of Tim’s astonishing work:

So: apologies. We’re doing our best to stay on schedule. You’ll have the PDFs as soon as they’re ready to go, and in the case of books that already exist (for those of you who ordered Spire or Black Magic, for example) we’ll release those PDFs as soon as we’ve charged your cards.

As ever, we’ll update you with more information when we have it.

Yours,

- Grant, Chris and Mary

NEARING COMPLETION
about 5 years ago – Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 11:42:17 PM

Okay: we’ve got a few things to get through. We’ll intersperse all this data with some lovely pictures from Adrian Stone.

ART PRINTS

If you were entitled to an art print as part of your pledge, you can now select one from the Backerkit pre-order store - you should have been allocated £15 credit to cover the cost of the poster. You can also just buy one, if you’d like - they’re very nice. Take a look at them here.

Please log in and select your art print before March 23rd, or you’ll miss your chance! They’re at the bottom of the page in their own little section.

SURVEYS 

We’ve got 96% of the surveys filled out - if you’re one of the 4% who haven’t done it yet, please do it now. We’re going to lock down the surveys and charge credit cards on March 23rd.

Similarly, if you’ve moved since you filled out the survey - or you’re planning to move before the end of April - you should update your address before that date.

The good and exciting news is that you should all receive your PDFs when we charge the cards - we’re not going to push go until they’re ready to distribute, so you’ll be ready to get playing as soon as possible. 

STRATA COMPLETE

We’ve got all the art and all the text for Strata in its final stage, and the (rather large) document is now with Alina awaiting layout. Similarly, the text for Book of Masks is complete, and we’ve received half the illustrations from Iguanamouth. (It’s exquisite - see below.) Alina's currently in the process of making it look like an old-fashioned department store brochure.

SHIPPING

We’ve had to aim high on our shipping estimates for Strata because we aren’t sure of the final size of the book. Once we learn the size of the book (after Alina’s done laying it out) we’ll be able to adjust to the correct amounts, and we’ll charge your cards the correct amount.

That's it for now! We'll let you know what happens next when it happens.

Yours,

- Grant, Chris and Mary

January Update: art! Scenarios! And many more!
about 5 years ago – Thu, Jan 24, 2019 at 07:34:06 PM

Hello! We're still alive, and Strata is still ticking along. Here's an update on how things are going:

- All scenarios, save 1, are ready for their final pass of editing. They're all really good. The one that isn't - Glasshelm, by Mary Hamilton and Kira Mcgrann - is on its first draft, due to late submission, and it's pretty neat! It features full rules for invading a parasitic dreamscape used to generate property market data, which is always useful.

- We're now a living wage employer! Officially accredited and everything. The crowdfunding for Strata has let us pay ourselves and our freelancers a fair wage, and it feels pretty good.

- The text for Book of Masks is complete, and Iguanamouth is sorting out preliminary sketches for the designs. Here's one:

- Alina's laid out the hard-copies of Black Magic and the scenarios, and we just need to sort out getting some art in there and assigning ISBNs then they're ready to go.

- The art is done! Well, nearly done. We need to get the stuff for the scenarios finished, and the commissions for cults, but then it's done. It's beautiful. We've stuck some of our favourites throughout this update, which you will no doubt have noticed.

A quick heads-up: every single one of the three members of Rowan, Rook and Decard has moved, or will move, house in January. It's really not the best timing, but here we are. We're still on schedule, but unfortunate real-life stuff (i.e. pipes backing up with sewage) have been getting in the way! We're cutting it pretty fine, and if there are any additional delays to production, we'll do our best to communicate them to you up-front through here.

That's all for now.

- Grant, Chris and Mary

Backerkit postage update and clarification
over 5 years ago – Mon, Dec 10, 2018 at 02:11:39 PM

What an exciting title!

I'm gonna hand you over to Mary, our project manager, for this update. Some of the pricing around shipping in Backerkit is a bit confusing, so we've got her to spell things out for you:

SHIPPING.

There are a few things that make it complicated to calculate exact shipping costs up front: we don’t know yet (a) how much everything will weigh; (b) what the final counts for items will be; (c) whether we’ll have any direct distribution deals; or (d) what’s going to happen with Brexit. In addition, Backerkit unfortunately doesn’t let us automatically combine shipping costs between Kickstarter pledges and add-on items, which makes it impossible to show an accurate shipping cost if you’re a backer who wants more items.  

So here’s what we’ve done, and here’s what we’re planning, for each of those issues.  

If you backed and added physical add-ons to your order, we will reduce your shipping before charging cards. We’re happy to do this on an estimate basis now, if you get in touch with me - PM @newsmary on the Spire Discord or email [email protected], and I can give you a better estimate on your items and add that as credit on the back end now. I will be going through every combined order manually before we charge, so you’ll see costs come down regardless.  

Once we have final counts and weights, we will be going out to our suppliers for new quotes. At the moment, after getting multiple quotes, the most economical option is to ship everything from a single UK supplier, as we did for Spire. That could change, especially if we’re able to make a US or Australian distribution deal, so we’re going to hold off on finalising anything until we’re certain.  

No fees are being added to shipping costs. We set up shipping in Backerkit rather than Kickstarter to make sure that shipping could be kept as close to cost as possible; we’ve made sure that no additional processing fees will be applied to any shipping costs. Because we’re in the UK we do need to deal with VAT and other sales taxes applied to shipping; when we have close-to-final orders (and Brexit has potentially happened) we will run our calculations again to make sure we’re not charging out anything for customers who shouldn’t be liable for these.  

We won’t be charging cards until we’ve finalised shipping costs. We want to make sure we get shipping that’s going to protect the books, but that’s as low cost as possible, and that means holding off on charging anyone until we’ve done everything we can to bring down the costs. You’ll get an update alerting you to shipping changes before we charge cards, and you’ll be able to change your basket of items if you’ve ordered add-ons at that point, too. 

We have a contingency fund for customs fees in the case of a very messy Brexit. Unfortunately, on this one, if our production schedule does run past March 29, we might be in a position where we need to pay customs fees for EU backers, or all sorts of other potential shenanigans. We have set aside a significant contingency fund for this, so that if something hideous does happen we will definitely be in a position to ship your books to you regardless. And, if the worst doesn’t happen and things go well, we should be in a position to reduce shipping costs across the board.  

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Hope that clears things up! Feel free to drop us a line or leave a comment if you have any questions not answered here.

- Grant