Orders in, merch arriving, books next...
over 4 years ago
– Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 04:00:36 PM
Hi everyone,
Hopefully you saw I locked the BackerKit surveys the other day. We're still waiting some people to complete, but we've had to proceed with what we have to lock items like names in the back of the book.
I've just ordered a batch of merchandise, inc. badges, stickers and patches. We've also received the pack of bookplates and A5 prints... (see below).
The book is being fully proofed over the next few days, then we'll get the order in. A few more bits of merch, such as posters and bookmarks to go and we'll have stock ready to be stuffed (carefully) into envelopes and sent your way.
Keep an eye out for more updates over the next week!
Take care and stay safe,
Andy
Surveys being locked
over 4 years ago
– Wed, Jul 08, 2020 at 08:36:09 PM
Hi everyone,
I've just clicked the 'Lock Surveys with Notice' button which means it's final chance to update your survey answers, add-ons, etc.
Addresses can still be changed for a while yet.
The reason I need to lock the answers is to:
1. Get an idea of volumes of items to order
2. Allow us to finalise the names printed in the back of the book - for those that backed that tier.
I'm still waiting on a few survey responses to #2, but have sent some reminders out.
All in all, we're on track. Lyndon will produce a final draft of the book when we've got the names. We will proof-read the heck out of it, then send it off for printing along with all the merchandise, etc.
Assuming we get all the swag by the end of July/early August, we can start fulfilling in August... Fingers crossed.
Thanks everyone for your support and please let me know if you've any questions.
Take care, Andy
Book Design - Nearly There
over 4 years ago
– Fri, Jul 03, 2020 at 02:54:19 PM
Hey everyone,
A quick update on book design, where we're at and how near we are going to print. But first, surveys, surveys, SURVEYS! There's about 70 surveys we're still waiting for, so please check your mailboxes for the links or get in touch if you've not completed yours yet. Andy will sent out some separate emails over the next week chasing down the final few.
Okay, now for book design from Lyndon.
We now have visuals for every page of the book, after working on the final design elements. Below is a "Roadmap" to the book, which helps us figure out page numbers, layout, page turns and generally where everything is going to go. I roughly mock these up for every book I work on, which helps me visualise how it's all is going to look in print. As a bonus, it helps us tick off pages as they are finished.
Note: This version doesn't have the thumbnails for the comic pages, to avoid spoilers.
At the moment, I've got some very minor text edits to do on the comic pages. Aside from that, it's final proofs and edits on the concept art pages, the title page (making sure the copyright text is correct) and the core additional pages of the book. It's so important as a team that we take our time to check everything over properly and not rush through the process. If we've made a mistake and the book has gone to print, it's too late to fix it. Thankfully, the bulk of the design work is now done and we should easily be going to print this month.
In other news, here is very near final version of the Hardback Cover. The artwork has a much bigger boarder than before, which will wrap around the cover and onto the inside the book. You won't see much of this, but hardbacks require a much bigger bleed compared to printing Softbacks. Again, this is pretty much final, we are just looking over everything with a fine tooth comb and checking it all lines up.
Thanks again for all your support and for baring with us. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this book looks in print and it will be worth the wait.
All the best,
Lyndon
Progress Update (bit long sorry)
over 4 years ago
– Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 11:09:39 PM
Hey everyone,
I hope you're having a good weekend! I thought I'd check in with a few updates:
Surveys
We're about 75% complete on surveys, so thank you to everyone who's completed theirs so far. I understand BackerKit performs some prompting on uncompleted surveys, but I've had some reports of BackerKit emails ending up in SPAM, so please check yours if you've not received anything, or drop me a line and I will look into it.
BackerKit
I was so focused on the fact I'd not used BackerKit before myself that I neglected to consider that many of you may not have used it either. On the whole, it looks like you've all managed the process really well, and apologies for those that had to find their way through the questions, add-ons, etc.
Lesson learnt, and I'll do more hand-holding via updates, etc next time around. I've added a few notes below for those who've not completed the survey yet, and for those who are interested in what BackerKit does.
BackerKit processing
Instead of sending out surveys via Kickstarter, I do this via BackerKit. The BackerKit service allows questions to be created and processed much easier than Kickstarter (anyone who's carried out complex campaigns will know what I mean).
BackerKit also handle queries directly, so if you need to change your address because you're moving, or have a question about your pledge, then BackerKit will support you and only escalate questions to me if they can't resolve them. This shouldn't stop you contacting me directly if you've got a question, but it should give you a faster response on day-to-day queries about addresses, pledges, etc.
As mentioned earlier, BackerKit also does a lot of the chasing and nudging on incomplete surveys, etc.
BackerKit Add-Ons, Uplifts and Storefront
As many of you have seen, BackerKit allows add-ons to be included in your reward tiers. This is very useful for managing things like softcover to hardback uplifts and makes it a lot easier for me to track.
The add on process also allows me to showcase some of my other work, alongside Lyndon's fantastic creations, as well as from other contributors and supporters of our project, such as Chris Holmes, and Simon Birks from Bluefox comics.
Some items have been really popular, and I've recently added a couple of extra items from Chris' "Icons of Horror" pixel-art collection too if you'd like to check them out in the add-on store.
It is also possible to uplift your pledge. In fact, if you've added add-ons, it is sometimes cheaper to uplift your pledge to a new tier than it is to include add-ons. I've spotted this on a couple of occasions and prompted the person so they can get better value. I'll be doing this over the next week if I spot any more.
BackerKit also provides a storefront as a pre-order site for those that missed the Kickstarter. I will ensure that all backers of the Kickstarter get prioritised delivery of your products for supporting the campaign before I fulfil any subsequent pre-orders. I appreciate this sounds obvious but wanted to be clear that the 600+ backers of this campaign are receiving our undivided and priority attention!
If you've any questions about the process, or you're a creator considering BackerKit, please drop me a line. There is a referral process which reduces your set-up fee and allows me to donate $100 to your campaign. I'm not getting any commission for this diatribe by the way, I promise - this is more about me keeping you informed :-)
Additional Content
Lyndon and I have been curating the additional content for the back of the book. It's been really interesting and quite humbling to see how the idea has evolved over the last couple of years, from my original messenger chats between Chris and Lyndon, to terrible first-draft scripts, to amazing concept artwork from Lyndon. You'll get to see some snippets of all this since we hit the extra content stretch goal. I'm sure you're going to love it!
Chapter Two
As with Chapter One, there was lots of writes and re-writes, and back and forth. I'm really lucky to have a great group of people around me who provide honest feedback and ways to advance the story. I've just written another draft and even begun plotting out scenes for chapters #3 and #4.
Lyndon and I are really keen to get Chapter Two out as soon as we can, but we also want to ensure it's as good, if not better than Chapter One, so lots of hard work is ahead of us.
This is probably my longest update, so sorry if it's a TL;DR and for those of you who got this far, thank you for reading and I'll be in touch later in the week.
Take care and stay safe,
Andy
BackerKit Surveys are Out..!
over 4 years ago
– Sat, Jun 27, 2020 at 12:13:35 PM
I've just released all BackerKit surveys for completion.
Thank you to the randomly-selected 5% who participated in the smoke test. It's been really helpful in ironing out some niggles.
Softcover to Hardback uplifts
For those of you that pledged the extra £6 for hardbacks, this will be a choice in the survey to do this. The funds should calculate themselves at the end of the process leaving you with net £0 balance, e.g. nothing further to pay (unless you've selected further add-ons).
If you decide you'd like to uplift your softcover to a hardback, this is still possible, but you'll end up with a net amount of £6 to pay at the end of the process.
This option will only be available for backers of the Kickstarter campaign as we've included P&P in this process.
Production update
Lyndon has produced the front and back cover designs and we're in touch with the printers about volumes and processes. We're using a great printer - Rich at Comic Printing UK - we've both used Rich many times before and you can be assured of a quality product.
Merchandise design is also complete, so we're into final proofing and getting digital content ready. Then when we receive the completed surveys, it's printing time!
That's all for now. Please get in touch if you've any questions about the surveys and your options.
Take care,
Andy
