Animated Series Season 1 Digital
over 9 years ago
– Fri, Aug 14, 2015 at 11:01:04 PM
As promised, distributing the digital copies of the animated series is on my to-do list for August, and in a few moments I am going to fire off Season One to all pledge levels that get it (which is most of them).
I want to apologize in advance for the potential email spam it may cause when I send out notifications, but due to file size limits I have to distribute each episode individually. So each of you may receive twelve notifications (one for each episode).
For this reason, and to make sure nothing gets overtaxed with thousands of people trying to grab the files at once, I am currently only distributing Season One, and I will distribute Season Two later in the month.
You will only receive this digital reward if your order has already been locked down (that's most of you). There are still 57 people that have given me money, but not filled out the backerkit survey to give me an address to send their stuff to. Those people will not get their animated series download until they have filled out their survey and I have locked down the order.
If you are one of these people and have not been getting the reminder emails I've been sending, or you simply lost your original backerkit email and need to check/change your address at some point, you can do so at this address by entering the email associated with your Kickstarter account.
So here's where I'm at so far...
over 9 years ago
– Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 08:06:38 PM
Shipping
As of right now, I have shipped all Plushie, Snuggle Bundle and Poster orders. If you ordered one of these items, you should have received some sort of notification from Backerkit, likely with a tracking number. If you have not, feel free to message me via Kickstarter and I will look into it for you.
What I'm Working On
With that stage of things pretty much crossed off my list, my focus at the moment has turned entirely to the huge stack of things that require my signature. Getting these things signed is a priority for me this month more than just because I want to get it done.
When I organized/launched this Kickstarter, I was crossing my fingers just to get funded, our break even point which would have meant I was shipping ~1500 books. Figuring five hundred of those would be international orders handled by my fulfillment company, I had planned to package and ship the US orders myself. I do it all the time with posters and stuff, I figured I could tackle it.
Obviously we blew past our goal three-fold, and I've been left with a much bigger project than anticipated. So I've had to make some adjustments after the fact. I am not equipped to handle the volume of book orders within the US in a timely fashion, so I will now be using the fulfillment company for all book orders.
This is a good idea because it means you'll get your books quickly and packed professionally, and I will not die trying to process that much product. However, it's also meant rethinking the way I had originally intended to handle the pack-ins.
Whereas during the campaign I had imagined myself simply grabbing a book, a sticker sheet, bookmark set, etc and putting them in the box, now someone else will be doing that. But in order for them to do that, each "add-on" needs to have its own SKU, a barcode they can scan when packing the order.
You may have noticed filling out your backerkit pledge manager that if you ordered a book, you were also receiving a "book add-on package." Basically, since I know every single book includes a bookplate, bookmark set, and sticker sheet, they're now being bundled into one envelope. Boom, that's one SKU. Same with the Commemorative Prints. Every Commemorative Print comes with a Zeke Print now as well, so again, those are combined into one SKU. It makes it easier and more efficient for the fulfillment company to assemble and ship these orders.
However, I have to have everything signed, and then sorted and packed into these efficient bundles with their barcodes, and ready to send off to the fulfillment warehouses by the time the books arrive in order for them to be included. So getting that all managed is my number one priority right now because it's time-sensitive.
This brings to one other point that directly affects a product some of you purchased: The 2 Additional Bookplates.
So when I originally offered them, I was assuming when packaging the books, I'd just grab two extra bookplates, number them the same, and stick them in the box. Well, now since everything is being packed by other people, that's obviously not possible.
So instead what will happen now is you'll receive one envelope that contains your signed and numbered bookplate, the sticker sheet and the bookmark set, and if you ordered extra bookplates, you'll receive a second envelope containing those. They will be signed by me, but the number will be blank, for you to fill in matching the edition number on your primary bookplate.
This felt like the most logical compromise given that the signature is the important/irreplaceable part, and the number, if we're being honest, is largely inconsequential.
The first 100 people who backed the book on Kickstarter will still receive their low-numbered bookplates from me directly, as a thank you for being among the first to support this project.
Cameos
Some of our cameo-holders have already heard from me... in fact a few have already appeared in the current issue of The Starcaster Chronicles. If you haven't received an email from me yet, don't worry, I will be reaching out to you as I have cameo spots in the series you elected to appear in.
Sketches
The sketches are, if I'm being honest, a low priority item for me at the moment. As I mentioned earlier, my focus at the moment is ensuring that nothing holds up the books shipping when they're ready, and that means getting stuff signed and packaged. Once that's all squared away, I will begin working on the pencil and ink sketches and mailing those out.
Animated Series
Getting the digital downloads of the animated series distributed via Backerkit is on my to-do list for August. As I've mentioned previously, digital downloads of the books themselves will not be distributed until the physical books begin shipping.
Now Shipping: Posters and Snuggly Things
over 9 years ago
– Sun, Aug 02, 2015 at 02:13:31 AM
As many of you have no doubt noticed by now, the posters and plushies/snuggle bundles have started shipping. I've been getting them out in batches since last Friday, and I expect to be finished shipping all of these items by the end of this week.
If you received a shipping notice from Backerkit, but logged in to find nothing shipped, do not worry. Backerkit does not, by default, support partial fulfillment. They assume that once you're ready to ship, you're shipping everything. So we had to game the system a little bit to ship these items early as intended without affecting your core orders.
Also, if you ordered two of an item, don't be alarmed if you only receive one. Duplicate orders are shipped separately, and your second item will be along shortly.
I will post another update when the last of these items has shipped.
