Pre-order store is now open again
almost 5 years ago – Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 10:53:26 PM

I think I mostly fixed the issues. It's a bit inside baseball, but for giggles:

If you are a backer, the shipping profiles assume you've already paid the "base" shipping. That's the money that the fulfillment companies charge for packaging and providing the service, plus the "first gram" cost (in the USA it's the first pound or so, in royal mail it's the first kg locally, or the first 0.2kg everywhere else). It's usually about seven bucks.

Add-ons are supposed to just add weight to that, plus any VAT. If there's a mode change I eat the cost. In the end it won't be that bad.

For pre-orders, though, especially on physical items, that missing "base" cost of entry can add up fast. This project is doing VERY well, but just because your road trip is going swimmingly just far doesn't mean you can simply take your hands off the wheel. So . . . I needed to make special profiles and move things around a bit. I honestly think this impacts ONE person thus far, and I'll be reaching out to him Real Soon Now.

Pre-Orders Open Again!

So . . . the pre-order store is now open again. Right now orders are pretty light, but I'll be double-checking the shipping on every single one of these to make sure that folks aren't double-charged for anything. 

Backerkit Day 1
almost 5 years ago – Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 08:26:27 PM

As expected, the 24-hour return on the Backerkit surveys has been exceptional. We're just shy of 70% completed in the first day. Roughly 71 of those not answering have only digital products; while I do wish to hear from everyone, I can deliver digital products regardless of completion. 

The other 110 folks or so have physical products coming, so I need the mailing address and of course shipping payments.

To date, we've had one pre-order backer. Some of that is my fault: shipping for pre-orders is non-trivial, but I think I've got it licked. I'll work it for a bit here (minutes definitely, hours hopefully not) and see if we can get the store live again.

Backerkit and Pre-order Update: Please Read
almost 5 years ago – Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 01:25:55 AM

Backerkit Progress

Backerkit got off to a rompin' good start today. We're already about 50% completed, and we should be headed into daytime for Europe while America sleeps, which given the composition of the backers, will be big.

What's that? A full two-thirds of the backers are not from the US, which is far and away the most unusual backer trend I've encountered in seven projects.

Add-ons and Pledge Levels

If you were a backer, even at the $1 level, the option of upgrading your pledge still exists. Because of the deep discounts for some of the higher tiers, especially "All the Digital Things" and Bring Me the Things. All of Them" it is the most efficient way of securing any of the extras, if you want any at all.

During the campaign, I promised an add-on where you could get multiple iterations of the All the Things tier . . . but it took me until just now to figure out how to do that without breaking the shipping costs. 

To get the new Even More Things add-on, you MUST start at either the $110 or $150 "Bring me All the Things" or "The League and The Legion" pledge tiers. After that, you play a flat rate of $110 for an extra copy of everything, plus again, a flat rate for shipping which includes VAT, pick-and-pack fee, and a slight accounting for extra weight.

I have also added a Five Print Journeys special add-on for backers at the $20 level or higher. This gets a copy of the PRINT versions of all the adventures, but not the card deck or counter sheets. It's at a very mild discount to adding all five individually.

Pre-Order Store

There's a problem with the shipping in the pre-order store: it's assigning shipping to digital-only orders. There's a way around it, but it's tedious and so I've closed the store until I can implement the fix. The ONE pre-order backer who this affected thus far I fixed by simply manually crediting his shipping back.

It'll take a day or so for me to get it perfect, at which point the pre-orders will open again.

Status

We're making some tweaks to one of the adventures to make it more awesome (and having spoken to the authors, that's exactly what direction it's heading). 

When that's done, my editing job will be much easier, and faster. So it's all good here.

Art is moving along in the background, with covers, counters, and interior art making progress.

For now: still on schedule. I'll let you know if that changes.

Switching Pledge Levels (illustrated how-to)
almost 5 years ago – Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 01:25:21 AM

It's not necessarily obvious how to change pledge levels if you want or need to do that.

First, find the "Your Pledge Level" in the banner on the top. It's always there, and the example "$110 Reward" is actually a link.

Once you click that, you'll get to this screen, which gives a summary of where you are:

This shows the summary of your survey to date, and the button to switch pledge levels is on the top right.

Backerkit Surveys sent out; Pre-Order Store is open
almost 5 years ago – Tue, Jun 18, 2019 at 04:23:46 PM

Pretty much what it says on the tin. Shipping seems to be working OK; no problems so far (but not ruling out issues in the future). 

Also, now that the surveys are out, the Pre-Order store is open. If you missed the campaign, you can order things a la carte.