Stretch Go-o-o-o-o-al!
about 3 years ago
– Fri, Mar 19, 2021 at 01:17:47 PM
We're at the quarter-pole, and very close to our funding goal. Even though we're not quite funded yet, I'm excited about how this campaign has gone so far, as we've been accumulating backers at a steady rate since Monday. No mid-campaign lull so far! Thank you and welcome to everyone who has put down their marker and helped us to get this far along.
The main purpose of this update, however, is to make it official that we have a stretch goal! We'll upgrade the Kickstarter reward print copies of Book of Chance Meetings to hardcover if we can pre-sell 250 print copies. We'll count print copies ordered through Backerkit after the campaign toward this goal, and of course, each Retailer Special reward counts as five copies.
Going with hardcover increases our printing costs substantially (and boy howdy, you don't even want to know how much interior color pages would cost!). We get a bit of a price break from our printer if we order 250 copies — and a larger discount if we order 500 — but this offsets the extra cost only slightly. Even so, the Ramen Sandwich Press team agreed that it was worth reducing our net gain on each print copy if it helps us pre-sell that many more copies. Plus, I couldn't resist giving our Kickstarter backers another exclusive perq, on top of the pre-sale discount.
As I write this, we're at 44 print copies, so we still have a ways to go. I'll keep a running tally on the project story page until we get there.
About the Author
about 3 years ago
– Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 04:23:18 PM
"Those of you who have backed me in the past know that I don't like to pepper you with updates."
Yeah, I know I said that, but....
It occurs to me that if you're unfamiliar with what I've been doing for the last several years and you're curious about my credentials and background, I should point you to Episode 30 of Harold Buchanan's excellent gaming podcast, Harold on Games, where Harold walked me through that very subject. It's a year or so old at this point, but still current, and I sound a lot livelier and more coherent than I do in the video for this project. Harold is a skilled and talented boardgame designer in his own right, and his podcast is well worth checking out.
Apart from that, we're in pretty decent shape — two days in and over halfway to our funding goal. Wake the kids and call the neighbors, let's put this campaign over the top as early as possible! We're still ruminating over the stretch goal, and there will be another update on that soon.
Back to Kickstarter
about 3 years ago
– Sun, Mar 14, 2021 at 06:08:49 AM
It's always heartening to look at the list of backers and see a mix of names that I recognize and names that I don't — in other words, a mix of old and new friends. Regardless of which description fits you, welcome to the campaign and thank you for your support!
It's a relief to finally bring Book of Chance Meetings to Kickstarter; I probably mentioned sometime during the campaign for Exiles of Newmarket that I wanted to have it ready in time for this year's convention season. At that point, I hoped that this would mean President's Day Weekend and the Orccon show in Los Angeles. We all know now what happened to that plan, but I remain cautiously hopeful that some of the small local cons will salvage something out of the summer season, and that we'll have Book of Chance Meetings ready so that I can bring it one or two of them in person.
In fact, just as it has taken longer to pull out of the pandemic than many of us had hoped, so it took me longer to finish this book, the writing of which I had used to fill the time during the pandemic, than I had planned. I had the first draft ready by the end of last year and thought that I would just blitz through a second pass through the manuscript and send it off to layout, easy-peasey.
So I thought. Possessed by hubris, I had neglected to double-check my outline for the first draft against the Standard Reference Document before I started writing, and it turned out that I had included some creatures that are not covered by the SRD. So I had to tear out some of what I'd already written and patch up the holes. That's why you won't find kenku or troglodytes in this book. Frowny-face.
At the same time, reviewing the first draft revealed odd and in some cases, significant omissions — stuff I hadn't thought of the first time around. So there was plenty of material to add in and make up for what I had to strip out. In fact, the second draft is about 20% longer than the first draft. Making those revisions kept me in my own personal lockdown for a couple of months. But the bottom line is that Book of Chance Meetings is finally in order and ready to pre-sell; I just have to tidy up the core chapters before sending them off to layout.
So here we are. Those of you who have backed me in the past know that I don't like to pepper you with updates. I don't update just for the sake of updating. I'll post when there's something to tell you; one thing on the horizon is that we may offer a stretch goal in which those of you who plump for a print copy will get hardcover instead of softcover if we can get enough backers. But we're still running the numbers on that.
Until then, back to work!
