The first three volumes of a series of books about wonderful miniatures art.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Hello, everyone!
Thank you all for your patience. I had a few things I needed to clarify before I sent out this update. This will include quite a bit of important information, so please read through it all before asking questions (and you can totally ask questions if I've forgotten something or not been sufficiently clear).
The U.S. - The books will be arriving at Ironheart Artisans in the next couple of days, and I'll be heading to Tennessee this weekend to help pack them for shipment next Monday/Tuesday. I'm excited to spend a few days with Alex, working hard to make sure things go as smoothly as possible.
At some stage between when each package is entered into his shipping system and when they actually arrive at the post office, U.S. backers will receive an email from Ironheart Artisans letting them know their package is on the way. I'll post another update once we know everything is on its way to you.
The Rest of the World - The books have already arrived at ShipQuest in the UK (the photo above is of the three volume in their slipcase in the packaging they'll be using), and we're just dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's on the order details. After that, they'll invoice me, and once my payment clears they can start shipping things out around the world. I'm expecting the first packages will be leaving them by the end of the week.
At some point during the process, backers will receive an email from ShipQuest with tracking details for your package.
The Ana Polanscak Gaming Token Sheets - Nothing can ever go completely smoothly, and for this project it is the gaming tokens that have presented an issue. The company I am using to create the tokens has "adjusted" the printing schedule on them, changing the timeline we originally agreed on. Instead of receiving them in mid-January, I should now be receiving them in mid-April. I didn't want this to impact on the rest of the fulfillment procedure, so we're going ahead with shipping everything else now, and once we have them in hand, Alex at Ironheart Artisans will ship them to ALL backers who ordered them. So, if you have ordered the gaming tokens, you will not receive them with your book, but instead receive them separately later on (hopefully in early May). I appreciate your understanding and patience on this frustrating issue. We'll keep you updated on this as we go along.
The PDF editions of the Books - This afternoon I have started the process by which the digital rewards will be delivered to everyone who ordered them. This has been down using the BackerKit Digital Distribution functionality. Previous experience has shown that this can take a little bit for the email to come through, so please give it until the end of the week before you contact me, and keep a close eye on your spam/junk mail filters to see if the email accidentally gets caught up in there. Regardless, your email will contain a link/links that will take you to a Dropbox folder and from there you can download the PDF to your computer/device. These are hi-res PDFs and are between 65 and 100MB, depending on the Volume.
It is my hope that over the next few weeks, as books (both physical and digital) arrive with you all around the world, that you will celebrate with the authors on their social medias, share photos, and let them know how much you appreciate all the effort they've put into the books! I know they'll really appreciate it :)
I've set a "street date" for the books of April 3rd. This will be when stores can put them out on sale, and it gives our distributors time to gather pre-orders for the books and send them out to retailers etc. If your local store sees your copies and wants to get some books in, they can start ordering the books from our distributors next month. In the U.S. that will be Alliance Game Distributors and Bridge Distribution, and for the Rest of the World it will be Warlord Games.
Don't forget that the next Dave Taylor Miniatures publishing project launches on Kickstarter THIS THURSDAY (Feb 10th)!!! If you are into 3D-dungeon delving and want to learn ways to create an even more immersive experience, then you can check out The Tremendous Tome of Decorating Dungeons. Here's a link to the campaign notification page:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1560579763/the-tremendous-tome-of-decorating-dungeons
Please share with all of your friends and family who are into roleplaying! It really helps us out.
Take care, and have a wonderful week!
Cheers
Dave
Happy New Year, everyone. I hope that 2022 will be a much better year for everyone than the last few.
One very happy piece of news is that we are less than a month away from the start of fulfillment for the first edition of THE ART OF... !!! That's right, all of the books are printed and are being shipped to their various hubs etc. We're expecting the fulfillment for the UK, Europe, and everywhere except the US to begin in the week of February 7th, and the US fulfillment to begin the week after. I am so very excited!
Here are a number of photos of the books and slipcase samples I received a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to hold off showing them until I knew when we'd be packing and shipping all of your boxes, and I know you'll love to see them now.
Everything looks great, and I think you're all going to be very happy reading through these books and getting a deeper understanding of what drives these wonderful artists!
I've almost nailed down the artists for the next edition of THE ART OF... and I'm hoping to be able to announce their names in the next update. The timeframe for the Kickstarter will be similar to last year, with the campaign kicking off in early May and running for three weeks.
BUT before that, I have another publishing project that I'm working on with my friend Jeff Hall. I mentioned it last year, but we are now ready to reveal the launch date of the campaign!
The Tremendous Tome of Decorating Dungeons will be hitting Kickstarter on February 10th this year (just three weeks away!) In the next update I'll have a link to the "notification page" and we would really appreciate it if you'd be able to share all the info with your roleplaying friends and family. This will be my first time creating a product for the roleplaying market, but Jeff is a veteran DM who has also penned a lot of material for various roleplaying companies. The book will be focused on ways to make the most of your commercially available 3D dungeon terrain and has been a lot of fun to work on!
So, as you can see, things are all go here in the Dave Taylor Miniatures bunker, and we hope that 2022 is "all go" for you too, whatever that may be.
Cheers
Dave
As we get to the stage of wrapping up the printing of the books and slipcases and add-ons etc, it is coming close to the time we need to shut down the pre-order store and lock in all the shipping addresses.
If you have a friend who is keen to put in a pre-order and have their books shipped with the Kickstarter books, they can do so HERE (https://the-art-of-vols-1-3.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders) but only for two more weeks. On December 26th, I'll close it all up. The books WILL be available in retail, but that will be later in the year (April/May is the current projection).
If you have moved since you completed the survey earlier this year, please head to your BackerKit account and update your address, if you haven't already done that. The addresses will be locked on December 26th as well. If you have any problems making that happen, message me here on Kickstarter so that I can help you get to the right page, and your books to the right home.
Thank you all so much for your support throughout this project. It is wonderful to see that this sort of series is something that can be so well supported!
Also, Happy Holidays! Have a safe and wonderful conclusion to 2021, no matter what you celebrate.
Cheers
Dave Taylor
Greetings, everyone!
Book and Slipcase printing
It's time for another update on our progress, and I'm happy to say that things are continuing to go well. The interiors of the books have been printed. The covers and the slipcases are next. Files have already been sent and screen proofs approved. Once these items are done, everything can be boxed up and sent to the various locations around the world that they need to be at before we start fulfillment.
The Stretch Goals/Add-ons
The stretch goal/add-on items are my current focus. The Artcard sets and the Christof Keil poster have been printed by Tableau Repro in the UK and are quality jobs. The Token Sheets are underway with Delano Games in the US (although there might be a slight delay on these thanks for global supply chain issues, but still within parameters of the shipping timeline). And finally, the various PDF tutorials (free for all backers) are currently being written and photographed by the artists as I type.
Once everything is sorted and good to go, I'll be making sure that they are all at their correct fulfillment hub.
UK/EU VAT Registration
In our last update, I mentioned that I was going through this unfortunately lengthy process at the moment. I'm hoping that I am closer to completing the process, but can't be sure. I'll be sure to let you know when that has been successfully completed.
Some potential communication delays
And finally, as an aside. Back in August, my father passed away suddenly from mesothelioma. After three months of trying to get flights to Australia so that I could help my mother organize and sell on his various collections (he loved restoring cars and building furniture) I was finally able to make it back two weeks ago. I'm here in Australia for another two weeks, before heading back to the US just before Christmas. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the project, please feel free to send messages via the KS message system and I'll be sure to answer them as quickly as I can, but it might be a day or so for response time.
Thanks to the Internet and the great partners I'm working with, there will be no delays to any of the production elements along the way.
Cheers
Dave