Surveys, BackerKit Store, and Pictures!
over 4 years ago – Sun, Aug 23, 2020 at 11:25:44 PM

Hello, our wonderful campaign backers! This is Kara with an update on backer surveys, the opening of the BackerKit store, and pictures of the leatherbound case for Volume 1.

Kickstarter Surveys

Surveys for all the Kickstarter backers will be sent by email starting on Monday, August 24th. Almost 30,000 surveys have to be sent out. So, as to not overwhelm BackerKit’s servers, we will be sending them out in smaller batches. This will probably take all day Monday and possibly into Tuesday. When you receive your email from BackerKit, open the link and follow the instructions. BackerKit will take you step-by-step through several things, including:

1) Survey questions. This is where you will get to pick your Order of Knights Radiant for your stretch goal goodies.

2) Getting the chance to choose which add-ons and upgrades you would like.

3) Address verifications.

After receiving the survey, please fill it out as quickly as you can. You will be able to add on extra goodies, bundles, and upgrades to your pledge. Please note, there are some upgrades only available to certain pledge tiers from the campaign, so please thoroughly browse your options.

You will be able to make changes and/or additions to your add-ons until September 7. On September 8th, you will be charged for any add-ons and shipping that go beyond your initial Kickstarter pledge.

Soon after that, we will gather all the survey information, figure out quantities we need to order of all the goodies, and start production on them. We hope to start shipping posters in batches that week.

You will be able to update your address at any time through your BackerKit account until all of your merchandise has been shipped. So, if you move in three months, just remember to update your account in BackerKit.

BackerKit Late Pledges and Pre-order Store

Many of you have already found our BackerKit store through the link on The Way of Kings leatherbound Kickstarter page. If you or a friend missed out on the Kickstarter, this pre-order store is currently open for later pledgers. Please note that all leatherbound books pre-ordered as a late pledge will be sent in 2021.

FAQ Locations

We’ve been getting a lot of questions that can be answered by resources we’ve already put together. If you have questions, please do your research first by browsing our FAQs, Updates, Comments, and Reddit posts before reaching out through BackerKit. Please do not send a message to the Dragonsteel Kickstarter account creator (Kara) through the campaign page. We’re very busy prepping everything and don’t have much time to respond to questions that have already been answered.

If there’s a question that hasn’t been answered, then Mem, Lex, and Michael are active in the comments/Reddit so please post questions there. Many times, other backers/fans have the answers before we do, which is awesome. A big thank you to those who actively help us with all of these!

Volume 1 is now at the Bindery

We’re not sure why Volume 2 of The Way of Kings leatherbound set was bound first, but regardless, they’re on now to Volume 1, and it’s looking fantastic!

Our bindery also sends us this report:

“You will almost always see a slight variation in deluxe sets [like The Way of Kings leatherbound] due to various items in the specs for these covers. Cap cords on the spine edges, leather stretch (pull) from hubbing, leather thickness variation, etc. all contribute to this. Having said this, in looking at these books – they are looking good and everything we are seeing is within normal tolerances.”

That’s a very good thing to report! Everything is on track and looking good!

Thank you for going on this journey with us! This has been a wonderful community experience, and I'm excited to see it continue to thrive.

~Kara

Post-Campaign Timeline
over 4 years ago – Fri, Aug 14, 2020 at 01:54:55 AM

Wow! You all made this campaign amazing! Thank you for all your support, and now, as we enter the next phase, thank you for your patience. While this isn’t our first-time fulfilling orders, it is our first time fulfilling a Kickstarter campaign, so we’re learning the ropes, and we’ll try to keep you updated once every week or two with the latest news on how things are going.

So, now what? We have put together a timeline so you can know what to expect over the next few days, weeks, and year.

A few of you have asked why the add-on store isn’t open yet, and that has to do with getting all information from Kickstarter synced with BackerKit. As soon as we can get that finished and everything approved by BackerKit, we will give everyone who backed the campaign access to the add-on store. Again, thanks for your patience as we jump through all the necessary hoops to make this happen!

Post-Campaign Timeline

Please note that all timelines/dates listed are subject to change, but we will keep you in the loop:

Aug 12, 2020 – August 23, 2020

• Kickstarter funding charges completed
• Kickstarter data synced to BackerKit
• Access to add-on store for all backers opened (use your Kickstarter email!)
• Pre-order store for non-backers opened

Aug 24, 2020 - September 8, 2020

• BackerKit Survey email for choosing your Radiant Order Swag Pack
• Surveys, add-on store, and pre-order store all close September 7
• All BackerKit purchases will be charged on September 8
• Artwork for swag items finalized, if possible; samples and mockups provided via updates

Sept 8, 2020 to September 30, 2020

• Production begins on all swag items.
•  The Way of Kings Prime hardcover will be ordered from printer
• 2021 The Way of Kings signature pages will begin to be autographed (watch livestreams!)
• Wave 1: Posters begin to be shipped

October to December 2020

• Wave 1: 2020 Leatherbound books begin to be shipped (we hope!)
• Radiant Order specific swag packs and Stretch Goal swag packs assembled
• Wave 2: This wave includes swag shipments without any hardcover books
•  Dawnshard Novella writing and revisions to be completed
• Begin ebook distribution of Dawnshard novella
• Final layout and prep work for the Dawnshard novella hardcover edition to be completed
•  Dawnshard print run order submitted to the printer

December 2020 to Early 2021

• Wave 3: The Way of Kings Prime and Dawnshard hardcover books and international swag shipments
• Our goal is to have all rewards, except the 2021 Leatherbound books, shipped by the end of Dec 2020, if at all possible. This is depended upon how quickly things can be manufactured.
• If printing on The Way of Kings Prime and Dawnshard are delayed, Wave 3 shipments will begin in early 2021

March to June 2021

• 2021 The Way of Kings Leatherbound books will begin shipping (we hope sometime between spring and early summer)
• All backer rewards shipped!
• Take a deep breath and a long nap

Production Update

As a quick note, the 2020 leatherbound books are still in production. They just recently got their gold-colored satin bookmarks in addition to their gilded edges. Here’s a picture from the bindery! 

The next Livestream will be Thursday, August 20 @ 6pm MDT.

Thanks again for all your support and patience! More information coming soon!

~Kara

Last Kickstarter Livestream!
over 4 years ago – Fri, Aug 07, 2020 at 01:02:15 AM

Update: Final Three Days!
over 4 years ago – Wed, Aug 05, 2020 at 04:16:36 AM

The Homestretch

We’re in the last 3 days of the campaign, which will end at 3pm Mountain Daylight Time this Friday, August 7th. We’ll also be holding the last livestream of the campaign this coming Thursday (details forthcoming). A great big thanks to all of you who have supported us these past few weeks!

Final Stretch Goals

We have two final awesome stretch goals that we announced on the livestream last Thursday, so spread the word about the campaign, and let’s see if we can hit these before we end on Friday.

If we reach $6,500,000, we’ll manufacture a pack of paper/cardboard Stormlight-themed drink coasters. Some of the in-process designs are below. Some have said they prefer one-sided coasters (so they can draw or make notes on the back), and we’ve also mocked up a Horneater White with stains and fake printer registration marks on it, for that authentic feel. Let us know in the comments if you prefer one-sided or two-sided coasters, and whether you prefer the clean or the aged look.

If we reach $7,000,000, then we got a special treat in store. We’ll produce an audiobook of The Way of Kings Prime, read by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer, and make it available online for free for everyone. We don’t know if this will be through Soundcloud or a podcasting service, but if we reach this goal, we’ll keep you in the loop on specific details.

New Interior Art

I wanted to release the three final pieces of art that some of you might not have seen from the interior of The Way of Kings leatherbound. In addition to the full-color art, which we highlighted in last week’s update, the original art from the hardcover of The Way of Kings will also be in the leatherbound, printed in two colors. You can see below that what this means is that we print in black ink but then highlight and blend some of that ink with the secondary color, which for this book is blue.

For this edition, three more pieces of art have been added. The historical picture of a chasmfiend replaces the one from the hardcover, not because the original wasn’t awesome (the sense of scale in it is really quite good), but because we feel this new one is a little more accurate to what’s described in the text. The updated illustrations is by the awesome Kari Christensen, who is a master of creating monsters, and I think he’s done a fantastic job giving this chasmfiend an ancient makeover.

The other two pieces are by Ben McSweeney. After the hardcover was published in 2010, we realized that we should’ve included an illustration of how Sadeas’s bridges work. Ben had posted some concept art on Reddit to show this, so we asked him to revisit that for an official piece for the leatherbound. Additionally, we’ve added his Symbolheads illustration, which originally appeared in the trade paperback of The Way of Kings.

After the Campaign

There have been a few questions about what happens when the campaign ends on Friday. First off, Kickstarter will send you an email stating that the campaign is over and that it has been successfully funded. Kickstarter will start processing payments and contact you if your payment information isn't accurate (so please make sure all of that is accurate). 

After that, we will send out a backer survey asking some questions (like which Order of Knights Radiant you want to choose for your swag). The add-on store will also be opened and stay open for a few weeks (more details coming on that). So if you’ve added extra funds to use in the add-on store, you’ll need to use those before those weeks are up (again, we'll let you know of deadline). After we close the store, we will tally all the quantities and start working with the swag manufacturers. In the meantime, the 2020 leatherbound books will continue to be printed and bound. When they’re finished, we’ll verify your address, and then start getting those shipped out.

A few have asked when the digital package will be sent out. We’re still trying to get all the artwork created for that, and Brandon is still working on writing the novella, so when all of that is finished, we will send the digital package to you. (There’s a chance this will be sent out in two separate emails. One when the digital wallpapers are all finished and another when the novella is completed, edited, and ready to go.)

We will continue to provide updates, but I don’t know if they’ll be weekly going forward. It will really depend upon how much progress is made from week to week. We will, however, keep you informed on everything we can.

Add-ons Update

We’ve added a few of the unlocked stretch goals to the add-ons graphic, so go check that out. (Please note that there’s a lot of detail on that Chicken Scout merit patch. We’ll do our best to get it as detailed as possible within the manufacturing restrictions.) If you add on funds beyond the cost and shipping for the tier you’ve pledged for, those extra funds are available for a short time to be used in the add-on store, powered by BackerKit, at the end of the campaign. The plus side to this is that those funds count toward the funding goal and can help move us toward unlocking those last two stretch goals. Add-ons will be available to purchase through our BackerKit store regardless of whether you add the funds before or after the end of the campaign.

Shipping Update: Special Destinations

Some of you have asked about specific countries that have been a bit harder for us to ship to in the past, and we've done some research into how to make those happen. We wish the shipping was cheaper, but to make sure we can get the items to you safely, we have to use a specific carrier that costs a bit more. We feel this is the best option right now, so we've added some destinations that require this special handling. These are:

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, India, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, and the United Arab Emirates.

For these destinations that require special handling, you will receive the same amount of packages listed under the International destinations in the shipping chart. Like we've mentioned for all destinations, if you do not want the poster, please pledge to our streamlined tier, Tier 3.

Thank you for your patience. We’re learning a lot right now that will help us keep the number of packages and the shipping costs down if we decide to do future Kickstarters.

Thank You!

You are the reason we get to make cool books and swag. Thank you for supporting Brandon and his stories. Thank you for supporting the campaign. As always, we are working hard to make all this awesome stuff and get it to you in a timely manner.

Fourth Kickstarter Livestream
over 4 years ago – Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 02:21:19 AM