And so it begins!
about 1 year ago – Wed, Oct 11, 2023 at 11:16:23 PM

The first wave has begun! The photo above is the initial shipment of books, tea samples, and bookplates to those who ordered them -- it will take several rounds of this before we've got them all sent out. I wasn't even able to mail quite everything you see there; due to various factors today, I didn't get to the post office before they closed, and the off-hours drop-off bin for packages filled up and locked itself before I could get everything inside. But that's fine, because there's more where that came from, anyway!

It's hard to say how long this stage will take, since we're still waiting on some items to be shipped to us. Hopefully not long, though! We'll definitely let you all know when the entire first wave has gone out, and then if anything fails to show up in a timely manner, let us know and we'll do what we can to set that straight.

A little bonus

Everyone receiving a physical shipment from this Kickstarter -- whether that be in this first wave or later on, when the decks go out -- will be getting an extra item from us! It's very small, so check the envelope or box carefully (or inside your book, if you ordered one); you should find a little sticker with the Rook and Rose logo. Consider it a token of our gratitude for all your support!

Card progress

Work is proceeding apace on the cards, and it is amazing to watch the outlines of the deck starting to take shape. I need to consult with Alyc and our artists about what makes sense to share when, but we've already gotten concept sketches, and it is super difficult to decide which one's my favorite! And discussing how to refine the sketches is feeding back into my sense of the cards, making me stop and think about the nuances of what we want each one to convey. It's not an experience I've ever had before, and I'm loving it!

Until next time . . .

--Marie

Mea culpa -- survey snafu
about 1 year ago – Fri, Sep 22, 2023 at 05:47:22 PM

My sincere apologies to everybody for the small tangle we have wound up in. If you haven't receive an email from BackerKit about needing to re-do your survey, you can't caught in the tangle; for everyone else, an explanation.

In brief, it turns out that for the add-ons which 1) require shipping and 2) are not continuing to be offered in the BackerKit store (e.g. signed books, tea samples, and so forth), I did not successfully configure the setup around the shipping costs. You were charged appropriately on Kickstarter, but when that got transferred to BackerKit, it didn't see any shipping cost for those items, so it listed that money as a credit to be spent on other things. This was brought to my attention by one our backers who was confused by the credit (thank you! without that, I would not have known there was a problem!), and I've been working with BackerKit's staff to fix the issue. However, for those of you who had filled out your survey, that means the survey has had to be re-sent. BackerKit did so right away -- which is both good and bad; yay for swift customer service, but boo for me not realizing it would happen so fast and therefore not having a chance to warn you all.

Items that were probably affected by this issue:

• Signed bookplates
• Signed books
• Signed cards
• Tea samples
• Frock coats
• Additional decks (we're continuing to sell decks on BackerKit, but at $5 more than the Kickstarter price, so bonus decks chosen as add-ons during the campaign are affected)

If you had one or more of those items in your pledge, then you have likely been hit by this glitch. If you chose to select additional items (e.g. guidebooks) with the erroneous credit, then you'll either have to provide payment information for those, or cancel the additions.

I'm extremely sorrry for the confusion, and for the unavoidable takeback of "that credit you thought had been awarded was in fact a mistake." I'm going to chat with Alyc and see if there's something else we can provide by way of apology; more on that in a later update.

--Marie

The survey flood begins!
about 1 year ago – Wed, Sep 20, 2023 at 05:37:30 PM

You all should have received or should be receiving your surveys from BackerKit very soon. These will help us gather the information we need for fulfillment, but a few things to note:

The survey doesn't cover everything. For certain items, it makes more sense for us to contact backers individually, since the things we need to know are more in-depth than the survey can easily cover. This includes the RPG session, the frock coat, the pattern-reading lesson, the art commission, and the Tuckerization. We'll also need to gather more information from backers who chose a signed card as an add-on, but since some of you may wish to choose your card on the basis of the art rather than the significance, we're holding off on that one until the deck is complete.

Don't worry if your address is likely to change. One of the great merits to using BackerKit is that it's very good at handling this issue. You'll be able to change the address for your order from now until we lock the surveys, and that won't happen until we're ready to ship the deck.

I've contacted a few of you directly. BackerKit has you send out a "smoke test" before sending all surveys, to make sure the questions are set up properly. I'm glad of it, because after the smoke test yesterday, I realized there was a question I'd neglected to include! There are four of you who requested signed books and got your survey yesterday; check your messages for a follow-up from me to cover the question left out.

Make sure to answer your survey promptly! We can't send rewards to addresses we don't have, and the survey is how we obtain your address.

Meanwhile, everything is rolling forward pretty smoothly so far. Alyc and I have begun signing the stack of books preparatory to mailing them, our artists are hard at work, and Kickstarter has delivered the funds raised by the campaign. Knock on wood, it'll stay this way -- and stay tuned for updates as we share concept sketches, drafts, and finished cards!

--Marie

The road ahead . . .
about 1 year ago – Fri, Sep 08, 2023 at 12:15:16 PM

The campaign is done; now begins the journey to fulfillment! (How philosophical that sounds.)

Our BackerKit store should now be up and running, so if you know anyone who missed the campaign and wants a deck, let them know they can place their orders now! It will be a little while yet before we can send out surveys to collect any information, but to give you a sense of what to expect, let me break this down into a few categories . . .

First-wave fulfillment

• Signed bookplate
• Signed books
• Tea samples

These are items we'll be able to ship very soon -- within the next month or two. We also hope to send out at least some of the enamel pins at the same time, depending on how long it takes to receive those from the manufacturer; we'll have a better idea of that soon. Backers who chose these add-ons, you can expect to get a survey in the near future asking for your mailing address.

Virtual rewards

• RPG sessions
• personalized horoscopes
• art commissions
• Tuckerizations
• short fictions from me and Alyc
• website thank-you page
• personalized pattern reading, if you want me to use the deck I employed while writing the series

These are things that require neither the completed deck nor shipping. Many of them will entail us contacting you for information (e.g. the date the horoscope should chart); fulfillment will be more piecemeal as the individual items are scheduled or completed. Note that all backers will get the short stories -- no need to choose that as an add-on to receive it -- but we'll be deprioritizing those for a little while as we get the ball rolling on other aspects of fulfillment and the production of the deck itself. You can expect to get them early next year, in all likelihood.

Deck-related rewards

• decks (including hand-gilt premium decks and the bonus cards)
• guidebooks (digital and print, with the thank-you page)
• digital art assets
• signed cards
• cloth bags
• pattern dice
• pattern reading lessons
• personalized pattern reading, if you want me to use the official deck

These are the rewards that can't be fulfilled until the deck itself is complete. The date estimated for that -- March 2025 -- is deliberately pessimistic; I think there's a high likelihood that we'll deliver sooner. But since it's generally better to be pessimistic and deliver early than to apologize to everyone for a delay, I felt it was better to build in a hefty margin of error in case any difficulties arise along the way.

A few of these -- the cloth bags and the pattern dice -- could in theory be fulfilled earlier, since they don't have to wait on our artists finishing the card images. In the case of the dice, we're waiting because that's an add-on we're going to continue selling through the BackerKit store, and it will be substantially cheaper if we order the whole set at once, rather than doing so piecemeal. As for the cloth bags, we're grouping those with the decks because they're intended for the decks, but if you would like yours sooner, drop us a line and we'll see what we can do.

Don't worry if your mailing address might change between now and us shipping those rewards; one of the great virtues of using BackerKit is that they build in a good system for people to update their addresses before anything gets sent.

The special snowflake

The frock coats are the one item that requires shipping and isn't likely to go out either in the initial or final wave of fulfillment. If you're one of the backers who selected that add-on, Alyc will be in touch soon about measurements and customizations, and we'll ship those whenever they're completed.

In the meanwhile

You can expect regular updates on the progress of the deck, as we'll share sneak previews of sketches or even finished designs as we receive those from the artists. If you're a fan of the Rook & Rose series -- or if you become one after receiving your books! -- or of my solo work or Alyc's, you're welcome to join our Discord server, where we also have many pictures of cute animals, displays of craftwork, discussions of other works of SF/F in various media, and random historical digressions.

I will be back with another update once we move into the first wave of fulfillment!

--Marie

Truly we have seen the Face of Gold!
about 1 year ago – Tue, Sep 05, 2023 at 03:05:52 PM

AAAAAND THAT'S A WRAP!

The Rook and Rose pattern deck Kickstarter is officially complete! You, our wonderful backers, have made all our dreams come true. Before this campaign launched, I was (no exaggeration) waking up in the middle of the night with anxiety over whether this could possibly succeed, given the scale of the project. In the end, 433 of you have come together to raise $42,932 -- more than ten thousand dollars over our original goal!

Here's what we can create now, thanks to you:

• a beautifully illustrated deck printed on premium card stock
• two additional "joker" cards added to the deck, one for the Rook and the Black Rose, the other for Vargo and Master Peabody
• hand-lettered card names
• rules for three social games (based on the families of koi-koi, poker, and rummy), and one solitaire game
• full-color print guidebooks
• enamel pins of the Rook and Rose logo
• pattern dice and rules for a game to play with them
• short stories in the Rook and Rose setting from both me and Alyc, sent to all backers

. . . all of which will, of course, take a while! We'll be back later this week with an update giving you a look at the road ahead and when you can expect to receive the various add-ons and rewards, plus the opening of our BackerKit store -- but Step One in the process is "fall over and stare vacantly into the middle distance for a while." Know that you have our profound gratitude, and we can't wait to have this gorgeous deck in our own hands!

--Marie (and Alyc)