Hello folks,

If you backed one of the tarot campaigns, you'll see they have been delayed a couple weeks and are just now starting their shipping journeys. But they are now officially out of the fulfillment company's hands and heading into the world.

My only update from the fulfillment company on the oracle dice is that they are still packing orders, as it is a LONG and COMPLEX process. In the Oracle Dice Fulfillment spread sheet, there are 51 unique SKUs. This is 51 unique items or sets that could potentially go into each order. It is by far the biggest, most complex fulfillment I have ever asked for.

There are:

So they have reasonably let me know they need more time on packing. I will be told when it's done and ready to head out, but I'm estimating it will be maybe 2 weeks more. This clearly delays our timeline, but I won't know what the new timeline is until it's given to me. So we'll give them a couple more weeks before I hound for answers.

11 folks have not done surveys
24 folks have not fixed errored cards

You have time to get this taken care of if that's you, and you can go in the first wave of shipments.  Log into Backerkit and check your survey, if it's marked FULFILLED, you're already taken care of, otherwise you need to fix some issue! Not sure how to find your survey? Go here: https://the-goblin-s-oracle-dice.backerkit.com/

Talk as soon as I have news.
7DA
your publishing goblin

Hey Everyone!

We are excited to share that we were able to air freight our first batch standard edition of Scales of Influence and it has arrived on US soil! This will be available for pick up at our Gencon booth 2938! Surveys to follow, so you can choose to pick up or it will be delivered.

Along with this shipment, we will reserve all the copies for our standard edition backers, so any that aren't able to be picked up, will be shipped out as soon as we return from Gencon. So you can expect your standard edition sometime by mid August!

For our tarot-deck only backers, we are hoping for those to come over on the boat with the rest of our first print run sometime in August. We expect them to be in hand in September.

As for the deluxe edition (with functioning scale), we are wrapping up design and should start production in the next month. We'll share a delivery date once the manufacturer gives us a timeline.  We want to ensure we deliver a high quality product and further updates will be sent soon!

Thanks so much for all the support!

Cheers

The Unphazed 

Hello all,

As of now, all but 49 orders on this project are handled. Shipping has been charged, your orders are with the fulfillment team being packed-- we are set. 

11 folks still have not filled out their surveys (You can check your survey status by logging into Backerkit.com and checking your survey there, or by going here and putting in your email associated with your pledge/backerkit account.)

2 folks got their surveys done just in the last day or two, and are awaiting me getting shipping charges on their orders. This is a manual process that requires me sending info to a backerkit employee and then THEY put it on your account, so I will get them on when I have a moment, but it's subject to the backerkit employee's schedule.

The other 36 folks have had card errors. They were emailed when their card failed to charge automatically by Backerkit to get it fixed. If you feel something is wrong and you updated your card but it hasnt been charged, email me. (address at the bottom of this update)

The other 939 folks have had their orders sent for packing and shipping.

The orders will now be packed over the next week or two. Should finish about July 27th.

US & Canada
Then, US and Canadian orders will go into a shipping container to travel the high seas over to America. That will take approximately 24 days. It will make port, take a couple days to clear, then go on a truck to our warehouse, and from the warehouse, all packages will go straight into USPS to get to backers.
At that time (entering USPS), you will all get emails that your orders are on the way to you with tracking numbers!
This process will take about 40-45 days starting from today, meaning backers in the US and Canada will see their orders around August 25th-30th (or before). Though it's possible pieces of the journey may go faster, it's unlikely they will go much slower.

International Backers
While US and Canadian orders are making their journey overseas, the backers throughout the rest of the world, from South America to Africa, from Australia to Asia, and also yes, even Europe, will see their orders shipping directly from China.
Backers will variably get emails with tracking numbers either when your package leaves China or when it arrives in your country!
While this will vary by country and distance from China, this process will take roughly 20-40 days starting from today, meaning International backers will see their orders throughout August, depending on distance.

Once US & Canadian orders hit US shores, the timer will begin for people who have not gotten their surveys done or shipping paid for. This will be a 30 day final chance for people to get their surveys in or shipping handled. If the 30 days passes and anyone has not gotten their survey in, their order will be cancelled, and their pledge will be considered a donation to the campaign's success. This was shared in the project's Terms and Conditions since launch day of the project.

Similarly, everyone who did have their orders shipped will have 45 days from when it is marked as having arrived to contact New Titan Print about any missing items or shipments with your order. If we surpass that deadline, we will no longer handle any missing or damaged shipments, or missing items from shipments. So please open your package right when it arrives to check the contents, and when you receive your tracking number by email, be sure to give it a look. Thank you.
     How to contact New Titan:  [email protected]

Because of how tax/VAT/GST are added to orders on Backerkit, even consolidated orders were tagged with taxes and fees. To make sure we didn't charge you those (since they will instead be charged on your consolidated order on another project), we just gave a blanket $50 credit to anyone whose orders were consolidated. You don't actually have extra money to get paid back, we just did that to avoid accidentally charging you more.

My email is on every project page, but it's here for you as well:
   [email protected]

Always happy to help with whatever I can!

7DA
your publishing goblin

Hello all,

I hope you’re all having a good summer. I’m happy to be touching base with everyone for our July Update.

I'll give you the bad news upfront: we're officially experiencing our second major production delay due to manufacturing defects that appears in 100% of the decks that were delivered to me.

The good news is: our printing partner, WJPC, has taken full responsibility and has agreed to do a reprint of the entire project.

Aside from the defects, which I'll explain in detail below, the entire package looks great, so I trust in WJPC to pay closer attention to quality control through all stages of the reprint and deliver a superior product the second time around.

Our new estimated time of fulfillment has been pushed to October 2026.




In this update, I’ll be:

This shipment of Vibrating Tarot arrived in late June, as I had expected, and I started opening a few boxes of Tarot decks on June 30th to see what they looked like.

Unfortunately, there is a manufacturing defect that appears on every single deck of cards, and the entire shipment of 1000 decks of cards is a loss.

I’ve been in contact with our printer on a daily basis since July 1st. They have taken full responsibility for this issue and have offered to re-print the entire project at no extra cost, but of course, this will take time to achieve.

The reason I’m reaching out to you on July 16th is because it took two weeks from the point in time when I first discovered the manufacturing defects until I had time to contact our printer, report the issue, document the defects, discuss pathways forward, and settle on a solution for everyone involved.

I didn’t want to announce the problem without offering a solution. In addition to that, I wanted our printer, WJPC, to have a response to this situation before I made the problem a matter of public discourse.

So, in short, the announcement I have for today, as frustrating as it is for me to have to deliver to you all, is that we’re officially experiencing our second production delay in the project due to a manufacturing defect that originated with the printer. Our printer has taken full responsibility and has offered to do a full re-print.

The fulfillment timeline has been pushed to October 2026.

I’ve packed this update with a lot of details. So for those of you who want to know more about the specific printing defects I’m referring to, I have info and pics to share. 

For those of you out there who don’t really care about the details, I’ll recount the shipping details and give you some key points about our printer at the very least, and explain why I trust them to get us out of this jam. 

To ensure that we were prepared to begin fulfillment as soon as possible, we already took the steps to charge your credit cards for the cost of shipping your deck to you.

Most of you will have received notification emails from BackerKit to indicate this a few weeks ago.

We will be shipping Vibrating Tarot to you as soon as the reprinted cards are made available to us and pass our internal quality control inspection.

Our printer is WJPC. They are an industry giant in this field. I chose them because I know their reputation is good and I know that they have the capability to produce projects with superb results.

Please see their website and find them on social media. 
https://wjplayingcard.com


They came recommended to me by other Tarot creators that I trust. I also knew that because their name was so big that they could, and would, stand by the quality of their work.

WJPC has worked with me over the past three years and has solved many problems for us along the way as well as provided many solutions to help build our project into what it has become.

Because they have supported us in so many ways, I feel like I owe them the opportunity to follow through with making this situation right by re-printing the project (with extra care towards quality control).

Starting fresh with a new company would only introduce new problems at this point in time.

I want to give WJPC the chance to deliver what I know they are capable of delivering, and I want a swift solution for my backers who have been waiting patiently for this project.

WJPC’s schedule allows for the reprinting of the project to be delivered to Canada in early October 2026.

If all the decks are delivered, and pass our own internal quality control inspection, I’ll be mailing them all out to you in October.

I trust that when the ships return this October, they’ll be carrying a superior product. One we can all be proud of.

I’ve expressed to our printer many times, the quality of the product is the first priority. After all, it’s not only my artwork that is being represented here. It’s the intellectual property of 150 different brands out there who have put their trust in me to ensure that their product looks good on the final cards.

I’ve told WJPC that my backers would all understand that mistakes happen and we trust them to deliver a superior product this next time around.

Above all, we don’t want them to rush this re-printing!

Do you all agree?

We all want to have a good looking project rather than one that is delivered quickly but contains flaws.

So all we can do now is give WJPC the time and space they need to do it right this time.

Actually, there are two different defects…

Smudges on the Matte Finish on several various cards found in 100% of the decks.

Horizontal Scratch Line on two independent sets of 10 consecutive cards each, found in 100% of decks.

I’ll show you some pics below, but please be aware that I’m minimizing the pics I’m sharing here because this forum is accessible to the general public and I don’t want too many of these poor quality images to be out there. I owe it to the printing company, and I owe it to the adult brands on the cards, to show their work in a responsible way. So although there are literally thousands of different pics I can share, I’ve only selected a few that will get our point across.



Smudges on the Matte Finish

As soon as you tilt the card and catch the light’s reflection, smudge marks appear. This flaw is invisible when the card is not directly reflecting light.

If the card is not tilted at the exact right angle, this flaw remains unseen. This means that the smudge didn’t happen in the ink on the cards, rather, it happened in the matte coating stage of the process.

WJPC points to a responsibility to environmental issues that they are trying to cut back on using extra plastic. So they didn’t shrink wrap the decks of cards before they inserted them into their individual boxes.

But the first mistake was that they didn’t give the cards sufficient time to cure before shuffling them onto their next stage.

The uncured cards rubbed against each other in their respective boxes, smudging the matte surface in the days following their packing.

See image here:

Video is not supported by this update module, so my video evidence will be shared on social media.

My research points to many different discussions that support WJPC’s reason for this happening, including smudge descriptions, cards most affected, and location on affected cards.

To solve this problem, WJPC has told me that they will “strictly control the varnishing process, drying time, and curing condition before packaging to improve the final product and prevent the previous problem from happening again.”

They will also take the extra step of shrink wrapping all decks of cards before assembling them into the boxes with the guidebook. This will prevent the cards from freely sliding around in the box during transit.

So when you all get your decks in the mail, you’ll see that the cards themselves are shrink wrapped in addition to the overall box being shrink wrapped as well.



Horizontal Scratch Line

There is no excuse for this issue passing their quality control, but we’ll be kind enough to give them the benefit of the doubt and just say that they missed it along the way.

It's subtle, but it's noticeable. Here's a pic:

Video is not supported by this update module, so my video evidence will be shared on social media.

The cards that have the scratch mark are the same cards every single time. 10 consecutive cards in the middle of the deck, and 10 consecutive cards at the end of the deck.

With some detective work, this one was easy to figure out.

This line was in the same spot on all cards, so it looked like a problem that ran across the two parent sheets before the cards were cut.

Here’s how the cards were printed on the parent sheet. Shown here is the second parent sheet, containing cards 41–80:

Shown below in red is the location of the scratch line I found across all 10 cards:

So obviously there was something very small that touched down upon the surface of the paper during production that scratched into the surface of the page across all 10 cards in the row.



See my remaining images here showcasing the scratch line:

To solve this problem, WJPC has told me that they will “monitor production closely and strengthen their QC inspection through all stages.”

The good news is that the product box looked great, the lid fit very well. I was very happy with the construction of the Tarot box. WJPC achieved all of my objectives with the box. Because of that, I believe that we have one of the best looking boxes on the market. 

The guide book was also great. The cover was fantastic, the pages all looked great, all pages were in proper order in all cases, the margins were consistent, the typography was fine.

Even the cards themselves were amazing. The colours were fantastic, deep and rich but not too dark. The silver edges were perfect. The matte finish was very attractive. It disperses the light so the card doesn’t reflect it too sharply. 

The only problem was that there were smudges in the matte finish and there was a scratch mark across 20 of the cards in every single deck we checked.

It was heartbreaking to see so much good work go to waste because of a few details. 

I never wanted to trust any one single printer with this project, and to avoid putting all my eggs into one basket, I started relationships with a few different printers along the way, getting to know them and their companies better, and experiencing their customer service firsthand.

The first company I was introduced to by a fellow colleague was in Shenzhen, China. I worked with my rep from this company for years on the fine details, and they were the first printer that I allowed to take a crack at producing our first offset proof.

This was also the company that caused our first production delay because the offset proof they produced for us was not acceptable.

I won’t name them out of respect, but I shared the image of the Ace of Lube card from their offset proof in a previous update.

Their cards were too dark, and they all contained a reddish hue. This is best seen in the Ace of Lube card, which should be 100% greyscale.

As I reported at the time, the printer was defensive of their work telling me that I had to expect some degree in colour fluctuation. When I pressed for a more substantive discussion, they told me that they did not want to discuss colour profile or colour density with me. So I had to take this project to one of the other printers I had been building a relationship with.

WJPC, our current printer, was the printer who pulled us out of that mess. They heard of my issues, and reassured me that they would work with me to get the colours right.

And they absolutely did.

Take a look at the following line of cards that showcase the four key printing proofs of this project.

The Shenzhen produced card is the 3rd card from the left.

The WJPC produced proof is the latest one, on the far right.

Notice how dark and red the previous offset proof was (third in line), and then see how WJPC stepped in and solved this problem by being proficient at their job and knowing the ins and outs of their craft.

I’ll go back to saying that I was very impressed with all aspects of this project except for the manufacturing defects that were found. 

I’ve been impressed with their customer service for the past four years. 

I’m even impressed now with their offer to re-print and ship to me for free, reassuring me that I chose the right printing partner in the end.

But we’re not at the end yet, so we’ll just hang tight and see what they deliver next. 

Many of my colleagues, retail partners, and distributors have already reached back out to me in response to my personal emails to them. Thank you to all of you who have reached out to send me your care and support.

The confidence you have in me keeps me going.

For those who want to weigh in and let me know what you’re thinking, please know that you can reach me a few different ways.

You can email me anytime at: [email protected]

You can respond to my posts on social media, and I will always respond to you there.

You can even leave a comment directly to this update, but if you want to do so, do not try to reply directly to this email. In order to leave a comment on this post, you have to log into BackerKit and leave a comment on this update. I've provided the link below.

https://www.backerkit.com/



Are you frustrated? So am I. I empathize with you. I feel let down by the printer, but I have faith that they will make this right.

Have you been waiting a year or more? So have I. I have been waiting 6 years, working every single day, sending dozens of email a day for years on end to collect all the licensing signatures needed. Flying around the country on my own dime to attend trade shows to market the project. Challenged by every major institution along the way: restricted by Square, turned away by Kickstarter, shadow banned from Social Media. But I never gave up, and I’m not giving up now.

Do you think I should have asked for a refund instead of letting them do a reprint? I want to know what you would do in my shoes.

Please let me know what you’re thinking so we can continue this discussion. I’m not afraid of constructive criticism. I want you to voice your opinions and I want to be able to respond to them.

I’ve tried to be as transparent as I could be through this process and that has not changed.

As I’ve said before, delivering a high quality product that meets superior quality standards is my first priority. 

I'll be chatting about this setback online in a greater way, on social media, and in public forums. I invite you all to weigh in. 

But before this becomes a public discussion, I wanted to reach out to my backers to let you know where we are. 

I’ll keep up with the monthly updates from here on in. So by time August rolls around, hopefully I’ll have some news about the progress we’ve made. 

Until then, enjoy your summer.

All the best,

Frank Lawrence

Vibrating Tarot

by Pallor Publishing

 

@vibratingtarot

@pallorpublishing

Hi everyone,

All 630 orders have now been shipped! A few shipments are still in transit or out for delivery right now (the July 4th holiday delayed some USPS packages).

We hope that everything arrives in perfect shape, but please let us know ASAP if you are missing any items or received any damaged or defective items! Please send an email to [email protected] and we'll reach out to the fulfillment team to get a replacement sent right away.

International backers, please let me know if you didn't get a tracking number and still need one, I think there may have been an issue with the notifications going out.

A million thanks again for all of your support and patience throughout this project. We're really delighted with how the decks turned out, and so grateful to Emily Schnall for all of the beautiful artwork that she created for the deck.

<3 Carrie

Parts of this update are copy/pasted across different campaigns.

The overview currently looks like this;
Midnight Ocean ~ In production/shipping phase one
Mythical Garden ~ Shipping (temporarily on pause)
Curiosity Shop ~ In production
Pods and Pots ~ In production
Literary Critters ~ Survey coming soon

This is going to be a rough one folks, I'm sorry. If you're backing from the US or Europe please make sure you read it all over. This kind of hit us out of nowhere. And there's some production stuff too, so keep scrolling. Its a lot and I'm sorry.

There are new paperwork requirements going into place for items moving into the US. The wording is... Extremely unclear, and we're pausing shipping while we figure this out. If you haven't had a shipping notification, it hasn't gone out yet. All the orders that don't include tarot decks are packed and ready to go here, we're just confirming our obligations in case we get into trouble. There are no extra fees associated, just a shipping delay. We're intending to send the remaining orders out at the same time as the summer sale orders, but because they're packed already and because of tariff charges, we cannot combine shipping. 

This one's the kicker, and there's just nothing I can do about it.

As of July 1st, a new rule went into a place that introduced a flat handling fee of £3 per item type included in any package heading into the EU. This is standard across all the EU countries as far as we can tell. We are not sure if that includes free items at the moment, we're still trying to figure out the details. So every EU package that hasn't already been shipped now owes an extra £3 postage per item type.

On top of that, some EU countries are now requiring us to pay customs/import fees up front (so at point of sale). We no longer have the option of shipping 'recipient pays fees'. We aren't entirely sure which countries yet; we're still investigating. So from now on, and including all packages that haven't yet been sent from this campaign, shipping is going to have to include the appropriate customs fees for EU countries upfront.

Until these extra fees are paid, we can't send out your EU orders. We're working with Backerkit at the moment to see if there's an easy way to do this, or if we need to contact everyone individually and request payment that way. Unfortunately, customs fees have always been the responsibility of the customers; but we've always been able to mark that it'll be paid on receipt of the package rather than up front on our end. I know in the UK we aren't always charged when a package arrives. I'm sorry if that was the case but from now on, we just can't do that any more. 

For non US and EU backers, packages are still going out. If they haven't gone before then, we intend to get them out in a big shipment with the summer sale orders.

This is also extremely unfortunate and we're still trying to figure out how to resolve it. 

A while ago we had to change our chosen production manufacturer for the cards themselves for a number of reasons. We switched to someone we'd already gotten samples from and started work towards getting the major arcana printed for phase two of shipping. Their default sizes did not include the size we'd opted to go for, so first we got a whole test print done with one of their default sizes to make sure it met our quality control standards. Since those looked good, we went ahead and paid for the custom die cut mould to get the size we wanted, and paid for a whole test run of the major deck in the size we wanted. They came back a few weeks ago, and unfortunately they look like this;

Its hard to see, but the print is blurry. Its not the same standard as the smaller, default size test prints. We sent these pictures back to the manufacturer to ask what could cause this and it took a very long time for them to get back to us. Their best guess is its either the paper surface, or the matte finish; but both are the same options we chose at the smaller size too. Also I tested the file sizes, these are the same files I used to make the a6 notebook covers, they are definitely large enough and high resolution enough to suit this size. The manufacturer has agreed to send us more samples, the same designs printed on various paper and finish options to see if it helps. And also to retry the matte test print, because honestly I don't want to switch to any satin or gloss finish. I suspect, perhaps they used to proof files from the smaller sized card print and just sized them up; that would cause this blurry finish. I asked them to make sure they were working with the correct size files. But now we are waiting again, and this process takes weeks each time. 

I'm just sorry its taking so long. We had samples made before we even ran the project, I had no idea it would go on for such a long time. All I can do is promise I'm working on it in the background. We will get there... Eventually.

That's it for now. We'll work on resolving the EU charges as soon as possible and I hope we will have the rest of the prepared packages out asap, its just... Very unfortunate its worked out this way. I'm sorry for the delays, as always. 

Hello Everyone,

Charles has fulfilled 90% of the orders; there's only a handful left for us to do while we wait for a couple of things to finish. 

There are a few Pre-Orders I will be charging on Thursday and those will begin shipping in the next little bit after the other orders are sent. 

It has been a wild ride but it is almost done! 

Hello everybody-- we're finally here at the edge.

I have received shipping costs and applied them to your orders. You will note in your survey on Backerkit that this includes your Shipping Total, then your Taxes/VAT/Tarrifs and taxes on those as well. They will all display separately so you can see what is costing what, and then you can see the added total for your total pending shipping charge. Please bear in mind, I am not responsible for your country's VAT/Taxes/Tariffs. I am as unhappy with those extra costs as you are.

Our fulfillment team has worked really hard to consolidate shipping for EU countries and the UK, looked to combine chests with other items to lower the chest shipping, and reduced costs for multiple chests heading into the EU and UK especially. But as you will see, chests require whole additional shipping charges due to needing their own packaging. I warned people during the campaign that chests will certainly add a good amount to your shipping costs, and they have.

You now have until Friday to check your shipping costs and let me know if something is wrong. It being high is not necessarily something wrong, but if it seems anomalously high, let me know. These are dense little sets, so they are heavy, thus the higher shipping. Friday the 3rd of July, I will be charging these shipping costs.

If your card declines for any reason, you'll have the weekend to take a look at that and get it taken care of. Tuesday the 7th, I will be forwarding orders to the fulfillment company. This will only include people who got their shipping charges handled.

You'll find that we are on a similar, but just barely delayed timeline akin to the tarot projects. So long as your order's shipping charges okay (and you did your survey on time to get shipping charges at all), your orders will be packed in the coming weeks, US+Canadian orders will go in a container to get overseas, while International orders will ship direct from China. 

This will look like US+Canadian orders getting to people's hands around mid to late August, and international orders arriving as early as the end of July and into/through August as well.

Contact me and I can update your address in your surveys still. You should also be able to do that freely on your end, unless you're changing countries. Then you will need to contact me.

Me! My email is on all the projects, but here it is again: [email protected]

You're not alone. 37 people haven't! Log into Backerkit and get your survey finished for this project, or follow this link here to put in your email and get logged in that way.

Thanks for sticking in y'all. We're about to begin shipping-- and then things will wrap up beautifully.

7DA
your pub gob

Hi everyone,

I've gotten a ton of emails in the past week and I apologize if I haven't had a chance to reply personally yet! 

Our two person fulfillment team is working as fast as they can to get everyone's orders packaged accurately and shipped safely. As of Saturday, 460 orders have been shipped. If your tracking information has not yet updated, please don't worry, your order is still being packaged and will be sent soon!

Again, I apologize for the confusion with tracking numbers being sent out early. That's entirely my fault and my lack of knowledge with these systems. I appreciate your patience as I'm learning how best to coordinate all of these processes.

—Carrie