We've just sent the completed files for the novel to our printer. This should keep us on schedule for fulfilling orders somewhere in the back half of November.
If you've also pledged to "New Edge Sword & Sorcery 2025" and/or "Beating Hearts & Battle-Axes" we'll package what you pledged for from those crowdfunds along with your "Sometime Lofty Towers" pledge, saving you money on shipping!
How this works is you'll pay shipping as normal across the campaigns, then when your books are packaged together our fulfillment person will calculate the savings on shipping; then you will be credited for that amount.
The very next paperback pledge for our "New Edge Sword & Sorcery Novellas" crowdfund will unlock a bonus 17,000 novelette 'zine that will be included free for all backers - that's like a bonus half-novella! Learn more about this and the four-novella set it comes with here: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/brackenbooks/new-edge-sword-sorcery-novellas-2025
The full wraparound cover design.
IN DETAIL
It has been a BUSY summer at Brackenbury Books and we've been grateful this novel was fully written & edited by the time we crowdfunded it, meaning that aside from another pass for typos (you can never do too many...), we were able to go straight into layout & design.
While we began making all the little decisions that go into that, Ellis set to work on the custom calligraphy drop-caps that will open each chapter of the book. I love them all, but I think my personal favorite is the M, shown here:
So yes, we've just gotten the cover & interior PDFs to our printer who will now review them to make sure we didn't misalign anything. Then it's on to the physical proofing stage, where they'll print a test copy of the book and mail it to yours truly to pore over for anything that needs tweaking.
After that, when the print files are truly finalized, they'll begin work on the full print-run. This is our first time working with this printer, however we have good reason to have faith in their work and in their timelines. They've told us it will take about six weeks from us sending in today's version of the book files through to the finished print run arriving with our fulfillment person in Chicago.
So it seems reasonable for now to say that we'll begin fulfillment in the third, maybe fourth week of November. If there are any delays, we'll let you know.
Meanwhile, those of you who've pledged for this year's issues of the magazine or last year's unfortunately delayed anthology (Beating Hearts & Battle-Axes) may like to know that the stars seem to be aligning so we can release both of those along with Sometime Lofty Towers in November. This means we can save you money on shipping by putting everything together in one package.
That sort of thing makes us happy, let me tell ya!
Okay, that's all the Sometime Lofty Towers news for now. We'll be in touch again when the printing presses are fired up for the full run of the book.
Until then, you may wish to check out our exciting new set of four Sword & Sorcery novellas!
Featuring authors published in New Edge Sword & Sorcery magazine, each novella tells a captivating new stand-alone adventure! And the very next pledge will unlock our first stretch goal, a bonus 'zine featuring a 17,000 word original story by debut author Audrey Stollings and art by NESS veteran Daniel Vega!
