That's everything in, and we'll be starting fulfillment next week. It may take a week or two to get through everyone, but keep an eye out for tracking numbers. Don't be alarmed if you don't receive tracking right away, we'll get there!
If you run into any issues with delivery, or just now remembered you need to change your address (yikes!), reach out to us at [email protected] and we'll do what we can to sort things out for you.
Your friendly neighborhood ops-manager here, and I thought I'd take over this month's update to give you a rundown on where we are with fulfillment.
I had hoped to post a grand "the books are on the water!" announcement, but we're not quite there yet. They were scheduled for a container last week, but we threw the printer a curveball by asking them to also ship some of the Standard Edition books to our book trade distributor at the same time. If you have been following these updates for the last few months, it probably comes as no surprise that it is fairly important to us to have a game based on the only science fiction novels to win three consecutive Hugo awards, to be well represented in bookstores everywhere. And since the Diamond lawsuit continues to drag on, saving some money by shipping to the distributor directly was likewise important.
But the good news is that the books are done, and should be on their way to the warehouse this week. The Game Moderator Kits, which were printed by the same company, are already in the warehouse. Once the core rulebooks have departed, based on how quickly the GM Kits arrived, it should take just two weeks for them to get there.
The printed Quickstarts are also on the way, and while I haven't received word that they've shipped yet, they are being printed domestically, so we're expecting them to beat the core books to the warehouse.
Team-ownership at GRHQ, has also finished bagging up all the Crystal Shard Dice, and they're ready to head to the warehouse as well!
So many DICE!
And finally, the Bookplates are all signed, and on the way!
We're currently expecting to start shipping backer rewards by the end of May.
Here is where things are at. The core rulebook and Game Moderator’s Kit are still at the printer. Final corrections have been made, and the proofs have been approved. We’re waiting for a shipping date from the printer, but they should go out in April. Meanwhile, we’ve gotten the dice in at GRHQ. This was a bulk order so Nicole and I will be putting the sets together by hand. This sort of tedious manual task is what RPG publishing is all about! :) Honestly, we don’t mind and it’s a lot cheaper for us to do it this way.
The Fifth Season RPG has gone to print! That's the Standard Edition, Special Edition, and Game Master's Kit. Our order is also in for the dice, which ought to be in our warehouse before the books arrive. This process will take 6-8 weeks, after which we will begin shipping. Get ready to fire up those campaigns!
At the Diamond bankruptcy hearing last week, there was a major development. When they declared bankruptcy back in January, they chose the restructuring kind (Chapter 11). They have zero employees anymore, however, so obviously no restructuring was going to happen. At the hearing, they announced their intention to convert into a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. That’s the liquidation kind, so we have entered a new phase. We are done dealing with Diamond’s lawyers (hooray!). Now the court will appoint a trustee to liquidate the assets, pay creditors (mostly JP Morgan Chase I’m guessing), and close it all down. There are now more hoops to jump through, but our lawyer believes that ultimately, we will get our stock back free and clear. There are ways this could go wrong, but she considers the odds of the trustee pursuing them to be low. We are waiting to see who the court appoints as the trustee.
Our current plan is to send the Fifth Season RPG to print next month. That’s an update I look forward to writing.
I hope you all enjoy the holidays. Chris Pramas Green Ronin
