We had an adventure here at Chez Tayler. While Howard and Sandra were out of town the young adults holding down the fort reported that half the power was out at the house, but that none of the breakers were blown. We contacted an electrician to solve the mystery and he discovered that the main power box on the outside of the house made exciting sparks when we re-set the breakers there. For reference, this is not what a well functioning circuit should look like:
Per the electrician, there should be a zero charring, even less-than-zero sparks, and the entire system should be brought up to the new code with grounding wire and surge protection. He was very calm, but repeated himself several times: “You need to get this replaced as soon as possible.” We interpreted his repetition as “please please fix this before it sets fire to your home.”
So we fixed it, and it set us back $5,000.
This bill came just one week after Sandra took a trip to the Emergency Room (chest pains that turned out to be a new symptom of an existing condition rather than something serious) and just days before she agreed to travel to assist her elderly parents move closer to the support network of their kids and grand-kids. The unexpected expenses have stacked up quickly.
Things could, of course, be ever so much worse, but the financial circumstances have definitely gotten crunchy. Fortunately, we have an easy way to address this.
This sale is how you celebrate and help us pay for not having a fire. Yes, we’ll be posting updated thermometer images right here on our sale page, so you can follow along if you wish.
Anyone who buys non-apparel merch from our store, will get this Not-a-fire-sale thank you card for free!
If you pick a non-merch support option and still want a post card, ping Sandra ([email protected]) and she can make that happen.
Ways You Can Help!
Share your love of Schlock! Introduce new people to the comic, the Discord, the Patreon, or anything else Howard and Sandra. This is a great way to help if money is tight for you.
Buy a Starter book! We’re featuring four books that are a great place to start if you’ve never bought a book from us before, or if you want to get a book for a friend or a library. We’ve made them all 25% off. (And they all have fires in them!)
Sign up for our Patreon(Or increase your Patreon support level) this helps us not only this month, but for many months to come. We offer hangouts, insider posts, and fun freebies.
Holiday Gift Suggestions from Howard and Sandra Tayler
Holidays are coming and with it you need to get gifts. Now you can do that while also supporting the Taylers!
Order by Nov 30 (international) or Dec 15 (US) for Christmas delivery. SHOP SCHLOCK!
We have an array of items that make excellent gifts, all made by us or by Mossworks (which is the next generation of Taylers)
Gifts for Creative People
Have an artist, writer, or crafter that you want to support? Structuring Life to Support Creativity is a fantastic gift. This book is due to release on December 3rd and we'll get orders into the mail right away so it should arrive in time for Christmas (For US orders, though probably not in time for Hannukah or other gifting earlier in the month). PRE-ORDER HERE
Another option is to gift a membership to Sandra Tayler's Patreon You can give your creative ongoing community, small group support, or structural coaching.
You can also use coupon code HOLIDAY2026 for 10% off orders from the Schlock Store. (Coupon will not work for the other stores and pre-orders in this email)
Gifts for a RPG Gamer
These handcrafted hardwood dice trays from Mossworks are a luxury gift. They're solid hardwood with a gorgeous smooth varnish. Each tray comes with a felt pad to protect your fancy dice. These trays are made by our son-in-law who loves to work with real wood. BUY DICE TRAYS HERE
Take whatever game you're playing and make it better with X-treme Dungeon Mastery. CLICK HERE TO ORDER XDM
For Those Who Love Shiny Things
You'll want to take a look at these handcrafted wire trees made by Keliana Tayler out of upcycled jewelry. Each one is unique. You definitely want to browse the inventory over at Mossworks. MOSSWORKS STORE
IMPORTANT SHIPPING NOTE! If you want delivery by Christmas you need to order by the following dates: November 30 for International orders December 15 for US orders.
Thanks for your support during the holiday season, we really appreciate it!
The Planet Mercenary Role Playing Game is the perfect gift for a Schlock fan. It contains a wealth of in-universe information told in Howard Tayler's typical humorous style. There is a story told in the margins, and all the rules necessary to play a game with your friends. Fun to read even if you never play.
TL;DR: Your package is in the mail. You can see tracking on your package by logging in to your Backerkit account. (Click Here to login)
We dropped the final packages at the post office on Wednesday. Everything for this project is complete and delivered so this will be your final project update. (Though we may ping you with a future project announcement when we have one) I will continue monitoring this project, watching for the 24 people who have yet to fill out their surveys or the 3 people with declined payment to update their orders.
If you discover that you want more of any of the items from this project, they are now available in our online store. (Click here for Maxims store).
As always: If you have questions, if your package didn't arrive, or if it arrived damaged, please reach out to [email protected] and I will make it right. We want you to be completely happy with what you receive for supporting this project.
Thank you so much for believing in us! Howard and Sandra Tayler
All of deliverables in this project are complete. We're in the process of getting everything shipped out to you. Your next (and possibly final) status report will be the week of September 9-13 or as soon as we've sent out the last packages.
We’ve still got 43 backers who haven’t filled out their surveys. If you’ve lost your link you can click here to login and finish your survey. I can’t ship your items until I know where to mail them!
Shipping in progress!
1017 orders are complete and delivered. 71 split shipping orders are yet to be processed and postage printed. About 80 split shipping orders have postage printed and are going out this week.
690 packages do not have split shipping. We'll start on these orders next week.
If you have questions about the status of your particular package, I’m happy to answer them, just email [email protected].
Deliverable Progress
Seventy Maxims Reprint – DONE!
Pocket Reference – DONE!
Blue Poster (1 column) – DONE!
Brown Poster (2 column) – DONE!
Illustrated Maxims digital images – DONE!
Seventy Maxims PDF – DONE!
Poster PDFs – DONE!
Details We finally got our shipment of Seventy Maxims books on August 14. Two pallets of books arrived at our warehouse. They're beautiful. We immediately began the process of printing postage and starting to get packages into the mail. The process is more complicated than usual because of the split shipping for rolled posters. Since those orders already had their addresses locked, we began with shipping out those. Hopefully we'll get all of the split shipping orders into the mail by the end of this week. Then we'll start sending out notifications so that people can double check their addresses before the package ships.
We sort and manage our packages by contents rather than pledge level because that allows us to be far more efficient when packing orders at our warehouse. We're hoping to have all the packages into the mail by September 6.
For those of you who requested that items from this project be shipped along with your Mandatory Failure order, you'll need to follow updates on that project to find out when your items will ship. That's it for our update this time. Short and sweet. Thank you so much for backing our project! Your next (and possibly final) status report will be the week of September 9-13 or as soon as we've sent out the last packages.
Look what I have! This is an advance copy of the second printing of Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective mercenaries. I also have a bill of lading that tells me two skids of these books are on a truck headed in my direction. I don't have a specific delivery day yet, but it is likely to be during the first half of next week. As soon as I have books in hand I will start shipping out packages.
Now is a great time to update your address: Click Here! If your package has been split because you ordered posters in a tube, you won't be able to update your address and you'll have to email [email protected] to have me do it manually. But if your poster arrived and you haven't moved, you should be good to go.
I'm really looking forward to getting these packages shipped to you. Thank you for backing the project! Sandra
We had an adventure here at Chez Tayler. While Howard and Sandra were out of town the young adults holding down the fort reported that half the power was out at the house, but that none of the breakers were blown. We contacted an electrician to solve the mystery and he discovered that the main power box on the outside of the house made exciting sparks when we re-set the breakers there. For reference, this is not what a well functioning circuit should look like:
Per the electrician, there should be a zero charring, even less-than-zero sparks, and the entire system should be brought up to the new code with grounding wire and surge protection. He was very calm, but repeated himself several times: “You need to get this replaced as soon as possible.” We interpreted his repetition as “please please fix this before it sets fire to your home.”
So we fixed it, and it set us back $5,000.
This bill came just one week after Sandra took a trip to the Emergency Room (chest pains that turned out to be a new symptom of an existing condition rather than something serious) and just days before she agreed to travel to assist her elderly parents move closer to the support network of their kids and grand-kids. The unexpected expenses have stacked up quickly.
Things could, of course, be ever so much worse, but the financial circumstances have definitely gotten crunchy. Fortunately, we have an easy way to address this.
This sale is how you celebrate and help us pay for not having a fire. Yes, we’ll be posting updated thermometer images right here on our sale page, so you can follow along if you wish.
Anyone who buys non-apparel merch from our store, will get this Not-a-fire-sale thank you card for free!
If you pick a non-merch support option and still want a post card, ping Sandra ([email protected]) and she can make that happen.
Ways You Can Help!
Share your love of Schlock! Introduce new people to the comic, the Discord, the Patreon, or anything else Howard and Sandra. This is a great way to help if money is tight for you.
Buy a Starter book! We’re featuring four books that are a great place to start if you’ve never bought a book from us before, or if you want to get a book for a friend or a library. We’ve made them all 25% off. (And they all have fires in them!)
Sign up for our Patreon(Or increase your Patreon support level) this helps us not only this month, but for many months to come. We offer hangouts, insider posts, and fun freebies.
Holidays are coming and with it you need to get gifts. Now you can do that while also supporting the Taylers!
Order by Nov 30 (international) or Dec 15 (US) for Christmas delivery. SHOP SCHLOCK!
We have an array of items that make excellent gifts, all made by us or by Mossworks (which is the next generation of Taylers)
Gifts for Creative People
Have an artist, writer, or crafter that you want to support? Structuring Life to Support Creativity is a fantastic gift. This book is due to release on December 3rd and we'll get orders into the mail right away so it should arrive in time for Christmas (For US orders, though probably not in time for Hannukah or other gifting earlier in the month). PRE-ORDER HERE
Another option is to gift a membership to Sandra Tayler's Patreon You can give your creative ongoing community, small group support, or structural coaching.
You can also use coupon code HOLIDAY2026 for 10% off orders from the Schlock Store. (Coupon will not work for the other stores and pre-orders in this email)
Gifts for a RPG Gamer
These handcrafted hardwood dice trays from Mossworks are a luxury gift. They're solid hardwood with a gorgeous smooth varnish. Each tray comes with a felt pad to protect your fancy dice. These trays are made by our son-in-law who loves to work with real wood. BUY DICE TRAYS HERE
Take whatever game you're playing and make it better with X-treme Dungeon Mastery. CLICK HERE TO ORDER XDM
For Those Who Love Shiny Things
You'll want to take a look at these handcrafted wire trees made by Keliana Tayler out of upcycled jewelry. Each one is unique. You definitely want to browse the inventory over at Mossworks. MOSSWORKS STORE
IMPORTANT SHIPPING NOTE! If you want delivery by Christmas you need to order by the following dates: November 30 for International orders December 15 for US orders.
Thanks for your support during the holiday season, we really appreciate it!
The Planet Mercenary Role Playing Game is the perfect gift for a Schlock fan. It contains a wealth of in-universe information told in Howard Tayler's typical humorous style. There is a story told in the margins, and all the rules necessary to play a game with your friends. Fun to read even if you never play.
TL;DR: Your package is in the mail. You can see tracking on your package by logging in to your Backerkit account. (Click Here to login)
We dropped the final packages at the post office on Wednesday. Everything for this project is complete and delivered so this will be your final project update. (Though we may ping you with a future project announcement when we have one) I will continue monitoring this project, watching for the 24 people who have yet to fill out their surveys or the 3 people with declined payment to update their orders.
If you discover that you want more of any of the items from this project, they are now available in our online store. (Click here for Maxims store).
As always: If you have questions, if your package didn't arrive, or if it arrived damaged, please reach out to [email protected] and I will make it right. We want you to be completely happy with what you receive for supporting this project.
Thank you so much for believing in us! Howard and Sandra Tayler
All of deliverables in this project are complete. We're in the process of getting everything shipped out to you. Your next (and possibly final) status report will be the week of September 9-13 or as soon as we've sent out the last packages.
We’ve still got 43 backers who haven’t filled out their surveys. If you’ve lost your link you can click here to login and finish your survey. I can’t ship your items until I know where to mail them!
Shipping in progress!
1017 orders are complete and delivered. 71 split shipping orders are yet to be processed and postage printed. About 80 split shipping orders have postage printed and are going out this week.
690 packages do not have split shipping. We'll start on these orders next week.
If you have questions about the status of your particular package, I’m happy to answer them, just email [email protected].
Deliverable Progress
Seventy Maxims Reprint – DONE!
Pocket Reference – DONE!
Blue Poster (1 column) – DONE!
Brown Poster (2 column) – DONE!
Illustrated Maxims digital images – DONE!
Seventy Maxims PDF – DONE!
Poster PDFs – DONE!
Details We finally got our shipment of Seventy Maxims books on August 14. Two pallets of books arrived at our warehouse. They're beautiful. We immediately began the process of printing postage and starting to get packages into the mail. The process is more complicated than usual because of the split shipping for rolled posters. Since those orders already had their addresses locked, we began with shipping out those. Hopefully we'll get all of the split shipping orders into the mail by the end of this week. Then we'll start sending out notifications so that people can double check their addresses before the package ships.
We sort and manage our packages by contents rather than pledge level because that allows us to be far more efficient when packing orders at our warehouse. We're hoping to have all the packages into the mail by September 6.
For those of you who requested that items from this project be shipped along with your Mandatory Failure order, you'll need to follow updates on that project to find out when your items will ship. That's it for our update this time. Short and sweet. Thank you so much for backing our project! Your next (and possibly final) status report will be the week of September 9-13 or as soon as we've sent out the last packages.
