Hello,

I know it's been just 3 days, but we're in motion now, baby.
The final print files are in the hands of our manufacturer, and the manufacturing has been paid for.
They said they can do less than a month turn around, so I expect to get these pretty quick.

That said, I want to give you all time to take a look at your shipping fees. They are now applied to your orders in your surveys.
I know that the international ones are really rough, but I am actually undercharging for almost all of them. That's just the cost of shipping from the US to those locations. Let me know by email ([email protected]) If you think there are any mistakes on your shipping charges.

I will seek to lock y'all down to charge shipping on the 30th. That gives us time for you to take a look, let me know if there are issues, and then also after I charge, for folks with mischarged cards to get it fixed before I begin shipping out books in May.

And I said that there were tarot cards incoming!! These are our two characters I chose to spotlight for cards in this duo. I'm really hype for you to meet these characters in the books-- especially Wember since we made them together in polls! I wouldn't have made this fun lil Wickerfolk friend if you all hadn't voted that way in the story polls, and now there's a whole new guy in the world!

I'm already starting to think about what things I haven't fully covered, namely what I might yet want to write into stories, so you can take heart that we will be coming together in another year for a sequel book!

Thanks all,

Talk again soon!
7DA

Hello folks,

So it's been a little bit, but as of today, the book is completed. I did my editing passes, spell checks, additional edits, and layout work. The book is 268 pages total, with stories covering a total of 250 or so of 'em. I let a certain superfan read it early to help me catch my errors, but I went ahead and just hit the errors and edits again altogether. (I hope you're having fun, Kim!)

This is our cover, front, back, and spine. Kollapsar did some gorgeous work for us here, and I had fun laying the company logo and little blurb on the front cover, hopefully blended enough to look like it's part of the scene.

But I also promised you all that there would be tarot cards to act as bookmarks for two of our stretchgoals. I honestly screwed that up a fair bit, honestly. I very nearly forgot to start-- then it took me a bit to decide what the cards would be, then I reached out to an artist fairly late, and then I accepted I was just gonna bug Kollapsar to get on it.

As of the moment, they're at this stage. Our first card is the keeper of the procession-- Wember! This is our wickerfolk friend that we voted into the collection. Wember has become a delightful part of the world, with their own story, and then included here and there in a couple others. Wember is a collector, a finder of things who puts them back where they belong. But when they don't have anywhere to go? Wember brings them home to set up their Procession-- a great traveling march of toys and action figures that Wember gives stories to.

And this other character is an oldie for me, but like Dr. Ala Okoye, is getting new life for all of you to meet. This is Huan Pai, the Baba Changa. She has an important location that you'll come to explore in a story before she arrives, then she has two stories that center her after that. 

There are many important folks in this book that I could have done cards for, but the Goblin's Tarot actually includes Jimmy, Kent, Juli, and even Keith, someone who is at best, in this collection, a side character. If you haven't read any stories in this collection, know that you'll get a chance to soon. But these are a number of our main characters.

And then, we have Secret Halls, the game set in this world, where Kollapsar is ALSO doing the art for all the characters in that game, and all of those above are getting illustrations there. So I felt like Wember and Huan Pai deserved these two cards in our book.

Okay so the book is done, the cover is ready, and the cards are nearing their completion. So where's the book then, Seven?

I was going to just print with an on-demand printer I've used a bit and ship books directly from there. But they want to have their own barcodes on my books, and I hate that. Plus, if I get a proper run of 400 books going, I can also get the edges of the pages sprayed black, like my most recent book releases. And I love that a great deal. 

So I am using the printer I did my poetry collections with and am pushing them to get me the books within a month's time. That means they'll be coming to me and then out to you, it also means the quality will be a little better, AND ALSO I get to have my own barcode without someone else's thrown on.

So hang tight, I've got things moving with the printer and I am excited to say the book is fantastic, exciting, engaging, and full of weird stuff. Which is the way to do a book, I think. I'm also inspired after so long away from writing fiction to get back in, so look out for another book next year. : )

Talk in a month's time, when I should have books in hand-- suppose I should figure out shipping costs and get those to you on the way there. So I shall!

7DA
your pub gob

Hello friends,

I have been silent since December! For that, I'm sorry. I usually post monthly updates on the way to completion. Not sure how I didn't share anything in January at the least.

So, where are we at? Are we on track for March printing?

Not quite. As a person who likes to own physical copies of things I make, and as a person who had some patreon stories that needed a physical body, AND as a person who never says no, I took this project on to take part in the Book Bazaar collab launch, and give those stories a body.

Then I sat down to look at what that would look like. A thin collection, comprising of 6 stories from my patreon? One bonus story? A final story on top of that to cap off the storyline I had going on the Patreon? I could have done that, and we'd already be printed and shipping out. But instead, I decided those 6 stories needed real companions here-- something special for folks who have already read those older stories.

So let's look at what it's become:

El Roso, a standalone story following a favorite character of mine, The Rat, is going in, even if it's (mostly) disconnected from the other stories in the collection. Just knowing that The Rat is in the book means that he could easily be anyone else in the other stories, and that's a delight.

Juli and Kent, a story following two mages in Chicago taking on a routine issue with abnormal results, that's sticking in. Lightly edited, but mostly the same.

Alexcia and Jimmy, following my two favorite idiots as they road trip around, beating up demons and vampires and such? In almost unchanged.

Jimmy & Lexi short, where Jimmy gets a warning something is wrong with his mage friends in Chicago, still in, and still pretty short.

Kent's Week, the final story I ever did in the "Mages in trouble" story, that has stayed.

But, all new stories have joined the roster and will be why this book is substantial and has meandering paths through other people's stories on the way to finishing that Juli + Kent story. It kind of makes this a novel with chapters that change focus each time, but I hope it helps fill out the world all the more and helps you, the reader, feel like you know what this place feels like, more than just what a few characters go through. There is texture across this space, beyond the Alleyman!

Stacey Deluca invites us to meet a new character, one who at the start is a bit unassuming, but who grows into her role as an underground boss of Chicago. She also has a strange eye, lost in an abnormal accident, that will play into future stories!

Paper asks us to recognize something important about this world and its history, or non-history as it may be.

Caleuche introduces us to a paranormal side of Chicago that carries into later stories, and I hope, is an interesting take on its titular myth.

Geraldine introduces us to a lovely background character. Not Geraldine, no. A cardboard box!

Imports introduces us to the idea of a character who joins us later, and shows us an important location that will be called on in later projects, Baba Changa's Imports & Antiques.

Wickerfolk is our collab story we voted on in updates, and is a nice slice-of-life story about finding fantasy and beauty in the world around you, following our strange amalgam construct that I have named Wember.

Pai Huan, ... is a story that finally brings a long favorite character of mine to my modern stories. You will find she is perhaps more abnormal than any of the supernal beings we meet in our other stories-- and she's just a human! Just a human, maybe, with a storied past.

The Oil Slick Door is a direct followup to Kent's Week, carrying that story forward finally after the last 3 or 4 years!

... the Baba Changa is our final story in the mainline of stories in this collection, and finishes the story carried on in The Oil Slick Door.

I am still working on the order the stories will go in-- that's certainly not locked in just yet. One thing I want this collection to be is an introduction to this world, a world I lovingly call Earth 2, in a way that helps you understand some of its rules. This is not just urban fantasy, there are a few layers to it, and I don't want to be boring and just explain them outright. So I'll be layering the stories in such a way that the main thread through (Kent & Juli, Jimmy & Alexcia) aren't resolved all at once, and so that the lessons you need to learn are shared in the appropriate order.

I am also still writing into Geraldine, The Oil Slick Door, and ... the Baba Changa. I have some more things I want to see completed in them before I call them complete.  I'm also, also topping off the collection with a bonus short story called No Moths Left, which gives Alexcia a chance to share a bit of how she got the way she is.

I have a half-page write-in to a story about Dr. Ala Okoye, but I don't think it's interesting just here, and he cameos (without his name) in another story, so I might save him for the followup book. 

SO! I'm asking for a couple more weeks to be done with these final bits, then I'll spend a day in layout (it's quick with fiction), and get a test print to me maybe even yet this month. This means we will be collecting shipping here by the end of the month and then shipping in the early bits of April.

I apologize for pushing it a month late, but I've had quite an honestly exciting exploratory time thinking about the format of this book and a way it can speak to how I might want to write some other worlds to introduce characters, rules, and strangenesses to my readers. I hope to stop putting out games and things like them without supporting them with stories, rich with information on the world of the game.

And this leads into Secret Halls in October!

So I think I'm starting off alright.

Thanks for your patience, and chat again when I have a copy in hand end of this month!

7DA
your pub gob

Hello friends,

I have officially sent out the smoke test, that is 5% of people have been sent their surveys.
Once 24 hours passes, I'll send out the survey tomorrow to everyone else.

And that's all for now! Early next year, I'll get shipping charges on your orders and get that moving for ya!
But for this year, we're all done.

As we quietly slide away here, I wanted to share that Pub Gob Trinkets has a new project in January for a new set of 3 tarot-style enamel pins, but this time with a stained-glass feature! There will be parts of the pins that are see through, to let the light illumine the translucent fill.

So give that a look if it's of interest! Otherwise, I'm also offering limited run seasonal pins every season now, officially launching now on this upcoming project!

Otherwise, enjoy the new year and the holidays my friends, talk again in 2026!

7DA
your pub gob