As of today, the books are all shipped. Friday and today and I spent a lot of sweaty hours in my storage unit making it happen.
Did you miss out?? You can order Tales From the Alley from me right now on PubGobShop.com, or ask your local bookstore/library to order it through Ingramspark for their shelves!
As of this moment, there are 3 people with failed charges on their cards and 7 people who didn't do their surveys. But everyone else's stuff is shipped. The biggest packages went out today, so if you had a bunch of stuff in your package, it's just starting its journey.
For folks unsure if they did their survey, put your email in here to check: https://tales-from-the-alley.backerkit.com/ ...or just log into Backerkit and check your survey on this project!
Otherwise, starting NOW, you have 30 days to get your survey in, and 45 days to let me know if your package goes missing or if there is a missing item in your order or anything like that.
That's August 6th to get surveys in; August 21st to let me know if your order goes missing or items are missing from the package!
After those dates pass, this project closes for good. Questions? Ask away here or email me directly: [email protected]
Book Club Reading?
If you want to take part in conversation with Kim and others over on the Publishing Goblin Discord as you read Tales From the Alley-- or just want to chat about it as you read at all, now is the time to join us! Kim suggested a book club to read it together, so let her know if you want to try it out!
So most international folks will note that they paid about $20 for their book's shipping. But the lowest international cost I had to actually ship to people overseas (or even up to Canada or down to South America) was $33. Some people were $40-50 just for the book. And if they got more? $60, $70, $90.
On small projects like this, I don't generally mind subsidizing that cost all that much, but for a few packages it does mean I lost money overall. As I am currently charging real-cost shipping costs over on the Tarot and Oracle Dice projects, I'm finding people are blown away by the prices.
For large projects like those where I have hundreds of international orders, I can't just cover some of it for them. They have to pay the real price of international shipping. But I'm curious what you guys think about for the small projects. For pins and books and the like, should I keep charging lower rates so it's not more expensive than the items themselves? Or should I start charging true cost?
If you are in Europe, would you have got the $25 book if the shipping was going to be $33 before any VAT or Taxes? Because that's the real cost.
I keep debating stopping offering shipping to Europe because of the rising costs and shipping complications, but I know there are lots of people who are okay with paying those costs because they want what I make, which I really appreciate. But then I inevitably end up with lots of angry folks about the cost of shipping haha.
What Next?
Well, now that the 2 Oracle Dice and 3 Tarot projects are finally heading into shipping and fulfillment, and this project has now been largely fulfilled, AND the pin project from Pride is about to start fulfilling next week, I am settling into my plan to only have one of each KIND of project live and/or fulfilling at a time.
For Games, there are two outstanding games in creation and a ways from manufacturing and fulfillment still. So while I have new games on the upcoming projects docket, none will go to fund until at least one of those two is shipped out-- preferably both!
For Tarot, the Goblin's Tarot is right around the corner, waiting for the current FIVE divination tool projects to finish shipping out.
For Pins, Death & Friends will be joining us in early September, since the Pride pins will be shipped here this month.
And for Books? Well, the gay superhero novel, Blue Bird, Black Bird, will be coming in late October!
Vote For What Comes Next!
And right now, I have these plus one more project slated for a specific time slot in Spring 2027. But over on the Publishing Goblin website, I have a new section on the bottom of the Home page that is all the vaguely Upcoming Projects-- projects that have some amount of work done on them, but no slated project launch date.
You can visit www.publishinggoblin.com and help me decide which things are of most interest to y'all by clicking through their image to their project Follow page, and following that project. As I begin to clear my schedule and see I have new open space, I will check in on which projects have the most followers and interest!
Let me know if I need a sequel book to the Tales From the Alley listed here. : )
I am excited to share that the books will be hitting port in the US in 3 days time. Then they have to go through customs and then to me, so I would say by the end of June likely I'll have them, or the first days of July. From there, I ship them out right away!
If you need to update your address for this for any reason, drop me an email at PublishingGoblin (at) gmail (dot) com and we can do that still. Please do not reach out to send me an address just in case, because you forgot what your address is on this project. You can check your survey to see what address you have on your survey at any time by just logging into Backerkit and checking your survey on this project. Then, if you do need to update it, drop me the email.
And later this year, October, the next piece of Fiction from Publishing Goblin will be coming. Gay superhero spicy romance novel. If that's your thing, give it a follow. If it's not, no worries. There will be more coming next year following the Tales From the Alley stories.
Talk soon when I start shipping books out! 7DA your pub gob
I'm sorry to say, I thought I would have the Tales From the Alley books by now to start shipping. But it's all ready to go and-- oh, it's going to take up to a month to reach me by boat? Okay, I suppose.
I did get to see a flip through video of the books though, and they look great, as do the tarot cards. So when they get to me, we'll all be quite happy with the results, promise.
ALSO, be aware, I am personally shipping these orders, so I am happy to adjust your addresses at ANY TIME right up to the day I pack and ship your order in later June. So no worries if that changed. You have plenty of time to update that.
Apologies for the wait, but know that they're beginning their journey about the world in their own way: nice and slow.
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!
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.
Where's the 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!
As of today, the books are all shipped. Friday and today and I spent a lot of sweaty hours in my storage unit making it happen.
Did you miss out?? You can order Tales From the Alley from me right now on PubGobShop.com, or ask your local bookstore/library to order it through Ingramspark for their shelves!
As of this moment, there are 3 people with failed charges on their cards and 7 people who didn't do their surveys. But everyone else's stuff is shipped. The biggest packages went out today, so if you had a bunch of stuff in your package, it's just starting its journey.
For folks unsure if they did their survey, put your email in here to check: https://tales-from-the-alley.backerkit.com/ ...or just log into Backerkit and check your survey on this project!
Otherwise, starting NOW, you have 30 days to get your survey in, and 45 days to let me know if your package goes missing or if there is a missing item in your order or anything like that.
That's August 6th to get surveys in; August 21st to let me know if your order goes missing or items are missing from the package!
After those dates pass, this project closes for good. Questions? Ask away here or email me directly: [email protected]
Book Club Reading?
If you want to take part in conversation with Kim and others over on the Publishing Goblin Discord as you read Tales From the Alley-- or just want to chat about it as you read at all, now is the time to join us! Kim suggested a book club to read it together, so let her know if you want to try it out!
So most international folks will note that they paid about $20 for their book's shipping. But the lowest international cost I had to actually ship to people overseas (or even up to Canada or down to South America) was $33. Some people were $40-50 just for the book. And if they got more? $60, $70, $90.
On small projects like this, I don't generally mind subsidizing that cost all that much, but for a few packages it does mean I lost money overall. As I am currently charging real-cost shipping costs over on the Tarot and Oracle Dice projects, I'm finding people are blown away by the prices.
For large projects like those where I have hundreds of international orders, I can't just cover some of it for them. They have to pay the real price of international shipping. But I'm curious what you guys think about for the small projects. For pins and books and the like, should I keep charging lower rates so it's not more expensive than the items themselves? Or should I start charging true cost?
If you are in Europe, would you have got the $25 book if the shipping was going to be $33 before any VAT or Taxes? Because that's the real cost.
I keep debating stopping offering shipping to Europe because of the rising costs and shipping complications, but I know there are lots of people who are okay with paying those costs because they want what I make, which I really appreciate. But then I inevitably end up with lots of angry folks about the cost of shipping haha.
What Next?
Well, now that the 2 Oracle Dice and 3 Tarot projects are finally heading into shipping and fulfillment, and this project has now been largely fulfilled, AND the pin project from Pride is about to start fulfilling next week, I am settling into my plan to only have one of each KIND of project live and/or fulfilling at a time.
For Games, there are two outstanding games in creation and a ways from manufacturing and fulfillment still. So while I have new games on the upcoming projects docket, none will go to fund until at least one of those two is shipped out-- preferably both!
For Tarot, the Goblin's Tarot is right around the corner, waiting for the current FIVE divination tool projects to finish shipping out.
For Pins, Death & Friends will be joining us in early September, since the Pride pins will be shipped here this month.
And for Books? Well, the gay superhero novel, Blue Bird, Black Bird, will be coming in late October!
Vote For What Comes Next!
And right now, I have these plus one more project slated for a specific time slot in Spring 2027. But over on the Publishing Goblin website, I have a new section on the bottom of the Home page that is all the vaguely Upcoming Projects-- projects that have some amount of work done on them, but no slated project launch date.
You can visit www.publishinggoblin.com and help me decide which things are of most interest to y'all by clicking through their image to their project Follow page, and following that project. As I begin to clear my schedule and see I have new open space, I will check in on which projects have the most followers and interest!
Let me know if I need a sequel book to the Tales From the Alley listed here. : )
I am excited to share that the books will be hitting port in the US in 3 days time. Then they have to go through customs and then to me, so I would say by the end of June likely I'll have them, or the first days of July. From there, I ship them out right away!
If you need to update your address for this for any reason, drop me an email at PublishingGoblin (at) gmail (dot) com and we can do that still. Please do not reach out to send me an address just in case, because you forgot what your address is on this project. You can check your survey to see what address you have on your survey at any time by just logging into Backerkit and checking your survey on this project. Then, if you do need to update it, drop me the email.
And later this year, October, the next piece of Fiction from Publishing Goblin will be coming. Gay superhero spicy romance novel. If that's your thing, give it a follow. If it's not, no worries. There will be more coming next year following the Tales From the Alley stories.
Talk soon when I start shipping books out! 7DA your pub gob
I'm sorry to say, I thought I would have the Tales From the Alley books by now to start shipping. But it's all ready to go and-- oh, it's going to take up to a month to reach me by boat? Okay, I suppose.
I did get to see a flip through video of the books though, and they look great, as do the tarot cards. So when they get to me, we'll all be quite happy with the results, promise.
ALSO, be aware, I am personally shipping these orders, so I am happy to adjust your addresses at ANY TIME right up to the day I pack and ship your order in later June. So no worries if that changed. You have plenty of time to update that.
Apologies for the wait, but know that they're beginning their journey about the world in their own way: nice and slow.
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!
