February Knave Update
over 2 years ago – Thu, Feb 08, 2024 at 04:37:44 PM

Hi Everyone,

Happy February. Here's a rundown of what's been happening with Knave:

Zines are printed, in boxes, at the warehouse, and ready to go.
 

Knave

• Interior pages have been given their final approval with the printer.
• The cover should have been approved at the same time, but I made a rookie mistake and used an .svg format for the Knave logo. SVGs can only exist in RGB color space, not CMYK for printing. That's fixed, and the cover should get its final approvals here shortly as well. 
• We're also planning to add a little Spot UV gloss to the cover over the Knave logo which I don't know that we've mentioned before. But the printer upsold us, and it should add a nice little bit of flash.  ( ^_^)
• Paper for the project has been ordered and is expected to arrive "mid February" so, any day now. 
• Once we have proofs we'll show them here.

PDFs

• PDFs have been updated on Backerkit, and an email went out to everyone today with new download links.
• Old PDF versions should have been removed to minimize any confusion.
• There should also only be (up to) 4 links this time. The edge case that led to the duplication of things last go round has been cleaned up.
• If you believe you should have a PDF, but don't have the PDF, please reach out to [email protected].

Survey Stragglers

• I sent a survey reminder email out. If you backed the project on Kickstarter, please fill out the survey. If you pre-ordered through Backerkit you don't have a survey and don't need to fill one out.

Payment Stuff

• There's a weird edge case on Backerkit where some people are getting emails that say they need to update their payment method to pay their $0.00 balance. This seems to only be occurring if your initial shipping payment method failed, and then you changed to a different method and paid successfully. Typically, your credit card failed and then you paid with PayPal. We should be able to stop those emails if you reach out to [email protected].
• FYI: Shipping charges and Backerkit Pre-Orders will show up on your bank/credit card statements as Swordfish Islands, LLC. So if you see a $9 or $17 charge from Swordfish Islands, LLC (or more if you pre-ordred through Backerkit directly) from January 19th, 2024 on your statement, that's what it's for!

I think that about covers it. We still don't have a firm date for shipping because we've still got to get through printing and freight. However, if no major or unexpected issues crop up, sometime around the end of March/beginning of April should be a realistic window for shipping to begin, but we'll announce it here once we have a solid date.

Thanks!

-Jacob

Files, Charges & Changes
over 2 years ago – Fri, Jan 19, 2024 at 12:13:38 AM

Hello everyone,

Files for the zines and books have been checked and checked and checked again, and have now been handed off to the printers. We don't have a firm eta becuase they still need to go through pre-flight and checks on the printer's end, but: It's happening!

As soon as we have a timeline locked down, we'll let you know.

Backerkit Shipping Charges

Today is January 19th, and we'll begin charging cards through Backerkit in a few hours. 

I've gotten a number of emails from backers concerned they might have potential issues with their funds, and I want to stress, if the charge fails, you're not going to miss out on your rewards. There will be plenty of opportunity to change payment methods or try again when funds hit your account, and we've got plenty of books. 

Address Changes

You will be able to make changes to your shipping address in Backerkit pretty much right up until we begin shipping. My plan is to lock down addresses when the books arrive at the warehouse. And we'll make updates to announce the expected dates of this as soon as we have them.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please reach out to [email protected] and I'll get you squared away. Please have your Kickstarter Backer ID number handy if you do reach out.

Thanks so much, and, I can't wait 'till we have some proofs to show off!

-Jacob

Shipping Fee Increase & A Deadline
over 2 years ago – Sat, Jan 06, 2024 at 04:14:14 PM

Hello Everyone,

Shipping Fees

I did not calculate additional fees related to shipping correctly and I apologize for that fact. To account for this, shipping prices are increasing by $2 across the board. Shipping within the US was $7, now it is $9. International shipping was $15, now it is $17.

More details are below if you'd like insight into what happened.

Typo Reports

Thank you everyone who's sent over typo and error reports for Knave and the zines. My inbox has been flooded, but I've parsed everything that's been submitted so far, complied it and gotten it over to Ben for final review/implementation. If you see an error you can report it to [email protected].

The deadline for error reports is tomorrow, Sunday January 7th, 2024.

Thankfully, most everything reported has been minor. A comma here, a capitalization there, an a that needs to become an an. And even better, the same 5 or 6 issues were reported repeatedly. So cleanup should be quick and straight forward!

What happened with Shipping?

Ultimately, I did not account for the payment provider and Backerkit both taking separate cuts of shipping charges. I'm incredibly glad we set the rates though and opened things up for backers that use PayPal because it rapidly and directly showed that the amount we were receiving was under the target number needed from each backer.

If you are a backer who has already used PayPal and been charged shipping, you will see a balance in Backerkit of -$2.00 on your account. I am working with Backerkit to figure out how to clean this up, and it looks like there are a few potential ways to do that. I do not want to have to charge you a second time (as PayPal and Backerkit will take another % of those charges).  

I'm very sorry to have to change the number like this. Thank you for your understanding and if you have any questions/comments please reach out to me at [email protected]. 

-Jacob

PDFs are on the way!
over 2 years ago – Sat, Dec 30, 2023 at 06:40:40 PM

Knave 2e and Summer's End PDFs are being distributed NOW via Backerkit.

• If you haven't yet filled out your survey, please make sure to fill it out so you can get the files.
• I'll be sending a reminder to fill out surveys now too.
• If you can't fill out your survey, please reach out to [email protected]. If you did a pre-order directly through Backerkit you're fine and don't need to fill out a survey. This is for Kickstarter backers only. If you do need help, please provide me with the email address you used on Kickstarter. If you don't know it, please send over your Kickstarter backer number. If you're not sure where to find that, instructions can be found in Update #18.
• Not sure what the messaging all looks like, so apologies if you get spammed a bunch. >_<

Last chance for TYPOS

There's always going to be a typo that gets missed. If you notice one as you read through the PDF, please email it over to [email protected]. Be sure to include the page number. We'll be sending the files to the printer as soon as the holiday is over more or less, but there's still time to squeeze in a few more fixes.

Happy New Year!

-Jacob

Quick Knave Update
over 2 years ago – Thu, Dec 28, 2023 at 06:38:05 PM

Hi Everyone,

At this moment I believe the only thing Knave lacks before it goes to press are two minor updates to the title page I requested Ben make earlier today: add the ISBN and adjust the page to account for the quantity of both the premium and standard print run sizes.

Bookmarking and hyperlinking is still occurring, so you're not getting the PDF now, but you will get the updated final version as soon as it's ready.

Summer's End is about 75% through layout and the zines will go to print as soon as it's complete.

If you tried to add PayPal to your Backerkit previously and could not do so, please try again. It turns out PayPal had not been added as I had thought.

Cards have not been charged. A payment related issue came up that Ben and I resolved (postponing things slightly), and when I went to hit the button, Backerkit had a large recommendation/warning to wait until closer to shipment to do so. As we're at the end of the year too, it makes it easier on us for accounting to wait 'till the new year.

New Planned Date to Charge Cards: January 19th, 2024

I apologize for not communicating that sooner, but my daughter got sick one week, my son the next, and then I got what they had the day before Christmas. It's been quite the December on my end of things. Apologies as well if you've sent an email and not yet received a response. This slowed me down on that end too.

A number of individuals have reached out, concerned about the date charges will happen to make sure they have funds. I want to stress though, if for whatever reason your charge doesn't go through on the 19th of January it is not a problem at all. We will be able to try again later. Your order will not be cancelled and we have extra of all items so you're not going to miss getting something if your card doesn't go through on the first swipe.

All Knave patches have been mailed via USPS and some backers have said they already received them. If you receive an unexpected patch, it's because you backed the Kickstarter within the first 24 hours. It's our way of saying thanks for believing in the project enough to make it such massive success of that first day!

More to come soon. Merry Christmas and hope you all have a Happy New Year. =)

-Jacob