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Hey everyone! I wanted to share a quick update on where things are at.
Thanks to recent Shopify sales, I’ve been able to gather around $500, which is helping me move forward with fulfillment. I’m happy to let you know that every order containing Lute will be shipped this week!
All the bags have arrived safely at my home, and I’ve purchased larger shipping boxes to ensure everything is packed securely and gets to you in perfect shape.
BackerKit also recently added a new packing list feature, which makes things a lot easier on my end. I can now see what each order needs in a clear list, rather than shipping every bag one by one. This will help speed up the process and cut down on confusion.
I truly want to apologize for the delays. I’ve been facing ongoing financial struggles, and juggling multiple weekly payment plans has made it challenging to ship everything as quickly as I’d like. But I’m doing my best to keep things moving, and I’m so grateful for your continued support and patience through it all.
Thank you again for sticking with me. It means the world.
Hi all! So sorry for the delay in getting this update out to you, a lot of my energy and time had to be devoted to locking down a day job and subsequently adjusting to the new schedule and learning the ropes.
Foxwright Apothecary pins have been delivered to me (and are stunning, my new manufacturer is amazing)-- and my wife and I are working to get those processed and sent out. As for Pride Potions, pins are complete and going to be shipped from the manufacturer to me in the coming week, so those will also be in hand-- I'll be sure to get photos when they arrive!
Thank you so, so much for the patience-- and Happy Pride 2025!
The copies of Ardulum: Mirrors of Andal have arrived, all ebooks have been sent out, and I've just packed up the last rewards from Year 3! There are two individual backer's rewards that will be combined with the Lesbians in Space Hardcovers coming soon, but this means Year 3 is coming to a close. It's been wild ride, and one of our most complex years, including publishing our new RPGs. Thanks again to everyone who supported us!
Over the next week, I'll begin locking down all the orders and marking them as shipped. If you feel like you're missing anything from the Year 3 campaign, please let me know!
If you want more Space Wizard books, We're keeping busy, especially as we're running three new crowdfunding campaigns this year. Make sure to check out the one running now and until June 26th, for Space Wizard Science Fantasy Year 4, part 1! This is for the next seven books coming from Space Wizard this year, and we're already almost 200% funded! We're changing it up a bit to get you your rewards sooner and make it a little easier to get a subscription for all the books.
Here's the list of books in Part 1:
Isaac - a woman develops a relationship with her deceased father's care-bot, from Allee Mead.
Waves Take Your Bones - The first in a trilogy where a young asexual woman and a gay man get drafted into a medieval naval fleet to fight zombies (and zombie pirates), by Athena Giles
It's You, Isn't It? - A colony world is overrun by indigenous creatures, but maybe there's more to the story? By Antony Paschos
Crying Out For Magic - It's like Heartstopper, but with magic! Two young men find each other through connected universes, one of which is ours and the other has failing magic, by PSC Willis
Intent Magic - The second book in William C. Tracy's new progression fantasy series, featuring martial arts-based magic, and fast moving continents in a world controlled by the gods!
Relic of Haven - Return to a world of post apocalyptic giant crabs and human scavengers with the sequel to Empress of Dust, by Alex Kingsley!
A New Beginning - Following Earth's surprising victory over an alien species that has dominated the galaxy, an intrepid crew strikes out to explore alien space in Edward Isaacs' debut novel!
Our next campaign, running in September with BackerKit's Printopia, will be for Lesbians in Space: The Sapphics Strike Back, the sequel to our very popular anthology from last year! You can sign up to get notified for it right here. I'm already working with Serene Chia again on the new cover!
Finally, our Space Wizard Year 2 Part 2 will start in November, for another 7 books releasing between December 2025 and June 2026, and you can sign up for that one right here!
Here's the books coming in Part 2:
The Dragonscale Comb, sequel to The Rosewood Penny- The much awaited continuation of the romantasy by J.S. Fields!
Corruption - A bisexual young man must discover the secret of magic disappearing, in a land with fiery seas, from Alexander Verbeek-van den Toren!
Tea Tale - Kristina Kelly's next story in the popular cozy fantasy romance with D&D elements!
The Healer's Magic - The conclusion of C.J. Hosack's epic YA adventure, about an adopted young woman who searches for her parents in a world where magic is dictated by bloodline!
Fractal Terminus - Even more lesbian horror/comedy in space? It's getting even weirder in AZ Rozkillis' next scifi tale!
Talio Rossa and the Elixir of Life - More epic fantasy in a city of canals and holy magic, with a M/M relationship, the sequel to last year's Talio's Codex, from J. Alexander Cohen.
Mothball Magic - It's the Golden Girls meets the Dresden Files! Four geriatric people must stop the Queen of Winter from taking over the world, in Rena Rocford's debut novel!
Did you know you can run your own crowdfunding campaign with me? For Year 4 Part 2, I'm with a group book collaboration called The Book Bazaar. We're an indie-run publishing based group collaboration crowdfunding event featuring many Booktopia 2024 participants as well as a slew of debut authors, returning authors, artists, and so much more.
We are currently taking applications for campaigns that want to participate until July of 2025. So, if you have a project you want to include as part of a group crowdfunding event, this is your opportunity to get in on a smaller sized event, make some great indie connections, and help get your publishing project funded! For details and the application form, take a look at The Book Bazaar on BackerKit or The Book Bazaar website.
That's all for now!
- William Tracy
Make sure to follow us on Bluesky (@wctracy.bsky.social), Instagram (@spacewizardpress), and Facebook (@spacewizardpress)!
I just put in the order for the last book of Space Wizard Year 3, Ardulum: Mirrors of Andal! As soon as I get copies, which will hopefully be the first or second week in June, I'll be mailing out the LAST REWARDS from this campaign!
That means I will also be closing the Pledge Manager, so if you are one of the 8 backers who haven't filled out your survey or reconciled a failed credit card, this will lock you out from any further changes.
However, just as one door closes, someone opens a window (or something like that)! In this case, Space Wizard Year 4 is starting TOMORROW May 29th at 1 PM EST! If you want even more queer goodness, please check out the new campaign! We're doing things a little different this year and dividing the campaign into two halves, one in June and one in November. What this means is if you get the Space Wizard subscription, you'll get all your books by the end of 2025, rather than having to wait a full year. Then you can get the next 6 months of books in November!
We've got some great books this year, and as an added bonus, if you back the campaign in the first 48 hours (so before 1 PM on May 31st), you'll also get a free audiobook of one of 9 Space Wizard stories!
Here's the full list, and you can be one of the first backers!
Books coming in year 4 PART 1, June 2025:
Isaac - a woman develops a relationship with her deceased father's care-bot, from Allee Mead.
Waves Take Your Bones - The first in a trilogy where a young asexual woman and a gay man get drafted into a medieval naval fleet to fight zombies (and zombie pirates), by Athena Giles
It's You, Isn't It? - A colony world is overrun by indigenous creatures, but maybe there's more to the story? By Antony Paschos
Crying Out For Magic - It's like Heartstopper, but with magic! Two young men find each other through connected universes, one of which is ours and the other has failing magic, by PSC Willis
Intent Magic - The second book in William C. Tracy's new progression fantasy series, featuring martial arts-based magic, and fast moving continents in a world controlled by the gods!
Relic of Haven - Return to a world of post apocalyptic giant crabs and human scavengers with the sequel to Empress of Dust, by Alex Kingsley!
A New Beginning - Following Earth's surprising victory over an alien species that has dominated the galaxy, an intrepid crew strikes out to explore alien space in E.J. Isaacs' debut novel!
So please check out Space Wizard Year 4! You are the people who keep our small press going, and help uplift marginalized and queer voices in science fiction and fantasy literature!
I'll have one last update when I send the final books out!
Hi everyone! Milo here, apologies for the late update- but I wanted to catch everyone up to speed! There's a lot of ground to cover, so I've broken things into topics, and I'll include a TL;DR at the bottom.
Rewards shipping is taking longer than what the initial timeline said, why?
For a few reasons. Namely:
The current political situation in the USA has complicated manufacturing and shipping costs, especially with international orders.
We experienced a rough burnout during November of last year, which delayed overall production and led to a few script re-writes. Thankfully, this resulted in a much stronger script which resonated well with beta readers, more on that later.
Even without these factors, we are a team of 3 who are handling fulfillment ourselves while simultaneously animating the episode. We have a lot on our plate regardless!
When charging for shipping, a percentage of cards declined (which is common) and we wanted to ensure as many people had paid for shipping as possible before beginning fulfillment. Thankfully, 90%+ percent of backers have paid for shipping now, and you can still pay for shipping after we have begun package fulfillment. If you need any help with doing that, send an email to either us or BackerKit support!
All that said, we have made great progress- and we should be able to start merch fulfillment next week.
When can I expect my rewards to arrive?
It depends, but the first batch should be shipped out next month. We have around ~1700 orders total, and we plan to send out our packages in batches. We will also need to place additional orders for extra merch that many of you purchased as add-ons (thank you!)
Will tariffs affect my shipping cost?
No. However, if you are ordering from outside the USA, and your total order cost exceeds your countries "de minimis" threshold, then you may be subject to an additional import fee. This fee is set by your countries government and is not paid to us. As most de-minimis thresholds float around ~$150 USD, this applies to only 1 or 2 of our international orders. If you want to double check if your order applies, Google "(your country) de minimis threshold from USA". Otherwise, you shouldn't have to pay any additional money for shipping.
How is the production of Mandelbrot Hall going?
A bit behind schedule, but otherwise really well! Our hiatus and script rewrites set us back a bit, but it gave us the energy to make a much stronger script. We also revisited our visual style to make things both easier to draw and more visually striking. It's not a huge shift from what we've animated in the trailer already- it mostly focuses on background art, but either way you'll be seeing it on our socials very soon!
Right now, we are aiming to finish production on the episode by February 2026, with the public release on YouTube happening after a brief screening run (details TBD). For those of you who got a digital bundle, those will be sent out after the episode premieres to the public.
TL;DR:
We apologize for shipping taking longer than expected, but if all goes according to plan, we will start fulfillment as early as next week, with the first batch arriving as early as next month.
Tariffs will not affect your shipping cost, but if your order is from outside the US and is over ~$150 USD, you could be subject to your contries de minimis laws.
The production of Mandelbrot Hall's pilot episode is behind schedule, but going really well- with an expected completion date of February 2026, and the public release to follow after a TBD screening.
If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to drop a comment, email backerkit, or email us directly at [email protected]. Thank you all so much for your patience, flimp on!!
Production is moving along! I've been receiving lots of updates from the factory, and things seem to be progressing swiftly, which means hopefully it will all be wrapped up within a few weeks. I am incredibly pleased with how everything is looking, and excited to have these in hand to get out to everyone! 🌈
Apologies for running a bit behind update schedule, my semester just ended and it was a crawl to finish 😅
It's been a minute since my last update, and even though the world is crazy right now, we're chugging along with getting your books to you!
Heather Tracy's book, Only a Chapter, was released on April 22nd, and we've got shipments of books in!
How to Operate Your Body, my nonfiction book, is done with copy edits and I'm just waiting on the final paperback cover to order copies for the May 20th release.
The 6th book in J.S. Fields' Ardulum series, Ardulum: MIrrors of Andal is just about to go to copy edits, and is scheduled to release June 10th!
I'm hoping to get copies of all three of these by the end of May, so I can ship them and any other books out and complete this campaign, just in time for the next one!
The three covers for Only a Chapter, How to Operate Your Body, and Ardulum: Mirrors of Andal
Speaking of, If you want to get a head start on the great books in the Year 4 campaign, sign up right here to get notified as soon as we go live on May 29th! We're doing things a little different this year, and dividing the campaign into two halves, one in June and one in November. That way, all the books from the first campaign will be delivered by the end of 2025, and all the books in the second campaign by June 2026.
Isaac - a woman develops a relationship with her deceased father's care-bot, from Allee Mead. (You can see this cover in the banner below!)
Waves Take Your Bones - The first in a trilogy where a young asexual woman and a gay man get drafted into a medieval naval fleet to fight zombies (and zombie pirates), by Athena Giles
It's You, Isn't It? - A colony world is overrun by indigenous creatures, but maybe there's more to the story? By Antony Paschos
Crying Out For Magic - It's like Heartstopper, but with magic! Two young men find each other through connected universes, one of which is ours and the other has failing magic, by PSC Willis
Intent Magic - The second book in William C. Tracy's new progression fantasy series, featuring martial arts-based magic, and fast moving continents in a world controlled by the gods!
Relic of Haven - Return to a world of post apocalyptic giant crabs and human scavengers with the sequel to Empress of Dust, by Alex Kingsley!
A New Beginning - An intrepid crew strikes out to explore space in Edward Isaacs' debut novel!
The second seven books in the Year 4 NOVEMBER campaign are:
The Dragonscale Comb, sequel to The Rosewood Penny- The much awaited continuation of the romantasy by J.S. Fields!
Corruption - A bisexual young man must discover the secret of magic disappearing, in a land with fiery seas, from Alexander Verbeek!
Divine Tale - Kristina Kelly's next story in the popular cozy fantasy romance with D&D elements!
The Healer's Magic - The conclusion of C.J. Hosack's epic YA adventure, about an adopted young woman who searches for her parents in a world where magic is dictated by bloodline!
Fractal Terminus - Even more lesbian horror/comedy in space? It's getting even weirder in AZ Rozkillis' next scifi tale!
Talio Rossa and the Elixir of Life - More epic fantasy in a city of canals and holy magic, with a M/M relationship, the sequel to last year's Talio's Codex, from J. Alexander Cohen.
Mothball Magic - It's the Golden Girls meets the Dresden Files! Four geriatric people must stop the Queen of Winter from taking over the world, in Rena Rocford's debut novel!
We're going to be filling up our Launch Party with some great stuff starting in the next week or so, like author interviews, fun facts about the campaign, polls, and maybe some pictures of our bees! So don't wait to sign up!
Hello! I sent an email awhile back to the [email protected] email regarding some questions I had. I don’t know if it shows up for you, but is that the correct email I can use to discuss things with you about my pledge?
Thanks
It’s another biweekly update, though a relatively small one for now. Manufacturing is still moving along, and more update photos will be on the way as I get them.
As for the looming question, the tariffs, rest assured that I’m working on a solution that hopefully shouldn’t impact delivery times by too much. Otherwise, I’m caught up in throwing out job applications to both absorb the unavoidable costs and pay the bills since for the foreseeable future, running the business full time isn’t particularly viable given the state of the world.
![Heavenly Embassy - Ita Backpacks ! [WAVE 2]](https://bk-prod-r2.imgix.net/active_storage/backerkit_production/blob/d8smdwjjawtl4kawd1ip7d65d138?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&auto=compress%2Cformat&cs=srgb&lossless=true&w=300)
