I'm here with great news, fulfillment has begun on The ENNIES Emporium project.
I first, want to take a moment and apologize for why this has taken so long. I'm going to give you the real back story. If you know me, you know that I don't believe in corporate-speak platitudes. This is also a real learning experience for me and perhaps it will be for you as well as many of us are small creators. If you're every interested in running your own crowdfunding project feel free to reach out to me anytime. I am always here to share advice because other great designers and entrepreneurs have shared their advice with me.
At the end of the day, this is my second job. I'm a teacher full time which means my fulfillment times usually coincide with my Summer and Winter breaks. This also means fulfillment is such a struggle for me and a limiting factor. When I'm planning these projects I'm always working backwards from "when should I plan on mailing these out and can I do it during Spring Break?"
Then I had an idea! What if someone else did fulfillment for me! This would be great. Odds are I could find someone who would do it faster, more accurately, and it would be reasonable. At least I hoped it would be.
My original plan was to work with Studio 2, who I've partnered with for distribution. They are a good company ran by good people. They gave me their rates which I felt was fair, but had drawbacks to it.
Everything had to be shipped to their warehouse in Tennessee. Each carton of books costs $40 to ship and each carton holds 10 copies of Empire of Bones and 18 copies of Painted Wastelands. As you can imagine, this quickly adds up.
Studio 2 only charges $2 per box to pick and pack. That's a pretty reasonable number.
Studio 2 charges a lot more for international shipping than I would if I did it myself. This led to a lot of hurt backers who were slapped with shipping sticker shock. I don't blame them. This led me to finding a new partnership for EU backers.
So I ended up looking for some alternatives. Then I found an opportunity with Gamer's Guild. Gamer's Guild is local here in Arizona. "What an amazing opportunity!" I thought to myself. I could load up my car with everything they'd need and drop it off at their warehouse. It would be great. We could even develop a partnership with them!
We had a video meeting in July. We had a physical meeting at GenCon with the whole team. Everyone was happy. It took a month and a half from that meeting until I received the fulfillment terms. This is part of the reason why this has taken so long.
Gamer's Guild is charging me $14 a box to pick and pack. This is on top of the shipping costs which are the same as Studio 2. This is absolutely absurd. Now it's my turn for sticker shock.
It would cost $1,400 to pack the 100 backers of the ENNIES Emporium. Not to mention the cost of HELLCRAWL with its 900+ backers which would cost $11,000!
This is absolutely deranged and leaves me back at square one where I do fulfillment myself. In a way, this has pushed me as a business owner to grow. It is completely untenable for me to sit in my painting room packing boxes alone for days. Thus, Agamemnon Press has hired its first employee.
We are hiring our friend Julie to pack boxes and she's going to do an amazing job. I believe that having Kayla, myself, and Julie working together we will knock fulfillment out of the park. So welcome Julie to the team!
Finally, from HELLCRAWL + Painted Wastelands 5.5e forward, our European Union + Norway backers will have their projects fulfilled in Europe by MudKnight.media. These guys are great and we are working together to get Agamemnon Press products into game stores in Europe. Thus, it is pretty straight forward for me to have them handle fulfillment of crowdfunding projects.
I wanted to give you all a heads up that I will be locking the Pledge Manager and charging cards August 14. A resupply of books are on their way to the port today! Then they'll arrive at my house by the end of the week.
I have finally returned from GenCon and returned with an ENNIE award for The Painted Wastelands Player's Guide! GenCon was a whirlwind and I met many great people. I had an amazing time.
I just sent out a smoke test. If you didn't get an email, expect the Pledge Manager to go out by the end of this week. It's my goal to charge cards once the majority of backers have completed their surveys. I will give you a heads up before I do it.
Thank you for your continued support, I love you guys and you're all heroes to me.
The ENnies Emporium has come to a close. We sold out of Limited Edition Painted Wastelands covers and raised $13k! We are going to put those funds to good use. We are going to spend money on advertising our next project. Stay tuned to this space because we will be announcing more in the next few weeks!
Here's how this project will go.
It takes 2 weeks for the funds to completely release. During that time, please make sure your credit card information is up to date. Otherwise you won't get anything! After the two week period ends I'm going to send out the Pledge Manager. This time I will ship the projects from Arizona. I had a meeting with a fulfillment company in Germany but it did not go well. Our business was too small for them. I have two more meetings tentatively lined up. I am working hard to find an alternate solution for European backers.
The Pledge Manager is going wrap up quickly! It is my goal to have this stuff shipped out by the end of September. So make sure you fill it out, especially if you ordered a shirt! I need to know your size.
I already ordered the enamel pins and I look forward to getting them. They're going to be great.
Be on the look out for the Pledge Manager after GenCon!
New Painted Wastelands Shirt
Tim has designed us a new shirt for the ENnies Emporium. This new design is currently exclusive to this project and not available anywhere else. It's going to be time locked and won't be available through my website until everyone here gets their shirt.
If you're a fan and you already have The Painted Wastelands books and only want the shirt, I created a $1 pledge level. Just back at that level and add the shirt. After the project ends you'll be asked to pick a shirt size.
