Heya!

Yesterday morning, I got the books.
I went to take pictures to show my friends immediately but I quickly noticed that literally every book was damaged in production. Of the 539 books I was sent, every single one exhibited the very same issue: The thread that bound the pages together was lose.

(These are two different books. The thread is lose in literally every seam but it was always visible on this page in every book.)

Besides me as the artist, there are three companies involved in the making of these books.
- The printer that I've been talking about previously, who printed the pages and also oversaw and managed the entire project with me.
- The printer for the cover, as it had to be outsourced to a different company. It's cheaper to produce varnish covers with dedicated printers for that.
- And finally, the book binder who glued and sewed everything together.

I'm already in talks with my printer about this and we're working on getting this solved. It's pretty obvious to see where the error lies in the production chain; we're both just absolutely confused how 500+ books were shipped without being checked for quality even once by the book binder.

On Monday I'll have another longer phone call with him, but as it currently stands, he'll come to my place and take the faulty books with him and produce an entire order of 500 books for me again, for free.
The new order should also have black thread instead of white.

There will be no extra costs to supporters of the campaign because of this error.
The only issue rising from this is a delay in the schedule, as I actually planned on shipping and fulfilling orders next week. I don't know yet how the schedule will look like for this now, but I'll keep everyone up to date if I get important information to share.

In a way it feels a bit surreal to me, because the books are perfect in every way if it wasn't for that issue. They look just like I always imagined them. The colours printed perfect. The paper feels good and is very sturdy. It has this old and natural feeling due to the texture.
In a way it even feels warm to touch the book.

What does this mean for me now:
I'll work on other things regarding the book. I received prints and stickers earlier this month and they look really good. No issues or problems with those. I haven't signed the prints yet as I wanted to do that on a dedicated day with the books as well, but I guess I'll just sit down and start signing anyway.
I'll prepare everything I can do for shipping already too. I already have a bunch of shipping materials here, but there's things I can do to make fulfillment faster later.

As always, if there are questions, let me know via comment, backersupport, or send me an email to [email protected]
I'm always glad to answer!

Hello! 

Today was eventful, and pretty exhausting on a very hot summer day in Germany.
I drove to my printers place today to watch my book getting printed. It was an incredible experience to see this happen in real time as I got a lot of explanations on what was currently happening by the workers there. 
Many years ago I had an internship at a printing company for half a year and getting blasted by the smell of those machines again was weirdly nostalgic.

In two weeks I will call the company again and check in on the state of the book. When it's finished, they will ship it to me. I'll then charge cards and lock orders, so I can start shipping orders to everyone who pledged. 

As for the surveys:
Currently 92% of backers filled out their survey! Thank you so much. I will start sending out reminder emails to those who haven't soon. This is a reminder that I cannot ship your order if the survey isn't filled out, as I can't charge shipping then.
Originally I wanted to order stickers and prints once I got to 95% but I think I'll start doing that over the weekend now. I'll order more than the quantities needed for the campaign anyway, to check on quality and have some prints and stickers in backhand. 

And about the pdf: 
I had to give it a small edit in the last weeks but that got me the idea that I should add a scan or photo of the cover and backcover as well, to make it more complete and not simply just the pages. That means I will have to wait until I get the books to finish it properly.
The pdf will be sent out once orders are being shipped then. I already asked Backerkit if I can upload it despite being oversized and I was approved for that.

Thank you so much for sticking around!
As always, feel free to write me via email ([email protected]), Backersupport or simply write in the comments if you have a question. 

Sup!

I sent out the surveys to calculate shipping last week.
So far around 80% filled them out, thank you!
I most likely won't lock orders and charge cards until the books are here at my place, so if there are any problems or issues please just write me.

In that sense: I also haven't ordered stickers and prints yet. I got so many extra orders of both once the surveys were more filled out, I think if I had ordered them earlier I would have too few of each now. I'll wait a bit more with that and once I have more accurate numbers I'll order those.
Both printers for those goods are also located in Germany, the one for my prints is also a local one btw.
For those who have supported me in past by buying prints: it's the exact same one. Shipping time from them to me is usually just around 2-3 days so that is easily planned.

About the books: My printer is currently in vacation until Monday, 12th August. However I will have a phone call with him on that day and we will find a day on which I will drive to him and printing will start. This sadly means a delay, as I didn't know he would be in vacation. I hope that is okay.
He told me earlier this year once printing starts, it would only take around 2-3 weeks until the books are finished, so I really hope the date we will find will still be in either August or the first half of  September.

I'm spending the time waiting for my printer to come back productive though: I got the proofs back and they were absolutely perfect this time. The ones I had before were already good but there were spots that annoyed me.
The paper I use, lovingly called "gourmet paper" by a friend of mine, soaks ink like a sponge. I touched up some spots in my art that were especially in danger of muddying up and now they print amazing.

I'm not even sure if it's visible in the photos, compared to the last one, but in real life it's a vast difference and I am so so happy with it now. 
Printing dark colours is always a struggle and I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to that so this is a massive win for me.
Really shows you that it's worth to take the time to improve your work. 

As always, if there are any question, feel free to comment or contact me using Backersupport or send me an email.
[email protected]

I wanted to wait until I had a bit more substantial information with pictures hopefully but I actually feel bad if I don't post an update after almost 3 weeks, so here we go!

First of all: The money from Backerkit arrived four days ago and is currently safe on a bank account that I do not use for the usual expenses of life.

Then, we got a first tiny delay: When I ordered the next proofs my printer had no more of the paper left that I use for my book, so they had to order that first. Ultimately this doesn't really affect anything now, they would have had to order the paper anyway once it comes to printing the actual books. 
Proofs will be shipped out to me to me tomorrow. 
Also it's a bit of a fun fact, but I even know where they get their paper from. When I first started to contact them about my book at the beginning of this year, I got sent a package of various paper kinds my printer found fitting for my project and that came directly from their producer. 
That was also one of the reasons why I decided to go with that particular company. I always wanted to print my book locally at least in Germany and hopefully in my own state Bavaria (I got that!) as actually having contact with the people behind the work was important to me. Not having to wait for ships to transport my stuff all over the ocean is a big big plus too.

And before I start rambling, lastly, I sent in the pledge manager to approval to Backerkit on Friday. It usually takes a few days for it to be approved by staff. Once it is, I can send out surveys to calculate shipping costs. 
Really hope I set everything correctly there. Was my first time setting that up, but Backerkit's staff is extremely helpful and kind so I feel good here. 
The PDF of the book is a tiny bit too big to be hosted via Backerkit. I'll ask if there's still ways to host it as it doesn't reach the hard limit, only a soft limit. If that doesn't work I will host via googledrive or dropbox and send out a download link for digital distribution. 

Once again, if there are any questions, feel free to comment here or send me a mail at [email protected]

Sup!

First of all thank you so so much, we managed to raise 12.8k Euro, which is exactly 3k more than I asked for to make this book real. I'm genuinely speechless, knowing that this is all just my own art and work. 
This also means the edition quantity will be 500 books, with 232 being sold via Backerkit. The rest will end up in my online shop or be sold via conventions in future. 

What comes next - 
Backerkit will start collecting payments and in the meantime I'll set up the Pledge Manager proper and set up surveys for shipping costs and all. 
Staff advised to send the surveys two weeks after end of the campaign. I'll make another update here before I do so, though.
On the production side, I'll contact my printer again. I want another set of proofs for the safety of my mind to know that the art comes out well. My choice of paper for the pages is kinda wild but I adore it a lot due to natural feel including real wood. Printer already said our last proofs were "excellent", so that's pretty nice. 
Once that is done and I have the money from Backerkit, I will order the books. As mentioned in the campaign, I was offered to be physically present when printing starts so I'll schedule that in as well.

I noticed there was one person among the backers who pledged a bit more, which also coincides exactly with what shipping would have been for their tier. Shipping will be charged extra later, so if this was a mistakenly assumed to be shipping and the person wants to fix it, please let me know.
In general, if there are any questions feel free to contact me, either via comment here or via my email [email protected]