I am very pleased to say that the physical books for Midnight in Jubilation are now in production! I finalised the order this morning after reviewing the latest proofs and I’ve received confirmation its now progressed to the production stage. I’m honestly both nervous and excited to receive the books, and have been laughing with my family about how and where I will be storing them in the house as I work through the shipping process.
What this all means is that I have formally closed the pre-order store and sent out notifications to those who placed an order post-campaign. This is a heads up that cards will be charged for those pre-orders in the next few days. I’m then going to be making a start on preparing the accessible PDF versions of the game, reflecting the final tweaks made to the document as I set up for printing.
I’m also reviewing the process of adding shipping fees in BackerKit and will be doing some testing of different package combinations to get the weights as accurate as possible. This includes looking at what kind of packing materials to use inside the rigid mailers to protect the books in transit. Just as a reminder, I am not charging value-added taxes, import taxes, etc, as I am not working with a fulfilment partner to prepare and send out the parcels. You will be responsible for paying those fees if your country enforces them.
I will continue to keep you all updated as things progress!
I’ve had a very happy mail day as all the test prints for Midnight in Jubilation have arrived earlier than expected!
Why did I order so many you might ask? It’s because I wanted to be very confident in the look and feel of final product and I’m still quite new to printing books. That meant I wanted to test how thick or thin the exterior of the softcover should be, what kind of paper would work best for the amount of black ink on the interior pages, and how the overall design would translate to a physical book.
I am so, so happy to say that I only have a few minor tweaks to make to the art to improve contrast and spacing, a little bit of text to tidy up, and the game will be complete! Sadly, during the earlier test printing, I did realise the little black moon I'd had as page number decor didn't translate well to print, hence why it's no longer in the spread you can see above. However, this all means I’m going to start locking surveys over the next couple of days and will be closing and refunding any physical pledges with surveys not yet completed. This is so I can get a good idea of the final number of books I’ll be ordering.
Then in a few weeks I’ll be booking in with my accessibility consultant to review both of the main PDFs for the game: the versions with and without graphics. When that’s all confirmed, I’ll upload them to the pledge manager and go through the steps to send out the download links for the game, the early bird reward, and my Tabletop Tavern banner freebie!
Work is continuing on the updated version of Midnight in Jubilation. I’m very pleased to say that my sensitivity consultant has reviewed all the new content, including the names I’ve received thus far, and my accessibility consultant has reviewed the current layout too. While they won’t be available to check and confirm the accessibility of the final game documents for another few weeks yet, this still means I’ve been able to progress things on the printing side.
I’ve now ordered another test print of the softcover book and a first test print of the hardcover book! I’m so excited for them to arrive so I can see how it all looks. Then I will be trying to take some decent photos to share with you all too. As we’re getting ever closer to the official print run, I also wanted to gently remind anyone who hasn’t yet filled in their survey—particularly for physical book pledges—that once we’re at that point, I will be refunding your pledge and closing that all off.
I’m really appreciative of the continued support you’ve all shown for the game. I’m looking forward to sharing more updates as it progresses!
I’m very pleased to say that the new content is with my sensitivity reader for review! I'll pop them through any names received via survey after this point so those can be checked as well. A very generous friend has agreed to give the game another once-over with their editor’s eye, and I’ve reached out to my accessibility consultant to see when they might be available as well. So things are certainly progressing!
I’ve now cancelled all the failed pledges and sent reminders out to folks who have yet to complete their surveys. We’re about 85% of the way through gathering responses! But as a good chunk of the remaining surveys are for the physical books, I’ve also been thinking quite hard about what to do if they don’t end up being completed for whatever reason. Likewise, for those who backed at digital-only tiers but have also yet to complete surveys.
At this stage I’m planning on providing an update when I’m getting closer to ordering the physical books, then not long after that will start refunding and closing off any pledges with incomplete surveys. I'll do this around the same time as I start locking the completed surveys for folks with physical book orders, so will be including a heads up there as well.
Unfortunately, it’s just not economical for me to do a small print run later or to have too much excess stock of the physical books. I also don’t want folks to be charged for something they aren’t able to receive because their surveys are incomplete, whether that’s physical or digital. So, a refund feels like the most reasonable option.
But in more positive news, the updates to the game layout have also given me an opportunity to make some improvements to the back cover! I’d gotten some good tips from my accessibility consultant for future updates and have put those into practice in the present! This includes changing up font sizes to be more comfortable to read, removing some of the effects on the text, reducing the use of uppercase text, etc. You’ll also see I’ve now added the human made logo by Hinokodo to help make it even easier to tell this was a book written by one horror-loving human, for fellow horror lovers.
Thank you to everyone who has already filled in your surveys. We’ve gotten a substantial number of responses and some wonderful name suggestions for the book already! I was so inspired by the pet names that I’ve decided to include something a little special in the lore handouts. A connection between Jubilation and another setting I’ve been writing and imagining for almost as long as this strange little town.
I’m pleased to say I've written the first drafts of all the lore handouts now. Since I’ve got more wiggle room in the layout, I’m expanding the existing history handouts at the same time. I’ll be running the content past my sensitivity consultant for review once I finish refining the drafts, hopefully at the same time as getting for their review of the names lists.
From there my goal is to order a test print of the books, as that will tell me whether anything needs tweaking. As we’re also at the point where we only have a handful of failed pledges left, I’ll soon be cancelling those so I can get a better idea of final numbers.
