The books are on the boat from our printer in Hong Kong!
Based on the expected time of arrival provided by our printer, assuming no delays in customs or elsewh...
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Oliver
21 days ago
Advance copies are in hand! (PICTURES)
The printing process is complete!
The printer has FedExed us advance copies of the new issues in both soft & hardcover.
These are literally “the first books off the press." ...
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Oliver
2 months ago
Magazine Proofs and a New Book!
IN SHORT
• PROOFS: We've reached an important new stage - the Ozalid proofs! After we go through these proofs on one last proofreading, we'll send our final files to our printe...
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Oliver
4 months ago
Fulfillment Schedule Update & An Unboxing Video
IN SHORT
• DELAY: The date for shipping out orders was "Some time in August" and now has become "Some time in November". More info below in "In Detail".
• NESS PINS - You can ...
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Oliver
5 months ago
REVEAL: Rainbow Metal Battle-Axe Pins!
We very much appreciate those who took a chance on our rainbow metal battle-axe pin when all we had to show was this mock-up image:
Now the manufacturer has just completed our...
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Oliver
5 months ago
REVEAL: Hardcover Endsheet Design
Those of you getting issues #3&4 in hardcover will see the marvelous upgrade that is our new, original endsheet design!
If you're seeing this update but haven't backed us, don...
Obviously we here at New Edge Sword & Sorcery have made it clear we'd like to see a larger, wider variety of peoples and cultures represented more frequently in both stories and those who are telling them...
...but what would YOU like to see?
I, Oliver, would - beyond the inclusivity aspect - love to see more...
Draping S&S like a cloak over another genre. Robert E. Howard himself did this all the time. The God in the Bowl is an S&S locked room mystery. Beyond the Black River is an S&S frontier western tale. You get the idea…
To be clear, this is not blending genres, putting cowboys in with barbarians etc. This is using some or all of the format of another genre to tell an S&S tale, in an S&S setting, with S&S characters.
Non-monarchial secondary worlds or kingdoms. We can do anything in a secondary world, it doesn’t always have to be kings and queens.
Sword & Planet. I love this niche within a niche and fancy seeing more of it, perhaps in a New Edge vein!
The books are on the boat from our printer in Hong Kong!
Based on the expected time of arrival provided by our printer, assuming no delays in customs or elsewhere in the process, we'll begin shipping books to backers on approximately DECEMBER 9th.
Digital formats will go out the same day, making the shipping day the official release for the new issues.
This is only about a week later than last year, which underlines how overly enthusiastic I was being when I thought we could pull off some time in late August. This also tells me that "early December" should be our goal for shipping next year's issues as well. Lesson learned.
If, heaven forbid, there are further delays then we shall let you know asap.
This will be our last campaign update until we announce that the books have begun shipping.
Until then, keep your swords sharp and your sorcery numnious.
PROOFS: We've reached an important new stage - the Ozalid proofs! After we go through these proofs on one last proofreading, we'll send our final files to our printers, who'll begin production of the physical issues. See pics further down.
IN DETAIL Ozalid proofs are full prints of each issue that are intentionally done on very cheap paper, and left unbound. The point of them is to have a final, physical object you can use to check for typos and make sure the layout is coming out the way it should. Even in this format, it sure is fun to see the endsheets as a physical object! We've also received ribbon samples to choose from for the hardcover edition's bookmarks. ...and glossy, quality loose covers to check how the colors have reproduced (much better than this quick phone pic suggests!). And one interior art page we were unsure about... Luckily it reproduced just fine! Here's an extremely tight crop/zoom. Who this person? You'll find out when you get issue #4 of NESS. But first I gotta pour a giant mug of tea and get to proofreading these Ozalids...
Front, spine, and back cover featuring Waste Flowers by Bryn Hammond.
Front, spine, and back cover featuring Walls of Shira Yulun by Dariel R.A. Quiogue
I'm proud to have been working with both authors since the very beginning of NESS, in whose pages you may have read Dariel's Orhan the Snow Leopard & Bryn's Goatskin, and a year ago was very happy when they said "Yes!" to teaming up for this daring new project. Each author has written a new, 35,000 word novella featuring their star characters - I've read the manuscripts and boy have they put their backs into creating these stories!
If this book succeeds it will be a great boost toward us launching more Sword & Sorcery novella series next year. It's a length that works very well with this fast-paced genre, as Robert E. Howard proved himself in works such as People of the Black Circle, with room for greater development of plot, character, setting; yet lean enough to never outstay its welcome.
It looks like we'll be shipping out issues to backers around the same time as we did last year, in November.
We'd worked hard to get ahead on production this time around so we could ship much earlier, however this ended up being undone by basically two things:
Oliver's puppy had to have unexpected major surgery, the recovery from which was incredibly draining on his entire household in terms of time & energy. Truly, Oliver did not understand the meaning of the word "exhausted" until this nine week period came about.|
Thankfully it's all over now, and Polly the puppy is fully recovered.
In short, the various mundane delays caused by none of our staff doing this for a living added up.
It's always tempting to create timelines on the basis that Nothing Will Go Wrong, and you better believe we've learned our lesson on that!
We're still glad we worked hard to get ahead, though, since that is why we're able to ship about the same time as last year, rather than much, much later.
We can report that our progress bars are a nice, hearty wall of green at this point. Just a few contracts to sign and we're done. We've also ordered our first set of proofs from the printer, and are optimistic we can get them the final print files in time to make the revised "Some time in November" timeline.
Thank you all for your patience. When the advance copies are in we'll share some spoiler-free pics, and when the print run is on the boat heading over from Hong Kong, we'll share its progress in a series of posts on our social media accounts.
WEE PIN UPDATE As head of NESS, our editor & publisher was able to get his hands on a few of the new pins, leading to some new photos that show off how varied they are, and a fun unboxing video you can watch here: https://youtu.be/FaguuxYC7Sc?si=pfN_fYj9PYBPgKvW
If you'd like to add one to your pledge, you can pre-order the pins here, then we'll see that and ad it to your pledge so as to save on shipping. Done that way it's only about one extra dollar shipping in total.
