Fulfillment has begun, and a New Novella is Afoot!
IN SHORT
Books have begun shipping.
Digital formats will also go out today, later in the evening.
Due to bizarre printer issues, the bonus novelette 'zine will only be sent out in digital formats but backers will have the opportunity to get the physical format later. Further details below.
Hurray, it's Merry Shipmas! Books begin going out to backers today.
Please make sure you've filled out your Backer Survey. If you haven't then we can't ship you your books.
And when you get them, we'd love to see your pics of the books out in the world! Feel free to tag us on Facebook, Instagram, and/or Bluesky so we can know they're out there.
DARK SEA SILVER We've very proud to have funded Audrey Stolling's novelette featuring the mysterious, suspiciously long-lived giantess Lathra as a free extra to go with the novellas from this crowdfund. Later today the ePub & PDF will go out to all backers along with the digital formats of the four main books.
But something else mysterious means that we will not be shipping out a physical edition, not yet anyway. The printer we got our quote from....seems to have vanished from this Earth?! Meanwhile nobody else can match their price or the speed with which they offered to print the 'zine, not even close on either front. While we do plan to scrape up the difference and print it, to do so now would delay fulfillment of the four novellas by several weeks...
...and we're not doing that. We're shipping those novellas now, damn it!
So the plan is: everybody gets the digital edition today, and when we are able to print the physical edition anybody who backed this crowdfund will be able to get a copy from us through our store - we'll do an update here to let you know it's out, of course - and only have to pay for shipping, which will be minimal as the 'zine will be able to fit in a modest envelope, and weigh very little.
We're truly sorry about this, and have been scrambling for weeks to either find the original printer (???) or someone who could do what they did. Having run out of time, we think this is the best solution we can offer for now.
BLUE FIRE is the first ever Jirel of Joiry novella, written by Molly Tanzer, with interior art by Saprophial, Clade Mirya, and fantasy cartography by Caster Jones. Currently crowdfunding, this book has unlocked every stretch goal so far - double art, international shipping discount, spray edges (backers vote on the color), and a one page comic by Clade Mirya - and it still has over two weeks to go! Join us for the ride and don't miss those crowdfund exclusives: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/brackenbooks/blue-fire-a-jirel-of-joiry-novella
ALRIGHT
Thank you so much helping us here at Brackenbury Books enter a bold new era. We think the new novellas are wonderful contributions to The Sacred Genre of Sword & Sorcery, and we can't wait to bring you more exciting books in the future/
Fulfillment will still begin on June 15th - have you filled out your backer survey? - but we can now show you the novellas in all their glory!
As a glamorous, charismatic crowdfund backer you shall have all four of these books made available for download or shipped to you on June 15th or very soon after.
But maybe you didn't back us, or know someone else who missed the crowdfund and would like to get these books!
Well, June 15th will also double as the official release date of WHAT ROUGH BEAST? by Bryn Hammond.
Each book will become available for pre-order directly through our website about a month in advance. Thank you so much for helping make these books possible! It really feels like Brackenbury Books is ascending to a whole new level with these.
Alright, our next update will be to confirm that fulfillment has begun. See you on the 15th!
In our last update we got ahead of ourselves about the crowdfund surveys being sent.
Turned out only the initial smoke test, sending surveys to 5% of our backers to make sure everything works as it should, had been sent.
A few minutes ago the other 95% of surveys were sent!
Once more, with feeling, surveys are for:
Paying shipping. (Vital!)
Updating or confirming your mailing address.
Updating or confirming your payment information.
and
Last minute additions of Add-On goodies to your order .
So please check your spam folders if you haven't seen your own survey, and let us know if something has gone missing.
IMPORTANT: If you are a digital backer wanting to upgrade to physical formats, Backerkit will briefly show shipping as being the maximum possible rate because it won't know where you are ordering from until you put in your address. Once you've done that, the shipping cost will adjust appropriately.
Backerkit Surveys Have Gone Out, Fulfillment Begins June 15th, The Dinkus, and...MYSTERY PROJECT???
Hello,
Finished files for all four books are with the printers, who are now busily doing their thing, and so...
Backerkit Surveys for New Edge Sword & Sorcery Novellas went out today!
Overall, surveys are for:
Paying shipping. (Vital!)
Updating or confirming your mailing address.
Updating or confirming your payment information.
and
Last minute additions of Add-On goodies to your order .
So please check your spam folders if you haven't seen your own survey, and let us know if something has gone missing.
IMPORTANT: If you are a digital backer wanting to upgrade to physical formats, Backerkit will briefly show shipping as being the maximum possible rate because it won't know where you are ordering from until you put in your address. Once you've done that, the shipping cost will adjust appropriately.
****EDIT***
🧠Sara The Very Smart Fulfillment Person We Work With For A Reason tells us we've only sent out...
...THE SMOKE TEST...
...meaning like 5% of backers are getting their surveys to test things out before we send the other 95%. 🙃
Sorry for the mix-up, and we'll be very loud about it when we send that 95%!
FULFILLMENT BEGINS JUNE 15th
Because things got delayed a bit, the books will arrive with us right before our fulfillment person takes a short, well-earned vacation. Not wanting to split a few orders before and most after the vacation, we're playing it safe by beginning to ship everything on June 15th.
Digital fulfillment begins on June 15th as well because of Backerkit's "All at once" fulfillment system.
COVERS HAVE BEEN SIMPLIFIED. ALSO: THE DINKUS
When doing final layout for the printer your brave publisher here felt that the "NEW EDGE SWORD & SORCERY NOVELLAS" bar at the bottom made the covers a bit too crowded, especially for THE HUNT... and SUPLEX & SORCERY. So those were removed, the bottom text on THE HUNT... made more legible, and so here we are - the final cover designs!
You know those symbols, sometimes a simple # and other times a small illustration, that are used to indicate breaks in a manuscript? They have the best possible name - a dinkus.
The plural is "dinkus'" but we prefer "dinkiiiii".
As with everything we do at Brackenbury Books we've been intentional in the dinkus' we've designed for the three novellas in this set which use them. For example, above you'll see the dinkus we're using for SUPLEX & SORCERY, a line running between two posts like the ropes on a wrestling ring...
BACKERS GET ALL FOUR BOOKS SHIPPED TO THEM, STARTING JUNE 15TH
...but the public at large will see a gradual release as follows:
Due to an unexpected staffing gap that I myself will be filling temporarily, the novellas are delayed until approximately May 28th.
This means you can expect to see your Backerkit surveys arrive near the end of April, perhaps at the very start of May.
We've got fun art to share...see below.
IN DETAIL
A goal I have for Brackenbury Books is to get us to a place where I can hire employees, but for now we have volunteers - who receive honorariums - that sometimes can have to step back suddenly when the rest of their life makes big demands of them. That's what's happened recently with both our layout person and a publishing assistant I was training as a backup - nobody said publishing would be easy!
The good thing is that all the actual material for the books is safely with us, I'm taking the layout into my own hands, and our printer for this project is located in the same state as our fulfillment warehouse. It would take a metaphorical elephant landing on our heads to cause any further significant delay. Should there be an elephant, we'll let you know.
Meanwhile, thanks to the record-breaking success of New Edge Sword & Sorcery 2026, we were able to upgrade the cover for Audrey Stolling's 'zine from this...
Art by Daniel Vega
...to a full wraparound illustration!
Probably not crossing the Delaware...
After some final touches to the layout, we'll be sending the 'zine you unlocked to a different, Chicago-based printer that will be able to get us the finished product pretty quickly. Thus we hope to show you some preview pics of the finished 'zine before fulfillment begins.
BUT THAT'S NOT THE ONLY STRETCH GOAL YOU UNLOCKED LAST FALL!
Art by Caster Jones
This is just one of four maps we've commissioned, one for each novella. The setting of Myrial will be found in Steve Hugh Westenra's The Barbarian at Star's End.
Caster Jones has done each of the four maps in a different style. For this novella I asked them to riff on one of the sources of inspiration swirling around in Steve's and my earliest discussions of Barbarian, Lin Carter's Gondwane novels.
Art by Lin Carter himself
Alright, we don't want to give everything away in advance so I'll stop here. A brief update will go up when, or very soon after, we safely have everything off to the printer. Thank you for your patience, and...
Keep your swords sharp and your sorcery numinous,
P.S. Don't forget you can listen to a reading of the first two chapters of Barbarian, and the other three novellas, on our Youtube channel.
Progress with the novellas is on schedule. We're a little over halfway through the editing process, have some of the frontispiece illustrations already in hand, and are feeling good about meeting our goal of fulfillment happening in April.
TWO
Currently we are fulfilling three crowdfunds all together as part of a big combined survey, the first of its kind that Backerkit has ever done.
Understandably some people who have backed this crowdfund have been asking where their survey is - thinking that "New Edge Sword & Sorcery Novellas" might be part of this big mega survey.
It is not.
That big, combined survey only covers the following crowdfunds:
New Edge Sword & Sorcery 2025
Beating Hearts & Battle-axes
and
Sometime Lofty Towers
If you've only backed "New Edge Sword & Sorcery Novellas" then don't worry, there's no survey for you to be looking for, nothing you need to do right now.
You'll hear from us some time in March, though we'll try for at least one progress update before. Until then, happy holidays from all of us here at Brackenbury Books!
Digital formats will also go out today, later in the evening.
Due to bizarre printer issues, the bonus novelette 'zine will only be sent out in digital formats but backers will have the opportunity to get the physical format later. Further details below.
Hurray, it's Merry Shipmas! Books begin going out to backers today.
Please make sure you've filled out your Backer Survey. If you haven't then we can't ship you your books.
And when you get them, we'd love to see your pics of the books out in the world! Feel free to tag us on Facebook, Instagram, and/or Bluesky so we can know they're out there.
DARK SEA SILVER We've very proud to have funded Audrey Stolling's novelette featuring the mysterious, suspiciously long-lived giantess Lathra as a free extra to go with the novellas from this crowdfund. Later today the ePub & PDF will go out to all backers along with the digital formats of the four main books.
But something else mysterious means that we will not be shipping out a physical edition, not yet anyway. The printer we got our quote from....seems to have vanished from this Earth?! Meanwhile nobody else can match their price or the speed with which they offered to print the 'zine, not even close on either front. While we do plan to scrape up the difference and print it, to do so now would delay fulfillment of the four novellas by several weeks...
...and we're not doing that. We're shipping those novellas now, damn it!
So the plan is: everybody gets the digital edition today, and when we are able to print the physical edition anybody who backed this crowdfund will be able to get a copy from us through our store - we'll do an update here to let you know it's out, of course - and only have to pay for shipping, which will be minimal as the 'zine will be able to fit in a modest envelope, and weigh very little.
We're truly sorry about this, and have been scrambling for weeks to either find the original printer (???) or someone who could do what they did. Having run out of time, we think this is the best solution we can offer for now.
BLUE FIRE is the first ever Jirel of Joiry novella, written by Molly Tanzer, with interior art by Saprophial, Clade Mirya, and fantasy cartography by Caster Jones. Currently crowdfunding, this book has unlocked every stretch goal so far - double art, international shipping discount, spray edges (backers vote on the color), and a one page comic by Clade Mirya - and it still has over two weeks to go! Join us for the ride and don't miss those crowdfund exclusives: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/brackenbooks/blue-fire-a-jirel-of-joiry-novella
ALRIGHT
Thank you so much helping us here at Brackenbury Books enter a bold new era. We think the new novellas are wonderful contributions to The Sacred Genre of Sword & Sorcery, and we can't wait to bring you more exciting books in the future/
Fulfillment will still begin on June 15th - have you filled out your backer survey? - but we can now show you the novellas in all their glory!
As a glamorous, charismatic crowdfund backer you shall have all four of these books made available for download or shipped to you on June 15th or very soon after.
But maybe you didn't back us, or know someone else who missed the crowdfund and would like to get these books!
Well, June 15th will also double as the official release date of WHAT ROUGH BEAST? by Bryn Hammond.
Each book will become available for pre-order directly through our website about a month in advance. Thank you so much for helping make these books possible! It really feels like Brackenbury Books is ascending to a whole new level with these.
Alright, our next update will be to confirm that fulfillment has begun. See you on the 15th!
In our last update we got ahead of ourselves about the crowdfund surveys being sent.
Turned out only the initial smoke test, sending surveys to 5% of our backers to make sure everything works as it should, had been sent.
A few minutes ago the other 95% of surveys were sent!
Once more, with feeling, surveys are for:
Paying shipping. (Vital!)
Updating or confirming your mailing address.
Updating or confirming your payment information.
and
Last minute additions of Add-On goodies to your order .
So please check your spam folders if you haven't seen your own survey, and let us know if something has gone missing.
IMPORTANT: If you are a digital backer wanting to upgrade to physical formats, Backerkit will briefly show shipping as being the maximum possible rate because it won't know where you are ordering from until you put in your address. Once you've done that, the shipping cost will adjust appropriately.
Finished files for all four books are with the printers, who are now busily doing their thing, and so...
Backerkit Surveys for New Edge Sword & Sorcery Novellas went out today!
Overall, surveys are for:
Paying shipping. (Vital!)
Updating or confirming your mailing address.
Updating or confirming your payment information.
and
Last minute additions of Add-On goodies to your order .
So please check your spam folders if you haven't seen your own survey, and let us know if something has gone missing.
IMPORTANT: If you are a digital backer wanting to upgrade to physical formats, Backerkit will briefly show shipping as being the maximum possible rate because it won't know where you are ordering from until you put in your address. Once you've done that, the shipping cost will adjust appropriately.
****EDIT***
🧠Sara The Very Smart Fulfillment Person We Work With For A Reason tells us we've only sent out...
...THE SMOKE TEST...
...meaning like 5% of backers are getting their surveys to test things out before we send the other 95%. 🙃
Sorry for the mix-up, and we'll be very loud about it when we send that 95%!
FULFILLMENT BEGINS JUNE 15th
Because things got delayed a bit, the books will arrive with us right before our fulfillment person takes a short, well-earned vacation. Not wanting to split a few orders before and most after the vacation, we're playing it safe by beginning to ship everything on June 15th.
Digital fulfillment begins on June 15th as well because of Backerkit's "All at once" fulfillment system.
COVERS HAVE BEEN SIMPLIFIED. ALSO: THE DINKUS
When doing final layout for the printer your brave publisher here felt that the "NEW EDGE SWORD & SORCERY NOVELLAS" bar at the bottom made the covers a bit too crowded, especially for THE HUNT... and SUPLEX & SORCERY. So those were removed, the bottom text on THE HUNT... made more legible, and so here we are - the final cover designs!
You know those symbols, sometimes a simple # and other times a small illustration, that are used to indicate breaks in a manuscript? They have the best possible name - a dinkus.
The plural is "dinkus'" but we prefer "dinkiiiii".
As with everything we do at Brackenbury Books we've been intentional in the dinkus' we've designed for the three novellas in this set which use them. For example, above you'll see the dinkus we're using for SUPLEX & SORCERY, a line running between two posts like the ropes on a wrestling ring...
BACKERS GET ALL FOUR BOOKS SHIPPED TO THEM, STARTING JUNE 15TH
...but the public at large will see a gradual release as follows:
Due to an unexpected staffing gap that I myself will be filling temporarily, the novellas are delayed until approximately May 28th.
This means you can expect to see your Backerkit surveys arrive near the end of April, perhaps at the very start of May.
We've got fun art to share...see below.
IN DETAIL
A goal I have for Brackenbury Books is to get us to a place where I can hire employees, but for now we have volunteers - who receive honorariums - that sometimes can have to step back suddenly when the rest of their life makes big demands of them. That's what's happened recently with both our layout person and a publishing assistant I was training as a backup - nobody said publishing would be easy!
The good thing is that all the actual material for the books is safely with us, I'm taking the layout into my own hands, and our printer for this project is located in the same state as our fulfillment warehouse. It would take a metaphorical elephant landing on our heads to cause any further significant delay. Should there be an elephant, we'll let you know.
Meanwhile, thanks to the record-breaking success of New Edge Sword & Sorcery 2026, we were able to upgrade the cover for Audrey Stolling's 'zine from this...
Art by Daniel Vega
...to a full wraparound illustration!
Probably not crossing the Delaware...
After some final touches to the layout, we'll be sending the 'zine you unlocked to a different, Chicago-based printer that will be able to get us the finished product pretty quickly. Thus we hope to show you some preview pics of the finished 'zine before fulfillment begins.
BUT THAT'S NOT THE ONLY STRETCH GOAL YOU UNLOCKED LAST FALL!
Art by Caster Jones
This is just one of four maps we've commissioned, one for each novella. The setting of Myrial will be found in Steve Hugh Westenra's The Barbarian at Star's End.
Caster Jones has done each of the four maps in a different style. For this novella I asked them to riff on one of the sources of inspiration swirling around in Steve's and my earliest discussions of Barbarian, Lin Carter's Gondwane novels.
Art by Lin Carter himself
Alright, we don't want to give everything away in advance so I'll stop here. A brief update will go up when, or very soon after, we safely have everything off to the printer. Thank you for your patience, and...
Keep your swords sharp and your sorcery numinous,
P.S. Don't forget you can listen to a reading of the first two chapters of Barbarian, and the other three novellas, on our Youtube channel.
