As of this morning, physical fulfilment for Blood In The Margins has begun! I spent today building my postage boxes ready for packing and sending out the first batch of orders.
Lucky inspects my work
Orders waiting to be labelled and posted
To make life easier for myself I tend to batch orders together into groups of identical orders and work from the biggest group to the smallest. Today's orders were those containing just Blood In The Margins and The Interview (either with or without the bookplate), and they're now all in the post and en route to backers.
All in all there are somewhere around 400 packages to send out. How many I can get through each day is limited by a number of things, including how many I can physically carry to the Post Office and how many they'll allow me to drop off at a time - it's a small village branch with only a few members of staff and not much space, and while they're largely very good about taking whatever I bring them, sometimes they simply can't accommodate 100 packages at once. My usual process with large fulfilment like this is to chip away at it a little bit every day, and I can usually get through it all in about a week. UK orders should arrive within a day or two of being sent; international orders may take a few weeks.
I'll keep you updated on my progress as I get these sent out. And if for some reason you haven't received your digital rewards yet, please drop and email to [email protected] and I'll get that sorted out for you.
Just a quick update to let you know how fulfilment is going. At the time of writing this update I've packed up and sent out a little over 220 packages, and have another ~250 to go. I'm going to continue working through them this weekend, and with a little luck I'll be able to get everything out the door by the end of next week.
A few of you emailed me about download codes and I'm aware that I haven't yet managed to reply to everyone, so if you're waiting for a response from me know that I'm on it and will get you a download code as soon as possible!
Just a quick update to let you know that I've now charged cards for shipping. I know that there was an issue for a few people who had backed for the digital edition where the cross-promo bookplate had also been added to your carts, which shouldn't have been there, and I've been through all of the pledges and removed it so that you aren't charged for shipping. If I've missed you and you think your card has been charged in error, please reach out to me about it. Getting in touch via email would be best so I definitely see it, as the notifications about Backerkit comments have been going to my junk folder recently (the email is [email protected]).
Once cards have charged and the funds have been deposited to me I'll be able to start getting packages out of the door! I'm also going to send out another round of download codes to make sure everybody has got their digital rewards. Those emails will come via itch.io over the next few days, so keep an eye out for them!
I've now finished setting up shipping regions and rates in Backerkit, and I've reached out to support to double check everything for me and approve it. Once it's approved you'll get an "Upcoming Charge" notification, and then I'll be charging cards. As soon as cards are charged and the shipping money is delivered to me I'll start getting packages in the post!
Apologies for the delay in updates here! I realise I'm a little later than planned in charging cards for shipping. The short explanation is a combination of two things; firstly a couple of people had emailed me asking to delay it a week or two for financial reasons, and secondly I've had a lot of trouble sourcing my normal postage boxes. I should have updated you on this sooner.
As of today I've finally found a new supplier for postage boxes and they've been ordered. They should be with me this week. Once they arrive I can do the weighing of the packages, input proper postage costs into Backerkit (who have turned that option back on for me after I had initially chosen "Charge Shipping Later" when setting up the pledge manager), and charge cards. That should happen at the beginning of next week at the latest, but if for some reason there's a problem I'll update you.
