Did you miss the campaign?
https://like-warm-plastic.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
You can pre-order any of the items from the project here! Join us as we head to manufacturing and get the books in hand in December/January!

7

Apologies for not being on top of this right away friends, I was at my friend's cake supply store yesterday for my one-day-a-week shift, then came home to D&D with friends. But I'm here now!

With over $4000 raised (4085), and 103 backers, this was a fantastic showing for poetry! My last project to try and fund poetry brought in $2346 for two much bigger books, with just 59 backers! We very nearly doubled both numbers, and that's fantastic. I have officially added items #40 and #41 to the timeline on my website! And realizing I made the Alleyway Oracles just one thing when it was 3 decks and I should probably split those up... hmmm for a later date. Also, should the timeline go the other way so the newest is at the top?

I will also say, after fees to Backerkit and card processing plus some failed pledges (always happens, no big), we'll have around $3600 left over. 

Reid asked for $200 for the Like Warm Plastic cover, I bumped it to $300 because, did you see the cover? Reid is amazing and deserves a lot more for their work! We did $450 for the two back illustrations (Lady + Pup) since they were separate and then got tagged together on the back cover. We then unlocked another $300 cover for the While Widening the Wound cover illustration! And Reid is amazing so they're actually doing an additional full mixed-media painted canvas with fabric version of the WWtW cover as a full painting to send me, folded into that $300 cost. Truly incredible.

That's -$1050, so $2550 left over.

To get just 250 copies of Like Warm Plastic, it looks like the manufacturing will be around $700. 
94 were ordered.

I haven't properly quoted While Widening the Wound, but I think because of the black pages and green text, we can estimate a higher price point more like $1100 for 250 copies. This should change when I send in a proper quote so that's nice, likely lower by $200 or so.
As a late addition, just 23 were ordered.

The Art Prints for Like Warm Plastic will be around $310 for 250 sets, though I'm considering tossing in a fifth free print for WWtW cover so let's estimate more like $340.
16 art print sets were ordered.

With just 19 and 22 copies of the bigger books grabbed, Every Day in Love and This Map is Just a Suggestion, and because of how large they are, I won't be doing a 250 run of those two books here, just print on demand copies from DrivethruFiction.com.  This Map is partly in color so PoD it's $20 a piece for me, Every Day in Love, while in B&W and longer, is $13.30 for me. That's $252.70 for Every Day, and $440 for This Map is Just a Suggestion.  With shipping we can put this about $700. (I do have a few copies at home, so can maybe reduce this a little.)

Because our partner project just made it to funding (yay!), we are good to go for the cross-collab oracle cards! These cost nothing to people who backed both of our projects for physical goods, so they are only an expense at the moment, though I will make them available as an add-on on the pledge manager. Looks like to satisfy everyone and have leftovers to giveaway or something fun it'll be around $100 total, including shipping. 
(This includes the 4th bonus card I'm throwing in of the WWtW cover as OBSESSION for the oracle cards!)

That looks to be -$2940, which would put us at -$390 left. I'll try to figure out the freight cost and fold that (if reasonable) into people's shipping costs to soften the blow of freight from China to me of the books and art prints, but more likely it will just be a cost I pay.

It might leave you asking, does that mean your business is still going to pay out for this? Did you really make $0? And the answer is yes! But as a trade, I will now have 150 copies of Like Warm Plastic and 227 copies of While Widening the Wound, as well as a TON of art prints/broadsides in my storage unit, available to be taken to conventions, events, maybe some poetry readings, to offer to sell, as well as on my website!

But the real gift to me is this: The work now exists in physical form, and I got help from 100 incredible people to reduce the cost of making this happen by $4000, and that's amazing! And 100 of you will have the work in your hands to read for yourself! That's my favorite part! 

The next part is neat! We wait, haha.
After another couple days, the campaign will be ported over to the pledgemanager. There I will be adding shipping cost by weight and making it possible for you to grab extra items if you want them, including the collaboration oracle cards!

Because it takes just a couple weeks for the funds to come in, I'll look to finalize my print files for all the items over the next week or so and submit to my printer shortly. I want to adjust a few poems still, so I'll do that, but I got most things laid out ahead of time to make this easy on me.

So mid October the manufacturing will go down, early November it'll be done (probably sooner as this is a simple job), and they'll ship to me arriving around late Nov, early December, then I'll ship things out early to mid December. Just 100 packages will be a quick process, a weekend task.

For most people, this means the books should be in hand before the December holidays I think! Maybe even sooner. First, I'm submitting final numbers/book sizes/specs to my printer to get actual manufacturing numbers. I'll come back and update the price breakdown I shared above in another update and share the estimates for manufacturing and shipping times, and we'll be all good to twiddle our thumbs as things get made! : )

Thanks again for being here everyone, it makes such a difference to get these kinds of smaller projects made when I get the help I need to cover such big up front costs, and it gets awesome work into your hands!

Your forever grateful Publishing Goblin,
7

Hello my dear friends!

While Reid isn't quite done with the cover for this collection, While Widening the Wound will look something very much like this! This was our unlock from the $2500 goal, a new cover for a second collection on this project. This is your reminder that you can get this book for just $15 as an add-on, or now as a base pledge level!

And if you're brave and can survive my weird sound-music phase where I made strange songs, you can listen to an odd rendition of the original poem of this collection to some music here:

Fair warning, it can be a little loud and intense. And while there are other songs on that channel, they were made as part of a game I was playing with friends as artifacts from the world. If you listened to the Alleyman Podcast, you'll find the songs from the "Knowledge" episode there.

I am going to offer this new cover as an Oracle card for OBSESSION, as part of my collab reward with my partner on this project. 

Now, some of you may have missed this. But during 'topia events here on Backerkit, each launched project has a partner project. People who back both of our projects for physical items will get a bonus free gift item! And this time around, my partner and I opted to be part of the other projects who were making Oracle Cards! You can see more about the oracle deck overall on the campaign page under the Booktopia tab, including a list of other participants who are offering oracle cards.

My partner project on this topia is the Silver Series of Grown Up Wisdom. Like the children's picture books of learning new things, this is aimed for adults to hit the same niche. It tackles some big topics, and frankly, might be a great thing to read to kids to help grow them into well-rounded adults. 

In order to get the oracle cards from me and my partner, you have to back both our projects for a physical item, AND we both have to fund. Unfortunately as of now, their project is short of their $5000 goal. So please give a look to them and let friends know about their project if you can! 

Thanks everyone, and excited for these final 3 days with you!

7DA
your pub gob

Hello poetry enjoyers,

Today would have been my sister's 37th birthday, and that means it's the 3rd anniversary of her death. She really stuck around to this day so they would match, I think.

So I have decided to go for it, and read some work from the book and edit together a little video. Please, if you listen, stay to the end for a small selection of photos of her, and the last poem of the book. I hope some day to write a nicer poem for her, one that is about her, and her boundless love. But that's just not what the collection is about. So it goes!

Reid Aster is well on the way to creating a cover for the extra book this project is funding, While Widening the Wound. It will be a traditional media piece, mixed media, and is going to be truly amazing. But for now, take a look at the front+back cover of Like Warm Plastic, all ready for print!

Now I'm going to go have a drink for Diana, and leave the shot of tequila on the bar that I promised her I would leave her. Treat yourselves well today, and do something lovely for her if you can. 

Thank you for your support and making this book possible,

7DA
your publishing goblin