First things, first: sorry for the radio silence! That's an oops on my part. The truth is I am neck deep in getting this puppy laid out, and it's coming along beautifully. The biggest trick I have now is keeping it within the page count for the printer, while still keeping it looking fantastic for you all!

What may happen here is, some of the Solar Frontiers we had planned for this will go out as a separate PDF document and won't be in the print version of the book. We'll sell them as an expanded Solar Frontiers PDF down the road, but you all will get it FREE as it was part of what you backed to begin with!

I'd love to turn around and deliver you all a 350-400-page print book, but that would make the costs unfeasible, so hope you're all on board with that.

To keep your whistles wet and your excitement up, here's a screen shot of the first two pages of Chapter Four:

This is still early and we haven't completed layout checking yet, so bear with me, but that's pretty much what you're in for!

I'm still shooting for a late September release date, so hang in there! Also, if you know anyone who would be interested in the game, let them know that pre-orders are LIVE on my website at https://www.elflair.com/13p and help us take this one to the stars and beyond!

That's all for today, and as always...

Carpe Noctem!

Jason

So it's been a bit of a stressful week here in the Elf Lair, but we're getting this worked out and are still on schedule!

After a pure nightmare of trying to navigate BK's backer survey/fulfillment system (and them sending me 1,000 words of things they wanted me to "fix" before they'd let me finalize surveys), we've had to take some unusual steps, but in the end it's the way we've always done things over on Kickstarter, and you'll get your books for it on time (it was really starting to look like BackerKit's gatekeeping was going to cause us major delays).

First: the pre-order store here has been shut down. Pre-orders will now be taken at the Elf Lair Games website at https://www.elflair.com/13p, the official website for Thirteen Parsecs (where we've also put up the Planetary Data File Generator as a web app that you can use for your games!)

Second, the surveys when they go out (probably later in August/early September after the books are ready to ship) will be exceptionally basic. We will essentially be asking you for your address (for physical product), your DTRPG email address (for digital products), and whether you want a standard hardcover shipped to you, or a PoD softcover from Lulu.

Alas, we will not be able to accommodate additional add-ons during the survey stage, as BackerKit has shut off that capability for us. If you do want additional books, head over to our website and grab them (all are available now), or reach out to me directly and we'll work it out (which might save on shipping).

 Please do not choose PoD if you are a domestic backer. We are offering PoD to international customers only as a way around the expensive international shipping, and I have no desire to compete with my distributor. The PoD books at this time will not be made publicly available.  

Shipping will be billed separately through PayPal. If you cannot do PayPal I can send you a bill through Square; just let me know.

Shipping rates will be as follows:

Domestic (US 50 states and territories): $7 USD
International (Rest of world): $45 USD, and you'll be responsible for import taxes as applicable for your region when the package arrives.

If you got multiple books such as add-ons or the All-In pledge, domestic will be $9 and International will be $50.

POD costs, should you choose that route, will come through Lulu.com, will be softcover (as hardcover was quite costly) and will probably be around $15.25 for 13 Parsecs, plus whatever Lulu's shipping is. If you ordered add-ons for PoD, Night Shift costs $15.25 and Wasted Lands is $11.25 per book (for the core book and the campaign guide). The Night Companion will probably also be $11.25 but I'm still getting that setup. Again, that's all plus whatever Lulu's shipping costs are. In the end, however, it should still be less costly overall than the international shipping.

I will also, for international backers only, refund the difference to you. So if you pledged $40 for Thirteen Parsecs print, I will refund you $15.25 of that $40 to cover the cost of your print on demand. Again, this refund will come to you through PayPal.

I hope that all makes sense and doesn't seem too confusing. I'm glad to answer any questions you have, and once again, thank you all so much for your support. Hopefully we will see you all back over at Kickstarter for our next campaign, and please follow us online for all the news and updates - we have a lot of exciting things planned for our game lines in the near future! 

Carpe noctem!

Jason

Good morning, folks!

Just your regular update so you all know we haven't forgotten about you. 

First things first: Progress. 

Our finalized text for the Solar Frontiers (mini-settings) is rolling in and in the process of proofing. I've gathered all the artwork for the game, so that's ready to go. Final layout should go quick once I can dive in (after editing). I am still planning to go to press next month (August) for a September release, so we're on schedule!

If you were interested and missed out on the campaign, pre-orders are open! Just go to our main campaign page (https://tinyurl.com/13psignup) and click the "Pre-Order" button to go to the pre-order store! You can pre-order leathers if you like! Only 25 of the leathers will be available (and no, alas, there's no PoD Lulu option for these - we will sadly have to charge full shipping for international orders on leather books). 

I think I have the shipping set up properly for the surveys. I know everyone's probably tired of hearing this, but BackerKit is a mess on the backend. It's overcomplicated and anything but intuitive. So fingers crossed that when you all get your surveys it doesn't try to charge you a bunch of extra money. If I can figure out how to do it I'll send a few test cases out to backers - which leads me to my next question:

Do we have any international backers here who will want Lulu PoD versions of the game instead of standard hardcovers? If so, please reach out to me at [email protected] and let me know and we can try a test survey to make sure everything works right. 

If it doesn't, I'll try to roll back all the shipping crap, just do a "give me your address" survey, and will bill shipping through PayPal (which is what I've done with Kickstarter and it always worked). 

Don't panic if you haven't gotten a survey. We'll send them out after the book is at press, next month sometime. 

OH! If you are one of the two folks I announced as winners of the raffle, please get in touch with me! I sent emails but didn't hear back! 

That's about all for now, and as always...Carpe Noctem!

Jason

Good morning, everyone!

If you're an international backer and will be looking for a POD edition, again, it will be available. We may NOT, however, be going with DriveThruRPG for these, as Lightning Source has proved to be nothing but an incredible pain in the backside. I've worked with real, offset printers who didn't give me as much hassle as Lightning Source does. They have repeatedly declined the files for my books for things as stupid as "We don't like the ISBN you put on your back cover," which honestly is none of their business unless they are trying to claim ownership of my works...which they don't get to do. 

To that end, we are experimenting with Lulu. So far their quality has been on par with Lightning Source, and it is FAR easier to setup files in their system with ZERO hassle. They also, as I understand it, have international shipping hubs, so the same savings for shipping costs should be in play. 

That's all for today. Thanks as always for your support!

Carpe Noctem,

Jason