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The Publishing Goblin's Oracle Dice

Created by Publishing Goblin, LLC

Pre-Orders now closed.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Shipping & The Final Deadline
about 1 year ago – Thu, Apr 20, 2023 at 12:37:08 PM

Hello Dice Backers!


American and Canadian dice sets are on the way to the US still, and international orders are already traveling out into the world!
Now, there are roughly 70 people who never finished their surveys, and of the rest who did, about 100 of the 3400 people have had their shipping charges or pledge charges fail to go through still today.

This means there are 170 of you who need to 1) get your survey done if you haven't so we can get you setup with shipping charges and so we have your address, and 2) get your shipping paid.

The Final Deadline

3311 of you already have your items coming to you, one way or another! US and Canadian backers have their items coming overseas still, and should have those enter the USPS rapidly at the end of the month here. I've been informed it should be arriving in the US this weekend, but I will update when I know more.
International backers have your items coming to you already in the mail! You will receive notices with tracking this weekend into next week.
The Community Copies were also all sent out in these batches, and I'm very pleased to have gotten so many (over 50!) free sets to people!

For the 170 people still fixing shipping costs and surveys, you have until May 16th to get it done, or to reach out to Backerkit support/me for any assistance you need to get things set in place. Up to and about a week after that time, I will put orders through with New Titan to fulfill them.

After that time (May 16th, 2023), any unclaimed rewards will be forfeit. I have a difficult time the larger these projects get maintaining late surveys and shipping orders. There are still 200 people on the Alleyman's Tarot who never filled out their surveys. Here and now, and into the future, I'm putting some limits on all future projects for how long after we fulfill I'll accept and handle late orders.

If you talk to me now I can always be flexible for things I am made aware of! But there does need to be a final deadline in place, or else sometimes I find people expect me to fulfill 1, 2, even 4 years later, when I no longer have the product! (That just happened!)

After May 16th, any pledges left unclaimed, either because surveys were left undone, or shipping left unpaid, will consider the pledge rewards forfeit. I will not be doing refunds on those, with the funds paid-in considered support for the project.

Need Help?

Reach out to backerkit support for assistance! If they can't fix it they will forward you to me, so be sure to use that channel! It will get to whoever can help, one way or another.

The Oracles!

I truly appreciate all of your support. I literally cannot make ends meet without your support financially, or keep chugging along on the creation engine without your emotional support. It takes so much to make all this work, to manage all the parts I manage, and I now support many people beyond myself in many different capacities. To keep this forward momentum, I want to remind everyone about the Alleyway Oracles, which is launching on May 16th!

The Alleyway Oracles by Publishing Goblin — Kickstarter

Thanks all,

7

Shipping Charges Have Gone Through!
about 1 year ago – Wed, Mar 29, 2023 at 11:55:07 AM

Hello everyone,

Thanks for staying in communication with me as issues come up. I've been happy to help anyone who reaches out, and will continue to do so. As of today, 2500 shipping charges went through without issue, and 390 failed for a variety of reasons. Some people's cards have changed, some banks flagged it as fraudulent, and I'm sure any of a dozen other reasons.

We will be retrying cards that failed on Monday, April 3rd. If your card failed, log in to your account and update your card. Reach out to backerkit support if you're having trouble with it. As explained to me, if you update your card, you should be recharged either right away, or on the Monday I noted.

I can confirm that the US and Canada orders were handed off in the container 3 days ago! We're waiting to hear from our boat people to make sure the boat left yesterday, but looks like things are on the way! We're sending enough stuff over to the US that late surveys or mischarged cards will still be able to be taken care of.

International orders should be heading out now and into the next week or so. I will ping when I know for sure the state of those, if they're going out, finished, or any info like that. 

Thanks all, 

7

Shipping Charges Going Out!
about 1 year ago – Fri, Mar 24, 2023 at 10:52:05 AM

Hello everyone!

EDIT: I see the issue where people who had no items in their order (they pledged $1 and nothing more) have been assigned a shipping charge. If you pledged $1 on day 1 and had a 22-Lord Oracle added to your cart for free, you will be charged shipping for that. If you'd like to forgo the deck and shipping cost, reach out to Backerkit Support-- I can't remove items/charges from your account. For people who had no items in their cart at all, we're fixing that now, no worries! We should be charging the shipping fees on Monday.

EDIT #2: Hey all-- I know international shipping is always a bit painful nowadays. First, a reminder that VAT and fees like it that are set by your governments are things we don't have any power over. Very sorry for it though, I know it's making shipping anywhere extremely painful lately. I promise I'm joining you in rolling my eyes at those costs.
Second, I know most of the international packages have gone up in price, generally speaking though my understanding is that basic pledges ended up a little heavier than originally thought, so the most pledges are starting at the 2 set charge level. What we are charging here is based on the weight of your order and what it costs to send to you, using the same systems we used to set the original estimated costs, but now we have the actual final items in hand and are basing it exactly on the weight of your order. Shipping prices have gone up, and most orders have gone up in weight as well.
I apologize our estimations were off, but that's exactly why they were estimations and I noted then and there from day 1 that they could be subject to change. I will continue to offer estimations on future projects but maybe I'll inflate them a little to account for how the prices may change in time? I'm not sure the best way to handle it. No one likes it when things cost more than they expected, but unfortunately these are the prices.
No matter what project, people end up comparing their orders from other projects for shipping or manufacturing, etc-- that's impossible to do. Other companies may be undercharging international shipping costs for their backers and eating some of that cost. I did that on the Alleyman's Tarot, and undercharged most/all international orders, eating the cost with part of the profit. I cannot do it on this project, as this project ultimately made very little profit, so I am putting the full shipping cost forward to backers.
I think I mispoke in a comment below on the weights so I'll just share the direct facts instead of my bad memory here: These are the weights for all the items, so you can see how heavy packages are in the end.

Schedule!

Today is when the shipping boat we were going to take was going out, and there were some stragglers with survey completion and fixing mischarged cards so we're adding those orders to the stack and sending US/Canada packages out on a boat the 28th. That still should get to the US around April 18th-20th, so we shouldn't have an issue being in most backer's hands by the end of April.


Community Copies and Funds!

I've also sent over to New Titan our Community Copies! We are packing those up to go with this batch as well. Being able to send out Community Copies is such a cool thing to be able to do, and I'll work it into future projects! I know I haven't been sharing where the community funds have been going, but anyone who follows our account on Kickstarter has seen this happening ever since this project funded, as I back lots of indie projects that need the support (generally without a physical reward-- this wasn't funds to get me cool things, it was to support small creators!) I've also invited lots of those people to be in the Alleyway Oracles, which gets them more money and some free exposure I hope. (I promise I'll never pay anyone in exposure, but exposure is helpful alongside pay!)

Shipping Charges!

I have finalized shipping costs with New Titan and Backerkit, as well as VAT and all the other taxes, and we are sending out charging notices today. I believe you'll be warned of the impending charge, and if you need to update your card or anything, be sure to do so! You cannot update your address at this point unless you are one of the 70 people who haven't filled out your survey!

The pricing for shipping is pretty close to what we said on the spreadsheet on the campaign page when we launched. A lot of them are spot on or off by a dollar, but a couple are higher, such as shipping to Mexico. There was one order in particular that will cost more in shipping than it cost for the order. I re-checked to ensure we were charging correctly, but it was right. Apologies for that, but that's just what it costs to ship there right now.

And the obligatory reminder that we have been planning to charge shipping at a later date from day 1 on the project. I know there will always be some people who didn't notice or who forgot who are dismayed to be charged more money to receive their items. I know that's not fun, but I can promise it was that way from day 1, and noted in a number of spots! Thanks for your patience and support as we got all the items right. 

Once US and Canadian orders are in the shipping container and leaving China on the 28th, all international orders will be fulfilled by New Titan from China. 

Thanks all, you are amazing and I am so beyond ready to have the dice in hand! Will update again when international orders are all in the mail, and then again when the ship arrives in the US.



7

Shipping This Week
about 1 year ago – Mon, Mar 13, 2023 at 11:36:43 AM

As I'm sure some of you noticed, I didn't charge shipping last week like I said I was going to. It turns out charging shipping after doing surveys already is more complicated than I thought. Today, I sent out a 48 hour notice that I am locking orders and addresses.

We are shipping as per last update's schedule: International packages (other than Unites States or Canada) will be heading into the mail at the end of this month, and traveling to people in April. US and Canadian Packages will be heading to a shipping container to head overseas around the 20th-25th this month. It'll take 20-25 days to get to the US, and then they'll go into the mail mid-late April.

Please update your addresses accordingly as necessary. If you are moving and will be somewhere else in mid to late April, update the address to the new one. If you aren't sure where you'll be, update it to a friend's address, or a coworkers, or work, or family. Sometimes USPS address forwarding works with packages, sometimes it doesn't. I've heard it work both ways plenty on the Alleyman's, so be sure to update to an address with us that works best! : )

To update your address, you MUST go into your survey for this project and adjust the address there. Updating your address on file with your Backerkit profile doesn't (as far as I know) affect this project's specific address on file. So go into your supported projects and adjust the address on this project specifically. IF you need assistance, you can ask Backerkit support for help, or you can reach out to me at [email protected]. These are due Wednesday at noon MST. No changes can be made after that.

On Wednesday at this time, when they are locked in, I am handing them to New Titan to lock in final order packing, and get per-person shipping totals. I will then hand that over to Backerkit, who are telling me they have a fun new thing that let's them use a spreadsheet to put backer specific shipping totals in! So each of you will get a shipping total specific to your order, not just set on a weight-based scale by country. Shouldn't be a huge difference, but it means some fringe cases will be more specific/cheaper.

Will put up another update the day I am going to charge shipping costs just to let you know it's coming. 

Thanks everyone,
7

The Last Hurdle
about 1 year ago – Mon, Mar 06, 2023 at 02:31:04 PM

Last time I updated, I said by the end of Feb the acrylic dice would be done, then within a few days the stone dice should be done-- and that should be it!

The Wood Boxes


And it almost is. Everything, all the dice, are done and good to go as I noted last time. The only thing not done are the wood boxes.


They are installing the foam inserts into the dice holes by hand, and with 22 small holes in that thing it takes some time. The manufacturer noted that each worker is only able to get 4-5 boxes done an hour. This is taking longer than the box manufacturer expected because of it, but the bigger issue is that when China dropped all their limitations on things due to COVID, it made it all more chaotic. Things no longer get stuck at port because a region is in Lockdown, which is nice, but now things get slowed down because there are worker shortages all over as COVID infections rise. So not only are the boxes taking longer by hand than expected, but they're also short staffed.

Shipping Schedule

The dice box inspection (final step) is occurring on the 13th (a week from today). This means dice boxes should be going to New Titan to get packed away in sets soon.

Based on this schedule, we anticipate to ship out around March 20th. The vessel [to the US] should arrive around April 10th-15th. That being said, we are looking for April 20th-April 25th to ship out individual packages to US and Canadian backers.

For International backers, we can ship out individual packages around March 20.

--email to me from Shawn at New Titan.

This is the only thing that's holding us up. Because I got New Titan a preliminary break down of the orders weeks ago, they have already been able to begin assembling backer sets. So we are confident as soon as the boxes get in our hands, we can get things moving. US and Canada orders will finish getting packed and loaded to the vessel to go out on the 20th this month. It'll take 20-25 days to arrive, then the packages that are already labeled and packed just go into the mail. Easy as that.

This does mean US packages will be arriving between April 22nd-May 2nd-ish. It's very rare for packages with USPS to take more than a week to travel from any point in the US to any other, but even if they take 2 weeks in this case, everything should be in hand across the US by May 9th at some of the latest. 

Canadian packages may be arriving into mid-May, but international packages outside the US and Canada will be going out in the end of this month into next month if necessary and arriving in April-May, likely mid to later May for the largest outliers (packages that take a long time/take winding trips to get to their destination. There are always a few.)

Shipping Costs and Payment Collection

I've been told I will have the shipping numbers tomorrow, so I can set up shipping costs by region and package contents in the next two days. When I do, I will let you all know with a new update and move to charge that by the end of the week, or on the weekend. I'll advise in the next update when the charges will occur.

When I do this, everything will be locked in forever, no orders will be able to be changed or adjusted for anything. The spreadsheet with all the info will be downloaded and shared over to New Titan to ensure packages match a prelim list I gave them, and things will begin traveling from there.

For the Moment, hope you enjoy the shots of the deck boxes! This is the first time for us all to see them, and they look great. This is a truly gorgeous project, and I'm overjoyed to share with y'all!

The Alleyway Oracles?

So, what about the Alleyway Oracles?
I am going to do everything I can to honor what I said last time. The next project HAS to see all previous projects at least in the mail on the way to people before it can launch, and at its most ideal most packages should be in people's hands. As long as we're on track with what I noted above (as soon as we get the boxes in hand!), then we'll be good.

Even a majority of international packages should be in people's hands before the Alleyway Oracles launches! And with the luck of the Postal Gods, every single package might even be in people's hands before May 16th when the Oracles launch. We can cross our fingers and believe.

Thanks for your ongoing patience, excited to nab those final shipping addresses and shipping payments here this week.

Regards,
your Pub Gob