It's Christmas Eve, and we have the perfect card for the occasion, but we need YOU!
There are so many good Christmas Movies out there (my own favorites being Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story and Home Alone), but I think we can make the next great Christmas movie.
This isn't going to be easy though, we're limited to just 25 Words. :)
Let's make a 25-Word Story based off of the 3 of Diamonds.
Hey everyone! Just a quick update to let you know that USPCC told me the replacement card and bonus card are shipping out today. This means I will have them within the next 2-3 days and can resume shipping!
It took a little longer than I hoped, especially with the Thanksgiving holiday in there, but we're back on track. Shipments may be going out as early as Thursday, which is very exciting.
Once again, I'd like to apologize for this snag that we had. I'm glad it's almost behind us now.
And since you'll be getting the decks in soon enough, I wanted to share the Storyteller Manual pdf.
I have a bit of light bad news new report, the first in the history of this campaign. I also have a solution for it, so please read on!
So the cards came in. They look amazing and I was playing around with them all last week with the kids in between packing and shipping. I brought them to show off at Metatopia and within 2 seconds Tim Rodriguez found a misprint on one of the cards. The Ace of Spades a/k/a the crowbar-cleaning aerobics instructor has a text layer showing at the bottom of the illustration. It's small, but distracting. It doesn't cover anything too important, but it's an imperfection in an otherwise perfect project.
Here's a glarey shot.
I went back and checked my files and it wasn't there. I printed test decks as I submitted them to US Playing Card Co. and it wasn't on those. It turns out it was a pre-press layer issue on their end. The only place I should have caught it was on my proof pdf, but it blends in with the sink enough that I must have overlooked it in one of my late night, blurry-eyed work sessions, alone after the kids fell asleep. I beat myself up over this a bit over the last few days. I'm employing a second set of eyes for all future projects.
It's small, but I was very devastated about it. How do you handle something like this? Even if I could get replacement cards, it's super expensive to mail out a single card to 660+ backers and potentially many more new customers. A printer error like that expensive enough to break a first timer like me. An extra one to two thousand dollars in postage and supplies would 100% eliminate the possibility of doing another project (which I want to do!)
I talked to some industry pros with experience on production wide errors, and I hope you'll be happy with the result. US Playing Card Co. are replacing the card. It'll take about two weeks to get here. They are also sending an extra card that Campbell wrapped up today. I'm going to pause the shipping so that everyone's deck is packaged with both the replacement card AND the new bonus card. I think I can have it done within a few days after the corrected cards arrive, since everything else is already packaged and ready to go. We will be at the tail end of our expected November delivery date, instead of the beginning that we were trucking towards.
Note to those who already received their packages (or receive them over the next few days): I will pay the shipping to get you the replacement and bonus cards. Expect them in a few weeks.
I hope this doesn't bum anyone out, and definitely not anywhere near as much as me. I was so upset through the weekend while I was waiting for US Playing Card Co. to open up on Monday morning. They were very receptive and helpful with getting this fixed, and I hope I can do the same for all of you.
Here's a look at the new card. This was one from way back before the project launched, and a potential backside for the deck.
I call it "Barebones", basically a blank canvas for creativity. There are no icons so that it could be used in any way that you imagine. It can be a wild card in games, a starting point in a story, or trigger some form of reset. I hope you all like it too and find some fun uses for it. 25 Word Story anyone? :)
Thanks again and sorry for this. If anyone has questions or issues or anything else, feel free to comment or direct message me.
Yesterday I received a huge 750lb delivery of a whole bunch of Storyteller Cards decks. And this means... it's time to start shipping these cards out! Over the next few weeks, I'll be spending some late nights packing up your rewards and shipping them out each day. I'm planning to send out 30-50 per day and have everything out within the first 2 weeks of November.
The cards turned out perfect and I couldn't be more excited. Even after lugging about 30 boxes down the stairs, I was thrilled just sitting there and staring at them. I probably would have passed out if I tried to move... but still! It's a super exciting time. I can't wait for these to get to you.
Here are a few pictures of the decks, the cards, and my workspace right now.
If anyone is at Metatopia this weekend in New Jersey, I'll have a deck or two on hand to show off, and I can even bring some to deliver to backers in person. Just let me know if you'll be there and we'll make arrangements. I'm doing a few panels on Saturday, including one about "Lessons Learned from Self Publishing", which includes everything I've learned from this campaign and others. My panel schedule is right here: http://buttonshy.blogspot.com/2013/10/my-metatopia-2013-panel-schedule.html
And finally, Campbell Whyte sent me an image for a super secret project that we're working on. But since I'm in the mood to give away some secrets, I'll share it below. Enjoy!
My good friend and Storyteller Cards artist Campbell Whyte has been doing a bit of travel over the last few months with his family. They spent time in Italy, Mexico and the United States picking up and creating things the entire way. Until last week in San Francisco when somebody stole all of their luggage.
Here is the story in Campbell's words. An open letter "to the person who took our luggage".
Hi there, we’re not sure who you are, but we’re pretty sure you know us. You probably know us really well actually, as you recently stole all of our luggage while we were on holiday. Every. Single. Thing.
Well, that’s not fair, you did leave us with one salt and pepper shaker that was a gift, my 5 year old sons sandals and a 2014 Italian priests calendar. Those priests were pretty good looking, we’re baffled that you would pass them up.
Anyway, we hope you’re well. Really, we do. We hope that our loss has provided you with your essentials for a while, food, shelter, warmth, security. Although I’ve never been in your position before, where I rely on stealing from others to make ends meet, I imagine it is not an easy life. I imagine you probably live in fear a lot of the time, fear of the culture you find yourself in, fear of the government, police, other people stealing from you. You must also look out at tourists like us with a great degree of resentment. Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco is filled to the brim of snap happy, money dropping, grinning ear to ear vacationers.
To you, we must appear as the 1%, rolling in wealth and decadence. Although you might not believe it, this is really not the case with us. We are a small family from Australia. Myself, fiance, and our five year old son. For the past 6 years we have been saving money for our vacation. Working full time, doing extra jobs on the weekend. Making money where we can from our arts practices. What you took from us that day, were pretty much all of our possessions.
I want to help Campbell out in any and every way possible, so the first thing I want to do is spread the word. I have no clue if their personal belongings can be found and returned, but I would like to hope so. If you have any way to share his story, or if you know of a great place to share it, please do.
One of the things that I want to do to help Campbell is to auction off a piece of his original Storyteller Cards art. I'm also going to include a deck of Storyteller Cards and one of each of the 3 Storyteller Kits we offered during the Kickstarter Campaign. The proceeds will go 100% to him and his family. I will cover the shipping and all the other fees and nonsense, so that a penny isn't missed.
The piece of art that I chose is very fitting, it's the Criminal card. It's a criminal escaping on a toy truck... probably Campbell's son's toy truck. :(
Here is the original art:
Here is the final card:
And here it is in a sweet frame:
It's a great card in the Storyteller Cards deck that leads to tons of stories, just like Campbell's.
If anyone is in the Minneapolis area this weekend, our Storyteller Cards artist Campbell Whyte is making the long trek from Australia for an all-night comic jam workshop at Light Grey Art Labs. This is in connection with their Nights & Weekends exhibition of his 8-Bit Dreams series. The 8-Bit Dreams series is the entire reason I wanted Campbell involved in this project. I wish I could be there, so if you can go make sure you say hi to Campbell for me.
And here it is in a sweet frame:
