A Year of Sanderson: Enjoy books and swag boxes throughout 2023!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
It's Gonna Be May!
over 1 year ago
– Mon, May 01, 2023 at 09:35:38 AM
Spring has begun in the northern hemisphere, and flowers are blooming everywhere—much like when Marewill flowers cover the Field of Rebirth. Happy Mistborn May everyone!
We have begun shipping Mistborn swag boxes for all appropriate backers. Watch for your shipping notifications in the next week or two, and be sure to tag us (@DragonsteelBooks) in your unboxing videos! We can't wait to see your reactions to one of our favorite boxes so far.
Keep an eye on our social media for other fun Mistborn content, and don't forget to check out this month's free download while you watch our fulfillment progress.
Secret Project #2
All final Tress books have been bound and arrived at our warehouse. And we've received word that the first batch of Secret Project #2 premium hardcovers will be bound this week, before being shrink-wrapped and shipped to us. We are still unable to provide an estimate of when the books will arrive at our warehouse, but we are doing all we can to be ready when it happens!
Future Updates
Our team continues moving forward with production and preparation on the other upcoming books and swag boxes. We are currently focused on assembling the Mistborn box, moving to a much bigger warehouse, and preparing to receive Secret Project #2, but we'll let you know when we have more news to share! We hope that our next update will be to announce that Secret Project #2 has begun to arrive and show off our new space. Stay tuned!
Caution: Secret Project #2 Spoilers below!
For those who are curious, here are a few images of the Secret Project #2 foiling process. We can't wait to get these to you!
The first stamp of foil!
Foil stamps for the cover and the spine.
Incomplete cover in the middle of the foiling process.
Pallets of covers ready to be bound!
Finished cover of The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England.
Q1 Fulfillment Complete!
over 1 year ago
– Thu, Apr 13, 2023 at 05:53:02 AM
Fulfillment for our Tress of the Emerald Sea book box is finally complete! We printed the rest of the labels last night and the final boxes should be headed to the post office and FedEx soon. If you have not received your book within the next week and are unable to find a tracking email or the tracking number in your BackerKit survey, please reach out to us at that time to look into it for you.
Thank you so much for your continued support and patience as we have worked to complete all the shipments of these delayed hardcovers. We love seeing your excitement and reviews of these beautiful books!
All shipments for the Hoid and Cytoverse themed swag boxes have been sent. Because tracking numbers expire and are reused, if you contact us about a missing or failed delivery once the tracking expires, we will be unable to verify anything more than that we shipped your reward and will be unable to replace missing rewards. If you pledged for the swag boxes and have not yet received these two boxes or havean issue with your box: please check your tracking information in your BackerKit survey and reach out to us by one week from today. We will be unable to assist with missing or damaged rewards for these boxes after that time. Note: This is also applicable to all Tress boxes shipped in January or early February. Recently shipped Tress boxes will be given a month or two before we limit support.
April – Secret Project #2
As you know, the big delay for Tress was that the foiling took way longer than expected and the books couldn't be bound and sent to us until the foiling was finished. To expedite this, while Tress was being worked on we had the covers for Secret Project #2 sent to a separate plant to be foiled. Right now, the covers are being foiled in groups that will be sent to the bindery to add the already-completed book blocks and endpapers. We're confident this will speed the process a great deal, but we're not making any promises as to when delivery will happen. We've done everything we could think of to get this going faster, but we don't want to make false promises. We will keep you in the loop, though!
May – Mistborn Themed Swag Box
We are switching assembly to the Mistborn themed swag boxes and will have these ready to ship on time. This will be our focus until we are done or the Secret Project #2 books arrive—whichever occurs first.
June – Sel Themed Swag Box
All products for this swag box have been ordered and should arrive on time.
Copies of Tress of the Emerald Sea premium hardcover (and a few remaining Hoid boxes) are still available for purchase on our store. And for those who have been waiting, extra copies of the Cytoverse swag box will be available for purchase TODAY at 10AM MDT (4PM UTC). Quantities will be limited.
We are focused on shipping Tress pre-orders through our store first, but we expect to have Secret Project #2 available for pre-order on DragonsteelBooks.com within the next week or two. Watch Brandon's weekly updates on YouTube for an announcement!
Hey, everyone. I hope you’ll be willing to read another post about the problems with Audible and the current audiobook landscape. It has been a few months since I decided not to put my secret projects up on their platform, and want to keep the discussion going about the topic.
To that end, I would like to try something we do only rarely on my website: have a guest editorial. Cory Doctorow (all-around great guy and well-known blogger, speaker, and digital-rights advocate) reached out to me about these issues. He has a sharp perspective on all of this. Indeed, one of the very first times I ever got an inkling that things were wrong with Audible was because of a conversation I had with Cory. He’s an excellent writer, and I think you’ll appreciate what he has to say.
He’s composed some thoughts on the larger problems with Audible and Amazon right now—not just the ones I highlighted. Give it a read! And if you’re interested, he’s doing his own Kickstarter for the audiobook of his latest novel Red Team Blues (which he refuses to put on Audible) and has posted the details at the bottom.
Quarter 2 Begins Tonight!
over 1 year ago
– Fri, Mar 31, 2023 at 09:00:06 AM
At midnight tonight, we roll over into April and quarter 2 begins. This means the release of Secret Project #2 and the May (Mistborn themed) and June (Sel—Elantris and Emperor’s Soul—themed) swag boxes!
At midnight MDT we will distribute the digital editions (ebooks for all reward tiers, audiobooks for applicable tiers) of Secret Project #2. You will receive an email with a link to your download page to download your rewards. Watch your spam and junk folders, just in case.
If you are unable to find that email, you can login to your BackerKit backer account (or create one if you don’t already have one) or request a one-time use login link to be emailed to you. Your digital downloads page will remain available for you through your backer survey at these links going forward, even after the campaign has concluded fulfillment.
Note: While all of the ebook versions include the interior artwork, Steve Argyle’s fantastic illustrations are best appreciated in their intended locations. As a fixed-layout format, PDF is the recommended way to experience this digitally.
Premium hardcover books are expected to begin fulfillment in April. We are awaiting news on when we will receive these. Once we have them and begin fulfillment, we will let you know.
Themed swag boxes will be packaged and shipped in May and June for appropriate reward tiers. Make sure your shipping address is current!
Our fulfillment team is working hard to ship the remaining premium hardcovers of Tress of the Emerald Sea. While we have been unable to fulfill all copies by the end of the quarter, we are nearly there and expect to finish within the next week or so. Watch our fulfillment progress bars here!
Things are happening behind the scenes to improve processes and reduce or eliminate delays with future book releases. Secret Project #2 delays are expected to be significantly reduced over the delays encountered with Tress. While not all book boxes are likely to be shipped during the month of April, backers should not be waiting as long for these books this quarter. Secret Project #3 and #4 books are being watched closely and any information we receive on them will be announced in future updates as we get closer to fulfillment deadlines.
Swag boxes are expected to continue to be fulfilled on time. We eagerly anticipate some amazing unboxing videos!
Quarter One (Almost) Complete!
over 1 year ago
– Tue, Mar 21, 2023 at 08:18:44 AM
We are almost done with the first quarter! These first three months have flown by for Team Dragonsteel, and while we've certainly had our fair share of hiccups, we are proud of our Hoid and Cytoverse fulfillment and happy to be packaging Tress again.
Information in this update will apply to all backers. Feel free to skim to the parts you want to know about.
Fulfillment Status
January
Rewards: Tress of the Emerald Sea
Status: In Progress
Notes:
Digital rewards fulfilled January 1, 2023 at midnight MST as scheduled.
25% of the premium hardcover book boxes were fulfilled in January.
Nearly 40% of the boxes have been fulfilled to date.
Remaining fulfillment actively underway.
February
Rewards: Hoid Themed Swag Box
Status: Complete
Notes:
Shipped in January due to delays with Tress premium hardcover.
March
Rewards: Cytoverse Themed Swag Box
Status: Complete
Notes:
Fulfilled on schedule
Tress Remaining Fulfillment
Shipments of the premium hardcover of Tress of the Emerald Sea have resumed! We received a truckload of approximately 14,000 books last Friday and have already shipped most of them out. The next truckload is on its way to us, and fulfillment will continue until we are complete.
Our fulfillment team is prioritizing quarterly book backers who have not yet received any physical rewards—we hope to ensure they get their book during the first quarter. We will then begin shipping to “Year of Sanderson” backer tiers—we also hope that most of these backers will receive their book during the first quarter.
We are unable to guarantee all book fulfillment prior to April, but will do our best. We’ve been told we will be “buried in green books” with nearly daily shipments, so we are tentatively optimistic. However, scheduling trucks for this sort of delivery can be difficult. We once again apologize for the heavy delays on this book's fulfillment, and will do our best to get these premium hardcovers to you as quickly as we are able.
Secret Project #2 Fulfillment
We are less than two weeks away from the release of Secret Project #2! We are excited for all backers to receive their ebook files on April 1, 2023 at midnight MDT. And, we have heard your request! The digital download file names will not spoil the book title for Secret Project #2. All digital downloads will be zipped, and only the file names within the zip will contain the book title. We will also delay the use of the title (or put it behind a spoiler warning) in campaign updates until after the physical books have all been shipped. However, beginning on April 11th—when the ebook and audiobook become available to the general public—Brandon and the Dragonsteel publicity team will use the title freely in all posts related to the book.
In update #26, we announced there were no expected delays with the rest of the secret projects. We are deeply regretful to let you know that this has now changed, and we apologize for providing information that turned out to be incorrect. Foiling of the cover and final binding are going well, but will not be complete before April 1st.
Due to the delays with Tress, we are hesitant to provide firm dates or expectations to our backers for Secret Project #2, although we know you want and are asking for them. We hate setting expectations only to have to later recant or change those expectations.
With that caveat, and based on our most updated information, we can say that we expect the delay to be weeks and not months. We should receive the first truckloads of this book sometime in the month of April and will immediately begin fulfillment. Once we begin receiving these truckloads, there should not be a two-month delay between trucks like we experienced with Tress. We may or may not be able to fulfill all books in April, but we will do our best to get them to you as soon as possible. Additionally, we will continue to be transparent about what is happening without setting false expectations.
What We Are Doing to Mitigate Future Delays
The printer we used for Tress told us they could deliver the books on time. However, it turned out to be a more complex project than they estimated, which is why we've tried something else for Secret Project #2. Our print rep (who is in close contact with multiple printers and works assiduously to monitor each step of the printing process) has worked magic to minimize the delays on Secret Project #2. For example, the covers are being foiled at a different plant that can do the same quality of foiling but faster, allowing for concurrent production with the covers of Tress and saving significant time. Additionally, they're foiling these in batches so we'll receive trucks of books in a more consistent pattern, which should equate to shipping the books to backers more quickly.
The interior pages have already been printed and are waiting at the bindery for covers to arrive. As soon as they do and they finish up binding the last of Tress, binding for Secret Project #2 will begin immediately.
Thank you again for your amazing support throughout this process! We feel that the year will get better and better as it progresses. We also have some very exciting swag boxes for quarter two—we think they'll leave an impression!
Tress fulfillment resumes... NOW!
over 1 year ago
– Fri, Mar 17, 2023 at 08:13:22 AM
They're here!
Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Our luck is looking up! Another truckload of beautiful emerald books arrived first thing this morning, and we've been told to expect a flood of books until all copies of Tress have been received. Thank you for your patience; it will be rewarded soon!
As we post this update, our fulfillment and shipping team—joined by others from Team Dragonsteel—are beginning to pack, label, and prepare Tress boxes for shipment. Tracking number notification emails will begin going out to some of you today. Our warehouse will be running longer evening and weekend hours, but we have tens of thousands of these books to ship. We ask for one last stretch of patience while we work to get these books shipped as quickly as possible. Our warehouse First Ideal is Accuracy before Speed!
We will post a more detailed update next week with a great deal of information about the entire campaign, including where we are now, what we foresee going forward, our estimated timelines, and more. Stay tuned!
