Status Report: Building Steam and Installing Pallet Rack
10 months ago – Wed, Jan 17, 2024 at 11:17:04 AM

Greetings Backers,

It is time for your January status report!

TL;DR:   Mission Patch and Chinook pins have arrived. The bonus story is complete. We've installed pallet rack in the warehouse (pictures below) and we're set up for a period of quiet work. The 70 Maxims reprint is expected to launch in February, you can sign up to be notified here. Your next full status report will be the week of Feb 19-23 after Sandra recovers from LTUE. Details below.

Thank you so much for being prompt in filling out your surveys!  We still need surveys from 85 backers. Please fill out your info so that we can send your package when everything is done.  If still need to fill out your survey CLICK HERE.  If you have questions or need help, email [email protected] and I'll take care of you. 

Deliverable Progress

Core Items

• Mandatory Failure PDF This will release about two weeks after the book has gone to print.
• Mandatory Failure perfect-bound glossy soft-cover: Bonus story is complete. Up next Howard will tackle one of the following: margin art, copy edits, or finalizing the cover. Sandra's hopes of going to print by end of January were felled by her getting sick and disrupting everything for more than a week.  
• Mandatory Failure sketch editions: We'll begin these once we have print books in hand.
• Full-color sketch cards: We have the cards, the drawing station is all set up. We just need some uninterrupted time for Howard to get rolling on these. 

Add-ons

• Limited Edition “Two Chinooks” Print: Image is drafted. The rest of the picture will go fast once we get some other tasks taken care of.
• Ship Coin: Soulward Honor: Waiting for Howard to draw ship art
• Clan Gugro Coin: Waiting for Howard to have design cycles
• Character Pins: The pins for Chinook and Raging  Chinook have arrived. The other two pins are waiting for Howard to have design cycles.
• Limited Edition Mission Patch: Done! And in the warehouse.

Exclusives

• Backer+Patron Sticker: (for backers who are also patreon supporters) Waiting for Howard to have design cycles
• Discord Sticker: We added this one as a freebie for people who are both backers and members of our Hypernode Connect Discord server. So glad so many of you joined us! We'll try to make the sticker cool. Waiting for Howard to have design cycles.
• HESH Coin, Series 2: (for HESH pledge level backers) Design half done, just need to finalize the other side.

Digital Goodies

• Desktop + mobile wallpapers: Cover Art  (DONE!), Maxim 70 (DONE!), Two Chinooks (Waiting on art), &  All-Seventy-Maxims (Waiting on Howard to have design Cycles.)
• TechnoCane Video Tutorial & Parts List (so you can build your own!) Howard has been making plans for this and may have expanded the scope a little bit. He wants to make a really useful resource. 
• Time-lapse videos for coins, and pin artwork (In process. Howard is collecting video and will post when it is done.)
• Videos & photos of the convention kit DONE  I still plan to do a video tour of Howard's Gravistation where he both writes and does art.
• Warehouse pallet racks: DONE!  Pictures and details below.  

Details

We never get as much work done as we want to do. I suppose that is reasonable when I'm describing a four week span of time which included Christmas, New Year, and family members getting sick. Even though it is reasonable, we still wish we'd done more. We always wish we'd done more.

BUT we did succeed at installing pallet rack in the warehouse and I have pictures! Huge shout out to HOJ Innovations and to Spencer for taking on the job even though our warehouse is tiny. He really went above and beyond to do things for us, including finding discount used rack and volunteering his work crew to put the pallets into place with their forklift. If you ever know anyone in Utah who needs help with their warehouse, HOJ (pronounced Hoy) is absolutely the company to call. 

When I last showed you my warehouse it looked like this:

We had cleared a 10x20 space so that we could plan and set up a test booth for Dragonsteel Con.  But when Hoj created the engineering plan for installing pallet rack, they planned for 28 feet of rack. We needed to clear another 8 feet of space along the wall and at least four more feet of width so that a forklift would have space to maneuver. 

Aidan did a lot of hand-shifting boxes of books, shoving them into corners and into the front room. Sandra got sick instead of being able to help, so we called in a last-minute neighbor brigade. The result was this:

Actually that picture was taken after we'd already moved several pallets out of the open space. Basically we lined up pallets outside where the were out of the way so the team could build shelves along my big bare wall.

The team was very efficient. They had the shelving up by 10:30am.

One of the things I love about seeing this kind of work done is discovering job specific knowledge and tools. This is a spud wrench, which is a friendly sounding name for a thing that looks like a murder weapon. In fact pretty sure the game CLUE would be different if this were the wrench:

That pointy end is designed to jab and nudge shelving crossbars into place against standing uprights. They used it almost constantly while assembling the shelves. That and a mallet. Nothing gentle here. If the shelves can't stand up to being hit, they're not strong enough for the work I need them to do. 

Once the shelves were assembled and in place, the crew sunk bolts into the floor.  These will not tip over and there is an inspector coming to look at the shelves and sign off on the work. The bolts work on the same basic principle that is used for drywall anchors when hanging pictures. 

Spencer very kindly went over all the math with me to show me that these shelves are easily up to the loads I plan to put on them. Each shelf can hold up to 6000 pounds. Each pallet of books is 2000 pounds or less, so we're in great shape. 

And this is where the team really went above and beyond. There were a couple of spots where I hadn't quite cleared enough room for the forklift to maneuver, and they cheerfully helped me re-stack books into new spots. Not only that, but they helped me extract a couple of pallets from behind other things. And when we ran out of pallets, they went and found two more then helped me stack boxes on them so that we could fill up every available pallet space. 

The result looks amazing. I have so much more space. Most of those books won't need to be accessed for a year or two. When they are, we'll get down one or two boxes at a time using a ladder. The pallets can quietly sit out of the way leaving us space to work.

We still have lots of work to do. We need to pull things out of the corners we shoved them into. Those open bays at the bottom will be stacked full. But now we have space to organize all of the other things. More importantly, we have space to welcome pallets of Mandatory Failure when that book arrives. 

Here is a comparison of what my warehouse space looked like in August vs how it looks today.

We have space to breathe and grow. That is thanks to you, our backers, who helped us reach the Equipment Upgrades goal. We could not have done this without you. 

I need to make a separate post with images of pins and patch. I hope to do that in the next few weeks. Your next full update will be the week of February 19-23 after LTUE. 

Thank you so much for backing our project and we hope you have a happy new year!

Howard and Sandra Tayler

REMINDER: Don't forget to sign up to be notified of the crowdfunding for the reprint of Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries (defaced)  As part of the project I'll have a special pledge level for "add this to my existing order for Mandatory Failure" so that you can combine shipping. We also plan to do a poster with all 70 Maxims on it as a stretch goal. You can sign up here to be notified as soon as we launch. 

Status Report: Working Around Disruptions
11 months ago – Thu, Dec 21, 2023 at 07:31:59 AM

Greetings Backers,

It is time for your December status report!

TL;DR:   Backerkit surveys have gone out. If you ordered a PDF bundle you can download that now. We've placed orders for the mission patch and half the pins. Bonus Story is in progress. The 70 Maxims reprint is expected to launch in February, you can sign up to be notified here. Your next full status report will be the week of Jan 15-19. Details below.

Thank you so much for being prompt in filling out your surveys!  We still need surveys from 153 backers. Please fill out your info so that we can send your package when everything is done.  If still need to fill out your survey CLICK HERE.  You won't be charged for any of the items you add in Backerkit until we  lock orders in Feb or March. This means you can continue adjusting and  adding to your order until then. We'll give you advance notice before we  lock things down. Anything that you added on in Kickstarter has already  been paid for as part of your pledge. If you need your card charged before then, email [email protected] and I'll take care of you. 

Deliverable Progress

Core Items

• Mandatory Failure PDF This will release about two weeks after the book has gone to print.
• Mandatory Failure perfect-bound glossy soft-cover: Howard has finished the writing of the bonus story and Ethan is plowing through the art. Both should be done soon.  Still left to do: margin art, copy edits, finalize  cover, finalize layout. Sandra hopes to send this off to print by the end of January. 
• Mandatory Failure sketch editions: We'll begin these once we have print books in hand.
• Full-color sketch cards: We have the cards, the drawing station is all set up. We just need some uninterrupted time for Howard to get rolling on these. 

Add-ons

• Limited Edition “Two Chinooks” Print: Image is drafted. The rest of the picture will go fast once we get some other tasks taken care of.
• Ship Coin: Soulward Honor: Waiting for Howard to draw ship art
• Clan Gugro Coin: Waiting for Howard to have design cycles
• Character Pins: The pins for Chinook and Raging  Chinook have been ordered. We expect them to arrive in January. The other two pins are waiting for Howard to have design cycles.
• Limited Edition Mission Patch: Done! Order is placed we'll have these in January.

Exclusives

• Backer+Patron Sticker: (for backers who are also patreon supporters) Waiting for Howard to have design cycles
• Discord Sticker: We added this one as a freebie for people who are both backers and members of our Hypernode Connect Discord server. So glad so many of you joined us! We'll try to make the sticker cool. Waiting for Howard to have design cycles.
• HESH Coin, Series 2: (for HESH pledge level backers) Design half done, just need to finalize the other side.

Digital Goodies

• Desktop + mobile wallpapers: Cover Art  (DONE!), Maxim 70 (DONE!), Two Chinooks (Waiting on art), &  All-Seventy-Maxims (Waiting on Howard to have design Cycles.)
• TechnoCane Video Tutorial & Parts List (so you can build your own!) December has been crazy busy. We're hoping to do this in January. 
• Time-lapse videos for coins, and pin artwork (In process. Howard is collecting video and will post when it is done.)
• Videos & photos of the convention kit We posted the Dragonsteel report with some pictures. Howard also created some labeled threads of photos on Bluesky and Twitter / X. I plan to do a video tour of Howard's Gravistation where he both writes and does art.
• Warehouse pallet racks: We cleared space, but were daunted by installation. Fortunately I've now got a line on a company that installs these things. Hopefully they're willing to help with smaller projects as well as huge ones. 

Details

We'll be running crowdfunding for the reprint of Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries (defaced) This was the stretch goal we didn't reach as part of this project.  The project will launch in early February directly on Backerkit. (We want to experiment with using Backerkit Funding) As part of the project I'll have a special pledge level for "add this to my existing order for Mandatory Failure" so that you can combine shipping. We also plan to do a poster with all 70 Maxims on it as a stretch goal. You can sign up here to be notified as soon as we launch. 

We've had a very busy few weeks since Dragonsteel Con. We had clean up and recovery combined with Thanksgiving weekend. Then we had a full week of Writing Excuses recording where Howard spend all of his energy in focused conversations and Sandra ran logistics to make sure that everyone was fed. There was also a pile of social obligations related to the holiday. Around all of that we struggled to find a good working flow, but we did accomplish some tasks related to the Kickstarter.  

The most critical was that we pulled parts from Howard's convention rig and incorporated them into the permanent Gravistation, which is what we're calling the Gravis chair with its set up for drawing, writing, and sketching. I plan to get full pictures of this once Howard begins drawing sketch cards. We also put a new couch into place since the old one was too big to fit with the Gravistation. 

Sandra set up downloads for the 17 book PDF bundle. In order to do that smoothly using Backerkit's built in system, she had to update all of the PDF files to make them smaller. We used to output them at a resolution suitable for printing, which made the files huge. Now they're set up at a resolution suitable for reading electronically. Which means they'll take up much less space on your devices. If you've previously purchased the PDF bundle and would like access to the smaller files, email [email protected] and we'll make them available to you. If you purchased them as part of this Kickstarter, you can download them via Backerkit as soon as you've filled out your survey. 

We've placed orders for the Mandatory Failure Mission Patch and the two Chinook pins. Getting the rest of the pins and coins ordered soon is high on the list of priorities. Ideally we'll get those orders in early enough that production won't be impacted by lunar new year celebrations. The list of things we want to get done as soon as possible is large and we're constantly juggling priorities. Howard has been focused on finishing the bonus story so that Ethan doesn't run out of pages to draw. 

On the Equipment Upgrades front, Sandra hit a wall when the company who sells pallet rack said "we don't to installations." But then she had a fortuitous encounter which netted her the contact info for a local warehouse consulting firm. On January 2nd they'll be visiting our small warehouse space and giving us recommendations and a plan for moving forward with making better use of our little warehouse. 

The next two weeks will be much occupied by our Christmas and New Year holidays, but as soon as we round the corner into the new year, we plan to get moving on Kickstarter production. Neither Howard nor Sandra has any big events in January, which makes it a good month to get a lot of work done.  Once we've got a running start on the year we'll give you another full status report. That should land the week of Jan 15-19. 

Thank you so much for backing our project and we hope you have a happy new year!

Howard and Sandra Tayler

Dragonsteel Report and Backerkit Surveys
12 months ago – Thu, Nov 30, 2023 at 01:57:25 PM

Greetings Backers,

TL;DR: This is an update on Dragonsteel con and information about the Backerkit surveys that will start going out over the weekend.  Details on both of these are below. Your next full status report will be the week of Dec 18-22.

Backerkit Surveys

Your surveys will be coming this weekend.  They'll be sent out in batches, but you should have yours by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. 

Please answer your survey promptly! The sooner we get survey answers, the sooner we can place orders for the coin and pins.

As part of the survey is a mini store that will let you add on items. Please be aware that  the charge for items added in Backerkit will appear on your credit card in February or March of 2024. I will post updates and notice before I lock orders and charge cards.  If for any reason  you need to have your card charged sooner than that, please email  [email protected] and we can help you.

Detailed survey instructions

Note that images for these instructions are from a former Kickstarter, but the look of the pages is the same. The email for the survey will come from Backerkit. It will include a link that is personalized to you. When you click on the link, it will take you to a page where you will confirm your shipping location. This is also the page where you can change your pledge level if you decide to upgrade to NCO or HESH level. 

Once  you click "Get Started" you'll be taken to a series of pledge questions. The questions vary depending on your pledge level. This is when people with sketch cards will select their choice of sketch. If you decide you want multiple sketch cards, you can add on more later.

Once  you've answered all the questions you'll be taken to the add-on  page.  The add-on page is where you can select items to add to your  order. If  you added funds during the Kickstarter to cover the cost of  add-ons,  this is where you indicate what that money is to be used for.  All of your items will ship together.  Be aware that some add-on items will have additional  shipping costs. If you don't want to add any items, you can move past  this page by clicking the Next button.

Once you've added on or clicked past the add-on page, you'll be taken to the page where you'll fill out your address. If there is  uncertainty about where your address will be in April/May 2024, don't worry. Just fill out your current address to complete your survey. You can update your address at any time by using your survey link to login to Backerkit and change your address. So hold onto the survey email if you think your  address might change in the next few months. We will send out reminder emails before we ship which will also let you update your address. 

The final screen of your  survey is where you will enter payment  information if you need to give additional payment for items you added on. If you have no add-ons or you added the funds during the Kickstarter, you shouldn't see the payment  page because you've already paid. Make sure you click the big green "Place My Order" button to  complete your survey.

Instructions for special requests

If  you have a special request or a question, please first read through updates and the project FAQ to see if your question has already been answered. If it hasn't been answered, please email   [email protected]. Response times may be slow at first if  there  are a lot of emails to handle.

Dragonsteel Con

As part of the equipment upgrades stretch goal we promised to give you a full report of Howard's convention rig in action. Step one was creating a booth layout on paper.

It seemed like a good plan, but we needed to see it function in real space. Since we needed to clear a wall in the warehouse for the incoming pallet rack, we first used that space as a test booth. You can see the tape on the floor where we outlined the edges of the booth space.

We built and tested Howard's drawing rig at home first. We had to shove some furniture out of the way for a couple of days, but this let Howard refine and test the rig in a temperature controlled space instead of our unheated warehouse. The c-stand holds the monitor and the small rolling rig to the side of the chair is a magnetic stand for Howard's markers. 

Once we felt like we had the drawing rig worked out, we transported it over to the warehouse where we set it up next to the closet structure and the tables we intended to use. 

Having it set up in place was really valuable because we discovered that I did not need to create a hinged table to let Howard get in and out of his chair. Instead we just had to cut a notch out of the table top. That was a much easier build than I feared it would be.  Which was good because we were extremely pressed for time. It was only a few days before the show and I still had to decide what merchandise to bring and stack it all for transport. 

The day came to load the vehicles. We ended up using three. One (the beetle) for Howard, assistant 2, and all our luggage. Even though the convention took place an hour from our house, it reduced a lot of stress and fatigue to stay at a hotel onsite instead. The second car (mine) was full of booth fixtures and the cart we needed to get things to and from the vehicles.  The third belonged to my son-in-law who very kindly drove a load of merchandise up for us and showed up to help us load out afterward. 

Utah is a desert, we don't get much rain, except apparently on days when I have to unload cars at an unsheltered loading dock.

Then it was time to build a booth. We only had four hours to set up. For my similar sized booth at Gen Con we have a day and a half. So it was a scramble, Particularly with less experienced booth help. 

But then we were set up and everything was working. There is always a moment of wondering "what have we gotten ourselves into? This will never be done on time." Then there is a moment where we see the store we've made and feel ready to open. 

Howard's drawing rig worked beautifully. His reclined position meant he could sit and draw for 6-8 hours instead of being exhausted after only 3 or 4. The markers were easily to hand and he started work on some of the sketch cards that will be going out in backer orders. The monitor on the c-stand meant that people could watch Howard draw in real time. 

As always the best bit is watching people interact and be delighted by Howard's drawing. 

The show was fantastic and energetic. We got to meet fans and catch up with long time friends. We're really happy with how everything in the booth worked and we have a list of things we'll do differently next time. 

Thank you so much for your support as backers. Reaching that stretch goal allowed us to build the booth we wanted to have instead of having to make do with old equipment.  Howard and I still want to do a more detailed breakdown of the equipment and rigging for you. Some of it came home and was immediately re-purposed to help Howard set up for drawing sketch cards from his chair at home. 

That's our update for this time. We'll have a full status report for you the week of December 18-22.

Thank you again for your support!

Sandra and Howard Tayler

Status Report: Things Getting Moving
about 1 year ago – Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 01:33:36 PM

Greetings Backers,

It is time for your first full status report on this project!

TL;DR: We took a couple of weeks slower, but now we're in full convention-prep mode. Howard is working on building convention rig, Sandra is planning logistics. In between these tasks Howard is working on bonus story and art for deliverables. Your next update will be a convention post during the week of Nov 27- Dec 1.  Your next full status report will be the week of Dec 18-22.

You can expect your Backerkit survey by the end of November. Sandra will send them out as soon as she's nailed down a final few details. You won't be charged for any of the items you add in Backerkit until we lock orders in Feb or March. This means you can continue adjusting and adding to your order until then. We'll give you advance notice before we lock things down. Anything that you added on in Kickstarter has already been paid for as part of your pledge. 

The rough schedule we posted in our prior update still holds for now. Dragonsteel Con is looming large because we really only have a week to get ready. Once we're past that event, I can unfold a schedule in a more leisurely fashion. More details below about all our convention prep.

Meet our giant spreadsheet! Howard and I use a shared Google Sheet to track all of the details and steps necessary for each of the things we need to make for you. Here is our spreadsheet as of this morning.

Just glancing at this sheet I can see several things that need to be updated. Some of the items here are too big to fit on the general spreadsheet, so there are separate sheets for all the detailed tasks. For example: sketch cards has a separate sheet that lists all of the individual sketches we'll be offering. Right now this sheet has more red on it than we want, but fixing that will be the work we do for the next several months.

Deliverable Progress

Core Items

•  Mandatory Failure PDF This will release about two weeks after the book has gone to print.
•  Mandatory Failure perfect-bound glossy soft-cover: Howard and Ethan have been working on the bonus story, bouncing pages back and forth. Still left to do: margin art, copy edits, finalize cover, finalize layout. 
•  Mandatory Failure sketch editions: We'll begin these once we have print books in hand. 
•  Full-color sketch cards: Howard has finalized a list of the sketch options. (You'll select your sketch in Backerkit.) He's building a marker rack to make it easier to use the full array of markers while reclined in his chair. We'll begin testing this at Dragonsteel Con.
   

Add-ons

•  Limited Edition “Two Chinooks” Print: Image is drafted. The rest of the picture will go fast once we get some other tasks taken care of. 
•  Ship Coin: Soulward Honor: Waiting for Howard to draw ship art
•  Clan Gugro Coin: Waiting for Howard to have design cycles
•  Character Pins: Chinook, Raging Chinook, and two more (designs TBA). The Chinook and Raging Chinook are done. I'll order them as soon as I have a count of how many you all want. Other two pins are waiting for Howard to have design cycles.
•  Limited Edition Mission Patch: Done! Just waiting for a firm count then I'll order these.
   

Exclusives

•  Backer+Patron Sticker: (for backers who are also patreon supporters) Waiting for Howard to have design cycles
•  HESH Coin, Series 2: (for HESH pledge level backers) Design half done, just need to finalize the other side.
   

Digital Goodies

•  Desktop + mobile wallpapers: Cover Art (DONE!), Maxim 70 (DONE!), Two Chinooks (Waiting on art), & All-Seventy-Maxims (Waiting on Howard to have design Cycles.)
•  TechnoCane Video Tutorial & Parts List (so you can build your own!) We'll get started on this after we return from Dragonsteel Con. Possible December, might roll into January.
•  Time-lapse videos for coins, and pin artwork (In process. Howard is collecting video and will post when it is done.)
•  Videos & photos of the convention kit We're building this kit now. I should have most of these by the time we have our next update.
•  Warehouse pallet racks: We're clearing space on the wall where they will go. The first thing we'll use that space for is to plan our Dragonsteel Con booth. After the convention, I'll start the purchasing process for the shelving. 

Details

Welcome to the "details" section where I tell you the story of our progress rather than the bare bones status reports. As we predicted, the two weeks following the close of the Kickstarter were something of a pause. Howard did some work on deliverables, but we both experienced an energy crash that required recovery. Which is only to be expected given the high-energy, high-focus of running the Kickstarter funding. The other reason for the pause is that many of our next steps required buying things to make them happen and we couldn't do any of that purchasing until we had money in hand. Those last few days of waiting got pretty anxious because we could feel the convention coming fast, but we couldn't start building anything until we bought parts.  This is the week of a bajillion packages. We were finally able to order things and now we go full bore into convention prep.

While we were waiting, Sandra and Aidan (our in-house shipping manager) got to work moving tons of books away from the warehouse wall to make space for the mock convention booth we'll set up. Then after that the space where we'll put up the pallet rack shelving.  I plan to take some after shots once the space is cleared and I'll include those in our next updates. 

The next step will be renting a pallet jack so that we can move several stacks of books that are still shrink wrapped on their pallets. We need them out of the way of the shelf installation and in an easy location for the day we hire a forklift + operator to put them up on the top of the pallet rack. 

Booth construction began with a trip to IKEA for pieces we'll customize into a table. I plan to take pictures of that process as I go to explain what we're doing and why. Then we'll show off the new table at the convention. 

The joyous complication in our plan to dive head first into all of the convention prep was the arrival of our first grandbaby a week ago.

Babies are distractingly cute and new parents need a lot of support as they figure things out, so we've spent quite a bit of time this week on that project. It is a good project, but not something that helps us check things off the spreadsheet. So far he's been an easy baby and parents are adapting quickly, so I expect us all to find a better equilibrium soon. 

That's our updates for now. Your next update will be a convention report sometime during the week of Nov 27- Dec 1.  Your next full status report will be the week of Dec 18-22.

Thank you so much for backing our project!

Howard and Sandra Tayler

Funding Complete!
about 1 year ago – Fri, Oct 20, 2023 at 02:12:40 PM

Hello, everyone!

Thank you.

We could have deployed all manner of purple prose to  express the depth of our gratitude for your support  and our ongoing sense of wonder at your enthusiasm but it’s been a long week at the end of a long thirty-one days so for now we’ll just compress all of that into two words.

Thank you.

The rest of this update is in three parts:

What Happens Next is our schedule.
Some Seventy Maxim Stuff is a quick game of “good news, bad news.”
List of Deliverables is a list of all the stuff we’re delivering as part of this project.

Now… let’s talk about what happens next.

What Happens Next

Oct 20-22:

• We’re going to take the weekend off. This means we’ll probably still be working, but we’ll try not to.
  
• Except for the part where we create a project spreadsheet. We won’t actually be able to relax until that’s done.
  

Oct 23-Nov20:

• Howard will be working on the “manufacturing bottleneck” items: the bonus story, the pins, and the coins. These are things we hope to send to the various printers and manufacturers before the end of the year.
  
• Howard and Sandra will create the parts list for the convention rig, and will begin purchasing components as soon as Kickstarter funds are released. Dragonsteel Con is just a month out (Nov 20-21) and we’re exhibiting at that event.
  
• Howard and Sandra will work up the list of options for the sketch cards, then Howard will draw one of each. Representative sample photos will be available for each option.
  
• Sandra will begin the bookkeeping tasks for BackerKit and backer surveys, and will work with Hypernode Minion #1 to prepare our warehouse for the pallet racks.
  
• Sandra will begin folding the project spreadsheet into a schedule for further updates. The first update will arrive during the week of November 6th-10th.
  

Nov 19-22:

• Dragonsteel Con! This event will be our first deployment of the new convention kit. We’ll take lots of pictures, and include those in our updates.
  

Nov 23-Dec 31

• It’s the holiday season, which means we’re working a lot. Not quite retail levels of work, but it’s not a time of year for us to vacation. Howard will be finishing up the art deliverables, and Sandra will be managing the upgrades to our warehouse.
  
• You’ll begin getting updates from us every two weeks or so, with photos, videos, humorous anecdotes, and progress reports.
  

January 2024

• Let’s see how November goes before we commit to bullet points about January…
  

Some Seventy Maxim Stuff

Sandra promised that Howard would do an all-seventy-maxims desktop background if 2,000 people backed the project. We didn’t hit that goal, but we got really close, and many of you worked hard to spread the word, so Howard will go ahead and make this.

The reprint of the book is another matter. It’s an expensive print run, and while this project did quite well, it won’t cover that. Sandra and Howard discussed the math, and the logistics, and realized that we made a mistake.

The reprint shouldn’t have been a stretch goal for this project.

The reprint should be its own project.

We have lots of ideas for this (including posters and PDFs) but we don’t know enough to lock down the timing. Not yet, anyway. A lot will depend on how quickly we get through the deliverables for this project. We’ll keep you updated.

Mandatory Failure: The Mandatory List of Deliverables

Thank you for continuing to read! As a reward, here is a list of the deliverables for this project.

Core Items

• Mandatory Failure PDF
  
• Mandatory Failure perfect-bound glossy soft-cover
  
• Mandatory Failure sketch editions
  
• Full-color sketch cards
  

Add-ons

• Limited Edition “Two Chinooks” Print
  
• Ship Coin: Soulward Honor
  
• Clan Gugro Coin
  
• Character Pins: Chinook, Raging Chinook, and two more (designs TBA)
  
• Limited Edition Mission Patch
  

Exclusives

• Backer+Patron Sticker (for backers who are also patreon supporters)
  
• HESH Coin, Series 2 (for HESH pledge level backers)
  

Digital Goodies

• Desktop + mobile wallpapers: Cover Art, Maxim 70, Two Chinooks, & All-Seventy-Maxims.
  
• TechnoCane Video Tutorial & Parts List (so you can build your own!)
  
• Time-lapse videos for coins, and pin artwork
  
• Videos & photos of the convention kit, the pallet racks, and more. (Maybe, just MAYBE, streaming video of the sketch cards… we’ll see.)
  

Fun fact: writing this update is incredibly useful to us. It’s how we front-load the process of making the spreadsheet. So, yes. We just sent you our homework. When you’re grading it, please forgive the excessive use of bullet points¹.

Thank you again! Because of you we can keep making things, and thanks to you we have a nice queue of cool things to make.

—Howard and Sandra

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¹ It’s like the firing range aphorism: “You’re not being paid to bring the bullets home.”²
² Yes, we’re aware of Maxim 28, which says that sometimes you CAN get paid to bring bullets back home with you, but this didn’t seem like one of those times so we used all of the bullets.