Overseas Shipping Update
over 2 years ago
– Mon, Jan 03, 2022 at 08:56:42 PM
Hey all, Robin here. I'm not even sure how best to write this update - I've penned it many, many times in my head and it never comes out the way I want it to. Mainly because I've tried to write it while keeping my personal life, well personal, and that just doesn't work. So if you don't want to hear the details - skip down to the TL:DR section below.
TMI
Okay, so everything in this section squarely falls in the "too much information" category - feel free to skip down to the TL:DR (Too long, didn't read) section if you just want to know the process we are going to use going forward.
So a few things. Depression is a serious, and debilitating condition. Like alcoholism and drug addiction, its roots run deep in my family. I've avoided the last two by abstinence, but there is no way to circumvent the former. My brother died by suicide and my mother was institutionalized when I was thirteen, and I walk forward by looking over my shoulder hoping that neither catch up to me. There have always been times when I couldn't will myself out of bed, but in the past they have been relatively short-lived. Don't get me wrong, I have good days and bad, but as of late, the bad have far outnumbered the good.
You see, there is another aspect about me that has changed in recent months, and the two feed on one another. We each have traits that define us. My sister was always the "pretty and popular one." My brother was always the "bad boy" who pushed the envelope of behaving inappropriately. For me, I was the "smart one." I'm the nerdy Valedotrian bookworm, who was never asked out (Michael and I never even dated before we married), and the one thing I had that I could be proud of was my brain. Sharp as a tack, able to learn new things, and that, combined with an incredible work ethic, made me successful in almost everything I set out to accomplish.
Until now...
Well, my brain is no longer working the way it should. Michael and my children try to assure me it's the normal aging process, but it is not. And I can't articulate to them why other than to say they aren't inside my head and can't see how different it is in there now. Is it Alzheimer's disease or Mild Cognitive Impairment? I don't know. I guess time will tell, but it is getting worse and I just can't "process" like I once could. Some things are definitely a part of being over 60 now.Tthere are memory issues, that is normal, but even something as simple as trying to find a passage in a book (for instance when editing), has become nearly impossible as I can't figure out "how" to find what I'm looking for. I mean I literally do not know the steps to go through or the keys to press. But the worse thing is I find myself "slipping away." I'm "there enough" to know I used to be different than I am now, but I know I will never be "that person again." I feel like an athlete who has become a quadriplegic, or an artist who has gone blind. As you might imagine, this decreased mental state has only exasperated my proclivity toward depression.
For the past 15 years, I have run "the business side" of Michael's writing but I can't do it any longer.
I feel extreme pressure to "get things in order" before I become completely useless. In many ways, I feel like I'm on the Titanic as it sinks, and I'm trying to build a raft to at least stay afloat. So where does that leave me? Well, I'm going to attempt a cloning experiment.
Over the last six months, I've been recruiting my children's help, and while it has taken them a while to agree (because this wasn't on their radar), I now have a commitment from them, which means I have a path forward. That is why I'm able to post an update today. Until those ducks were in a row I didn't know what to do.
My son James, who obtained an engineering degree like his mom, is going to start up a new business JMS Author services. I'm going to teach him everything I know about printing, book layout, Kickstarters, fulfillment, sales and so forth. Since handling our stuff will not be enough to provide a living wage, he's going to be doing these services for others. He is in the works for launching several Kickstarters for other authors early next year. My daughter Rebecca, who has an accounting degree, will take over all the financial items that I currently deal with. And Sarah, will return to "the business" to help organize emails, and provide James shipping assistance for Kickstarters and direct website orders. So the basic plan is to replace me with the three children I birthed. I feel extremely fortunate that they are willing to step up and help me in this way.
One other aspect in all this relates to our townhouse in Fairfax VA. We bought it at the end of 2006 when we relocated from Wake Forest NC to the Washington DC area. We had closed down our advertising agency, I got a new job, and Michael returned to writing (although he had no intention to publish - go figure). Anyway, that was right before the housing market crashed, so we bought at the worst possible time - the ultimate "seller's market" and the value of our investment plummeted just a few months later.
When I built the cabin in Luray (about 5 or is it 6 - I have no idea) years ago, Michael and I moved out, but my "children" (all adults) stayed behind. I don't know how many of you have followed what is happening in real estate right now, but we are once more in boom times, so in the summer I decided to sell the house as it looked like the only opportunity to stave off our losses. But that came with its own set of problems that I needed to address - and consumed a great deal of my time. There were many repairs that had to be done before listing. And "HOA violations" that needed to be addressed - I kid you not they complained that my shutters faded at a different rate than my doors so both had to be repainted to match), Then the house had to be completely emptied and staged, which meant my children would need new places to live. Arranging all these things has occupied a great deal of time - not just for me, but for my children as well. But all this work is now behind me. Sarah has moved into a condo in Winchester, James is renting a huge house with a bunch of his friends, and Rebecca moved to an apartment in June, but has now bought a house in Winchester which she closes on the 21st. We just closed on our Fairfax house yesterday. So with that done - all of us can get down to the "transition" that removes me from the equation, and have others take over for the things I cannot do.
Current Status
Okay, so what is the status of the overseas shipping? I'm sorry to say it's exactly where it was the last time I left you -- well that's not quite true, it's a few steps backward. All the books are still with the fulfillment companies waiting on a spreadsheet from me to tell them which books to send where. I had made great progress when last I posted, the only thing left to do is go through the emails and find out who needed a refund and take them off the sheets...and then the walls came crashing down.
The vitriol I ran into was massive and while completely understandable, it sent me into a death spiral of depression that I couldn't face. So what did I do -- I practiced abstinence. I was able to "hold myself together" if I covered my eyes and ears. Yes, that's not the mature thing to do, nor is it the responsible thing to do - but when you are hanging onto a cliff by your fingernails - you have to protect what little strength you have. So if you think I've been reading and ignoring your email - you are half right - I've not even opened them. I just couldn't.
With the relocations completed (a task that occupied a great deal of James's time), he is now available to do what I haven't been able to - get the spreadsheet to the shippers so we can finally get this finished up - but we are back at square one - because I have no idea what "shape" my last spreadsheets was in - as I abandoned them without finishing them completely. So here's the way forward:
TL:DR people start here
- The books are still with the fulfillment partners waiting for a spreadsheet to ship from
- I've made a new email address: [email protected]. Please use this for ANY Kickstarter correspondence as the "Michael Sullivan" email has been seriously neglected and I don't want any emails regarding this to get lost.
- If you want a refund and you paid through Kickstarter, I'll need an alternate way to send you money (there is no way to "reverse" the Kickstarter charges at this point). You can give me a Paypal address, or let me know where to send a check to. If you paid through BackerKit or PledgeBox - I will be able to refund your money through Stripe (the payment processor for those services). Send an email to [email protected] with the subject: REFUND REQUEST
- If your address is different than what you put on your original survey, send an email to [email protected] with the subject: ADDRESS CHANGE
- If you are still at the same address then please send an email to [email protected] with the subject: GOOD TO GO
I'll give people a week to send in their statuses, and I'll send the spreadsheet to the fulfillment partners with what I have at that time. I suspect there will be some number of people we'll need to "chase down" but those can be sent in a "second" batch after the majority of orders have gone out.
For people who read the TMI information - I have no idea how you will take what I've written - For some, it'll just be a series of lame excuses - and I can totally appreciate that perspective. I DID NOT want to go public with any of this - but I felt it was the only way to explain what's been going on so I did. Whether that was the right decision or not, I have no idea - but it's done now so there is nothing to do but move forward.
Long Overdue Update
almost 3 years ago
– Tue, Jun 01, 2021 at 03:20:07 PM
Hey all,
Robin here. If it looks like I've fallen off the planet, it's because I have - or just about. The biggest problem is that I'm a single person and a bottleneck for many, many things and I can only do so much. But the good news is we are inches close to the finish line.
In a nutshell.
- The books have arrived with both fulfillment partners - and in relatively good shape. We did have to ship some extras for damages - but not too many and those have now arrived. And no, we didn't start shipments until all products were in hand because the fulfillment houses want to do everything at once.
- We sent out requests for address updates, and most of the people responded quite quickly - thank you for that. I still had to do a lot of time-consuming "cat-herding" for people who didn't respond right away (and truth be told not everyone has), if you are one of these people and didn't respond to my numerous emails, well we'll deal with you separately.
- There was an additional month's delay because of Nolyn. I wish that wasn't the case, but I had a hard choice to make and unfortunately, it was to sacrifice the "old foreign" orders for the new book (for all countries). If you want to read all the sorted details - you can see more details below.
- Bottom line - spreadsheets are going out to the fulfillment partners today - and shipments will begin on Wednesday, June 2nd.
I'm sure your patience is at its breaking point. I wish this hadn't gone this way. But I'm truly doing the best I can.
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For those interested in knowing about the additional one month delay:
When it comes to publishing, there are some deadlines that can be pushed and some that MUST be met, (or there are dire consequences). Those deadlines are the ones where it's not just me and/or Michael's timelines that are affected but other organizations such as narrators and printers. We have to schedule certain dates more than a year out. For instance, the recording of Nolyn was scheduled on August 8, 2019 and the press time for Nolyn was scheduled back on June 16, 2020.
If that seems like a really long time -- it is. In the case of the recording, it's largely due to the fact that Tim Gerard Reynolds has gotten quite popular and (something we are pleased about), and he is booked up 6 - 9 months in advance. We had a "deadline slipage" regarding the recording of Age of Death and Age of Empyre, and once we saw we would miss our mid-October date, the soonest we had availability was early February 2020. So in August 2019, when I was rescheduleduing the last two Legend books, I also scheduled all three of the Rise and Fall books for March 2021, 2022, and 2023.
On the printing side, the industry has been crazy due to (a) COVID-19 (b) consolodation in the industry (c) bad economic times. These days there are just two major book printers in the country - and one of them is under Chapter 11 protection and is barely limping along. The printing of Age of Empyre (which we had pre-scheduled printing for - was delayed but becuase we already had a "print reservation" that delay wasn't too bad (a month or two - my memory isn't what it used to be). But in any case, to make sure that we would be able to get Nolyn printed for an August 2021 release, I put in a print reservation for it back in June of 2020.
As those deadlines approached, I started burning the candles at both ends. I slept only about 3 hours a night and so some of the coordination work that I needed to do for the foreign shipments got put on the back burner. Yes, I know you all have already been waiting a really long time, but if I missed those deadlines, then I would have to be rescheduled - and that rescheduling would mean moving to the back of the queue which by that time was already 11 months long. My choices came down to (a) delaying a few hundred people who were already HUGELY delayed by a month or (b) push the Rise and Fall series out by at least a year and have more than 3,500 people delayed by a year AND have thousands of pre-orders cancelled becuase once a book's date is moved back by that amount all the retail orders are wiped clean.
I'm sure you would have preferred for me to to get the foreign shipments done first and then get Nolyn recorded and on the press - but I made my decision and ran with it.
I wish so many things didn't bottleneck through me...and yes, if we were still traditionally published, my load would be less, but much of what consumed so much of my time would have occurred in either route becuase it was mainly related to copyedits, gamma reader changes and proofing the hours of raw footage from the recording sessions. In non-COVID times, we listen to the recording "as they happen" becuase we are "in studio" with Tim and the engineers, but during lockdowns we have to get the "dailies" AFTER the recordings and the review process is much more time consuming becuase each variation from the book has to be logged for re-recording and it is a very tedious and time consuming process.
So, that's the whole long sorted tale. But the good news is I'm about 90% done with the coordination work I need for the fulfillment partners and the books will start shipping in just a matter of days.
