Street Wolves Kickstarter Update 5: Printer News, Shipping Solutions, and more!
We have a HUGE update for you. A lot happened in the last couple of weeks! Sorry for the wall of text! (Just FYI I’ll be posting a lot of this on the Kickstarter, but there’s more details here).
Street Wolves Turbo Edition
The internal schedule has slipped a little for the full pdf release, which I was hoping would be early August. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like all the art will be done in time. HOWEVER, I plan on putting out a preview version of the book through Backerkit. That means you’ll get to see the book in it’s nearly final state, mostly missing some art.
When the missing art is done, then I’ll be able to update it and fulfill it through Drive Thru RPG and itch.io. In the meantime, I’d love if you would help track any typos and errors (more on that later). So watch for a notification when the preview edition is out!
Layout
I did a “final” pass of reading through the book to find mistakes/typos/errors. Final is in quotes, because this is the final pass before we release the preview book for everyone to see. Layout is pretty much done except for a few tweaks here and there and anything related to placing the new art.
Art
Art is still coming in and I’m still adding it in! We’ve got most of the new art done, but there’s still some big illustrations remaining. It’s really looking great so far though. Not everything is being replaced, but the stock art that I liked the least is now gone.
I’ve also “enhanced” some of the original art with some graphic design to make it more dynamic and thematic.
You can see added splashes of color here:
And 80s style shapes behind characters here:
Some of the art will get a treatment to make it look more like it is being viewed on an old TV:
Printing
I last got printer quotes about a year ago and since they all went stale (they’re only good for a month or so), I needed to get new ones. Plus, thanks to the success of the Kickstarter I’m going to order a couple hundred more books than I originally planned.
I sent out quotes to 20 printers, looking for the best quality at the price I could afford. I was also hoping to find a U.S. based printer or even better, a local printer, but the advice is true: Printing in the U.S. at such low volumes isn’t economically viable.
With overseas printers I was a bit nervous knowing how much the market changes that things could have been real bad compared to my original estimates that were done so long ago. But the good news is things are looking good!
It took a few weeks of searching, a lot of emails, and a lot of spreadsheet updates, but I finally found a partner in A to Z Media. They’ve worked with pretty much any band you’ve heard of that’s printed a book. They’ve also worked with big AAA game studios on their books and they’ve also done the printing for the rpg Knave.
Yes, my price per book will be a bit higher because they’re more of an intermediary agency, but they’re handling a lot of stuff I was a bit nervous about. I even got to go in person to see physical samples. I know the quality we’ll be getting from their printer is going to be top notch.
And according to them, we’re very much still able to deliver the books by December 2024 if everything goes smoothly, confirming my belief that we’re still doing good on the timeline.
Shipping Costs
The bad news is shipping skyrocketed for USPS in the last month. The good news is I’ve decided to take on a whole load of work and do the fulfillment myself, cutting out the middle man. That means despite the large increases in shipping costs, I’m able to keep the prices close to where I originally estimated them in the Kickstarter. Some still have to go up a bit, but overall it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
Speaking of shipping:
Dead Hand
Due to the work focusing on finishing the main book first and writer Vince going through a major life change, we simply haven’t had much time to work on Dead Hand. At this point I’m aiming to get the physical version out late Q1 or Q2 of 2025. Since that’s later than when we are planning on getting Street Wolves I signed onto a beta program on Backerkit to give everyone who ordered a physical edition Dead Hand two options:
Option 1 - One Wave Shipping: We’ll hold all the physical rewards until Dead Hand is ready and we ship it all at once.
Option 2 - Two Wave Shipping: We’ll ship all the physical rewards that we’ll have except Dead Hand. You pay separate shipping on Dead Hand and we’ll send it as soon as it comes in.
It’s pretty simple: Save money and wait longer or pay a little more and get most stuff sooner. I’ve tested it out and it’s working great, so I’m excited to be able to offer these options.
Music
J. Strautman is working on finalizing the five songs. So far there’s two that are more “investigative” two that are more “chase/action” and one that’s more or less a theme song. I can’t wait for you to hear the final versions!
Adventures
The “Point of No Return” final testing is complete. I just need to turn my notes into a releasable adventure.
Surveys
I’m buttoning up the surveys and working with Backerkit to finalize all the stuff on the back end. I’m expecting to be done with this phase fairly soon and then we can hopefully send out a smoke test to make sure everything is good.
Merch
Tapes: I have all the components for all the tapes due for the Kickstarter + a bunch more! So if you didn’t get one you’ll have another chance when you fill out the Backerkit survey. Or you can pre-order one now!
Wild Die: I got them from Chessex and they look great!
Bennies: I’ve assembled all the Bennies. We just need to pack them up in groups of 25 and we’ll be good to go.
NPC Cards: On hold.
Pins: On hold.
Stickers: On hold.
Supply Boxes: On hold.
Pet and Vehicle Sheets: On hold.
Plain Text Street Wolves: On hold.
Printed Jumpstart: Done.
Dice Bags: Done.
In Conclusion
Wow that was a big update. Again, thank you for your support. We’re able to get a high quality book done with lots of cool stuff. It’s very exciting to check off some major to-dos like finding a printer. And getting close to finishing the Backerkit stuff is very relieving.
Don’t forget, if you missed the Kickstarter, you can pre-order Street Wolves here.
Previous Updates
You can see previous updates here:
