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Problem #40: Fulfillment
2 Plays1 minute ago
In our next extra long encore episode, we talk about the many facets of crowdfunding fulfillment, looking through the lens of Han Cluster. From digital delivery of product through DriveThruRPG to the physical shipping and all the logistics that go along with it, Tracy shares her experience after Han Cluster arrived from overseas.
Order Han Cluster: https://hancluster.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Designing Problems RPG Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Designing Problems RPG Podcast, where we explore RPG development and all the intentional and unintentional problems we create along the way. I'm Christian Serrano.
00:00:15
Speaker
And I'm Tracy Sizemore. We're your hosts for this rubber hitting the
Main Topic: Fulfillment - Problem #40
00:00:19
Speaker
road. And this week, we're going to talk about problem number 40, fulfillment.
Personal Fulfillment and Product Collection
00:00:44
Speaker
tracy do you feel fulfilled Do I feel fulfilled? Yes, I kind of do actually. Good. kind of do. You deserve to feel fulfilled because I i got my my all-in box Han Cluster goodies. Yes, yes. Give me compliments, Christian.
00:01:03
Speaker
I love it. I absolutely it. So many cards. So many cards. Yeah. No, it's the maps look great. The book looks great. Everything came out great. i I mean, yeah. And I don't know if I've mentioned this on the podcast, but I'm i'm probably going to not be doing physical, um you know, but back for physical products anymore for RPGs just because I don't have the physical space
Order Fulfillment Status
00:01:26
Speaker
anymore. But I am really glad that I got this.
00:01:29
Speaker
So awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It's where it's definitely worth having. Well, so it's very nice having it out into the world. now Yeah. I mean, you can see the care that you put into it. So that's good. Good. Good job.
00:01:44
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's beautiful. Yeah. Just the thousand thousand. Oh, man. So many details that you added. Yeah. It's beautiful. Thank Beautiful thing. I'm glad you got it. I'm glad you like it.
00:01:57
Speaker
yeah So you you fulfilled all orders. I fulfilled all North American orders. Right. Right. So we're still waiting on the UK to get the stuff, the the warehouse up there to get the stuff, which I think is happening tomorrow. We'll see. Okay. um And then hopefully they'll be able to ship to UK, EU and the rest of the world. yeah uh before christmas but i can't guarantee that we'll just have to see good chance but yeah yeah it depends on workload and what's happening and it's really up to them at this point it's you can't you you can only do so much they can only do so much so i'm just happy it's probably they've paid the duties uh yeah so yeah i'm just happy it's getting there i'll get a big bill at the end once the
00:02:47
Speaker
Once the shipping's done, then they'll bill me for what they for the shipping and for all that stuff, and I'll do all the same time.
What Does Fulfillment Entail?
00:02:55
Speaker
But- So, yeah. we So we say fulfillment. let's Let's talk real quick what we mean by fulfillment. Uh-huh.
00:03:02
Speaker
um yeah like what does What does that refer to? So it's it's you know the actual delivery of your product. So if you crowdfunded with Kickstarter or Backerkit, eventually you're going to have to actually deliver product to your backers, hopefully.
00:03:17
Speaker
hey Not every Kickstarter or Backerkit does this, but most of them do, we hope. And um it's just delivery. So it could be it could refer to digital delivery, which we'll talk about, and physical delivery, if you've got physical products to actually ship to people.
00:03:36
Speaker
I had both, of course, yeah and in Hancluster. And the digital fulfillment happened recently. Pretty much right away after the backer kit was over because I had everything written, everything laid out, everything done that was not in final form because I wanted to go through a period of backer feedback. Yeah.
00:03:59
Speaker
um But everything was done um by the end of the backer kit period. So once once crowdfunding ended. And so once I got my money, ah because it takes a couple weeks to or you know depending, goes two to four weeks to get your actual money from the crowdfunding platform after your crowdfunding finishes. And that's that's because of processing payments and like that. There's issues with people's cards or whatever it might be Yeah, they give time for for the issues with people's cards to get resolved. And they don't want to get you in drips and drabs. They're going to give you the full amount all at once. And they're going to take their cut out of it.
00:04:39
Speaker
And then they're going to distribute it to you. yeah So, yeah, it takes it takes time to get that. and It amazes me that It's that common and that ubiquitous for for problems with processing to occur so much that it takes two weeks. Well, I think that's just a, it's like a partly it's a waiting period too, um to make sure that the the the cards charge and that, you know, ah there's ah because it goes through Stripe, at least Backerkit does. yeah And so there's a waiting period for me to get my money.
00:05:17
Speaker
from stripe So even if Backerkit delivers it after a week or whatever, and they might, I can't remember how quick Backerkit delivered it to Stripe. It takes a waiting period for Stripe to deliver it to me.
00:05:30
Speaker
right Because I'm new to Stripe, right? And I basically have a waiting period no matter what anyway. it's going to I have to wait a few days for any money. I think that's stripe that's banking in general. like It immediately comes out of your your account, but it takes a while before it goes into the other person's account. Yeah, and i think that you can I think there's ways to get that more instant. yeah But when you're when you're somebody who doesn't do regular business with Stripe at volume levels, right right um basically there is a period of time to make sure that the money they charge those people is legit,
00:06:08
Speaker
And they don't get a whole lot of charge you complaints or whatever or or chargebacks or whatever so that they know and then they
Digital Fulfillment with DriveThruRPG
00:06:18
Speaker
can give it to you. yeah You know what I mean? So it makes sense. That's partly the delay.
00:06:22
Speaker
Right. There's multiple layers of delay there. That's why it's too different. Right, right, right. It's not just just processing issues or anything that. not just because credit cards don't always process. Right, right. That does happen, but...
00:06:37
Speaker
That's not why the the delay is so long. Now, do you... do you um Before you receive the money, like you like you said, maybe in a week, right? they They've processed payments. Yeah, I think, yeah, Backerkit does. And then it takes a while for Stripe to finish the process. Now, you're able to see, though, how much you're going to get that point. Yes. Backerkit tells you right away what their cut is, how much there's going to be there. That's assuming all the payments go through. yeah so um And not all of them will.
00:07:10
Speaker
not alone Oh, so they don't they don't tell you how much has gone through ah Just yet. I can't remember what the real time updates were with that. Right. Okay.
00:07:21
Speaker
right. They may have updated it every, you know, day or a couple days or something, or they, or they may have just have said, well, it's coming and we'll let you know. Yeah. After, after everything's said and done, what we actually couldn't charge, like what we, what, what. Yeah. Yeah. What charged, what didn't. Yeah. What charged and what Who got charged, who didn't. Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:42
Speaker
Who paid rather. And here's what's been sent to Stripe. Stripe will send it to you eventually. yes So, all right. So you get your money. get my money. And then now you've got to deal with getting the files out to people. And now I've got to get all getting the files out. and And the reason I wait for the money is because I need to make sure everybody paid. Right.
00:07:59
Speaker
so that i and So I only fulfill digital rewards to people who actually paid. um and And so there's reports that you can get out of the BackerKit Pledge Manager. Right.
00:08:11
Speaker
or whatever pledge manager you're using so that you can ensure that, um, you're creating reports from people who, who actually had, had their cards go through every, everybody paid. Right.
00:08:24
Speaker
Then you've got a list of emails and a list of products that each, each of these emails is going to get, you know? And so you have to, ah number one, backer kit, isn't going to give those out immediately.
00:08:39
Speaker
um because, ah it's To them, it's not done yet. But you and me, what I did is immediately, once you once you paid for your all-in pledge, and I know that that went through, um I immediately created a list of emails for a list of products and such. And I sent them out via DriveThruRPG immediately.
00:09:06
Speaker
and So you're keeping a record though, too, of what people backed for and yes and so on. Again, it's part of the exports you can create. So, okay. These are the all-in backers. Right. These are the um the odd backers out, which means, okay, this backer only backed for the PDF of the core book. Right.
00:09:26
Speaker
what is What is the experience of managing that through DriveThru? it was easy. Okay. It was easy. So there are rules if you're going to
Crowdfunding on DriveThruRPG
00:09:35
Speaker
fulfill through DriveThru. And one of the rules is um that you have to put a little Fulfilled by DriveThru RPG graphic on your crowdfunding before you start it.
00:09:51
Speaker
um because you know you're going to fulfill through them and all that stuff. And part of the benefit that you have of putting that graphic up is that any existing customers you already have on DriveThru, you can send blast emails out when you've got a crowdfunding going.
00:10:05
Speaker
Normally, you can't do that on drive-thru. Normally, ah if if you're going to email your customers, you can't put any links that are outside of the drive-thru universe. Right.
00:10:17
Speaker
And so they'll look for those. They'll they'll stop you from doing it. But in this case, if you've got a crowd funder, um you can ask them, I'm doing a crowdfunder. I've got fulfilled by DriveThruRPG ah graphic up there that I'm promising I'm going to do this. Can you please send out this email to my customers on DriveThru? Okay. That way it tells them that there's a crowdfunder happening and it's at this yeah URL.
00:10:46
Speaker
Right. That's how Pinnacle does it. It's how I do it. It's how all everybody does it. Right. Yeah. And that's the benefit is that you you can send a blast email through DriveThru. And if you've got a significant customer base, I didn't really, but Pinnacle does. That gets you a lot of people.
00:11:04
Speaker
Because as a publisher on DriveThru, you build up like basically a mailing list. Yes. Through DriveThru. It's all internal, yeah but yes. Right, right. you can't You don't actually get email addresses. Yeah, you don't have access to it. Right, but can send through DriveThru. Right.
00:11:19
Speaker
Yes. And so, and there's a whole thing about how you get those emails and all that stuff is you can, you can release free products and get those mailing lists, customers, you know, you know, through drive through so that you have them kind of, yeah and you can use that as this blast email. So anybody who got the jumpstart got this email, unless they have preferences that says, please don't send me emails. Right. Right.
00:11:45
Speaker
So that's the benefit of it. There's also other rules where if you're gonna sell on drive-thru, you can't undercut them. So you can't say, I'm selling on drive-thru for X amount, but I'm selling on backer kit for a lot less.
00:12:00
Speaker
Oh, right. You do that. Right. You know, that's against the rules. Right. So you have to be careful about that. Even though you're going to make more selling on backer kit than you are on drive-thru because of the cut, that drive the drive-thru tapes, you can't undercut them.
00:12:16
Speaker
So in drive-thru as an ace, you're not only paying, what it, 30% to drive-thru, but also 10% to pinnacle. Yes. Anyway. Yeah. you're going to make you're going to make more money when you sell the digital product on backer kit. Right.
00:12:32
Speaker
Right. than you are on DriveThru. But DriveThru is a big platform. They got a lot of people there for specifically this reason. So they take their 30%, not only for the for that audience that you're buying into, but also because of the platform fees and the distribution and all that stuff. it's it's It works. It's good. It's fine.
00:12:50
Speaker
Right? But you can't undercut them. You can't sell them sell your digital product for $10 less on Backerkit because that's not fair. Yeah.
00:13:01
Speaker
And that is that that's fair. that's what but Those rules are fair, I think. um So anyway, easy on drive-thru because there's ah there's a gift ah option for publishers. And it's super, super easy. All you do is you create your product. And I created my product before the crowdfunding was over.
00:13:21
Speaker
I had private products already done. Yeah. And then like, they weren't public yet. And then you gift them and you just have a list of emails, just this big old list. You can just copy paste into the, into the form on drive through and it'll send it out to whoever you put in there.
00:13:38
Speaker
Right. And then on their end, it becomes a link. And if they already have a drive-thru account, then it goes directly to the product and it can be added to their library. If they don't, then they're prompted to create an account and blah, blah, blah. But then way you have that product forever.
00:13:53
Speaker
Right. On drive-thru. Right. And then I can update the product after I do backer feedback, which we talked about in another episode. Yes. Right. Yeah. And then they get a notification that it's been updated. Yes. Right. I mean, assuming that I opt for that. Yeah. There's occasions where you might want to update a product without telling everybody about it. Yeah. But um when I did release it for true and for real, of course, I put an update out. Right. And I did a whole thing about like, this is version 1.0.
00:14:24
Speaker
1, 1.2, 1.9, 1.10, know, yeah with any, and and now whenever I make corrections, I, especially the jumpstart, most of these jumpstart, I say, I changed this. I have a change log in there.
00:14:39
Speaker
So people know. Yeah, yeah. They know, like, why do I need to download this even? You know? Yeah, yeah exactly. And then on the jumpstart, actually put a V1.10 or whatever. I can tell you what version it is. right With the real books, it's a lot less...
00:14:58
Speaker
There's a lot less changes because I've already made the changes. print yeah you Like i had a a a until I got to Now I think there might be a but i think that's all.
00:15:13
Speaker
yeah that's that's all there is and those were those were one point ones after the corrections I made to the print. Yeah. During the, the proofs or whatever it is. Yeah. Right. I talked about last week.
00:15:27
Speaker
Right. Exactly. So it was easy actually to deal with drive through. That was all easy stuff. Now, POD with DriveThru, I don't know because I haven't tried it. yeah So that's a whole other thing.
00:15:38
Speaker
yeah but um But yeah, that's that's digital fulfillment, at least with DriveThru. You have experience with Itch.io though. Not fulfillment per se, but but selling um product through Itch.io.
00:15:51
Speaker
ah Two things I've sold, one was or is Eberron for Savage Worlds. It's available through Itch. That's how I distribute it. um And then ah the other is for a while I was doing backstory cards for Foundry VTT on there um until recently, well not recently, it's probably been close to a year now ah where they had the marketplace now where you can buy it from there.
00:16:15
Speaker
And so I consolidated, you know because I was selling on drive-thru Was I selling? Wait. Yeah. Selling on drive through and on itch. And then I consolidated to the Foundry VTT marketplace for backstory cards. um the The awkward thing about itch.io is yes, you can sell RPG products through there and people do. You can put up a PDF because it's a file and somebody can pay and then download it and so on. You can do updates for files, notify people, et cetera. But the platform was first and foremost designed for for games, digital like computer games.
00:16:53
Speaker
And so it's much more sort of developer-centric and development-centric in terms of its approach and you know nomenclature and and things like that, features even.
00:17:06
Speaker
ah I also don't know... I don't know if if how it can even compete really with drive-thru in terms of discovery and um you know and honestly, even just whether people prefer to to you know buy there versus on
Selling on Itch.io vs. DriveThruRPG
00:17:27
Speaker
drive-thru. Yeah, I don't think there's really a storefront for it, is there?
00:17:31
Speaker
You have, so what you do is when you create your product, your page for your product is the storefront. And so each, each product kind of has its own, you can design it, everything, right? You can brand it, the nine yards.
00:17:44
Speaker
um So it it's, it's all, it is very much like its own storefront for that particular product. Now they do have then linking to like, okay, other things in this category or by this creator or, you know, whatever.
00:17:55
Speaker
Um, or people can create collections of things, you know, products from different things or whatever of their own. Um, but, uh, but it's not, yeah, I, it's just not the same in terms of like how it is on drive-thru where you're looking at like, say Savage Rolls products and here's other Savage Rolls products. Yeah. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. or people who bought this also bought that.
00:18:18
Speaker
Yeah. um But the nice thing about itch is that you can set your own percentage of cut that you want to give to itch.io, including zero if you really wanted to.
00:18:32
Speaker
You can set it to zero. Most people will do like some percentage because, you know, it just, know, they need to make money. Yeah. Um, so, uh, so, but that is an option. Like if you really, if you're like, you know what, I'm so small and I'm not going to sell that many and this is really cheap and I just want to make whatever money I can. I want to set it to 0%. You can do that.
00:18:52
Speaker
Nobody's going to judge you if you do that. Nobody knows. it doesn't say anything publicly if you do that or not. So, uh, it's just between you and itch. Um, But, um but it works, you know, and and even if you have like a product, like with, with foundry stuff, there were license keys. They have a method where you can upload license keys and it'll actually give a license key to every purchaser. Yeah. So things like that. um You can do that with, with backer kit too. You can provide license, provide license and stuff. And I think you can do that.
00:19:23
Speaker
Yeah. Fill that way with, with drive through with a key instead of. Yeah. Complimentary copies, but it's much easier just to, Gift the copies. Yeah, gift the copies. Yeah. um So, yeah, i don' I don't know how I've not done any fulfillment in terms of like, here's a list of emails and I want to like, you know, make sure all these people have access. I have done.
00:19:47
Speaker
oh gosh, I did do something. I'd have to look into it. um I want to say there is a way where you can gift something to an email address.
00:19:59
Speaker
Or if you put in that, and again, you have to make sure that it's the email address that they use for itch or whatever it is. And then they can go and they can just go ahead and download it. They don't pay to download it. They just have access.
00:20:13
Speaker
But yeah, yeah so it's it's it is another viable platform, not as seamless. you know As with, uh, with drive through that, I don't think they really do a you know, fulfilled by itch with rules or anything like that. Um, uh, you might advertise that, you know, on you know, depending on, on, um, you know, on your preference, but, uh,
00:20:34
Speaker
But yeah, it's not it's not as, and I i don't think it's going be as easy it as as it is on DriveThru. And also the broadcast thing, being able to broadcast to you know every customer who's ever bought a product from you, regardless of what that product is. ah that's That's a pretty strong, you know, that's a really strong feature. It is. i mean, every time when Pinnacle does a Kickstarter, once oh yes they they they launch and then a weekend or whatever, they get two drive-through emails. Everybody gets two, right? It's up to you when you want them, but you get two. You can do it before the campaign as a... yeah As a teaser, you can wait until launch to do it or whatever.
00:21:16
Speaker
But Pinnacle usually does it within a few days of launch or whatever. yeah And once they get that, once they send that out, they get a big boost of backers because they have a drive-through email and they got tens of thousands of customers. And so once they know that it's there, they go. I don't have but...
00:21:35
Speaker
i don't have that but Well, no, but what the other cool thing is like, let's say you added your product to a bundle, right? Like some bundle of like, say, you know, for some charity thing, right? yep Everybody who bought that bundle, whether they actually read your book or not, is going to get that email.
00:21:52
Speaker
Yes. So unless again, again, unless they they have preferences that say they don't want these things. Right. Of course. Yeah. they operatet um But yeah, that's that's a big reason to do bundles. Right. Is to is to grow that customer base and grow those those people that will get your little emails. Indeed. I've got a new product on DriveThru. Come and look at it. you Right. Right.
00:22:13
Speaker
The reason I haven't done any bundles yet is because I wanted to wait until I fulfilled everything. So I haven't done any charity bundles. I haven't done any discounts. I haven't done anything because it's just too new. Right. I will.
00:22:25
Speaker
One day, but I really didn't want to do that until I fulfilled with the people who backed me and and put their faith into me. and I'm not discounting anything until they get fulfilled. yeah And there's a good amount of time that goes by.
Ensuring Customer Value Before Discounts
00:22:40
Speaker
Would you have been able to do like the jumpstart in a bundle?
00:22:43
Speaker
ah Sure, but the jumpstart's free anyway. No, I know. I could have, yes. Right, just to build that list, right? Yeah, you're right. I i could have. I could have. It would be weird because it's like, well, you get this free anyway. Here's this in while. whatever.
00:22:58
Speaker
They don't know that. It would feel a little, like, performative. Yeah. I get a little bit... Especially if it's like a charity bundle. Like, hey! exactly. Exactly. It's like two self-series. I'm giving. Yeah.
00:23:12
Speaker
But if it's the PDF of Concluster for normally $25 and putting that in charity window would mean something. that Right. Exactly. you know Exactly. But I can't do it yet. So that's why I haven't it. Right. You want to make sure that the people who backed it, their supporters get their goods first. They get their goods. They get their value out of it. And then yeah over time, of course, things ought naturally decrease. but But they got their stuff first.
00:23:37
Speaker
yeah That's what's important. They paid for the timing of Right. Um, but yeah, anything else about digital? I thought, i I thought of something and then it went right out of my head. remember what think, I think the hardest part too is making sure that people have the right email addresses.
00:23:51
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, cause sometimes people, uh, whatever they signed up or signed in with on say backer kit might be a different email address than what they use on drive through.
00:24:02
Speaker
And that, that's been a problem. I've seen people like posting publicly. i didn't get my stuff and they're like, well, what email address did you like? Oh, you know, this one. yeah Yeah. Or I don't use that email address. That's just throwaway email address. that It's like, well, duh. No, that's not my fault. How do you think that's going to work? you know But I did have a couple people who didn't get their stuff and yeah and i I immediately, immediately responded.
00:24:27
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. I said, like, ah yeah, I was, was I supposed to get something, you know, from, from drive-thru whatever? i'm like, yes, you were. i i checked, you know, I looked up that backer. I checked. You were supposed to get it. I did send it.
00:24:41
Speaker
But. Like, you didn't get it. I believe you. There's no reason for me not to believe you. I will send it again. Is this the email you want me to send it to? Right. And once I sent it again, no questions asked. They got it and they were very happy. Right. Yeah. Sometimes their system might glitch or something. Yeah, exactly. It's just, you know, just give us chance to fix it. Yeah. I know Pinnacle has had issues with that in the past, if I recall correctly. I remember there were some hiccups with the drive-thru system in past instances. So, yeah, it can happen.
Challenges of Physical Fulfillment
00:25:15
Speaker
It can happen. I mean, or yeah processing hundreds or thousands of thousands of backers at a time, you know I get it. Right. I get it. But all in all, it went very smoothly. Working with drive-thru has been fine, and that's that.
00:25:29
Speaker
right um Then we get to... yeah Your house is a warehouse. My house is now a warehouse. a Christian can see me and I've got boxes surrounding me on all sides. I've seen photos.
00:25:42
Speaker
yeah It's pretty intense. yeah yeah so Physical fulfillment. um Daunting as that is. When you've got, you know in my each book,
00:25:55
Speaker
five hundred of each Map 500 of each card set. Yeah. You know, that ended up being 67 boxes and about a ton, about 2000 pounds of stuff.
00:26:07
Speaker
Now, last we spoke, you talked about your plan of like having a big packing party, basically. Yes. How did that go? well We're jumping a few steps. Okay. All right. Sure. Sure. Sure. Yeah. The packing party did not really happen.
00:26:24
Speaker
Okay. Because I was so anxious to get started. Oh, So I did not want to wait. And i could have called more people. They would have come.
00:26:35
Speaker
But I also didn't have a lot of room. So I had ah i had a particular table. And i had enough room for maybe three, maybe four people to help me. Right.
00:26:46
Speaker
uh or two or three people to help me or so and i called two of them and we did it in a day nice so very nice most of it in a day i finished the rest of it that night and then the next morning i remember you you saying like you had already started at one point uh when you when you after you got the books and stuff Yeah. Once I, I mean, I, the, the, well, let's roll up your sleeves, put the hair up and get to work. so let's, let's take a step back a second and then yeah yeah yeah we'll, we'll cover overseas shipping.
00:27:17
Speaker
Right. We talked a little bit about this, about how Asia Pacific has their own shipping department. They handled the overseas shipping for me, all that other stuff. Awesome. Great. Fantastic. It got to the, it got to the port. I paid my duties and then I waited.
00:27:34
Speaker
And I waited some more. And I was very anxious. i was hoping, okay, I've paid my my import tariffs and all that stuff. And I'm like, it it should be here within the next week, right? Yeah.
00:27:46
Speaker
It was not. And then Thanksgiving happened. And then I was starting to like ask questions. I was emailing both APO and the freight forwarder. And saying, hey, so, you know, what's going on? Is there something going on? And really, it was it was really quite a black box at that point. Because I did not know where it was.
00:28:06
Speaker
i did not know who was picking it up. Or I didn't have a tracking number for it. This is freight. Right. it's it's It's freight. You know, that's just the way it is. There's a sometimes a bill of lading that you can track, but sometimes not.
00:28:20
Speaker
Right. in this case, I waited and I waited quite a while. It was two and a half weeks from the time that it it arrived in port and I paid my my tariffs to the time that I actually Two and a half weeks of just not knowing what's going on.
00:28:35
Speaker
Pretty much. Wow. here there were that i got vague I got vague messages of, okay, so um there was a paperwork problem. like, okay, what paperwork problem? was Is there something I need to fix or is there something I need to fix? That's what I said. Is there something I need to do? They're like, oh, no, no.
00:28:52
Speaker
It's fine. And I'm like, okay. And then I heard later the driver was turned away when he came to pick up the stuff. Whoa. And I'm like, okay, what?
00:29:03
Speaker
What does that mean? What does that mean? Why was the driver turned away? Like what what happened there? And it could be anything. It could be that the stuff was in the back of the warehouse and they didn't want to take it out. and He showed up an hour before closing. Who knows why the driver was turned away, but they didn't tell me.
00:29:22
Speaker
I feel like I need to see like a documentary on how all this stuff works. Well, believe me, I did. right i I watched YouTube videos because I was fascinated with container ships and ports and how they unloaded. It was fascinating.
00:29:34
Speaker
But this is the kind of vague kind of messaging I got. And I ended up finally contacting AP Oak. Like, can you talk to your freight forwarder and find out what the heck's going on? Because I kind of want to Right.
00:29:45
Speaker
i'm I'm a little anxious at this point. And I talked to Simon and Simon says, yeah, this is the opaque, weird black box part of the process. You're just going to have to wait. Okay. And it'll show up eventually. Just just trust the process. I'm like, okay, okay. so they said, finally, when I finally got another message, they said, okay, the cargo has been quote unquote recovered.
00:30:08
Speaker
and will be delivered after Thanksgiving. I'm like, great. Recovered from where? what like why Why did it need recovery? Yeah, well, the problem is like the it was obvious that the freight forwarder's first language was not English. So recovered could mean lots of things, right? I see, I see. Recovered is, it could mean that just me picked it up, right? Right, right.
00:30:31
Speaker
I don't know, but that's all I got. So I'm like, great, great. And then after Thanksgiving happened, I resolved myself to wait Monday. And then on Tuesday, I was goingnna i wrote again. I'm like, okay, now I'm getting anxious. Now I'm getting, like, where is my stuff? Because I want to fulfill to my backers.
00:30:49
Speaker
And then ah APO said they're looking into it. But that afternoon, without fanfare, email, or any notification at all, guy rings my doorbell.
00:31:01
Speaker
Oh, wow. Wow. Just black box and like, hey, it's here. hey it's here. Yeah. And so, you know, big truck outside, lift gate comes down, three pallets are unloaded into my my carport, and I'm ecstatic.
00:31:17
Speaker
just super happy. Right. So then after all that. Then I'm ready to ship, right? And so I had done a whole bunch of prep work. And so and i would I would recommend this to to all of you um because I decided to do it myself. I did prep work long before these pallets arrived.
00:31:38
Speaker
I bought bubble wrap. I bought packing peanuts. I bought boxes from Uline that were specifically sized. I used the the blank dummies ah for proofs that I got. Sure. Oh, yeah, yeah. To figure out how to pack that box. Right. right How big a box I would need for an all-in pledge and maybe another extra book or two on top of it. Right. So, and I got specifically sized boxes from Uline. And Uline has boxes for...
00:32:06
Speaker
for infinite infinite number of sizes and dimensions and infinite boxes yeah so i bought three bundles of like 50 boxes each yeah and um they're like you know at the end of the day with the shipping included each of those boxes like a dollar and fifty cents something like that right yeah super cheap yeah and um so ah And then I got the bubble wrap and I pre-cut the bubble wrap. So I used my blank dummies as ah as a test. Look at you, well-oiled machine. i know. I pre-cut it three feet for for each thing and I pre-cut 150 bubble wrap thingies.
00:32:48
Speaker
And then I pre-cut the small bubble wrap that goes on the bottom of the box. Right, right. So I had all that ready and I would recommend you're going to do this yourself, that you do that. It's like, you know, chef, you know, puts everything in place, has it all set up and they just put it all together. wanted it to be, I'm a big stickler for if I'm asking people to help me, I'm not wasting their time.
00:33:11
Speaker
I want to be prepared and know what I'm doing. Yeah. Right. They should just be able to grab the materials, put it in next box. Right. Yeah. That's the, that's the hope. And so part of it was me learning how to pack the box and the way that I wanted it packed and and all that other stuff. And then once the shipment arrived,
00:33:28
Speaker
When it finally arrived, I had set up to use an online service called Pirate Ship. A lot of people use it. It's great. it' it's it's It's been great.
00:33:40
Speaker
um There are other shipping online services out there. I would recommend you use one because it really, really cuts down on the amount you spend on shipping. Oh, wow.
00:33:51
Speaker
Because if you're just going to UPS straight, you're going to be paying a lot more. Interesting. Than if you go to a shipping service like this. And because the pirate ship ships millions of boxes a day, they get these they get discounts from the carriers and they pass that on to you. So so tell me about that. like like yeah you you know Typically, my my experience with shipping is I take some stuff to UPS. It's in a box and I say, here...
00:34:20
Speaker
How much is it, right? Yeah. What does ah Pirate Ship, what do what do they do? How does that work? do you just take like a pallet of boxes or like what well why do they come and get it? or No, no. So Pirate Ship is a facilitator and that can use either UPS or USPS. I see. Okay.
00:34:40
Speaker
And so um part of what makes it so valuable is that I can export a a backer list that's getting physical products. you know I can create a segment in Backerkit that says, okay, everybody who's getting physical products um and has and has you know locked their shipping address and paid their shipping and all that stuff, export.
00:35:03
Speaker
And then once I've got that, I can tweak it just a little bit and import it into PirateShip. So Pirate Ship is smart about it. it just It knows what an address field looks like. It knows what a zip code is. It knows all this. And you can just map it easily.
00:35:19
Speaker
Right. And then once you've got this this spreadsheet, you can say, okay, get quotes for shipping.
Efficient Shipping with Pirate Ship
00:35:26
Speaker
You know? And... I had done some individual shipments before that to test pirate ship in just individually.
00:35:34
Speaker
And it worked. It was great. The rates were fine. They were good. And I got quotes for that so I could create my shipping tables in Backerkit so that I charged my shipping, right?
00:35:48
Speaker
um And then once I actually imported the spreadsheet... You you go okay get rates and it's 88 boxes at once, right? For this for the all-in pledge because the boxes for not all-in pledges are different weights. So I've got to have have a separate field for weight for pounds and ounces in the in the spreadsheet. And this this one, they're all the same. So i can always yeah I can use the five pound Xbox. You know, this is the box. Yeah.
00:36:16
Speaker
And, um and then it says, okay, each individual, you can look at each individual quote and this is what it is. And it ranged between seven or $8 to 13 or 14 or $15. Or with UPS, with USPS, there were a couple of PO boxes. It was actually a lot more than that.
00:36:35
Speaker
So if it was, if I had a PO box to go to, it was basically spending twice the amount of shipping to get it there. um But there were only a couple of those. So they they list that all out and then you can say, buy the labels, right? I had my credit card set up and when I bought the labels for those 88 boxes, it stopped me and said, okay, you need to talk to customer support. And I'm like, yeah, okay, I get it. I'm about to spend, you know, $1,100 on shipping.
00:37:04
Speaker
So um I talked to customer support. They asked me some questions. I basically you know confirmed who I am and what my plan is and all this stuff. And they said, cool, we've released the lock. You can buy them now.
00:37:16
Speaker
So I did. And so from then on I didn't have any problem. Right. And then it buys all the labels and then we bought paper labels. I would recommend this too We bought sticky labels with two two labels per 8.5 11 sheet. Oh, see.
00:37:31
Speaker
oh i see Yeah. And then Pirate Ship allows you to set that up so that you can print two labels per sheet on those labels. And um that way you don't have to tape the label on. It can just be you know stuck on on the top. Yeah.
00:37:46
Speaker
And so I did that all the night that I got the stuff. I had 88 labels already printed in order of you first because you were the first backer and in backer order.
00:38:00
Speaker
um And so it made it super easy for Daryl, who later ended up putting labels on the boxes, for to match up with the packing labels. label or packing list that I had put in the box when I, when I packed the box. So it was all in order for him. Yeah.
00:38:17
Speaker
Right. And for me, cause I was the one who packed the boxes and put the bubble wrap around every shipment. And Daryl was the one who put the labels on and tape the box up. Nice. And then my mother-in-law was the one who put the boxes together.
00:38:31
Speaker
Right. So we had a whole thing going there. Yeah. And um and then he brought them in waves of about eight boxes at a time to the UPS store.
00:38:42
Speaker
OK. And they didn't flinch. They didn't care. They even have their own hand truck that you can borrow to bring in your stuff. So whatever. They're like, yeah, cool. You know, scan it, scan it, scan it. And it was done. I'll take it to the back. Yeah. Yep.
00:38:56
Speaker
Yep. OK. And that's how it worked. And it worked well as long as you've got the weight right, as long as you've got the size of the box right. You know, like don't make it less, any less. Make sure you're overestimating. Yeah.
00:39:11
Speaker
And then I did, and this is this is like an insight into the shipping of of these projects, is it's easier to do the all-in, this is what everybody gets.
00:39:22
Speaker
before you do the special ones, which is I'm getting an all in plus a book. oh yeah I'm getting an all in plus two card decks. I'm getting only two books. I'm getting two books plus two card decks. I'm not getting the maps. But then you get the piecemeal you know add-ons. Yeah, the the piecemeal add-ons or the a la carte stuff that people do. That stuff is harder yeah because it's not all the same weight.
00:39:46
Speaker
Right. So they're the they're the special cases, right? They're the special cases. There's the, yes. And so, it's, it's understandable that people who do that get their stuff later.
00:39:56
Speaker
So I feel like this is also a good reason to make your tears compelling as far as what you get yes for how much money, right? That is another reason. Yeah. Cause then you don't have to deal with the piece or you deal with less of the piecemeal thing. You're like, You know what? Yeah, that'll cost you this much. But you know what? Just for $5 more.
00:40:16
Speaker
Yeah. You would get $5 more. You get a pre-m map you know this pre-bundle, right? like Individually, would cost you $15. Right. you know right So, yeah, that's part of building your tiers. And when you do that right, you've got to, you've got, here's what most people got.
00:40:32
Speaker
Right? Well, bigger the bigger the crowd funder, the harder that is to actually make happen. But because yeah yeah it's just you get thousands of people backing you and you have hundreds of different kinds of right orders to fulfill.
00:40:46
Speaker
If I had that, I would not have done it myself Right. And the more add-ons you have, the more variance there is and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, exactly. It becomes becomes quite complicated. It was complicated enough because when I was packing those bubble wraps, I double, triple, quadruple checked to make sure that what they were getting was what I packed.
00:41:07
Speaker
Right, right. you know um So we did the 88 all-ins first. Yeah. And then i ah did the the odd oddballs after that. Right.
00:41:21
Speaker
Except for one. The uniques, we'll call them. The uniques. Right. With one exception. One exception I made was did particular backer. first Okay. Because he has he has a history of not getting his stuff quickly.
00:41:40
Speaker
Right. I did i did um one of one of my backers and and a friend and a play tester. he had an odd order. Okay. And i also I needed to give him a t-shirt.
00:41:52
Speaker
So I did his very first. You got a t-shirt? He did. he was a play tester. What can I tell you? right. I see how it is. Um, so yeah, he got a t-shirt and then later on I decided, Oh no, I'm, I'm doing this myself. I should, I should write some notes.
00:42:08
Speaker
So the poor people like you and the early backers didn't get any notes, but the later backers did. That's okay. I'll just pretend I got a note. Yeah. You can pretend you got a note. Yeah. I ended up writing a note. You know take back my compliments earlier. Like, oh no you know what I didn't get? I didn't get a note, Tracy. Yeah.
00:42:27
Speaker
Well, everything else was great, but sorry about that. That's right. I decided later, i I realized later, Oh, I can write a note, you know? So later on little little personalization. Yeah. When I, when I recognized the backer, I would have known or I'd let Daryl do it like for particular ones that, that I'm like, Oh, this is Donnie Arnold from Genghis Khan. Christian screw that guy. Oh, sorry.
00:42:51
Speaker
You got your but box sent out first, Christian. yeah Got sent out first, but no. kick out I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. So anyway, that's that's how that went.
00:43:03
Speaker
Yeah. And, um, it was exhausting. it was an exhausting day. i bought Daryl, um, dinner after that. Oh, and, um, you didn't cook him dinner. That's messed up. No, I did not. My back was killing me Yeah, I bet. I bet.
00:43:19
Speaker
So I was, I was done. That leads me to, right. I'm done. Nothing else is happening other than we're going to go eat. Yeah, and we're done. We're done for the day. As I wasn't, I actually did more, but I released Daryl. That leads me to my next question. Why not do fulfillment through, you know say um Studio 2, for example?
00:43:43
Speaker
So that is an option. like Going to a partner, there's Studio 2 is obviously a big fulfillment house so that Pinnacle uses. There are others out there. And um the the reason I decided against it um was just to save a little bit of money.
00:44:03
Speaker
How much would it, if you don't mind me asking, how much would it it have cost you? well Whether it's percentage-wise or dollar amount, whichever. I don't know specifically for Studio 2 because I never pursued it. But my understanding, at least with the GMS ah a Fulfillment House in the UK, it's very similar, right? My understanding is that initial fulfillment...
00:44:28
Speaker
for the crowd funder, you ship it all to them. They will fulfill it, but they're going to charge you pick and pack fees for every particular thing that goes in the box. So if you have a big box set, for example, that has everything in it from the printer, All they have to do is put that box in another box with some bubble wrap. and That makes it easy. It makes it very easy for them. So it's a pick and pack fee that's lower than, say, for example, my example would be we're going to have to pick and pack six things per box right right in an all-in pledge because I don't have a box set that's already created from the from the printer. right So ah that would cost me money
00:45:10
Speaker
Not a lot of money, but it adds up. I believe we talked about like why you didn't go with a box set. Yeah, there was there was multiple reasons for that.
00:45:22
Speaker
One is, you know if I'm going to put an all-in box set and say, okay, you get everything in this box and it's prepackaged at the printer.
00:45:31
Speaker
It was a risk yeah because then I'd have to have extra books anyway. yeah So if I made 500 box sets, I'd still have to have another couple hundred books on top of that because not everybody's going to get a box set. Right.
00:45:47
Speaker
So I was like, yeah, I'm small enough that I don't think that's what You don't know that you're going to sell those boxes. Yeah. Right. But the books, you could do whatever you want with them. Yeah, exactly. The books can be part of a bundle, but they don't have to be part of a pre-made box. That makes sense. that's why I didn't do it. Right. But there is reasons to do that because it makes packing a lot easier. That's true.
00:46:09
Speaker
um So pick and pack these, and usually that's what they're... And shipping, whatever shipping they're going to charge you for and handling. Well, and also just storing as well. Right, but...
00:46:21
Speaker
For example, GMS, there's different ways to do that. It could be a warehouse fee. They could charge you to store it and sell it on consignment, right? Or like GMS is doing in the UK, they're acting like a retailer.
00:46:36
Speaker
And retailer is different. So retailers buy buy stuff from publishers. at like It usually is around 50% Yeah. Right? So they'll have a wholesale catalog that they buy from and say, okay, I'm going to get 10 boxes of Lord of the Rings from Fantasy Flight Games or whatever, Ozmode, and I'm going to pay 50% of retail for that. Right, right. Then I'm going to charge retail price or maybe a little bit over depending on what I can get away with and try to make my money back there. I still have to pay for the lights. I have to pay for my brick and mortar store. have to pay all these extra overhead expenses, blah, blah, blah. Yeah.
00:47:14
Speaker
So GMS is acting like that. So they they will pay me 50% of the price of the product. um And then they'll charge the ah the order, the person who orders it for shipping yeah and for taxes. And they'll take care of all that other stuff. So basically i make 50% on every product.
00:47:36
Speaker
right so after After fulfillment. Studio 2 also does online sales. Yes. So there's, you know, I think that works the same way. Yeah. Right.
00:47:47
Speaker
I think. Yeah. I think basically they pay Pinnacle 50%. Right. And then they handle everything else. and They handle, yeah, they do shipping and yeah whatever. Fulfillment. Yeah. Doesn't matter if it's going to New Zealand or whatever, they figure that out. They charge the customer, they get the taxes, they deal with all that stuff. it's It's their product now. It's their stock. Yeah, exactly.
00:48:08
Speaker
So that's that's how that can work. It it depends on who you who you are with and what your arrangement is. But generally, that's how retailers work.
00:48:19
Speaker
So you talked about GMS and in the UK. Now that's not that's not a simple, oh, you got the stuff, you take care of the sales. Like there's a lot going on. you got like VAT and all sorts of other stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. I think I've touched on GPSR, but um basically there's two major things to worry about when you're selling in the eu
International Fulfillment and Compliance
00:48:45
Speaker
and the UK. Yeah.
00:48:46
Speaker
One is VAT, which is their version of sales tax, right? And in the EU and the UK, they're very, very particular about this, that anybody who sells up there needs to have a VAT registration so that me, for example, I need to have a VAT registration so that I can pay the taxes, right?
00:49:11
Speaker
taxes on behalf of the consumers that I have charged that VAT for. So um I can't just do like I did in Canada, and I'm really awfully sorry, Canadians, that ah i I charge it, I send it over, and then they're responsible for paying their their sales tax and duties and all that stuff on the entry of the package.
00:49:35
Speaker
Right. In this case, I've sent a bunch over. I paid the tariffs and duties so that the customers there don't have to. That's part of the benefit of having it warehouse there. yeah The shipping is a lot less for them than it would be if they were ship if I were shipping from here.
00:49:54
Speaker
And the VAT is kind of taken care of for them. Because I have a VAT registration number, which means that I charge them for the for the taxes and then i collectively pay, ah basically, actually GMS collectively pays the VAT on my behalf. Right, right. Using that registration number.
00:50:14
Speaker
Yeah. So it gets complicated. And it turns out that that registration number was a bear to get. not Not in paperwork or anything. It was just, it took a long time.
00:50:25
Speaker
And apparently it takes a long time. So... I had somebody do it for me, but even then, ah it took a while. didn't finally get it. You offload the work because you're dealing with everything else. Yeah. so yeah When you say you had somebody else taking take care of for you, was that like a service or just somebody you knew who could do it for you? GMS had somebody um who was able to facilitate that. see. So I paid them a fee, and then they gathered the paperwork that they needed from me, like my business name and And then they just handle it. And then proof that I'm actually like a living person and I've got stuff. And like I had to, I had to give my passport and I had to give a mortgage statement and all this other stuff to prove that I'm a legitimate business. Right.
00:51:14
Speaker
And then they pass that on to the UK's, I forget the entity. It's a governmental entity and it took like months to get it. um It wasn't hard for me, but I was very anxious about it because I'm like, you know, the boat's on the water. I still haven't got I was going to say, did you know that it was going to take that long in advance? No, like I didn't. So that's something that a publisher should be mindful of ah if you know in terms of timing things.
00:51:41
Speaker
Right. Like do that really early on. I thought I did. yeah i thought did. You thought you did, but your surprise. I think I initiated it in early June. That's a good that's a good heads up, publishers.
00:51:55
Speaker
But I do have it now. I've got the registration number. So I'm like, okay. Is that something you have to renew or is it just once you have it, you're set? i've I don't know. Probably have to renew it. I guess you'll find out.
00:52:06
Speaker
I'll find out. Right now, I'm just glad to have it. Right. And then GPSR. And I don't know if we've talked about it. There's a lot of hoops to jump through with that. And yeah basically, it comes down to you have to...
00:52:23
Speaker
do your own sort of ah risk evaluation of your products. Right, product safety kind of thing. And you have to create you have to do this spreadsheet.
00:52:33
Speaker
It is not advisable to ingest the plastic wrapping. Yeah. this yeah What's the risk level of this plastic wrapping? Right. what's what's the possible What's the worst possible outcome if somebody ate the plastic wrapping? Oh my God. what is the what's What's the risk level of this hardback book?
00:52:52
Speaker
If you dropped it on your Is there a high level of risk that the ink in this book will cause toxic effects? Jeez. All this stuff. And luckily, my stuff is not a children's toy.
00:53:05
Speaker
Because then there's a lot more regulations on top of that. Wow. But because it isn't, I didn't have to do a lot of the testing and all that other stuff that you might otherwise have to do. and But i do have to do the labeling. And the labeling, i finally decided. At first, I was like, maybe I'll just print it in the book.
00:53:24
Speaker
printed in the, in the credits page, I finally decided not to do that. Partly because I did not want to put my home address on every book and because you you have to put your address. Wow.
00:53:36
Speaker
Right. I just didn't want to do it. And so I finally decided let's sticker only the books that are going to the EU and the UK. And so GMS is putting stickers on it.
00:53:48
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, and it turns out I don't have to put my home address. Um, but, um, I think that's a better move anyway, though. Yeah. You don't have to do two print copies. and Well, I didn't. I would have put it. i would have just put it in and just. And all of them. The U.S. s gets it, too. Right.
00:54:04
Speaker
Yeah. yeah I kind of regret it that I didn't print it. But they do the sticker for they they provide stickers. Well, i again, I paid a facilitator for this. Right. Right. Because I have to because it's part of the GPS. Could you have done like a card insert?
00:54:21
Speaker
No. It has to be on the product. It has to be affixed to the product. Wow. Oh, it's very particular. Yeah. and i And I have to have an EU-based representative for people who have complaints or whatever to go to right to complain about the product.
00:54:39
Speaker
So that's part of the the the payment I made, again, to the same guy. I'm never selling to the EU or UK. I had to get an EU-based representative for the GPSR thing. I have to give him all this stuff, my risk assessments, you know which which Boof and I did. yeah And he keeps that on file.
00:54:58
Speaker
And then we stick at the books and say, here's my representative. he's His address is here. His name is this, blah, blah, blah. And here's it was printed in China. Here's the ISBN number, the unique identifier for this book. It's first printing, which means this is there there may be a second printing in the future. yeah yeah you know That's distinct from this one.
00:55:20
Speaker
All that other stuff. and And is the is the representative, again, GMS? Or is it somebody else? I have a separate guy. Okay. Turbo Business Services is what is okay okay his business entity is. Right.
00:55:36
Speaker
But I found him through GMS. I see. So there it is. All right. I mean, it's a whole thing, man. Oh,
00:55:49
Speaker
Simon and I berate and hate this with a fiery burning passion. Yeah. it's It's just so ridiculous. i'd I'd be really curious to know how many people actually benefit from that.
00:56:04
Speaker
You know what mean? Like they impose this law yeah to supposedly protect consumers. I get it. How many people actually are like, oh, I'm so glad that was there because it saved my life.
00:56:16
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I get it. I get it. But it this is where this is where one of those things where it's so easy to be consumer advocate yeah about this stuff. Yeah.
00:56:30
Speaker
You know, we want protections. Yeah. And all that all that protection stuff should fall on the shoulders of the producers, which I get. To some extent.
00:56:41
Speaker
but just And to some extent, course. There's also a just don't be dumb. But this is also just don't be dumb. Yeah. This is also, this part of the risk assessment for the book is there's sharp corners. Don't hurt yourself. Right. You might get some paper cuts. Don't hurt yourself. Right.
00:56:55
Speaker
You know, and that's just stupid. It is stupid. But yeah, anyway, I mean, I get it if we're talking about a fancy electronic piece of equipment that can electrocute you for something or something that has chemicals or is made of like, a you know, um but like potentially cancer inducing materials or something. yeah Right. I get that. And they're trying to they're trying to do that with the books too. like you know like But look, these this is a reputable printer who uses inks that never have a problem. They do their own testing. It's like i can't it's not tested specifically for my product, yeah but they've had their products tested.
00:57:37
Speaker
Right. so like can it test Your product is the same as every single one of their other products. It's just a different picture that's on the page. Yeah. You know, like a different it just gets arrangement of colors.
00:57:48
Speaker
So it's it's it's hard to justify yeah going into the EU and selling this stuff when you've got that burden. I don't know if I Especially as a small producer. I'd just be like, sorry, EU, you get digital only.
00:58:01
Speaker
And I was going to do that. but then But then I was tucked out of it. and I'm glad I was because I got 19 or so yeah yeah hackers. And that's great. And they're they're generous. Supporters. And want them to have the stuff. And I'm able to give it to them now.
00:58:17
Speaker
So that's good. That's good. That's great. so So, there's that. You did all this yourself. Yes, I did all of that myself. A little help from your friends, as the Beatles would say.
00:58:33
Speaker
paid people to deal with, yeah well, not really deal with, just be representative for me yeah with GPSR. yeah I paid the same guy to do my VAT registration, which was a big help.
00:58:46
Speaker
And um I had a couple people helping me pack, and otherwise I did it myself. Okay. You know what the really cool thing is? All the Uline catalogs that you get out of this. Oh, I'm telling you.
00:59:00
Speaker
Like, not only did the Uline catalog come with the boxes that I got. So this Uline catalog is like an inch and a half thick or something. Oh, yeah. It's an inch. You could you could bludgeon somebody with it. Yeah, you could.
00:59:13
Speaker
But now I'm getting like one of these catalogs twice a month. Right. I... I love them. I was astonished at what they had in those catalogs. I was like, that is really cool. I don't need that, but that's really cool that that even exists. I mean, they must just have warehouse space for miles. And you're right. Even though the size and types of boxes is incredible.
00:59:38
Speaker
All the packing material. And it's not just boxes. It's like office supplies, furniture. It's like grills. components and yeah mean it goes it's all crazy it's insane and it's it's impressive and some of the stuff is like that is actually really useful in a house like it's it's really cool stuff i like them i love flipping through them there's all kinds of like uh yeah dock stuff yeah palette movers you know i mean it is everything yeah it's amazing it is amazing my My weakness is for the Sweetwater catalog, though, which is music. Well, not yeah i' it's ah a music production, sound production. Yeah, yeah. That kind of stuff. get all the interfaces and MIDI stuff. and yeah All the microphones. All the stuff. e
01:00:24
Speaker
That's my weakness. All the digital tools that you get. So, what else? that i did What else did I skip over? Well,
01:00:35
Speaker
ah So, yeah. So fulfillment, you got everything out. Everybody should be getting if they haven't gotten already their stuff. um You have, um mean, you you you do have some backers that you haven't.
01:00:52
Speaker
ah heard from, right, in terms of any updates or anything like that or, you know, address corrections. yeah. So, There are backers in Backerkit who have not filled out their surveys yet. Yeah.
01:01:06
Speaker
At all. Right. And there are some who have declined cards for shipping costs or add-ons. And you're giving else you're giving a very generous amount of time, a year.
01:01:17
Speaker
Yes. I put in an update that I said, okay, you have a year to fill out your survey and get your credit cards updated and stuff. And once you do that, I'll all'll know it because Backerkid will tell me. And then I'll send your stuff.
01:01:32
Speaker
so the reason After the year, I can't guarantee your stuff is going to be... I i bring this up because this is actually a really common thing that publishers have to deal with. Right. Like you'd be surprised at how, how with every crowdfunding thing, there's always people who either, you know, their cards, you know, didn't get processed correctly or because they were declined or whatever, or, um, you know, they didn't fill out their surveys. i know Pinnacle, they go crazy trying to make sure people are filling out their surveys. Yeah. Like, and I've tried. And people still don't for whatever reason. They don't see the email. They don't, whatever. I don't even know. i personally, I see a survey. I'm like, let me do that now before I forget. Cause I want my stuff. Yeah. Um, but you know, people have different situations, you know, they could be preoccupied with something else. Who knows?
01:02:19
Speaker
Yeah.
Handling Unresponsive Backers
01:02:20
Speaker
It's weird to me though, that if you've backed, you've already been charged yeah one hundred dollars or whatever, and you just don't fill out your survey. Right. And I don't know, I can't send it to you.
01:02:31
Speaker
Right. Until you fill out your survey. And then people who, you know, you know like something happened where they had an address change. Right. And then like their stuff got shipped to the old address. Yeah. That's the worst. Yeah. Because then, then you're on the, I mean, then you've sent something to the wrong address. Right. It becomes a whole thing. the whole thing. Yeah. And so that's why you got to be really like.
01:02:54
Speaker
repetitive about, Hey, update your address. If you've moved, blah, blah, blah. We're going to lock the addresses, which means we're about to ship. And for real now, you know? Yeah. And there's no but magic bullet for this. There's no way to like, make sure.
01:03:08
Speaker
There's no way to It's just going happen. Yeah. There's just, all you can do is, is remind, remind, remind. Yeah. And then deal with whatever fallout there is And then deal with it. yeah you know Yeah. So far, I've only had one problem, which seems to have been resolved. what We'll see. I think that the replacement package will be delivered tomorrow, so I'll know.
01:03:31
Speaker
Yeah. um But it's been it's been fine. And yeah it turns out that I ah filed a claim through Pirate Ship to UPS for a missing package, and I already got paid back on that. claim Within a day, right? I think you told me. Yeah, it was like a day or two.
01:03:48
Speaker
That's good. got it back. I'm like, okay. So another reason to use something like Pirate Ship, right? Yeah, they have more options for the insurance stuff. Yeah.
01:03:59
Speaker
So there's there's there's benefit for that. Man. So you're done. Everything's out. Everything's out in North America. Congrats. In North America. But whatever's happening in the UK, s you have no involvement. It's out of my control, but it's still my responsibility. Sure. that's Yes. it's right that's That's my caveat. once Once all those are out. Right. But even then, there's people who haven't filled out their surveys. so Yeah, know. Email. They'll come in late and be like, oh, I didn't know.
01:04:27
Speaker
That's fine. Just fill it out and I'll send it to you. Yeah. You got boxes. I can't send it. Yeah. ah And you have to pay shipping. So maybe we'll save this for another episode because there's the there's the whole like, well, what now factor? Right. Like, yeah, i think we should have our own episode for that. Yeah.
01:04:47
Speaker
Because. Yeah. But you got you got boxes. Oh, yeah. i So so that and that's going to a topic, right? 5, 10. 13 times 2 is 26 plus another 5, 10.
01:05:05
Speaker
That's 36. And then in the other room, I've got maybe another... nine or so yeah so let's that's maybe 45 boxes of stuff left after fulfillment right um that i can sell and i think part of part of our discussion next time is how what's my plan for selling that stuff well what happens now And so before we get to that is the like the the whole, like you know if you're doing this yourself, the storing it, right? Being prepared mentally that this stuff is going to be in your house for a while, e right? Because you can't just stick in the garage because you got to keep it climate controlled.
01:05:50
Speaker
Well, you got to keep it at least dry. Well, the that's a good thing that you have living in Arizona. Yeah. Because if it if it's anything, it's dry. Well, most of the time. Not all the time. But if you live, like say, in the Southeast, it's not dry.
01:06:05
Speaker
And you don't want your books getting like moldy and whatever. and So, yeah. yeah so But if i had to keep if I had to keep it here, and I i i probably don't, I can i can tap Daryl to help me store some this. If I had to keep it here, I could.
01:06:23
Speaker
Now, optionally, you could rent a warehouse, like not a warehouse, a a storage facility. Right. Yeah. I could. I don't want to. No, no, no, no. But I'm just saying anybody else yeah out there, that's an option. If if storing it in your home is not an option.
01:06:38
Speaker
But really, honestly, if I got, if I got a thousand books, I would have, I would have contracted with Studio 2 somehow. Oh, because of the volume.
01:06:48
Speaker
Because it's just just the volume. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. It have been too much. Yeah. And if I had a thousand blocks, I probably would have had like three or like four or five hundred backers. And I wouldn't want to do that myself either. That's true too. Yep.
01:07:03
Speaker
So, I don't know. That's... But other advantage to being able to do it yourself here from here is that if I end up doing t-shirts, I can have the t-shirts here truly and be able to put them in the boxes with with with people's orders. Right, right, right.
01:07:24
Speaker
Whereas if it was in a warehouse, I'd have to get the t-shirts, have them sent to the warehouse and pick and pack also with the t-shirts. Right. Now, prior to seeing the boxes in your house, like, cause there's that visual thing like, oh, this is a lot.
01:07:39
Speaker
Let's say you did do a thousand. Would you have known at that time? No, I need, I need studio two to do this. Or do you think? Yes. Okay. yeah I mean, by a thousand, we mean a thousand of each.
01:07:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Um, cause you have two books. Yeah, I have two books. Right now I have two books of 525 each, but and some of that's been fulfilled. But yeah, if I had done 1,000, I think I would have automatically talked to him at Studio 2 and figured it out. Right.
01:08:11
Speaker
Makes sense. Because it would have been too much. Yeah. Because the printer actually gave me ah the how how much how much room this stuff would take. Oh, like the volume space. Yeah, 22 books per box, approximately this weight per box, approximately this size of box.
01:08:34
Speaker
This is what the books are going to take up. Okay. You know, approximately X maps per box, and it's going to be this size and this weight, blah, blah, blah. They gave me that all up front. Oh, good. So it helps you plan. That's great. I knew. Yeah.
01:08:47
Speaker
Yeah. Okay.
Pre-Planning and Print Flaws
01:08:51
Speaker
Now... Okay. One more question then. Are there any, um, it sounds like the experience has been pretty smooth because you did a lot of pre-planning and you know whatnot.
01:09:04
Speaker
Are there still any lessons learned, things that you would take forward to your next? A couple. Yeah. Um, i because of the,
01:09:19
Speaker
There's there's ah there's ah a flaw that's on some of the books and not all of them. It's a printer flaw. It's not mine. um But it's small. It's doubtful most people will notice it, but I notice It drives me crazy.
01:09:32
Speaker
So in that because of that, um next time i will have more than three millimeter bleed beyond the cut line. and That's one of the things that I've decided, that that i feel like, okay, well,
01:09:47
Speaker
Next time. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, it's still within spec. It's just, I mean, at least the three millimeters is, yeah but just ah just as having an extra millimeter might, would have been nice.
01:10:00
Speaker
Yeah. You know, um if I can do it, if I, you know, it it depends on the graphic design and how that all shakes out, but that's one, that's one
Selling in the EU: Challenges and Decisions
01:10:11
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
01:10:12
Speaker
Um, I might do some of the, I might do some of the GPSR stuff differently, if at all. I'm not sure whether I'll just give up on EU or not.
01:10:24
Speaker
For now, I've got stuff there. Yeah. But whether I, whether I do another Kickstarter and make it available to EU, I don't know. Because it's, it's a huge pain. It's a huge headache. And ah and it's,
01:10:40
Speaker
I don't know. It probably is worth it once I get past a certain number of backers. but Yeah, you know, it's a real shame because I wonder how much...
01:10:50
Speaker
wonder how many products just don't go to that market for that reason. Especially for, well, it's relatively new. Right. So, especially from small companies. Especially because it's so new, there's probably less clarity.
01:11:05
Speaker
Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? super unclear. it It's so confusing what you're supposed to do and what you're... Right. Like, to what degree do you document, you know? Yeah.
01:11:16
Speaker
It's incredibly unclear. Yeah. And that, for me, that makes it extra stressful because yeah i hate lack of clarity. Well, you don't, yeah, because you don't know if you're doing it right. I just want rules I can follow. yeah Give me simple rules I can follow.
01:11:30
Speaker
And there's no, so this is like taxes. There are no simple rules I can follow here. There should be exceptions like books should be an exception. Yeah. If you're doing like, I wish, you know what i mean though? Like there's certain products that are just like, yeah you know, this is not a hazardous product.
01:11:48
Speaker
Yeah. You know, that's yeah. It's, it's, I, I would do it differently or not at all. I don't, I'm not sure yet. Yeah. Um, there was another one I thought of.
Canadian Backers and Distribution Challenges
01:12:00
Speaker
Oh, I mean, i only had seven Canadian backers, but man, I wish I had a Canadian partner, meaning like GMS, someplace I could ship ah an inventory to Canada so that they can fulfill it. Yeah. Why did you not have a Canadian partner?
01:12:20
Speaker
Because I was like, I'm not going to have that many backers. And I was right. oh Oh, ah Like I, and I didn't know who to go to. That's amazing that you have more backers in the UK.
01:12:34
Speaker
Yeah. Well, Right. Then you do like in a neighbor, literally right there across the border. I feel bad for them because they're having to pay quite a bit yeah to get their stuff into the country. Yeah.
01:12:48
Speaker
And that's because I don't have a partner. Yeah. And, uh, so you would, you would, even with those, with that such few numbers, you would still get a partner. I would try. Yeah.
01:13:00
Speaker
Look, GMS was up for whatever amount I wanted to give them. Yeah. Right. So, and I didn't give them a whole lot. I gave them like 75 of each book, 50 of each card set, 50 of each map. That's all I gave them. Yeah.
01:13:12
Speaker
Yeah. But they'll have the inventory to sell. It's it's it's it's ah it's enough of a stockpile of stuff that if I get orders from the EU UK, we can fulfill them without having to spend enormous amounts of money.
Considering Amazon for Distribution
01:13:27
Speaker
Is it too late to find a retailer that can handle online orders, for example, that you could just send one big shipment of like, say you know, 50 units? I could.
01:13:41
Speaker
ah could. Yeah. I don't know about Canada. I don't know. Cause I don't know where I'd start. I'd have to, I'd have to find out whether, who, who other people are using, you know, like who does Monte Cook games use? They print in Canada. So they obviously have some kind of distributor up there. Oh, okay. I got one last question then.
01:13:59
Speaker
Could you partner with like something like Amazon? I don't know. I haven't looked into it. Cause I think like I've seen cases where small publishers will do that.
01:14:11
Speaker
They'll, they'll sell through Amazon. I think, I don't know. I think I could, but I think that I would eat a lot of profit.
01:14:22
Speaker
Probably. Jeff Bezos needs to pay for his wedding. so And that's, that's, I get it. Like, because man, they're, they're offering so much logistical help. Like that would be huge. Right. And I would understand and probably be willing to take that hit.
01:14:36
Speaker
Right. But I need to look into it to see if it's worth it. Yeah. Yeah. Because if people say, well, I want to buy from Amazon, it's easy to buy from Amazon. I get free shipping from Amazon, amazon blah blah, blah, blah, blah. But I'm making hardly any money. Right. It might not be worth it Right. Unless you're like sitting on your inventory forever and then you're like, I really got to get rid of this Yeah.
01:14:54
Speaker
Maybe. Yeah. But, but until then hang on to your stuff. Yeah. Like it's, that's, that's the problem is that,
01:15:03
Speaker
if i'm If I'm making $1 $2 a book. yeah You have to sell a high quantity. I'd have to sell a lot of books. I mean, that may be an extreme example, yeah but I don't know. I'm pretty sure, though, that I would eat ah i would i would eat a lot of it.
01:15:21
Speaker
yeah And really the benefit is getting it on a bigger platform where it's easy easy for people to get it. Yeah. But the trade-off is that I make no money on it.
01:15:33
Speaker
Right. And that's kind of not the
Call for Canadian Retailer Suggestions
01:15:36
Speaker
point. If any of our listeners know of any retailers in Canada who might be interested in buying some some so stock of... Yeah, his book or distributor or whatever. yeah Some sort of consignment house, just like GMS or Studio 2, something like that, that they would take a big bulk shipment and just want to distribute it. Right.
01:15:58
Speaker
Find retailers for it. GMS is going to try to find put Han Cluster in stores. You know what would be great is if there was a ah space online where publishers can easily connect with you know partners like that.
01:16:12
Speaker
There might be. i mean, there might be. Yeah. That's what Gamma's for, I think. h Yeah, good point. So, I don't know. I'm not a member of Gamma, so.
01:16:25
Speaker
I'm small potatoes at this point. No, you're, you're big time now. You, you've done a crowdfunding and you've got hundreds, hundreds of books.
01:16:37
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:41
Speaker
Regardless of how many I have out there, I think it's worthy yeah being out there. I think it's, I think I would hold this up to any book out there yeah be proud of it. It is a, it's a huge, astounding success.
01:16:54
Speaker
It is a high quality product. You did it all. And I think you absolutely 100% should be proud of this endeavor. I think you are. i mean, you see I am.
01:17:06
Speaker
Yeah. I'm relieved. I'm relieved. It's been a journey. It's been journey. It's got, it went for what, like two years of high anxiety to, yeah. And, and I'm starting, this is the weirdest thing. Once, once I get, I got everything fulfilled. Yeah. The, the, the, the log jam from the reservoir of creativity unjammed.
01:17:28
Speaker
Really? Where I felt like, oh. Now I can think freely of other things. i can start thinking about the next thing. Yeah. Which we'll talk about. Yeah. We'll talk about that.
01:17:39
Speaker
Like my plans for the future and what's coming next. And I've i've already started on it. And i' I'm like, okay, I'm excited. And because I've done this once, I'm not as scared about it. Yeah.
01:17:52
Speaker
You know what to expect. I know what this is now. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's not the scary unseen monster. Yeah. In the closet. Oh my God, it's a monster, but at least I fought the monster. Yeah. before You know what the monster looks like. You fought it before. It's yeah. You know, you've seen the demo Gorgon. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
01:18:12
Speaker
Yeah. But we'll get into more of the, what happens after. Yeah. Yeah. I will really want to dive into that. Yeah. yeah So i'm looking forward to that conversation. Feedback. reviews um yeah what's next yeah what's next for eat soul games or uh yep or even hong cluster yes and or you know immaterial plane yeah we'll see well i could tell you right now campaign card immense but we'll talk about that next time so yeah yeah all right then cool so tracy i'll be the one to ask this time is there anything else did we cover it all
01:18:50
Speaker
i think I think we've we've covered enough that that people are tired of us now. i don't know. think people always want to hear us. This is a very lengthy one.
HonCluster Shipping Announcement
01:18:59
Speaker
so I will say that HonCluster is shipping now.
01:19:02
Speaker
So if you want to buy it, go to HonCluster.com, click on the link to the Backerkit store and buy it because I will ship it to you within a couple of days. Yes. It's all prepped and ready. I've got it all right here in a box. That's right.
01:19:16
Speaker
That's right. And it really is beautiful. It really is. It really is. It really is. so well done. Yeah. You put a lot of care into the design of it and it shows.
01:19:27
Speaker
Yay. Yeah. Cool. I submitted it for awards, so we'll see. We'll see. Go pick it up. It's really cool. All right.
Join the Podcast's Discord Community
01:19:38
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Designing Problems podcast. We want this to be more than a podcast. We want it to be a community. So if you'd like to engage directly with us, share your creative triumphs, your roadblocks, or simply interact with a cool group of supportive people, we still have our own Discord server. Please come by, join the discussion, and share some inspiration.
01:19:56
Speaker
Until next time, keep designing your problems because you're bound to solve a few along the way.