We have great news! The Conjurer's Almanaq is at the printers!
This moment has been a long time coming and we couldn't be more excited.
The picture above shows some of the staff at Gorham Printing in Centralia, Washington, about two hours away from us. These are the people who will be producing your books.
We'll confess we did have a moment of panic when we learned that the printing cost had gone up significantly because of our delayed schedule. The higher costs are partly due to higher labor costs, and new tariffs increased paper costs directly and indirectly.
We thought about switching to a cheaper overseas printer — for about 2 seconds. But we are really happy with the quality of work we've seen from Gorham, we like the fact that they are local, we like the fact that they value their skilled workforce, and the last thing we wanted to do was anything that would compromise the quality or cause further delays.
What's with the little house? The little house is a Little Free Library* next to the front door at Gorham. While we didn't pick the printer because they had one, it did endear them to us. These are the sort of people we like to work with.
How did the final test solving go? Great! Our remote solvers rocked it, and it was a lot of fun having a bunch of people, none of whom we knew before, show up to solve in person. In addition to the book, we gave them a peek at some of the physical items we manufactured for photographs in The Conjurer's Almanaq. These in-person solvers, as a group, solved almost all the primary puzzles, but none escaped. We found and fixed actual mistakes in four puzzles, cleaned up a few other puzzles, tightened instructions further, and eradicated a bunch of typos and visual glitches. While we were at it, we double-checked every backer name in the book (and fixed a few typos), and verified every page that changed from the previous full book test. Whew!
What does this mean for the schedule? We won't know exact dates for a little while, but, as they say, the train has left the station. We'll let you know as soon as we know more.
What if you haven't filled out the survey? If you're one of the few backers that has not yet filled out the survey, there is no time like the present. Because we have already given final counts to the printer, we have turned off the ability to add on additional copies of the Limited Edition. For now, you can still upgrade your pledge level, but that will be turned off in a few days. If you are missing your survey link, go here: https://conjurers-almanaq.backerkit.com/
If you've moved, now would also be a good time to update your address, though we will give you some notice before we lock addresses.
As always, thanks for your support!
Roy and Emily
* Did you know there are more than 75,000 Little Free Libraries? Neither did we! The one nearest us always has Portuguese books in honor of the owner's mother. If you want to learn more about the Little Free Library system or find ones near where you live, visit https://littlefreelibrary.org. Next update in two weeks.
