Things are moving along nicely!
We have approved the interior proof of the book and actual printing has started, which means that we now have a tentative ship date. Drum roll…
December 14th
Barring any unforeseen roadblocks, you should get your book before December 25th. We'll be using a staggered shipping plan over the course of a few days, shipping books with destinations farther away from us first, to get everybody their books as soon as possible.
The photo above shows the actual proof we approved — the pages are unbound and have been inserted into the proof cover for the Softcover. We both went through every single page to check for errors and to look for any printing glitches. We found exactly one, an easy fix to the end papers* for the Softcover.
The dust jacket. And then there's the "decoy" dust jacket. The people at the printers were really confused when they went to print the proof copy. They thought they had the wrong file, one for a book that sounded pretty boring. So, it looks like the "decoy" dust jacket will meet the objective of keeping your friends from being trapped inside the book (once you've escaped, of course).
Addresses locked. As we mentioned in the last newsletter, we have now locked addresses for everybody who did not update their address to include DO NOT SHIP. If you're one of those people, we will check with you before shipping to try and get your book to you in the first batch. If you're wondering why we locked addresses early, it's simple — we want to do everything we can to prevent any of those unforeseen roadblocks.
As always, thanks for your support!
Roy and Emily
* You should ignore this footnote, our longest to date, unless you like to read about details of book production. Trust us on this. Technically, only hardcovers have end papers, which are double-wide sheets of paper glued in to hide the edges of the cover material, which has been folded over and glued to the "case" or backing board, which is what makes the hardcover hard. But a softcover book can have inside cover printing, which means that the cover, which is printed on a heavy, laminated cover stock, can be printed on both sides. The non-laminated inside has a similar look to an end paper. In the Limited Edition of The Conjurer's Almanaq, of course, they're both a puzzle. The hardcovers have the same artwork for both end papers, each one a complete copy of the puzzle. The softcover has the same artwork split between the front and back, which combine to make one copy of the puzzle. The difference in the artwork is the spine of the book in the middle, which is where our slight printing glitch, a miscalculation of the spine width, came into play. Adjusting for the proper width resolved the problem.
Next update in two weeks or less.
