What's Next for Almanaq

It's been quite a while and we have a lot to update you on.

A bit of bad news ...

While we were traveling in Guatemala in March, Roy suffered a severe life-threatening injury. You can call it a broken neck or a C1 fracture or just a massive pain in the neck, but, whatever you call it, it is definitely no fun.

While Roy is expected to make an almost full recovery, it is slow going and it is a very long road. Not surprisingly, it has already caused a huge disruption in some of our plans, and we've decided to shuffle some things around.

Wrapping Up The Conjurer's Almanaq

Everybody who paid and gave us an address has had their book for a long time now, with every lost or damaged copy successfully replaced (whew!). It's been great hearing from people who have escaped from the book.

There are still a few people who paid but never gave us a mailing address. We want you to have your book! If you're one of those people, please send us your address so we can send you the copy we're saving for you.

There are also a few people who pledged but never paid, either because a credit card was declined or because they never followed through on BackerKit. We've sent all of you emails and set a deadline of June 1st, at which point we'll release any books which haven't been paid for.

We're working on releasing the remaining Limited Edition copies for sale, and we'll announce it first to people on this mailing list. We'll also be adding a few other things to our web store at that time, including additional warehouse maps.

At the same time, we will get both hints and the rest of the answer verification up on the web site.

We haven't forgotten about the wooden puzzle. We have a design we really like, but Roy is not currently able to manufacture the next physical prototype for testing. Unfortunately, it's going to have to be pushed back a bit. We're creating a separate mailing list of just the people who pledged for the wooden puzzle.

Please Review the Book

If you want to help Almanaq and The Conjurer's Almanaq in particular, the number one thing you can do is to submit a 5-star review on Amazon, where most of our online sales are made. They make a huge difference in how many people learn about our books. Reviews on Barnes & Noble and Goodreads (and reviews of The Librarian's Almanaq) won't hurt either. If you're wondering why we specifically ask for 5-star reviews, it's because of the skewed nature of the rating system. While we know that not everybody will give us a 5-star review, there is an expectation that 5 stars is the baseline and anything else means something is wrong.

It is certainly ok to say you bought the Limited Edition on Kickstarter, but we would appreciate it if you don't make it sound like there's anything wrong with the mass market edition. Of course it's not as nice as the Limited Edition, but it's cheaper and the puzzle content in the Almanaq itself is the same. We don't want people to think they shouldn't buy the mass market edition if they missed out on the Limited Edition. (Also, Amazon will remove reviews they think are trying to get people to buy things elsewhere.)

Thank you for considering this! If you want to tell your friends about the Almanaqs, here are some easy to remember URLs:

Upcoming Projects

We're not heading back to Guatemala* anytime soon. But we are targeting July for our next project. It's something a bit different, feedback so far has been excellent, and we're excited by it! You'll read about it here first.

Thanks for all your support!

Roy and Emily

* The photo shows The Temple of the Great Jaguar in the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Tikal, taken before the injury. Guatemala is a beautiful country, Tikal was amazing, and the food was wonderful. We also had some pretty incredible chocolate. We are resolute that the injury will not be our only memory of the trip.

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