Thank you all so much for the wonderful support you have shown for my first Kickstarter. It's been a heartwarming success and has sold nearly a thousand books and funded the printing and shipping/delivery of both books!
By ordering my books there you have removed the greater part of the risk associated with book publishing these days, and I'm so grateful.
Normally at this stage of the process, I would have invested tens of thousands of dollars with no prospect of a return for six months, well after distributors sold the book on to retailers and eventually paid me a percentage of sales. Book distributors are notorious in the book world for their 90 day payment terms, so a small publisher ends up being very nervously patient.
I thought you would be interested in a peek behind the scenes at my excellent printers in Italy, to see the hi-tech care that goes into the printing of a book of this type. Pictured here are the printing technicians pondering the colour calibration from proof to print, in order to match the proof colour I have approved.
The great news is that this process is complete for the first book, LARRIKIN, which has been printed, bound, boxed and delivered to port in Genoa, Northern Italy. The shipment that is bound for the U.S. is due in New York at the end of November, and the one to Australia two weeks later. Delivery within Europe will be faster and by truck. Fingers crossed for a smooth transition through customs, so that your orders can be trucked to my fulfilment centres for posting by about mid-December! I'll update you on that later.
I have now printed the confirmation/Christmas/Holiday cards, (pictured), ready for posting at the end of the campaign, next week.
A survey will be sent to everyone involved in the campaign when it ends, for participants to complete any information needed for the delivery of rewards, including name, postal address, preferences, etc.
There are still five days to go, and plenty of stock, so feel free to encourage your friends to spoil themselves with a gift. A lot of you out there might need precisely this kind of progressive Liberal Arts gift to cheer you up, if you know what I mean.. America.