18.07.23 IT IS DONE! Well, nearly...
over 1 year ago – Tue, Jul 18, 2023 at 02:58:50 AM

Hello folks,

ALPHA PDF IS READY

This is the part I love about Kickstarters! The ALPHA PDF is complete and ready to be sent out! There is nothing more for me or the team to do on this PDF as of this moment. 

Remember when you voted to change the cover? Well here is the final cover! A masterful blend of my artwork, Tills maps and Martian's photoshop wizardry, I'm really proud of this cover. 

WHEN DO YOU GET THE PDF ALPHA?

On the 4th of August we are charging the credit cards. This takes about a week to process. Please watch your accounts for the transaction. If you have insufficient funds it will automatically attempt again the following day. If it fails again you will be placed onto the hold list. We will reach out to you to see if we can resolve it. 

Then on the 11th of August (if all credit card issues have been resolved) you will get the Alpha PDF!

WHY ALPHA?

The printers are only expecting the final version of the book towards the last week of August. What this means is that we can get as many eyes on the PDF before we send it to print. The whole team has been through the book many, many times and things slip through. Our amazing editor Lou did an amazing job on prepping the copy, but in layout things happen. So if you read the Alpha and find something amiss you can report it to us and we have time to fix it. 

PRINT VERSIONS?

Once we lock the PDF down we'll send it to our printers in the Netherlands as a BETA version. They then go through the PDF BETA and look for any issues that might arrise in printing. We've never had issues before as Martain knows his S*%T. This usually takes a week or so, by early September the book should go to the printers. From there the printed books are shipped directly to our distribution points globally and then folks, it's to your doors!

NEXT UPDATE

The next update will be in two weeks when we remind you about the pending credit card transaction. Until then,

Happy gaming!

Regards

Guy, Till, and the Team

07.07.23 Credit Cards Charged on 4th of August and more!
over 1 year ago – Fri, Jul 07, 2023 at 04:56:55 AM

Hello folks!

4th of August!

On the 4th of August Backerkit will run on your credit cards. 

• Please make sure you have sufficient funds for your order.
• Please make sure you credit card details are up-to-date on backerkit. 
• Please make sure that you've finalized your orders for add-ons and so on. You have until the 14th of July to do this.

Why do we do this? Because we are nearly at the print stage!! It takes 2 weeks for Backerkit to close up the payments and charge the cards. 

Once the credit cards have been charged we will be sending the money to the printers. You'll also get the PDF around that date - once all credit cards have been charged. This is an alpha version of the PDF. We'll be using that week of release for final checks - your help is greatly encouraged here, the more eyes we have on the work, the less mistakes there are!

If you do not have sufficient funds in your credit card, Backerkit will get hold you and try to solve the issue. If it cannot get the funds from you, your order will be cancelled! In that event, you'll have to buy the books etc. via our website www.greatgamemaster.com later once the book is available there. 

Layout

Martin has done a spectacular job on the book, bringing clarity to the text in a wonderful way. Guy has been checking the master PDF and all we can say is, it's looking great! We can't wait for you to get your hands on the PDF.

Names

We've locked down the names that appear in the book. We got only a few requests to change or omit names, so thank you for responding. 

Until the next update, which will be a reminder next week,

Thank you for your support!

Till, Guy, and the team!

23.06.23 Almost there!
over 1 year ago – Fri, Jun 23, 2023 at 06:25:00 AM

Hello all,

Your Name in the book

If you backed the book at the level that got your name in the book, please please please: we are collating those names next week. We are currently using the name linked to your backerkit account. If you do not want that you must send me a message here on KS listing your backerkit name and the replacement name. You have until next week Friday to do this. 

We are almost at the final PDF release stage. Just a few tweaks remain. What tweaks you might ask? 

Fitting text

Like any good jigsaw puzzle, the text versus the books layout needs to be adjusted. On the left side, the magmaman and his two dogs are sort of plopped down. The text should work itself around them. On the right you can see the text by a few lines, has overun the page. The choice we have to make is: do we run onto the next page or do we rewrite the text to get it to fit. It's amazing how a little pressure can force you, as a writer to come up with shorter sentences that still give the same information!

Fillers

This is something I rather enjoy doing as it's a lot of fun. Throughout the book there will be spaces. What to put into these spaces? A relevant quote? An image? Perhaps a hint of a map? Whatever it is mustn't obstruct the meaning of the text. 

So the graphic designer highlights these spaces in bright pink. I then go through them looking at what can go there. In this case (above) Martin, the designer, has suggested a submenu or list. As this is the opening to the chapter that contains all the locations, I think that makes jolly good sense. Thanks Martin! 

This backwards and forwards of slowly completing the book is my favorite part. Firstly, it means the book is nearly done and secondly, I can see the book coming alive. To see the images I've made or commissioned sitting in place with the text beautifully laid out is really awesome and humbling. 

The team

Speaking of which, to bring this amazing book to life is going to make use of so many folks that I will never get to meet to say thank you to: the printers in Poland who always produce such great quality books, the delivery driver who takes the books to the warehouse, the ships captain who navigates the Atlantic bringing the books to the USA, and most importantly, the courier guy/postal worker who brings your book to you. When I look at the team I can say thank you to, it's a huge list! And you are on it!

To everyone involved, I say: thank you dearly!

Regards

Guy

24.05.23 Close to finishing editing
over 1 year ago – Wed, May 24, 2023 at 12:51:19 AM

Hello all!

I've been away on holiday, family business, and recovery and am glad to say that everything is happily resolved! I'm full of energy and ready to finish this book!

EDITING

Our editor has been furiously working on our text for the book and bringing an amazing clarity which we love and, frankly, didn't realize was possible. She's only got a few chapters left to work through and if you could see the original in comparison to the final work you'd be blown away!

We are hoping to finish the editing of the book by next week Wednesday!

ARTWORK

We have in hand 25 original artworks by yours truly, 30 battlemaps of the locations, 15 location maps, 15 NPC illustrations, and are currently finalizing the 45 illustrations from the stretch-goal additional content. All that is outstanding now are the graphic elements for chapter 5 which will be completed before the middle of June!

LAYOUT

Martin, the graphic designer for the book, has already laid out the orignal text and is just waiting for the finalized edited copy to replace it with. We've worked through the book with him and he knows where every image is going to go. We're hoping to have the layout complete by the end of June, all things being equal! 

UK GAMES EXPO

If you are lucky enough to be coming to UKGE next week please come and say hello to myself and Till. We have a big stand in hall one and would love to meet you!

Until the next update,

Thank you for your support as always!

Regards,

Guy, Till and the Team

13.04.23 Progress!
over 1 year ago – Thu, Apr 13, 2023 at 01:12:16 AM

Hello all,

PROGRESS

Lou, our new editor, has been furiously working over the Easter holidays and has made some amazing changes to the book already - as we knew she would. We're well on track to make our mid-June edit completion date. *

The printers have already ordered the paper we need for the book to be printed on so that's yet another cog in the great machine in place and ready to start spinning. 

The base artwork is about 50% done which is very exciting. It should be complete by the end of this month. Base artwork is all the pretty stuff that one expects in a book - chapter images, key reference images and so on. 

We brought Victor Yah on board as a hand-drawn sketch artist to add in a little personal flair for some of the stretch-goal locations and what I love about his work is the extra little details he adds in. We also wanted the book to contain images that look like notes that a DM might make in their own journals. And he's knocking them out of the park!

If we're a little slow to respond to messages or comments it's because we're all focused on finishing up this project. 

*More on Editing

For those of you who haven't been through an editorial process it depends on the material you're working with as to how it plays out. As our book is an educational manual and inspirational guide Lou's primary goal is to make sure that that is what the book does! She isn't just looking for grammar, spelling and coherent sentences, she's looking at ideas, concepts and the overall book flow and content. 

As a result of her work, we've already added in several pages of content to expand upon useful information, redefined our suggested workflow, and have made the Location entries even clearer in terms of how they can help you. 

Of course this isn't a simple process. Lou takes the material, reads it, formulates her comments and sends those comments back to Till and myself. We read the comments, look at the material and then best decided on how to either fix the commented work, ignore the comment made by Lou, or address the comment in a different section of the book. Most of the time we're fixing the commented upon work. Bringing clarity of meaning or linking disparate ideas together. Once in a dozen comments we'll tell Lou that something she's confused about is because the layout of the book is sometimes quite key to bringing understanding. We have things called 'red boxes' which are stand-out sentences that should become mantra's for anyone using the book. Without this understanding of the graphic nature of the text (a red box) it can read as an arbitrary sentence without context. So it's things like that. 

This back and forth takes time and of course, just because Lou has pointed out an issue, and we have fixed it, doesn't mean it ends there. Lou then goes to our fix to make sure our fix is actually a fix and not a fu...muck up.

Hence editing is quite the process. It takes absolute honesty. There is no point in Lou trying to kindly point out that Till and I cannot spell the word finesse. For some reason we wrote fineness. We also have to accept that when she says something is confusing that it really is and that we must fix it rather than dismiss it. It's a lot of humble pie to have your work examined in such a way. 

But I wouldn't trade it for the world. It makes a better book at the end of the day!

Until the next update,

Happy gaming!

Till, Guy, Lou, Derrick. Victor, Martin, and the rest of the team involved!