23.03.23 CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS
about 1 year ago – Fri, Mar 24, 2023 at 04:20:24 AM

Hello everyone,

CHALLENGES

January, February and March have not been kind months to the team. My dad had a heart attack and was diagnosed with cancer (which as of two days ago is responding well to chemo). Our editor Pontus' wife was rushed to hospital and was in critical care but is now on the way to a full recovery.  Throughout this we've continued to work on the book. The text is complete and we could send out the word document today but it's unedited. 

Pontus has had to pull out of the project, however, to care for his wife and we wish him and her the best and speediest of recoveries.  A very good friend of mine, and a long-time industry editor has stepped forward and we are in the process to iron out the details of her joining the project and bringing it back onto track as fast as she can. The book is just shy of 100 000 words or 220 pages of solid text so it's no small task. As of today, she's on board and we'd love to welcome Lou Fryer who comes with a wealth of industry experience (and was a fellow DM at D&D in a Castle this year)

Martin, our Graphic Designer, has also stepped up and agreed to do a preliminary layout of the book using the unedited text, as this will be his fifth book with me and he knows that the edit won't change too much and if it does, he'll just cope with it. So that will bring us back on track a bit more. 

I've also reached out to the printing company and they've started the ordering of the paper already to cut down their turn around times based on the last two books we did with them. 

This means that we are currently two months behind our schedule but are hopeful we can get it down to less than a month.

GRAPHICS AND ART

In other news work on the artwork for the book continues at pace and everything there looks to be thoroughly on track. We've commissioned a few established artists for some artwork and we've also cast the net out to find some new up-coming artists. 

This is one of the pieces for the Forest section. This is also only one type of forest. And yes - I indulged myself by adding in some dinosaurs because why not!

Until the next update - which will be as soon as we've commissioned the new editor, 

Happy gaming!

Guy, Till and the Team

01.03.23 The copy is done... and it's too long!
about 1 year ago – Wed, Mar 01, 2023 at 06:36:41 AM

Hello everyone!

Writing is done

Well, we finished writing the book. This may not seem like much but the word document is ready for edit. This has taken us a little longer than expected. We are, however, at that moment where we now hand it over to the editor and hold our breath - as writers. As producers of the book, we're smiling. It's always nice to have a finished manuscript. 

The next steps

The editor, Pontus, will now sit on a beach somewhere - it's true he lives in South East Asia, and go through everything we've written. He isn't looking for spelling or crazy comma's. He's looking for continuity, for clarity, and most importantly of all, to see if the book helps him create epic locations. He'll send this back to us marked up with notes. 

He's been my editor on The Practical Guide to becoming a Great GM, and The Complete guide to creating Epic Campaigns and his notes are wonderful. I'll get little things like:

"I can see what you want to say. But what you wrote doesn't say that. Break it down and assume I know nothing."

Other times he simply says: "This is brilliant." But usually it's "This is a repeat of para 3, page 22. This is better. Consider replacing."

Anyway, Pontus will take about four to six weeks to work through the book. At roughly 100 000 words, he'll probably end up making around 13 000 notes (at least that's what he did on my last one, but that does include comma and spelling mistakes too). 

Meanwhile

Till and I begin to creatively wonderful process of getting all the artwork for the book. We've got some artists already working on commissions and I'll be throwing in my lot too. Till will be working on the maps that will demonstrate the principles of the book, and give you insight into how a master map maker works. 

That's it from us for now, 

Happy gaming,

Guy. Till, Pontus, Derrick and the team!

17.02.23 The Writing is on the wall...
about 1 year ago – Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 02:35:02 AM

Hello everyone,

This is just a general update for all of you. Nothing major or serious, everything is fine here...

WRITING

We have been adding in all the stretch goals that unlocked at the end of the campaign and having such a blast. What does the water of a lake in Hell taste like? How many Yeti's can fit into a glacial cave in the Underfell? So many critical questions. 

We're nearing the end of our writing phase with only the heavy self editing process left to do. This is where we take the giant volume of text and cut it down into something manageable. 

ARTWORK

With the book nearly locked down the artwork can begin. This is going to be one of the most difficult books to 'art' as there is so much we want to show it is hard to know what to leave out. However, we are confident that whatever we end up with is going to be awesome. 

EDITING

Pontus has already begin reviewing our drafts of chapters that are locked down in terms of content and we're super excited for his guiding hand on this. 

PRINTERS

Our wonderful printers in the Netherlands are eagerly awaiting our first draft so they can being the process of ordering paperstock and the like. They have printed our last two books to perfection so we have full confidence in them.

SUMMARY

Everything is green across the board. We're full steam ahead on this and cannot wait to have it finished.

Thank you for your continued support,

Guy, Till, Derrick and the rest of the team!

06.02.23 News! Glorious news!
about 1 year ago – Mon, Feb 06, 2023 at 03:23:07 AM

Hello all,

We've been busy writing the stretch goals, pushing the length of the book higher and higher as we add some awesome content - thanks to your backing and support!

Good News!

BackerKit Surveys are slowly being sent out, what this means is you will receive an email with a link to add your shipping information, as well as an opportunity to add any extra addons you may want to include in your order.

AppleID Users

If you use Apple to login into Kickstarter, your email may not be correctly linked up, if you do, please let us know and we can correctly get the right email assigned to you. You will most likely know if you do not get the survey in the next few days.

Not received your link?

If you are struggling to receive your survey link, you can request one here:

https://epic-locations.backerkit.com/

Addon Downloads

If you add any new addons in BackerKit, you will only receive the download links when we charge cards later this year.

Got issues?

If there is something wrong with your pledge or your order, please either contact the support or reach out to us.

Your Shipping Address

Important to know is that you will be able to update your shipping address for the next few months via this survey link, so in the case you move or you want it sent elsewhere, you can still know your book will arrive! We plan on locking the address only once we start shipping.

Payment Method

Also please know your payment method will only be charged when we lock down orders and are close to shipping, this will be around July/August this year, and we will update you when we do this.

Shipping Questions

If you have any queries about shipping, please do not hesitate to reach out to us, as we want you to receive your book in the best possible way.

Until the next update,

Regards

Guy, Till, and the team

10.01.23 Emails, Add-ons, and surveys
over 1 year ago – Tue, Jan 10, 2023 at 12:20:04 PM

Hey folks,

EMAILS with Addon Links

We sent out emails in early December 2022 with links to the addons for you to make use of, and we hope you have been enjoying them! Most of you got the email and the links. 

If you did not get the email(s) - Please check your spam folder, your updates folder, your promotions folder, your 'what the heck is this' folder for an email from [email protected].

If you haven't gotten anything from us at Geeks Table (Epic Campaigns, Nautical Campaigns or Practical Guide) please send an email to [email protected] and we can get new links sent over to you.

It is important to know: you will not have received an email if you had nothing to download. If you didn't have any PDF add-ons then you won't have gotten an email. 

The main PDF for the book Epic Locations doesn't exist yet. The Goblins are hard at work!

SURVEYS for BackerKit

The surveys for BackerKit have not yet been sent out. These will be going out in January. Why January? We have to wait for 2023 shipping rates to be finalised before we can open Backerkit. Once that's done we'll send out surveys and post an update with all the details you need here!

In the surveys you will be able to add addons, set your delivery address, as well as another way to download existing addons that you added during the Kickstarter.

We know you're all super excited for your books, and we want to ensure an amazing book reaches your hands, this unfortunately takes a bit of time as well as telling the goblins to stop taking Dragon rides during their tea breaks, however the book is coming together beautifully and we are excited by the progress so far and are on track.

Thank you all for your support,

Regards

Guy, Till and the Team