Reprint of the original Normal Tarot with silver foil, and the introduction of the gold foil Normal Tarot 2.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Backer Kit Surveys Due Dec 15th! The Postcard! Silver deck progress!
over 3 years ago
– Wed, Nov 25, 2020 at 11:41:18 PM
Hello backers!
Over the last week or so, there have been some struggles-- and I mean it-- STRUGGLES-- with Backerkit. But thanks to the help of a very lovely human named Alex (everyone say "thank you Alex") I think it's all finally settled in.
We sent out the backerkit emails already, with reminders periodically. We can see on their site that all but 3 people received the emails. For those three, the emails were labeled as "dropped", and I have already reached out to those three people with direct links. That means for the rest of you, you HAVE received the emails. If you think you haven't, check again for SevenThirteenBooks, check again in your spam, check what email you actually have linked to your Kickstarter, etc. Because it was sent and received.
You might have accidentally deleted it? Well, there are reminder emails going out every few days for anyone who didn't complete their stuff, so that will be short lived as an excuse.
December 15th I am locking late pledges, orders, extra, add-ons, etc, and charging you all for any extras you added at that time. That means on the 13th I should be sending out a 48 hour notice.
As soon as January hits I should be able to lock in pricing with a fulfilment center, get absolute certain timelines from people, and lead into a better timeline of when things will be happening! To put it mildly I am very excited about this, and cannot wait to know when and how for sure things are coming to a close.
Thanks for sticking with me through the wild times on backer kit, and know that we're almost finished! : )
And speaking of almost finished...
Amy has fewer than 10 cards left to update in the silver deck. You heard me-- that means we will have that silver flip through video sometime in the next few weeks (I hope!). With any luck, before the backerkit closes so I can share that around haha. Amy is a fantastic artist, but it's a 99 card deck, she's still working her full time job through the full pandemic, and it ended up taking longer per card than she thought. Whoops on multiple levels there-- I really intended to have that silver video for you guys early in the campaign.
Annd.... That free 5x7 foil print everyone is getting? Here it is!
Or... here it would be, if Kickstarter would let me upload an image right now. They aren't even big images!
So instead, a link to it on Tumblr, and one to Twitter:
BackerKit Survey Emails are SENT!
over 3 years ago
– Sun, Nov 22, 2020 at 10:11:33 PM
Hello everyone!
Yesterday I sent out the Backerkit survey emails.
This is both my first time using Backerkit and one of Backerkit's first times using the integrated add ons. There have been some hills to trek over on the way. Shipping profiles weren't set right for add ons beyond what you all got, and though people's carts were supposed to be auto-filled with the add ons you all got, that wasn't always the case for everyone, which has made its own mess here. It worked for some people, but definitely not for everyone....
I am taking it on a case by case basis, but feel free to message backerkit support, they are supposed to field up to 500 issues as part of the service and they can fix it just as fast (if not faster) than me haha.
At this point everything should be correct, but we'll see. There's bound to be another issue here or there coming up, please hit up Backerkit support if you think they can solve it. I am happy to help but this whole process has been a lot for my little brain haha, so if they can fix it I'd prefer that.
No one should be re-charged a bunch of shipping, so if you are, stop and ask for help. If you get some more add ons, there may be a slight shipping fee depending on the items, but it shouldnt be more than $4 US or $6/7 international.
If you pledged at a $1 tier or something here, you will have the chance to order items through Backerkit up to December 15th, but that should be charging you higher fees since you had no add ons originally that would cost $$.
Every time I run a campaign I try some new stuff and it's all a learning experience. When I run the next one I will be better prepared for backerkit integration, and it should just be smoother overall. Thanks for bearing with me everyone! : )
Seven,
your Publishing Goblin
F(r)iction campaign is ending! Our campaign is going to Backerkit! Additional add ons~!
over 3 years ago
– Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 10:59:55 PM
Hey team!
First off, the incredible F(r)iction literary journal Kickstarter is ending in 24 hours, and you can still get over there to help them meet their Arcana issue stretch goal! They're very close!
Speaking of our add ons... You will have the chance to add more stuff to your pledges soon! I am working with backerkit to setup our surveys and what not, and when that is done you'll all get an email telling you to login and fill out your survey. At that time you can include more add ons!
For now though, you can share this link to people to get preorders!
Super excited to see how many more decks we can get ordered!
Talk again soon!!
Seven,
the Publishing Goblin
And we're done!
over 3 years ago
– Fri, Nov 13, 2020 at 12:32:12 AM
What an absolutely wild ride.
The first Kickstarter I did with the Caretaker was Furiously Prognosticating. We made $4,600! It was the most I'd ever made on one of my projects at the time. Seriously! I had raised over $3,000 previously, but it was on a prooject that failed, because the goal was $10,00!
I can't reiterate enough that when we went to do the Normal Tarot the first time, I set the goal to $5,000 even though we would need at least $14,000 to get it made, because I was certain that we couldn't do much more than $5,000. We raised over $9,000 on the first day, and ended at $30,500. Everything I thought I knew was shattered, and I started having bigger ambitions.
Leading up to this kickstarter, I went back and forth REPEATEDLY about how we would run it. We needed at least $50k to get both decks made. Was that possible? No-- especially with COVID, there was no way. I would need to cut the silver deck out and include it as a stretch goal, re-set it to $30k. I was certain we could make that again.
We broke that on day one.
This is what that looks like. That tiny green blob at the start there is the entire Furiously Prognosticating campaign's funding. That second one was the original Normal Tarot. Yes, we broke our record from 30 days of funding on that campaign on day 1 here.
I have spent a lot of this campaign in just general shock. At a certain point it just looks fake to me, and numbers that big honestly mean nothing in my brain. I have no concept for them. The above chart was from yesterday, but since then we broke even 130k. Like... wow.
I have $100 in my bank account. In a couple weeks, I'll have $130,000 + 100. I ran some early numbers on what everything will cost and what we're likely to make, as the creators. I'm lucky to live with friends in a relatively cheap apartment, but honestly the earnings I'm going to make on this will (first let me finish shipping all the oracle dice, then) cover my bills for all of 2021, barring any catastrophes, illness, fate, etc.
Caretaker is making about as much, and the artists are making a great chunk of money. By throwing my oracle dice in here I snuck some extra money haha, so I'm making out like a bandit. But honestly, I can't even fathom how amazing this is. And it hasn't even officially happened yet.
I'm ready for anything-- for the decks to get ruined and require us to reorder, for the shipment to be lost to the sea, etc. I'm not 100% banking on the money, but knowing that I'm going to be okay is everything. That this is going to work out... It just feels really good.
So thank you.
Next steps: I'm fussing with the fulfilment center, and might shop around for better prices. There's an element that's making this hard (the fact that there are 29 different unique items involved here), and I need to see if I can get a locked in quote that considers that yes, some items will have 29 items, but that includes 17 postcards/stickers, which aren't a big deal and will pack easily and fast. Current provider is trying to charge me .55 per item grabbed to go in a package. No thank you.
I'll figure out what we need to do with backerkit to get set up on post-Kickstarter stuff, late pledges, etc. This is my first time using them, so please give me a couple days to figure that out and get it up!
From there, I'm going to get turnaround quotes from all the producers and see how I can best line up the orders so that they arrive to the fulfilment/shipping center at the same time.
It takes 2 weeks for payments on here to process and get to me, so I can't order for a few weeks anyways-- when the money reaches me my first steps are to pay both Amy and Sam their dues for the work they've done on their decks, and the Caretaker their contractual initial payment. From there, I begin ordering from the manufacturers!
It's very possible that we actually rush forward with this at a faster pace since we're using third parties, and I'll keep you all up to date on that as we go.
So for the future, I have a timeline of other projects I'm going forward with!
First up will be... sometime in the next few months? Ultimaeus, my law-making, rule-bending, and cheating card game, over on my other account, Cosmic Mirror Games.
It's a pretty fun game that I'd like to try out a few more times before I put it on Kickstarter for sure, but it functions as I was hoping from just the first tests. It's super fun, already done, and I have a real test copy that I've had time to review for errors before I even consider going to printing. It'll be a quick turnaround on that one, since I can place an order directly with the manufacturer immediately with direct shipping. I'm very excited about that one!
Ultimaeus unboxed -- with bonus kitty!
After that at the start of 2021, my next goal is May 2021 for the Alleyman's Tarot! I've hollered about this a few times, but basically it's a tarot deck made up of cards from other tarot decks, oracle decks, and some standalone cards from non-existent decks! I'm still looking for more people who've made tarot decks who would be interested in licensing a card from their deck to this beautiful hot mess!
Below are 16 cards going into the deck so far, with another 38~ public domain tarot cards yet to be decided on, and 20+ cards from other artists I just don't have yet, and then some, including a card I drew in sharpie that's 2 feet high on cardboard.
Alleyman's Tarot
Alleyman's Tarot
Cards used here in order:
Ellis P.'s Sun from the Sigil Tarot
Yve Lepkowski's Wild Hunt
My Bogeyman from the Misery Tarot (2022?)
Casi Cline's 4 of Wands from Tarot of Perpetual Time
2 of Pentacles from the Serravalle-Sesia Tarot
Zoazig's King of Wands of the Floral Tarot
Jordanne Le Fae's Queen of Wands from the Inkromancy Apocalypse tarot (On Kickstarter now!)
and an original Wound Man design from Castin Spells.
SECOND IMAGE:
The Moon by Patrick Spargur
The Hawkmoth by LiteralCrow
Three of Wands by AmbiSun
The Chariot by Adam J Kurtz from his OK Tarot
The Devil by Finsterwalds
The Seven of Bells (?) from the Floetner Tarot
Seven of Wands by Joan Marie, from her Cult of Weimar Tarot
and the Page of Swords by Sean Simmans from his Pulp Tarot.
After all that? I've got half a mind to do an expansion to my oracle dice with a few more dice, a very likely third and final Normal Tarot design, three more card games (two of them are basically done but I'm reworking them a bit, one is very far along in concept, less so in execution), a large book TTRPG that's been in playtesting lately, and other games that I'm always beginning to put together.
Some very early style testing from me on Normal Tarot 3... something to look forward to maybe next October, or 2022.
Because of this campaign alone, I can focus entirely on my art, my games, my projects, my books for all of 2021 at the least. If other projects do half as well? I can keep it going indefinitely, and this will truly be my fulltime job. So thank you all so very much.
Caretaker would like to remind people that they run a very fun Patreon, which you can find here, where they are posting weekly about their demonology research, and are considering starting an occult book club! And if you're on tumblr and don't already follow them? Get on that! Without the Caretaker, the writer and keeper of Normal Horoscopes, the designer of the Normal Tarot, this never would have happened!
Sam, our amazing gold artist, is taking a break from art for a bit! Back at her job, she's sailing historic wooden schooners once more for a living. I'm sure we'll see her again soon, though, as she illustrated my forthcoming ghostly card game, What We Possess.
Amy would just like to say thank you-- this campaign blew all our expectations beyond the water, forget the water, beyond land, beyond space. Amy will be back on future projects as well, and has been designing new logos for games and my future projects.
There's more to come from me, from Caretaker, from Amy, from Sam. And we are all so thankful for all of your support!
Talk again very soon about the next steps with backerkit and beyond!
Seven,
your Publishing Goblin
Broke 90k! Project Kickstarter Loves! more Alleyman nonsense!
over 3 years ago
– Wed, Nov 04, 2020 at 12:34:39 AM
First off, we broke 90k (?!), big thanks to the very effective ads from BackerKit. Without them we'd still be at 75k, but thanks to their great ads we are pushing up to 100k!
Everyone who got at least a deck is now going to get a free foil postcard design featuring both artists, Caretaker, and myself. Not sure entirely what it will look like just yet, but everyone's getting one so we'll all see eventually haha.
Kickstarter finally noticed that we're just kind of awesome, and it's all thanks to you! They have named us a 'Project We Love', which is really cool and definitely something I was hoping to be!
So congrats to us! You all made this happen, thank you so, so, so much.
I'm talking to printers about posters and altar cloths, but we're almost in the final 7 days-- I don't know that I'll be able to get those added on here at the end in a way that's fair to the artists, as theyd have to draw things up ASAP to make it work. So I think here is where we will end-- all the add ons present are the ones we're going with! Because we're working with backerkit, you'll all have a chance to add on more stuff if you want at the end, so no rush!
The Alleyman's tarot is coming along nicely. So far we've got 30 other artists and tarot makers in on it, and I'm still spamming the hell out of a bunch more.
The Cult of Weimar tarot is donating a card, and their Kickstarter is so close to funding! Consider giving them a look and grabbing a deck if you want-- I would feel terrible if I didn't at least shout them out when they are so kindly donating a card to the deck!
