A new book from the publisher of The White Box for people who play, discuss, critique, design, and love cooperative board games.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Digital editions of Meeples Together in PDF and EPUB formats are now available for download from BackerKit for all backers who’ve filled out their surveys. If you don’t receive a download notice from BackerKit within the next hour or so, visit meeples-together.backerkit.com. (Or, as always, send a Kickstarter message or email jeff at gameplaywright dot net if you want some help.)
As mentioned in a previous update, the Kindle edition has been problematic. We’re going to continue to work on improving it this week. It didn’t seem worthwhile to make you wait for the PDF and EPUB editions while we did, though, which is why we’re distributing those today.
(Honestly: PDF and EPUB are simply better formats. If you have access to a variety of reading platforms, we recommend choosing one of those two.)
We still anticipate distributing the Kindle edition before the end of February, so as to meet our delivery promise for all digital editions.
Shipments of physical editions to our international fulfillment partners have left Minnesota. When these bulk shipments reach Snakes & Lattes (Canada), Kixto (Europe and a few other countries), and Aetherworks (Australia and New Zealand) they’ll need to be unpacked, split up, and shipped to backers. So, international shipments are not imminent, per se, but they’re well on track to meet out March delivery promise.
A very few shipments to US backers left our warehouse on Friday. Domestic shipping to US backers will get underway in earnest starting on Monday. Barring the few unusual stragglers that always seem to exist when (for example) addresses fail to verify, it’s unlikely that it will take more than a week to get all US rewards into the mailstream.
While we’re fulfilling and for a little while after that, Meeples Together is only available to backers. Your friends who’d like copies can get them at one of the bricks-and-mortar stores that backed the campaign as soon as those stores’ shipments arrive. After that, digital storefronts (e.g., DriveThru, Amazon, etc.) will be able to sell Meeples Together starting on March 5. Physical copies have a street date (other than for our backer stores) of May 1.
From everyone on the Meeples Together team — authors, editors, publishers, and the rest — we’re grateful you helped make our book a reality. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Please fill out your BackerKit survey by February 1, which is this Friday.
If you haven't filled out your survey by then, your rewards may be delayed, and your shipping and handling charges may increase.
To fill out your survey, visit meeples-together.backerkit.com.
As a reminder, if you are a backer whose only rewards are physical and/or digital editions of Meeples Together, your credit card will be charged for shipping and handling, and for any other outstanding add-ons, on or just after February 1.
(Other backers have been charged as they've filled out their surveys, allowing them to download their digital editions of older Gameplaywright books right away.)
The latest case study at MeeplesTogether.com is about AuZtralia.
We just sent the print edition files to press. Everything’s on schedule for a timely delivery.
We're at 93% backer response to our survey. The deadline to complete your survey is February 1. If you haven't responded by then, you may not receive your rewards on the promised timeline, and your shipping charges may increase, especially if you're outside the United States.
To fill out your survey, visit meeples-together.backerkit.com.
All three digital editions (PDF, EPUB, and Kindle) went to our proofreader earlier this week. They were delivered to her a few days later than our internal schedule calls for, but our schedule has about three weeks of padding built in, so there’s no reason to suspect we’ll be late in our promised February delivery for digital editions.
The Kindle edition has been something of a nightmare to prepare. Kindle hardware, software, support, and documentation are pretty much a disaster. We’ll do the best we can to produce excellent files for your use within the format specs and using the tools available. That said, we’ll be using the PDF and EPUB editions here at Meeples Together Headquarters for our own reference and reading.
To give you backers an early preview, we’re sharing a PDF of the print edition of Chapter 4 with you today. You can download it now!
(For maximum confusion, this is a PDF file, but it isn’t the PDF edition. The PDF edition is hyperlinked, bookmarked, and optimized for digital devices. This PDF file is of the print (i.e., "dead tree" edition, and shows how the physical edition will look.)
Christopher and Shannon continue to post new case studies at their Meeples Together blog. Make sure to visit regularly!
We’ve started locking down orders for those who’ve completed their surveys.
We’ve also started charging backers whose rewards contains digital files that are available now. That way you can download available files right away. You should get an email from BackerKit with a download link if this describes you.
If your order only contains physical books and/or digital copies of Meeples Together, we’ll wait to charge your card until just after February 1. No sense charging you if we’re not sending you anything yet.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email jeff at gameplaywright dot net.
If you’re going to be moving, want to put off a credit card charge, or have any other mundane or nefarious reason, there’s no rush for you to complete your survey as long as you do it before the February 1 deadline. (But! Do plan to do it by then. If you wait until after February 1, your shipment may be delayed, and shipping costs may go up.)
You can access the BackerKit page for our campaign here: <https://meeples-together.backerkit.com/>.
If you know folks who didn’t back the campaign but want to pre-order Meeples Together, send them here: <https://meeples-together.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders>.
Meeples Together co-author Shannon Appelcline has posted an interview with co-op designer Nikki Valens (Eldritch Horror, Mansions of Madness 2e) at his Mechanics and Meeples blog. Check it out!
