Major progress on content, new Github invites sent
over 3 years ago – Sat, Aug 29, 2020 at 02:28:33 PM

Great Progress in Writing

I've been putting in about 1.5 hours per day, 5+ days per week filling in the last bits of content of the book.  This generates about 1,500 words, or 6 pages, per day.  It turns out that there's more to say than I realized, and I've changed my guess at final size from 200,000 words (800 pages of text) to 250,000 words (1,000 pages of text).  Photos and illustrations will add to that, of course!

I've got a target date for content completion of 23 September, which leaves tons of time for proofreading and other polishing.

Github Invites

I did a huge batch of github invites to give people access to the work-in-progress text about three weeks ago.  Since then we've had a few more stragglers fill out the backerkit survey, and this morning I ran my shell scripts again and issued invites to another 200 or so people.

If you aren't already part of the Escape the City team at Github, and there's not an invite in your inbox, verify that you've filled out the backerkit survey (you should be able to find it via this link ).

Pre-Orders Still Available

If you have friends who might be interested, but who missed the kickstarter, they can still buy copies here.

Life On the Homestead

There's always tons going on - cooking

electrical and construction projects

and agriculture (almost time to pick the grapes and make wine!)

and I'm striving to cover every one of these topics in the book!

Fall is in the air, and I hope you have a great one.

TJIC

Backerkit invites sent to everyone, postage for add-ons LOWERED, github invites for digital access
almost 4 years ago – Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 07:30:53 AM

Backerkit invites sent

At this point all Backerkit invites have been sent.  558 of you have already complete the process - 30% within 12 hours or so, not bad at all!

If you haven't clicked the link in your inbox just yet, when you do, you'll find yourself in a relatively streamlined checkout process at Backerkit.  Any amounts you pledged over and above the minimum for the tier will show up as credits, which you can use to purchase addition merch.  Pledged $150 for a set of $50 trade paperbacks?  Turn that surplus $100 into another two sets of trade paperbacks!

You can also add items to your shopping cart that you haven't yet paid for.  Three years ago I sold hardcovers of the Aristillus novels via the kickstarter, and said that they'd never be available again, until the next kickstarter.  At the time I thought that the "next" kickstarter would be for the next two novels in the series, but the craziness of 2020 made me move the schedule around, so that the next kickstarter is this one.  In keeping with my promise, the Aristillus novels are back in hardcover ...for a very limited time.  Once this Kickstarter / Backerkit closes, they're gone again.

Postage LOWERED

If you're old enough to remember the 1970s and inflation, you remember how prices ratcheted upwards every month or two.  I'm happy to report that I just lowered prices in the Backerkit store.

I had someone complain to me just now "hey, I tried to add two copies of your novels in backerkit, and the cart wanted to charge me $5 shipping ... each! Is that right?"

No, it's not right.  Apparently I configured backerkit to charge a flat fee, for any quantity, per item.  Which isn't quite right - 1 of item A and 1 of item B resulted in TWO flat fees.

I've played with the system and reworked it.  Now it's a flat fee that works with multiple different items.

There's still some oddness as different items ship from different printers (e.g. Escape the City ships from Lulu, Aristillus 1 Trade from Amazon, Aristillus 1 Harcover from Lulu, and hand made wooden slipcases from my homestead), but I believe that the shipping charges very closely approximate the actual costs, which is what I intended, and promised.

Github digital access

Two days ago I sent out invites to 5% of the backers (60 people). A bit more than half of them gave github usernames or email addresses, so we now have 23 people who have joined the Escape the City "team" at Github and who thus have read-only access to the repository where the work in progress book is uploaded.  We have 12 more pending invites.  Click that link / bang those rocks together, guys!

Check in on the repo often ; I upload new content more or less every week day, as I push  the book forward.  Yesterday was 3,000 words on cast iron and restaurant-sized stockpots (which you need if you butcher a pig and want to make 30 gallons of soup from the bones!).

I've already gotten one bug report / issue filed!  My friend meijinsan, a professional chef, added a few details about stock pots and cast iron which I'll add to the book.  Excellent feedback; keep it coming!

Yesterday I sent out invites to the other 95% of the backers.  Many of you have already responded. Thanks!

I'll either write a script that parses a CSV file and adds everyone to the team, or - better yet - track down an existing script.  I hope to do that ASAP, but this weekend I've got to mulch corn, dig up Japanese knotweed, build a shelf in the garden shed, put casters under the workshop CNC machine, and a few other tasks.  The ride, as they say, never ends!

Storefront

Backerkit allows existing backers to checkout, but it also allows non-backers to order, up until things are finalized and ship.  Please tell friends about the book and direct them to the storefront.

Stay safe out there,

TJIC

Backerkit set up - almost ready to collect github usernames ; life on the farm; ONWARD !
almost 4 years ago – Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 11:37:51 PM

Backerkit

Backerkit, which I'll use to collect shipping fees and allow folks to use "excessive" pledges to order multiple copies of books, is entirely set up, and the Backerkit staff should review everything and approve it within two business days.

Once it's approved, I'll be able to send the survey (to a 5% "smoke test" sample, and then a few days later, to everyone), and you can supply your github usernames, which will allow me to invite you in to the early access digital content  .

Like building a stone wall or logging trees for a winter's worth of firewood, there's a ton of small steps, but the job gets done eventually.

Life on the Farm

The corn is doing well.  I found some old / bad hay up in the hayloft and used it to mulch around the stalks, to keep weeds down. I've got a mix of sweet corn ( catalyst XR ) and a dryer, grinding corn ( painted mountain ).  I've lost most of my previous attempts at corn to deer, just as it was ripening, so this year I'm doing an experiment - planting it inside a small fenced in feeding pen next to the barn.

I got to do some carpentry over the weekend, emptying out garden shed #2, ripping out some of the sub-optimal framing that a farm hand did, redoing it, and then building shelves.  This should almost double the storage capacity of the garden shed, because we've got a ton of stuff there - apple cider press, meat smoker, grape destemmer, garden carts, and hose reels (all of which are covered in the book).

Enough idle chit-chat

I'm thrilled that the Backerkit stuff is finally done, and we can move forward.  Time to wrap up this update and do an hour or so of work on the "Escape the City" text, before getting down to the day job!

- TJIC 

One week update - backerkit, shipping, online-content
almost 4 years ago – Sat, Jul 25, 2020 at 07:16:50 PM

The kickstarter closed 7 days and a few hours ago, and I wanted to give everyone an update.

I've been putting in two hours per day working on the book - I told you that the books will ship before the end of the year, and I intend to keep that schedule.  I've been writing about 2,000 words per day (8 pages), delivering a high level of detail on topics like shovels (the various kinds and the pros and cons of each, how to sharpen them, how to maintain them or fix them in they break), picks (the three kids, and which you want, how to swing them without putting a kink in your back), wheelbarrows and when you should and shouldn't use them, weed whackers, and more.  Any given topic may or may not be of use to you, but I'm striving to create an encylopedic resource, so if you care about hoes, everything you need is here, but if you don't care you can flip to the snowblower section and learn about that.

I also told you that you'd get full access to the work-in-progress version of the full content  online, in a week.  On that score, there's good news and bad news.  The good news is that I've got a github repository set up, have established a github "team", shared the repo with them, and invited a dozen top tier backers in to help me alpha test the process.  The good news is that it works!

The bad news is that the best way for me to collect github user names and/or email addresses to let everyone else in is via the kickstarter backer survey, and 

• that can ONLY be done once
• backerkit.com, which I want to use to help manage fulfillment, wants to send the survey for me, so that they can get the data that they need to prepopulate your data into their shipping/checkout process.

Put these two things together, and what this means is that I can't share the early-access repo with you until backerkit sends the survey, and backerkit can't send the survey until I fully configure every item I want to ship, and post rates of every item to the US, UK, EU, Japan, etc. So right now I'm digging into USPS shipping charts and weighing books and boxes on my kitchen scale.

Unexpected dependencies inject themselves!  😡

I will shave this yak ASAP (I'm working on it right now), and I thank you for your patience.

In other news, I cooked duck breast for dinner the other night, and it was excellent.  I'll make sure the recipe ends up in the book!

TJIC

HOLY COW, WE DID IT!
almost 4 years ago – Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 10:05:04 PM

The kickstarter was completed and I can't believe how well it went.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Online Content

I promised you on Thursday that all backers would have access to content within the week, and I'm already working on that.  I've created a private github repo and have uploaded the current book work-in-progress there.  I've invited a few friends in to alpha test that they can see the book and submit issues but NOT modify the content, and so far it seems to work.

In short order I'll launch a Kickstarter survey to gather your information, so that I can invite all of you in as well.

Physical Books

As a reminder: physical books will ship before the end of the year.  Later - likely in November or early December - there'll be another mailing which will contain a link to BackerKit where shipping addresses, etc. will be collected.  Hang tight, enjoy your summer and fall, and we'll get to that stage in due time.

Purchasing Books Outside the Kickstarter

If you know of anyone who wanted to get in on the Kickstarter but dawdled, you can direct them to the web page  Morlock Publishing: Escape the City Those books will ship on the same schedule as books ordered via the Kickstarter.

- Travis