Update on the Amazon shipping mess and A Tale of Two Seas Kickstarter pushed back to April 23!
13 days ago
– Fri, Apr 12, 2024 at 04:52:33 PM
Hi all,
We wanted to provide an update on the Amazon shipping misadventures we've been having. I'll start out by saying that I've used Amazon on almost all of our previous 27 Kickstarters and have never run into this level of problems and delays. We continue to look at other fulfillment options for future projects, but for right now we wanted to update you on the status of the situation.
Where we started: We began making FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) orders on February 7, and it was around a month later that we started getting questions from backers about where there books were. We ran around in circles with Amazon Publisher Support for a week or more before finally getting an acknowledgment of the specific problem (that the "street date" for several of the books had been errantly set for 12/31/24, so those books were not shipping because they were waiting for that date and so were stuck in the "planning" phase and never got shipped). That was reset to the proper date, and we were assured they'd escalate the process and get those books unstuck.
What has happened since: Progress, but slow progress. Thus far in the past month, Amazon has actually shipped 70 orders, about 2-3 per day on average. Some of those orders are partially shipped, so one or more books have been sent but the remainder have not. Why Amazon is not sending them all together I have no idea. That seems like it would be simpler and cheaper, but this time around there have been a lot of split shipments, leading to reasonable questions about why a customer has gotten one book and not another. In at least one case, Amazon not only split a 2-book order but sent both books on different dates using different carriers (one via UPS, one via DHL), each of which requested separate formal customs invoices from the customer.
If your shipper asks for an invoice, contact me right away: I can create an invoice for anyone who needs one, but at least one person has tried using a printout of their Backerkit order, which is quite thorough and you'd think would suffice, but they said it did not. Let me know and I'll prepare an invoice for you and send it as soon as possible.
What remains to be done: As of now, there are still 102 orders pending at Amazon (including orders that have been partially fulfilled but not completed). I've escalated again with their Publisher Services and an preparing a formal grievance with them over how this has been handled.
In the meantime, you can search this Google sheet by city to see which orders have shipped. Kickstarter terms of service do not allow inclusion of any personally identifying information, but if you know where you live, you probably can figure out whether your order has shipped. I'll update it as packages continue to head out from Amazon.
Thanks for your patience with this process! We hope things get unstuck soon and everyone gets their books to enjoy!
Last but not least, we also are pushing back the start of our A Tale of Two Seas Kickstarter by a week to April 23! It's tax time in the USA and we've just been buried in paperwork which has slowed down some things, on top of our layout artist going on a family trip. We've just sent over the final Word doc for Mediterranean Monsters for Pathfinder Second Edition and will be assembling the Pathfinder RPG version as soon as our tax filing is complete! We hope you'll sign on to check out this new project and we hope you love it!
Boxes and cards coming soon, and Canadian brokerage fees
about 2 months ago
– Tue, Mar 05, 2024 at 12:15:57 PM
Hi all,
I'm on a trip this week so shipping will be slowing down until I return (my son is packing and shipping some batches I've left behind for him to do), but we've gotten a ton of packages out the door the last couple weeks. A couple of quick notes for you!
- We are at nearly 90% complete on shipping! We ran out of our Kingdom Event Card decks so had to reorder those before we can get orders including those cards going out again. For some of our international customers, we are sending your books separately via Amazon fulfillment and then our cards shipping directly from us, so don't fret if things come in separate packages! We've ordered some specialty boxes to handle these cards-only separate shipments and those should be arriving this week and ready to pack when I return.
- We are missing some surveys for people, so we've just sent out a reminder email to 13 backers to get your completed surveys. If we don't have your information, we can't get your rewards to you, so check your email and help us get our list complete!
- If your package arrives damaged, shoot us an email with a photo of the damaged item to [email protected], including a photo of the mailing label on the item and the package itself if possible.
- Last but not least, we've had a number of Canadian backers across our Kickstarters letting us know that UPS delivery has been charging them exorbitant "brokerage fees" to deliver their packages, claiming they need to collect a customs import duty of around $5 (which is not unreasonable) and then adding an additional fee of $30-40 on top of that to collect the aforementioned $5 duty (which is very unreasonable). If you are a Canadian backer and get socked with this kind of fee, forward me a copy of the UPS notification to the above email address and I'll be happy to reimburse you the amount of the UPS fee or offer you a generous store credit as compensation.
- Speaking of UPS, we've had at least one Canadian customer say they got a late notification from UPS that they had supposedly attempted to deliver their package three times and were returning it to sender. He never saw any UPS delivery person or had any note left but now his package is on its way back to me. I would hope this is an isolated incident, but if you are an international customer and you get your shipping email from us, it might be worth it to check your tracking number from time to time to make sure your shipment doesn't get misdirected or any kind of other shipping shenanigans.
Thanks again for your amazing support of Legendary Games and we hope you love your books and cards when they arrive!
Legendary Loot Card packages on the way!
about 2 months ago
– Mon, Feb 26, 2024 at 01:48:30 PM
Hi all,
We got our big delivery of Legendary Loot Cards (and more books too) last Thursday, and after getting our pallets broken down and organized the first wave of 99 packages of Loot Cards are on their way to backers! This includes 66 packages of Ultimate Treasury plus the loot cards and 33 of Ultimate Treasury, Ultimate Kingdoms, and the loot cards plus the Kingdom Event Cards. We packed so many we ran out of labels, but those should be here tomorrow and we'll be ready to start packing again soon!
Thanks so much for your support of this project and we look forward to getting the rest of your rewards on their way to you ASAP!
Nearly 400 books shipped and counting! Plus Mechanical Monsters is live!
3 months ago
– Sun, Jan 21, 2024 at 12:28:10 AM
This past week we've packed and shipped almost 400 copies of the Ultimate Treasury to our awesome backers! Most of the first wave was for backers who were getting only that hardcover book and nothing else, though we also got out about 40 or so packages with bundles of Ultimate Treasury with Ultimate Kingdoms and the Kingdom Event Cards! We look forward to getting even more books out in the coming week but wanted to give you a progress update!
As a side note, our printing service notifies people by email when your mailing label is printed, not when it actually hits the post office. I've had a few folks emailing to ask about that, as we printed the last batch of 300ish labels on January 12, but we've been packing and mailing in waves (in fact, the last 60 books are still packed in my garage waiting to go to the post office - didn't get home in time Saturday to mail them so they'll have to wait until Monday). If you get an email, that means your book(s) will be shipping soon but they're not necessarily on the way just yet.
Last but not least, we wanted to let you know that our Mechanical Monsters Quick-Starter launched this week, and we would love to have you check out that project and consider pledging! Get 140 incredible creatures for DnD 5E, over 130 for Pathfinder Second Edition, or over 100 for Pathfinder RPG with versions for each system! These mechanical monstrosities may be born from mad sciencists and magitech, steampunk and clockworks, and advanced cybernetics and robotics, and in addition to creatures you can get hundreds of pages of killer character options like class features, feats, spells, gear, new races/ancestries, and so much more! Check it out and add some Legendary machinery to your campaign for your favorite system!
NOTE: If you already pledged to last year's original Mechanical Monsters, the 5E and PF1 books are the same this time, but we have added tons of PF2 support plus new VTT options for each system.
First 40 books packed and heading to the post office!
3 months ago
– Fri, Jan 12, 2024 at 01:00:44 AM
We got the first delivery of 10 pallets of books Thursday morning and picked up our shipping boxes, and we have got the first carload of shipments packed up and ready to go! Backers like Naylor, Curtis, Brooks, Whitehurst, Herbert, Bradshaw, Michaels, Green, Obendorf, Houtchens, Monroe, and so many more - get ready because your books are on their way!
We'll be packing and shipping more books over the coming weeks for Ultimate Treasury (and Ultimate Faeries and our other KS projects), but we wanted to celebrate the first wave of books finally on their way to you!
With these books on their way, we are delighted to invite you to check out our NEXT Quick-Starter project, Mechanical Monsters II! For our 5E fans who missed last January's original Mechanical Monsters Quick-Starter, this is another chance to jump aboard, now with expanded VTT options and a much faster turnaround, as those books are scheduled to arrive in along with our Mediterranean Monsters books in February. In addition, we now can offer Mechanical Monsters for both Pathfinder RPG and Pathfinder Second Edition, plus a fantastic bonus book for PF2, Mechanical Heroes, jam-packed with cybernetic, clockwork, and technological options for player characters like spells, feats, archetypes, gear, class options, and so much more!
We launch next Tuesday, with immediate fulfillment of PDFs as soon as the Kickstarter ends and a fast turnaround on print books for this project! Sign up today and we hope you love it!
