How many stretch goals did we blow past? As of this post, fourteen. FOURTEEN. You monsters. (You are not really monsters, this is an inversion of expectations through wordplay, where something called monstrous is actually wondrous and celebratory. It is almost as amusing as over-explaining a minor joke for comedic effect.)

Anyway... let's all wish Misty a very happy birthday in the comments or on her Facebook post! She's dedicated the last forty years of her life to writing novels, stories, songs, and more, as well as support for numerous charities, bird rescue work, and social justice initiatives. And because her work means so much to us, over 3500 people have gathered together to make this book possible.

As a birthday thank you to this community, we're announcing a stretch goal upgrade AND a bonus stretch goal. 

Finally (until you reach another stretch goal and we get to type more words), we're thrilled to share another Community Art Gallery submission from Bobby Joe C. Thanks Bobby!

Can you believe that our campaign is almost over? As always, it's been a wild ride, and we're all immensely thankful for your support! We get to make these gorgeous books because you make it possible.

NOTES FOR SCHOLARSHIP APPLICANTS

Please log into BackerKit and visit this page to see if your scholarship is unlocked. Sometimes emails get lost and we've heard from a few recipients who didn't realize that they could pledge until they happened upon the page.

If you are gifted a scholarship and miss the opportunity to pledge before the campaign ends, we will manually add you to the pledge manager afterwards, so that you still receive surveys and your rewards. Nobody gets left behind.

If this is your first time crowdfunding, you're probably wondering what comes next!

With the campaign wrapping up at 5pm Pacific Time on Friday, we wanted to take a moment to post a comprehensive guide to help you all through the surveys, manufacturing, and shipping journey that we're about to embark on together. The most important advice we can offer? Don't panic and don't hesitate to ask for help! 

Our team is here to make sure every issue gets resolved. You can always send an email to [email protected] for any support requests, which we'll happily get to during regular business hours.

If you don't want to read the entire update, please do look through this update for [Backer Action Items], where we share the steps you'll need to take to help us get your rewards shipped.

Upon conclusion of the campaign, BackerKit will immediately charge the card that you used to place the order. This mostly goes smoothly, but sometimes it doesn't. If your card fails to process, BackerKit will try again several times. If it still doesn't work, don't panic! Your backer information will still be in your account and you'll be able to try an alternative payment method when surveys are sent.

BackerKit takes two weeks to process payments and build a final report. Fourteen days after the campaign ends they will deposit funds to our bank account, minus their platform and processing fees. Meanwhile, we'll solidify manufacturing quotes with our fulfillment partners, based on the estimated numbers of each item ordered.

Once we have accurate backer and payment data from BackerKit we'll be able to email your backer surveys. It's essential that everyone fills our your surveys quickly. We'll let you know in advance when the surveys will be sent.

[Backer Action Item] – Whitelist messages from @backerkit.com in your email client. This is how we'll deliver your surveys and digital rewards.

The surveys will ask you to confirm your pledge and add-ons. If you're receiving physical rewards we'll also ask you for your shipping address.

Every backer will be asked if you're a resident of Washington State. This is for tax purposes, so we can make an accurate payment to the state of taxes due.

Surveys WILL calculate shipping charges — we've done this enough times to have a pretty good sense of what will cover shipping, handling, and packaging. Every backer receiving physical goods will need to authorize payment details in the survey to cover shipping and handling. We operate these costs as a "pass-through" – we only charge actual costs (shipping, handling, card processing, VAT/GST) with no markup. Handling charges will be much lower on this campaign because rewards are packaged together in advance at the factory: it counts as one item instead of twelve items!

We'll charge shipping later — Every backer will receive a 48-hour notice email and a BackerKit update telling you when we're charging cards for shipping, as well as instructions for how to postpone the card processing if the timing is bad for you.

[Backer Action Item] – Complete your survey!

We'll email survey reminders periodically, as well as posting BackerKit updates. The best way to stop receiving those reminder emails is to complete your backer survey!

Once at least 90% of backers have completed your reward surveys (the sooner the better, please!) we'll finalize our manufacturing orders and start production of all rewards.

We plan to manufacture every reward with a single manufacturer. This helps us avoid extra freight and complications. Once everything is finished at the factory, it will travel by freight to our fulfillment center in Los Angeles, and from there the packages will ship worldwide. Freight can take a minimum of 4-6 weeks, and possibly longer. This is the stage where we have the least control over delays

We'll email a 48-hour notice when we plan to lock addresses. YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR ADDRESS AT ANY TIME between surveys going out and the address lock. Just access your BackerKit account and change it. There's no need to email us asking for a manual address change, just log into BackerKit!

[Backer Action Item] – Double-check your address and make sure it's correct.

After addresses are locked, we can't promise that you'll be able to change it again, as that's when we submit shipping information to our fulfillment partners.

Digital rewards will be fulfilled via your BackerKit account. You'll receive an email that will log you into that account, where all of your digital downloads will be available.

[Backer Action Item] – Log into BackerKit and download your digital rewards.

Our warehouses often ship in waves based on order complexity. With thousands of orders going out, some backers will receive rewards before others. We'll communicate through the process so you can follow along... and know when we're done!

Mail delivery is a rough and violent process that can cause all kinds of damage to innocent packages (typically between 1% and 4% of orders). If anything happens to any of your rewards in transit, we'll have a form you can fill out to get replacement items. We're totally committed to making sure that any merch damaged in transit is replaced at no additional cost to you. We're hopeful that our fancy shipping boxes will reduce the chances of damage by a significant margin.

Similarly, you can always reach out to us via our customer support email, with any other support requests or questions.

As we've learned in fulfilling prior campaigns post-COVID, best-laid plans are now more vulnerable to third-party delays and general weirdness in stressed supply chains (like the great cardboard shortage of 2021 and the tariff wars of 2025). While we always hope for the best, if we encounter problems in the delivery pipeline, we'll communicate them clearly with you, including explanations about what happened, what we're doing to mitigate it, and its affect on our timeline. 

Because we're all vulnerable to sudden scarcity, environmental disasters, market crashes, and other disasters, the best way we can respond is with mutual support in the face of adversity. Thank you in advance for your help and patience if we have to face any of these problems together!

Hi everyone!

Can you believe there are only three days left? We've quadrupled our original goal, added more stretch goals than we thought were possible, and may unlock even more in the final days. Currently we need only another 150 backers or so to unlock the sticker sheet... and possibly multiple sticker sheets!

In fact, the campaign has moved so quickly that we've barely had an opportunity to share all of the new art from the book, which is why we're revealing the full versions of three new paintings today! Plus, we have several new Community Art Gallery submissions, so keep scrolling for those as well.

Heads up that the third painting is a spoiler, although it's been almost forty years, so... just wait until we tell you about Luke's father!

You can still grab the line art and participate here.

Hi everyone!

As we enter the final four days of the campaign, with over $400,000 raised, we're thrilled to share a massive round of stretch goals and upgrades!

If you want to guarantee that you can get a copy of this massively-upgraded book, make sure you pledge by Friday of this week.

The good news is that we heard back from the manufacturer and a number of stretch goals are now confirmed as feasible (or already unlocked!)


$350,000 - TIMELINE POSTER (UNLOCKED)

The printed poster CAN be folded and added to the box! If the art is done on time for manufacturing, this will upgrade from a digital item to a physical item for all Deluxe Heralds backers. We're leaving the print-version caveat in place because four-thousand years of history is a LOT and we want to get it right without delaying the campaign.


$375,000 - 2nd BOOK RIBBON (UNLOCKED)

The book now ships with a second satin ribbon... and you all can vote for your favorite color below!


$400,000 - DIE-CUT & FOILED ARROW CODE BOOKMARK (UNLOCKED)

A new die-cut bookmark with blue foil, along with an Arrow Code guide. There's a lot of discussion happening to update the Arrow Code, so thanks for your patience while we make sure that the design perfectly matches Misty's vision.


$425,000 - 6"x9" VALDEMAR STICKERS (LOCKED)

Fans have been asking for years, and at $425k it's happening. We have four sticker sheet concepts, including Lindsey's redrawn versions of classic Companion emojis from the Discord, plus crests and Companion designs from Care and Larry.

For now this is one sheet of stickers... but we'll watch progress carefully and have mini-unlock goals to add even more stickers to this stretch goal.




$450,000 - 6"x9" FOIL POSTCARD (LOCKED)

Okay, this thing is so big that it's hardly a postcard any more. Regardless, this reproduction of the Deluxe Arrows cover, on 300gsm C1S stock, will be included at $450k.


$475,000 - FULL COLOR INTERIOR BOX (LOCKED)

There's a blank box that sits underneath the Circuit Journal in the Deluxe Heralds package. This stretch goal turns it into a little treasure chest, with full color printing. What will you do with it? We don't know, but it sure will be pretty.


$500,000 - ALL SCHOLARSHIPS FUNDED (LOCKED)

Currently generous backers have funded about half of the scholarship requests that we've received. At $500k we have enough margin to cover the difference and make sure that every single scholarship request is fulfilled.

Hi everyone!

Ben here with a status report.

With seven days to go, I've seen a growing concern on the Discord as people observed the number of available Deluxe Heralds units dipping below 1000. Fans are starting to worry that we might sell out. First, the quick answer, then I'll go into detail for people who like detailed explanations.

tl;dr –

We can manufacture up to 5000 copies of Deluxe Heralds. We need to keep at least 250 books in reserve for replacing anything lost or damaged during shipping. In the very best case scenario, 4750 books are available as pledge items in this campaign.

I have just increased the unit cap on this campaign from 4000 to 4500, and I'll raise it by another 250 if absolutely necessary. This means that 1605/4750 books remain (34%). It is possible, but not likely, that we will sell out. If you're risk-averse, I would mildly recommend an earlier pledge, rather than waiting to the last minute.

If you've spent time around crowdfunding campaigns, you've probably seen various trackers that claim to project how well a campaign will perform. One of the better ones is BackerTracker. Here's the page for our campaign.



These trackers, while useful, don't have access to internal projections and metrics. For example, they don't take into account performance of past campaigns, the size of a mailing list, fan enthusiasm, or (crucially) payday cadences. It's long been my practice to end campaigns on common paydays, as a request from fans over the years who want that guarantee that funds will be available when charges process.

Let's break down the factors that affect campaign performance.

ADVERTISING

Trackers don't account for the variance between organic and paid leads, and how that ties into ad spending. I've only recently started using paid ads for campaigns, because 1) the numbers finally justified a limited ad spend, and 2) I receive SO MANY emails when campaigns end from fans who didn't know they were happening. Reaching fans who aren't already in our active fandom is exceptionally hard. Millions of people have read and loved Misty's books, but aren't connected to here anywhere online. Ads are one way to find the people who want to be found, and hopefully a way to decrease the sad "I MISSED OUT!" messages.

Our ad spending for campaigns typically is the highest at the beginning and the end. We base it on a metric called ROAS (return on ad spend), which measures how many pledge dollars each dollar spent brings in. My number one, highest priority is to maximize Misty's royalties, because the primary purpose of these campaigns is to keep her and Larry in good health, with their bills and health insurance paid, so they can focus on writing and art.

I've built a suite of custom tools for projections and campaign management over the years. Here's what it's feeding back to me:



So I could be asking our marketing partners at BackerKit to spend at a higher rate. Based on the current ROAS, that would absolutely sell more books and bring us closer to the 4750 sales limit.

Advertising is likely to push our $504,000 projection higher than expected, if we choose to approve that spend. Let's say that we approve spending to bring in around 200 more backers.


ORGANIC REACH (THE POWER OF FANDOM)

You know what's more effective than advertising? Enthusiastic word-of-mouth in the fandom. And, uh.... that's happening. A lot. What that enthusiasm indicates is that we're likely to see a rise in organic pledges over the last few days. While I can't turn observation into hard numbers, sixteen years of crowdfunding experience tells me that the tracker may be underestimating that kind of demand by $10,000-$15,000. That's another 100-150 backers.


INTERNAL STATS

The trackers also don't have access to our Backerkit Dashboard, which tells quite a story:



First, the returning backer rate isn't correct because we just migrated Misty's followers to a dedicated account in BackerKit, so that emails and updates weren't mixing the ZOE audience (like for Gamers and JourneyQuest) with all of you. As many of you who have been with us for three campaigns know, you do exist, even if the dashboard doesn't recognize it.

However, the rest of the numbers are accurate. The Existing Audience (people who did back or follow prior campaigns) has a high conversion rate of 77.1%, and that's before the campaign has even ended. That's 497 people who are extremely likely to pledge before the campaign ends, because a) you received awesome rewards before, and b) you've been around enough to know that you can apply for and receive a scholarship if your financial situation is rough this time around.

We also have a total audience of over 9000 people. This includes email list signups, campaign follows, campaign pledges, and so on. One-third of the audience has pledged so far, with two thirds of the books already reserved. Call it 503 more people. That brings us to 1000 total from the audience.

Added to our earlier numbers, that puts us at 1300 more backers for 1750 more books. Great, right?

This analysis would result in a higher-end projection of $529,690, about $25,000 above the tracker.



So based on the numbers, I can predict that we'll still have a buffer at the high end of expected performance. Everyone gets a book, and nobody misses out. In theory.

BUT... this is crowdfunding AND this is Mercedes Lackey we're talking about. Ultimately, we can guess and predict, but nobody knows what's going to happen. We might be at the end of demand and pledges will tricking in for the final week. We might be facing a huge upwards curve on the tail end of the campaign, with a Backer Train that runs overnight and everything sells out.

Please don't panic (especially scholarship recipients: I keep books set aside for every applicant, it's okay, don't worry!) However, my mild recommendation holds: if you want to be sure you get a copy, or if your own analysis suggests that we might sell out, then you might want not to wait to pledge unit the final day, purely for the peace of mind.

Okay, that's enough braining for one day. I'm heading outside for a few minutes to enjoy the sunshine and touch grass, but will be around later to answer questions in the comments.

- Ben