machpants
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Supersonic Underwear!
Posts: 259
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Post by machpants on Jun 18, 2013 19:11:40 GMT -6
machpants, I have your orders shipping this week too. It looks like just a handful of domestic and a couple dozen international shipments are left to ship. I do apologize for this nightmare and I will do better in the future. Not at problem looking forward to getting them
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mannclay
Level 4 Theurgist
...you know what you are not, what you are you cannot know... - insane sorcerer
Posts: 115
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Post by mannclay on Jun 20, 2013 19:01:36 GMT -6
actually, it is the fault of USPS that do a terrible job and need to just simple die out to private industry. Terrible. It was to be delivered on May 11th and never got to me. ugh... im in NYC I will send you another one. wow you would? that would be nice. it was supposed to be a gift for my daughter's 7th year. would be nice to still give her your box thank you.
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Post by funkaoshi on Jun 21, 2013 13:03:38 GMT -6
Hey John It sounded like you were going to send out all the international orders this week? Do you know if mine was in that batch?
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Post by ravenheart87 on Jun 28, 2013 1:26:27 GMT -6
My DD boxed set arrived. I live in Hungary.
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Post by Finarvyn on Jun 28, 2013 5:05:41 GMT -6
My DD boxed set arrived. I live in Hungary. Good to hear! Still none for me, and I live in Chicago.
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Post by Haldo Bramwise on Jun 28, 2013 5:54:17 GMT -6
My DD boxed set arrived. I live in Hungary. Good to hear! Still none for me, and I live in Chicago. The last item I shipped to Chicago took eight days - priority mail. And I live five hours south of Chicago! I am still shipping the remaining boxed sets int he order they were purchased and many of them are international orders I held back until my problems with the post office were settled.
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Post by Finarvyn on Jun 28, 2013 7:18:37 GMT -6
The last item I shipped to Chicago took eight days - priority mail. And I live five hours south of Chicago! Did you try pony express? That used to be the shipping company of choice a century or so ago. No worries. It'll get here when it gets here.
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Post by dizzysaxophone on Jun 28, 2013 13:02:08 GMT -6
Hm... still waiting in Houston too. Hopefully the mail-gods haven't conspired against me again like they did when I was trying to mail my medallion signatures to sell stocks. They lost that 3 times before it sent.
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Post by legopaidi on Jul 5, 2013 5:03:08 GMT -6
I'm still waiting on my rather big BHP order with lots of boxes and stuff .
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Post by Craig J. Brain on Jul 5, 2013 19:29:38 GMT -6
My DD box arrived about an hour ago!!!
Thanks John! I am still looking through the contents, but very pleased so far!
Craig J. Brain Australia
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2013 21:41:31 GMT -6
My DD box arrived about an hour ago!!! Thanks John! I am still looking through the contents, but very pleased so far! Craig J. Brain Australia Good news. I'm looking forward to mine arriving here in Australia too.
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Post by deathanddrek on Jul 9, 2013 6:43:33 GMT -6
Thanks John! Mullen gaming box arrived safe and sound. Post date 18 Jun, receive date 9 Jul, for those curious about US-->Australia postal times.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2013 10:18:06 GMT -6
My problems with the USPS and international orders are supposed to be sorted out now, so I am shipping every remaining international order this week (with anything else I may still owe you). So where is my f***ing box? I ordered mine on febrauri 15th and i still have not recieved it...
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2013 14:51:41 GMT -6
John,
Please check and answer your correspondence, I sent an e-mail to you a couple of months ago asking about the status of my Delving Deeper order and have received no reply. I'm trying to be patient, but I paid for this product over two years ago.
Rod Batten Canada
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Post by Finarvyn on Jul 31, 2013 15:40:47 GMT -6
I'm not John and am not really authorized to speak for him, but as board Admin I thought I should step in and diffuse a little of the hate if possible. Try to remember that he's a small publishing company with a total number of employees that equals one (including himself) and he's trying to handle a lot of product. I think that a number of bad things have happened here, one of which may be that John got in over his head in terms of quantity. When I worked with John on the S&W Whitebox rules he was printing maybe 100 or 200 copies of each book, plus boxes, and then having to assemble this stuff all by hand and then package everything and deliver it to the post office all by himself. Although I don't know the sales figures, I get the impression that Delving Deeper has turned into a much larger project than my WB, and that doesn't count all of the DCC product from the kickstarter that he's trying to juggle. Still one guy getting booklets printed, boxes printed, boxes stuffed, orders safely packaged for shipping, orders dropped off at post office. As customers we sometimes forget about the fact that the little guy is going to have these issues. Heck, even major companies like WotC don't always make their target release dates and they have whole teams of designers, marketers, distributors, and so on. Many OSR products tend to be mde by "mom and pop" type companies where guys work their butts off because they love it, not because they expect to make a lot of money off of it. I like to support them because they are trying hard, but I have to remember that they may have issues that a professional publisher has already anticipated. I'm still waiting on my DD, too. Am I annoyed? A little, maybe, but then I think about what John is doing and how hard he is working and I know he'll do his best to make it right as best as he can. So where is my f***ing box? I ordered mine on febraury 15th and I still have not recieved it... (1) This is only your second post, so I assume that you don't understand the rules here. Don't drop the F-bomb unless you want me to drop the "Ban Bomb." (2) If you have taken time to actually read the thread, you will realize that there are quite a few folks who have waited for this product for years. February probably doesn't put you near the front of the line. Please be patient and I'm sure John will get to you as soon as he can. Please check and answer your correspondence, I sent an e-mail to you a couple of months ago asking about the status of my Delving Deeper order and have received no reply. I'm trying to be patient, but I paid for this product over two years ago. I'm not sure how often John checks these boards, and I know that he's really swamped right now with the DD boxed sets plus a DCC kickstart. Plus some family issues. I'm sure he's getting to you as quickly as he can. (At least your post was polite. Thank you, and welcome to the boards.)
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Post by ravenheart87 on Aug 1, 2013 0:53:54 GMT -6
There were family, shipping and hardware issues at Brave Halfling in the last months, but I suppose the biggest reason for the delay is the Appendix N Adventures Toolkit, which became much bigger than expected. Fortunately I got the first part both of Delving Deeper and the ANAT.
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Post by legopaidi on Aug 1, 2013 2:06:53 GMT -6
I'm still waiting on my big order of X-Plorers box, Pete Mullen box, Appendix N + Delving Deeper box. John, I also send you an email (legopaidi@gmail.com) again so if you got any news please respond
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2013 2:58:44 GMT -6
Just never mind...
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 1, 2013 5:03:48 GMT -6
No one is trying to blow you off and you have a legitimate gripe, even if you lacked tact in your approach. The hope was to educate you (and others who might not be "clued in") as to what was going on with their orders so perhaps folks would understand rather than just getting angry. Ideally, John will show up soon and can give his own answers to your questions.
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Post by mgtremaine on Aug 1, 2013 7:29:26 GMT -6
Also be assured that this is not a case of John disappearing with your money. People are getting their boxes and have been for several months now, it is just a slow process because all the reasons Fin pointed out. You will get yours, I know because I got my 2 DD Boxes and I'm quiet happy with them.
-Mike
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2013 7:43:09 GMT -6
Fin, I know you have a history with John, and I admire your defense of him based on your friendship.
However, when someone takes your money in exchange for a good or service and then fails to deliver on that good or service within a reasonable time frame, that's a breach of contract. I would say a year or more wait is an unreasonable time frame.
It has taken a YEAR to get the Delving Deeper box sets out the door. Delving Deeper itself is now going into revised editions. The product people are getting delivered is already outdated in terms of the currently available rules. If I had ordered a DD boxed set, I'd be angry, too.
While ravenheart87 is correct that there were a lot of personal issues John has had to deal with, the main issue John is facing is that he went overboard on the Kickstarter rewards for Appendix N and underestimated how long it would take to complete the project(s). When the Kickstarter raised roughly $19k and brought in new customers, it also created new expectations from those customers. He made poor business decisions about how to fulfill the Kickstarter promises and kept trying to be the one-man operation when it was unfeasible to do so. He said he had the modules ready to go when in reality he is STILL doing layout and printing. He as was using index cards to track customer orders in this day of computer databases and mail merge. He keeps making promises and then breaking them. He says things are ready to ship or that he has shipped one month, and then the next he says those same things all over again. If you are a backer of Appendix N, go read his updates from the beginning to the most recent and you will see that again and again, he makes poor business decisions and then has to face an onslaught of unpredictable personal/family issues while trying to deal with the business problems he himself created.
I know John is trying to do the right and moral thing. But he's overwhelmed and refuses to hire a reputable third party fulfillment center for the projects in progress--which is something he should have done at the beginning of the Appendix N process. He says in a blog post that future orders for BHP products will be fulfilled by Amazon. Why he didn't do this for DD and Appendix N is a puzzler.
At this point, I've lost trust in John and Brave Halfling. I'll never order anything direct from him again or back a project he proposes.
John's a nice guy, I know, and I feel bad that perhaps I've laid it on a bit thick in my comments here and elsewhere. But d**n it, sometimes people get sick of excuses.
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Post by dizzysaxophone on Aug 1, 2013 8:03:13 GMT -6
My issue is I've had multiple e-mails, posts, fb messages go ignored. He did respond to me once on Facebook though. I can understand what he's gone through, so I'm not upset about the delays, I just want to hear something. I'm waiting patiently. My main gripe, is every update makes it sound like he's nearly done. This was posted on April 13th, for example: "Boxing up the last group of Delving Deeper Boxed sets to ship!" 3.5 months later and how many orders are still unfulfilled?
I still look forward to it arriving, and hope he is doing well. I believe we'll all receive it in time.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2013 10:28:36 GMT -6
As the fellow who wrote the (very) rough original draft of the rules, let me weigh in. John is an honest man who has been overwhelmed. Any one of the major events in his life would have been a daunting obstacle to meeting his deadline, all in concert would have resulted in a lesser man throwing in the towel and walking away like this guy did. I remain convinced that John will fulfill every pre-order for Delving Deeper. Are they late? Yes. Are they so late as to deserve the degree of frustration, in some cases anger, everyone feels? Indeed. I'm not excusing the lateness of the product. In a larger company, events like John's multiple woes can be absorbed but BHP is, in any reasonable sense of the word, a one-man show in John Adams. I'm not asking you to forget the product you're owed. He ll, I'm waiting on my boxed set, too. I'm not asking you to forget you are a dissatisfied customer. I'm asking as a fellow gamer, a fellow denizen of the ODD74 forum, as a fellow who (as many of us) has been playing Dungeons & Dragons since the game existed ... Give the guy a break, show a little human understanding. If you want to flame the he ll out of somebody, John isn't around but I'm right here. Give me both barrels if it will make you feel like a man. I won't even flame back. John is a friend and I stand up for my friends. So give it to me. Pour your vitriol, your impotent rage on me. I'm right here and I can take it.
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Post by geoffrey on Aug 1, 2013 10:31:22 GMT -6
I have not ordered anything from Brave Halfling Publishing, so I do not have any experiences on that score. What follows is free and friendly advice for John. 1. Cease taking any new orders immediately. 2. Refund as many orders as you can, starting with the oldest. 3. Ship what you can't refund. After you get home from the post office from shipping the very last order, restart your business on a new model: Never print, box, or ship anything again. Goodness knows that is a huge hassle. (I remember when I sold Carcosa out of my own house. Good grief but it got to be a pain to fill orders. Now, with Lamentations of the Flame Princess publishing my books, I simply sit back, do nothing, and smile when my quarterly check arrives.) Instead, have all your publishing go through lulu (or a something similar), like this: Create a product and get it 100% finished: text, art, layout, etc. Send it to lulu and double-check to make sure everything is right. Then, and only then (so as to be unable to miss deadlines by not having any deadlines!), announce the product: "Hey, everyone! Product X is available right now for sale on lulu, in both pdf and print!" Then sit back and enjoy your profits. (This is how Patrick Wetmore has done it with his intriguing Anomalous Subsurface Environment, and it seems to be going OK.) Think and pray seriously, John, about casting off this burden.
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Post by strangebrew on Aug 1, 2013 10:40:56 GMT -6
It has been theorized by some that there isn't money available to refund, which is my guess at this point as well. The orders are being processed as extra funds from other sources become available.
In contrast, Geoffrey's model of sales for his adventure line works well, mainly because it was well within the bounds of what he could and would put into it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2013 10:44:38 GMT -6
That is very good advice, Geoffrey. I'll be honest, I've a tough time paying for non-existent product myself. I rarely pre-order or support through Kickstarter because of that. No matter how good one's intention, the unplanned can pop up and ruin your carefully crafted business plans. That happened to John, not once but several times. I feel for the guy and often wished I lived near him so I could help him out with the business aspect of BHP.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2013 10:49:32 GMT -6
It has been theorized by some that there isn't money available to refund, which is my guess at this point as well. The orders are being processed as extra funds from other sources become available. I have no personal knowledge of that, so I can't address it directly or even indirectly. I agree. I ordered the original printing of Carcosa and received it right away.
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Post by dizzysaxophone on Aug 1, 2013 20:41:28 GMT -6
I apologize if my post earlier came off as hate or anger. I'm slightly annoyed, but understanding. I can't imagine what he's going through. I just wanted to share some of my experience, most of which I'd want to share if I had received it a week later.
The good thing John has, is he does good work. The sets look nice, and I have his S&W: WB set, and while mine has gotten a bit beaten up, still looks nice, and I still like to pull it out rather than my paperback booklet.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2013 20:53:19 GMT -6
I apologize if my post earlier came off as hate or anger. I'm slightly annoyed, but understanding. I can't imagine what he's going through. I just wanted to share some of my experience, most of which I'd want to share if I had received it a week later. The good thing John has, is he does good work. The sets look nice, and I have his S&W: WB set, and while mine has gotten a bit beaten up, still looks nice, and I still like to pull it out rather than my paperback booklet. You didn't, at least not to my reading. I won't say more because I don't want to call out any specific forum member, and I don't want to sound like I'm having some kind of "internet Conan" type of tantrum. I just wanted to give anyone who needed to vent a bit of their frustration a target. John isn't here, but I am. I'm not trying to pick a fight or sound threatening. I'm just willing to be the guy who has to listen to the "Customer Complaints" because, frankly, John has enough on his plate. I would like to extend my personal apology to everyone for the delays in the project.
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Post by Haldo Bramwise on Aug 2, 2013 4:08:17 GMT -6
My apologies, guys. I did not realize that it had been about a month since I was last on this forum. I have been busy offline fulfilling orders.
I appreciate folks who have tried to make replies for me in my absence. Marv, I apologize as it seems that I may have helped cause the change in atmosphere of some posts on this board.
I have been trying to not share that much personally on the web anymore, since it becomes fodder for rampant speculation and shock bloggers, and in some cases, outright libel. Some have even made fun of my daughter's funeral, so I know folks can understand my retreat from saying that much online anymore.
I also apologize for many missed emails and promises that have not been kept yet. It is my fault, but it is very difficult to coordinate orders, emails, forum posts and facebook messages by individuals who use multiple online screen names (that is not a criticism, we all do it - it just makes it harder to track.
So here is an update as to where the DD shipping is at and an explanation of why it is taking so dreadfully long. Please read it as an explanation and not as an excuse.
We are working very hard to make sure every remaining boxed set arrives at it's new home before the end of August so that I can ship the remaining DD materials in September. We WANT to be done with this project so that we can free of the stress it has caused us.
While a shock blogger (YDIS himself I am told) has posted his thought that I am waiting for the money to ship the remaining boxed sets (an idea repeated in this thread), that is just not true. The real reason the boxed sets are taking so long to finish shipping is a perfect storm of conditions.
When the orders were taken for DD during its development (which was clearly a mistake on my part), I was unemployed with very little chance for full-time work, so I had all the time in the world to complete orders. I have a job now and one that will support my family but it requires me to work 50+ hours a week and be on call 24/7.
While not selling as well as S&W:WhiteBox, Delving Deeper is a much larger text - nearly twice the size of WB and when you add in interior art (which WB did not have), DD is a very labor-intensive enterprise. I create every single boxed set by hand (not POD) and it takes me just under and hour to sort, staple, fold, trim, and package for shipment each box.
My wife was in charge of organizing the orders for Delving Deeper, but since the loss of our child, I have had to try and repair her system. She does not use computers, but as one post already notes, using index cards in this day and age was a mistake. Every time it looks to me like just few orders are left to ship (and I would post "last batch") I find another group of orders still unfulfilled. I have also noticed that detailed paypal searches do not always display every order - which is not helpful.
Lastly, there are my on-going problems with the USPS. Many times (especially with international shipments) my shipments get delayed for weeks in Chicago - sometimes never even leaving the country. This is the most frustrating part of all of this for me. After putting in so much work, many international shipments (as many as a 1/3 of them) get delayed or lost. I have tried not to post much about this particular problem because my speculation on why it happens to me makes me look paranoid and a bit crazy. Having the name of a former US president, which I am told is often used by folks trying to get into the US to do us harm has automatically put me on a watch list. For example, I am always on the no-fly list and it takes much longer for me to renew my drivers license than other people as my background check is always extensive. Add to that the fact that in the last town where I lived, the nosey-parker post master was just sure I was shipping drugs in those little brown boxes and who knows what kind of red flags are still sent up each time I ship something. Plus, it has come out in the last few months that our government is now cataloging every piece of mail now too. Anyway, shipping has become a very stressful problem for me.
However, that is why I stopped taking new orders for products back at the end of February and why all future product fulfillment for BHP will be POD or by amazon.com (so many of my products cannot be simply produced by POD). But I have chosen to not set up new sales using amazon for fulfillment yet until the last Delving Deeper boxed set has shipped.
Anyway, that is where we are at and why shipping has taken so long. I am very personally distressed by the situation. I have learned my lesson and will not repeat it in the future.
While I know that DD continues to change, I hope folks will still like their hand-made boxed sets. If not, I hope they take on as much or even more of the current value of a BHP WB boxed set of $100 or more.
And yes, since the idea of third party fulfillment company was suggested to me for my Appendix N kickstarter last weekend, I have been looking into it.
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