Darkening of Mirkwood book release date?

[Heilemann]

Any word on this?

[Jon Hodgson]

We're awaiting the call to say that the ship has docked. We're then in the hands of customs for a little while. As soon as we know a date you'll see it posted here in its own thread, and on the website.

[Beran]

I'm sorry but I have to ask a couple of questions. When did this slow boat from China leave port (which port)? How long, on average, does it take for a C7 shipment to clear customs? And with these obstacles how does C7 expect to get 5 more books out before the end of the year?

[Jon Hodgson]

Hi Beran,
We let you all know when it was on the ship, and that it would take an indefinite about of time (it can be 4 to 8 weeks to ship from China, and then has to pass through customs and then shipping to our warehouse) The shipping has gone completely to that schedule. We can't say how long a title will take to clear customs - most times it's less than a day, sometimes it can a week. It's completely out of our hands, which is why we've been upfront about that.

We're still very much on schedule for our other releases. Production is now parallel, not linear, so we have supplements/the core manual at different stages of readiness - one at print, one in approval, one about to go into approval, one in edit, one being written and so on.

The proof of that will, of course, be in the pudding.

[Jon Hodgson]

I wanted to just check back to make sure my memory wasn't fooling me and it wasn't - on May 17th I posted this, in response to your post noticing that we'd updated the expected arrival of Darkening to June.

Yup - as soon as we had a further written confirmation of the 2.5 tons of Darkenings on the ship we were able to update the release schedule to reflect the "Anticipated June" timing. This includes time for the shipment to clear customs, be transported to our US warehouse, be checked in there, and then head out to pre-order customers and retailers.

This has absolutely no effect whatsoever on any other title.

Nothing has changed since that point. We still expect Darkening to be released in June.

[Otaku-sempai]

From the sound of it, with any luck, we will have a physical book in our greedy little hands by the end of this week!

[Jon Hodgson]

From the sound of it, with any luck, we will have a physical book in our greedy little hands by the end of this week!

That's highly unlikely. Darkening has to land, get through customs, and ship to our warehouse, be checked in and then be sent out again. We anticipate that happening before the end of June, but this week would be extremely ambitious.

[Otaku-sempai]

From the sound of it, with any luck, we will have a physical book in our greedy little hands by the end of this week!

That's highly unlikely. Darkening has to land, get through customs, and ship to our warehouse, be checked in and then be sent out again. We anticipate that happening before the end of June, but this week would be extremely ambitious.

Darn! We didn't learn of all the (if any) background drama for the DW:AITAS Limited Edition Rulebook, so I didn't have a proper sense of how long it took between arrival and shipping orders. Well, I'll just have to be patient for a little longer.

BTW, when I first saw the new thread, "Darkening of Mirkwood Print", my first reaction was that you had been permitted to release an art print of the book's cover. If only!

[Jon Hodgson]

From the sound of it, with any luck, we will have a physical book in our greedy little hands by the end of this week!

That's highly unlikely. Darkening has to land, get through customs, and ship to our warehouse, be checked in and then be sent out again. We anticipate that happening before the end of June, but this week would be extremely ambitious.

Darn! We didn't learn of all the (if any) background drama for the DW:AITAS Limited Edition Rulebook, so I didn't have a proper sense of how long it took between arrival and shipping orders. Well, I'll just have to be patient for a little longer.

To be completely candid, this is a major factor in us generally not communicating each stage of the delivery process - it's a catch 22 - we have to chose to either be less communicative which makes one group of customers unhappy, or risk misunderstanding and building a false expectation with dissatisfies another.

It can also be somewhat tricky in that each publication has a unique story. Ships take an awfully variable amount of time to cross the Pacific, and customs can be so very variable. Fingers crossed they're kind to us on this occasion.

Everyone has been so keen to hear of Darkening's progress that on this occasion we've chosen to be a little more forthcoming with updates when we hear something. Believe me, if we could say "It will be with you on X date" then we surely would.

[Glorelendil]

What is the ship captain's name? Did you do a background check on him? How many C7 agents infiltrated the ship's crew? What are their mobile phone numbers and/or Twitter handles? Where is the live satellite feed so we can track progress? What sort of antiaircraft defenses does the ship have? When were they last tested? Where can we find a copy of the certificate verifying that test?

P.S. The ship captain's name isn't Arvedui is it?