Tales of The Black Piper

Created by The Black Piper

An adventurous collaboration between Bestselling/Award-winning authors, Hollywood composers, and you!

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Deliveries, Deadlines, Dates, and Locked Orders
over 1 year ago – Mon, Jun 05, 2023 at 03:42:40 PM

Hi everyone,

Things have been cruising along over here at The Black Piper, and we have a few things to chat with you about regarding deliveries (which have started, yay!), deadlines, dates, and (sorry to break the alliteration...) locked orders. 


Locked Orders

First thing, as the time for the locking of orders has come, the next step will be charging cards for items added through the BackerKit pledge manager. We'll be doing that later this week and wanted to give you a heads up in case you need to make any adjustments with your cards or funds. If you foresee any issues, please let us know, and we'll be happy to work things out with you.

(Or if any of you have any last minute changes you want to sneak in, send us an email, and we'd be happy to oblige if it's before we charge - likely this weekend.)

As a reminder, shipping will not be charged at this time - that will happen as we get closer to the shipping date, and we'll make sure to communicate with you beforehand so that you are prepared!


Rewards Delivery

We have started delivering some rewards! We sent out both Reflections and the digital artwork a few weeks ago (though the downloads may not show up for everyone until charges are settled.) But if you backed those two rewards and you have a zero balance, then you should have gotten an email and/or be able to see them in your download section on BackerKit.


Tales of The Black Piper

A few stories have come in from a handful of authors (thank you to those who have already submitted!) Those who have not yet submitted, the deadline is June 30. If you can't find the link to the form for submission, please message us.

We have been preparing things on our end, and will be ready for editing in full force in July! This will be an especially exciting time - getting to work with each of you individually, and we hope you're looking forward to the experience!


Refractions

This album has been moving forward steadily, though slowly. We've been having to rebuild old sessions manually in a painstaking/time consuming process, updating old instrumentation, rebuilding mixes, etc. And we're doing some solo recording to help polish a few of the tracks. We're making good progress, but it's likely that delivery on Refractions will be pushed back a little, but we'll keep you updated. 

That said, we may consider releasing a "part 1" in July and the remainder/"part 2" once it's ready.

Either way, we'll make sure you know as soon as we have things more fully nailed down.


Well, that's all for now! Looking forward to great stories from all the authors!

All the best,
Michael & The Team @ The Black Piper

Submission Info For Authors
over 1 year ago – Mon, Apr 10, 2023 at 09:01:16 PM

Hi all,

We're sending this update as a backer only update, just for authors. There doesn't seem to be a way to only send this to those who select a specific tier, so please pardon the extra update if you backed any of the other tiers!

All best,
Michael

Surveys Coming Soon + Notes About Shipping
over 1 year ago – Fri, Apr 07, 2023 at 05:37:36 PM

Hi everyone!

I hope you've had a lovely week!

So, we have the surveys all ready, and they should be sent to you soon, so keep an eye out for them!

We will also be sending out information for our authors in a separate update (also coming soon.)

Shipping

A few quick notes about shipping: since it'll take some time to get through the production of this project, shipping will not be charged yet. As you go through your survey, it may still ask for your shipping address now. You will be able to change that before we go to ship, and we will send out additional updates as we get closer to make sure that you are all aware before we lock down the orders/shipping addresses and charge.

As always, let us know if you have any questions!

All the best,
Michael & The Team @ The Black Piper

Campaign Success - Thank you! + Schedule + Housekeeping
over 1 year ago – Sat, Apr 01, 2023 at 05:26:50 PM

Hi everyone,

What a campaign we've had! We are so grateful and excited that you are along for the ride. Looking back at the last month, here are a few of our milestones:

  • We were fully funded before we launched (we were the first ever campaign to do this)!
  • We reached the narration goal (we're super excited about this one)!
  • We raised over 3x of our main goal!

I just gotta say:



We're over here celebrating with gratitude, and we're excited to get started producing some cool stuff!

So, on to some business.


SURVEYS

We are currently preparing surveys, which we will have to you in the next week or so. Make sure to keep an eye out for those.


SCHEDULE

Here's what to expect with regards to the schedule. (I'm going to address a few items below the graphic.)



Reflections & ARTWORK DELIVERY

We have this listed as happening in mid-May, but since 99% of the production for these items is complete, we'll send these out as soon as we have everyone's surveys in. (Likely even sooner, since digital distribution doesn't hinge on orders being locked.)


STORY SUBMISSION TIMELINE & INFO

Many of you have either already started your stories or (in some cases) already completed them. We are putting together a submission form for you to send us your story along with some details, and we will send you a link when it's ready. Once you have that form and have completed your stories (and ensure that they follow the guidelines listed here), you are welcome to submit the form with your story.

With the submission deadline June 30, editing will start in earnest in July, but depending on the number of stories we receive early and our editor's schedule, we may get started on editing some of the stories sooner. Regardless, once we have your story, Jane, our editor, will coordinate efforts with the alpha / beta reading teams to begin that part of the process.


A FEW OTHER THINGS

Tales Digital Delivery:

For those who have elected for a digital version of Tales, we are planning on providing an option for you to receive those piecemeal as they are ready. You are welcome to select this option during the survey process, but there will also be the option to await for the completion of the full anthology. I mention this, because we are planning a layout/format for the anthology that collects similar submitted stories into categories, and then we will introduce each section/category with a special story (and/or introductory remarks). Either way, totally up to you, and regardless of which option you select, you will receive the full anthology when we are finished.

No Post-Campaign Store:

Many campaigns, once they finish, will open a post-campaign store, allowing people who missed the pledging period to also back the campaign. We are not planning to do this for this campaign, primarily for the sake of author royalties.

To explain: for the purposes of distribution of the anthology (when we get to that point), we will be partnering with a service that manages sales and royalties -- essentially one that will: 1. provide reporting to individual authors, and 2. handle the payment disbursal. Our goal with this is two-fold:

  1. We want to make sure authors have clear access to the numbers and receive any royalties automatically, and
  2. We want to reduce the burden on our own team (with regards to accounting, reporting, and disbursal), so that we can focus on producing the anthology.

Since the BackerKit post-campaign store does not have these (automatic) capabilities built-in, we will wait until the anthology is ready for sale to begin, well, selling it. Ultimately, we feel that getting the anthology completed, released, and marketed sooner will be the best use of resources and time.

If you have any questions or thoughts about this, or anything else, please let us know.


THANK YOU!

Thank you all again! We are so glad and grateful that you are on this journey with us, and we can't wait to dig in!

All the best,
Michael & The Team @ The Black Piper

Narration achievement - Unlocked! + How to get it
over 1 year ago – Fri, Mar 31, 2023 at 01:01:10 PM

Well... that didn't take long! You are all awesome! Narration has been funded!



SO STOKED to be working with this amazing narrator!

For those who have selected a digital tier, you will be able to choose between ebook and audiobook when you fill out the survey after the campaign. If you'd like both options, we've included an audiobook add-on for a low price that you can add to your pledge.

For those who have selected a physical tier, if you'd like an audiobook copy as well, you can either add it to your pledge now or during the post-campaign survey. We've kept the price pretty low ($5), just to help make it more accessible if you'd like both the physical copy and an audiobook.

Author tiers will receive the audiobook for free!

You are all amazing!

Now to see if we can hit the soloist stretch goal in the next 7 hours... 🤞

All the best,
Michael & The Team @ The Black Piper