Non-Canadian backers should have received Amazon shipment notifications by now, and with the packages in those emails, this whole Kickstarter journey comes to an end!

Gosh, we really do hope you like the books.

A few notes

• Do not always trust the Amazon delivery estimate! It could arrive sooner than they promise. (We hope it does!)
• If you’re outside of the USA and ordered a figurine, you’ll be missing one in your book package because Amazon won’t send them overseas! But don’t worry, it’s shipping out to you in an individual box.
• IF YOU’RE CANADIAN none of this applies and we’re waiting on a big book delivery before we can pack and send them to you direct. But we’re ready to go and it shouldn’t be long!

There’s nothing much left now! Once we sort out the Canadian orders, this Kickstarter project comes to an end. This all feels too routine to be our proper final update, though, so what we’ll do is round everything up once the Canadian stuff is on the way.

Otherwise, let us know if there’s anything we can do to help you! The books will be there soon.

Last night we did two things that will wrap up the BCB Kickstarter project for lots of backers — we’ve submitted many orders to Amazon so they can ship out your books and we sent you an email containing links to the finalised eBooks (if you backed at the levels which included them!)

With those steps, we’re finally on the home stretch! But we wanted to clarify a few things so you know what to expect in the coming weeks:

If your order included Ask Roseville High

We are going to progressively ship out every order throughout this month, as fast as we can. Please bear with us, while mass shipping via Amazon is like telling a robot to go to the post office for you, it can be very picky about mailing addresses and other formatting! So we’re doing it in chunks. Orders that were for Volume Two only have gone out first, but we will cover everybody else soon after.

Just keep an eye out for an automated email from Amazon. That will be your confirmation that your books (and figurines) are on the way!

If you’re in Canada

Since Canada doesn’t like Amazon sending books your way (odd, right?) we will arrange to send them ourselves via the post office. We will send you an email when they’re on the way.

If you bought a figurine but live outside of the USA

This is one loose end we’re still looking into — we haven’t got clearance to send these outside of the USA (via Amazon) just yet. Don’t worry! We will work out what to do and let you know how we work this out. One possibility is sending your books via Amazon and your figurine via the post office, but we’ll try to combine everything where we can!

If anything else is bothering you

Just let us know! We’ve received and updated every single changed address, and we believe we’re up to date with all correspondence. If you have any concerns, send us an email at orders@bittersweetcandybowl.com with as much detail as you can provide.

This should be our second-last update, with the final one being a simple round up of how the project went, and a call for anyone who is still missing rewards. But for now, we’re happy that you will finally be getting your hands on the end result of this project!

Yep, it’s a genuine bona fide “Ask Roseville High” book! These have all been printed and they came out wonderfully. As you can see from the size comparison to my (it’s me, Oliver!) large hands, it’s a very cute little thing.

So, there two questions for our wonderful backers to consider today:

Have you changed your mailing address?

It has been a few months since we sent out your non-book rewards, and we suspect a few people have moved since then (well, we have, for one!) If this is you, please send us a message on Kickstarter and we can make sure the books go out to the right address.

We’d appreciate it if you can minimise these requests by first checking the address you provided to us via the “Your Response” link on the sidebar of our Kickstarter page. We will wait about a week before assuming all the addresses are correct.

Are you ready for cat drama?

Okay, that’s not a serious question. But it gives us the opportunity to say: your books are shipping out soon!

Volume Two has arrived in America safely and is being loaded into Amazon’s warehouse, and Ask Roseville High should arrive soon after. Give us about a month to make sure everyone is covered, but if you see an email from Amazon about books (and figurines!) on their way, you’ll know it’s from us!

Thanks for having patience while we worked through a bunch of printer delays. We’re so glad we can confidently tell you that the books are approved, finished, and on their way to delivery.

In brief: your books will be delivered in March.

OH GOD, BUT WHY?

The printing companies keep delaying production. It’s complicated.

BUT YOU SAID...

Yeah, and we’re really sorry! We relayed a promise from the printers that everything would be printed and shipped in mid-January, but that didn’t end up happening. Much to our dismay.

AND... THAT’S IT?

No way! Things are actually moving along, only with a big stupid delay in the middle. ALL the Volume 2 books have been printed, and we’re pretty sure they’re on their way to the US as we type. We even have an advance copy to show you!

Cool, right? For 274 pages it's surprisingly compact, but the heavy paper feels great and the printing quality is just perfect. You will love it.

The Ask Roseville High books are due to be printed at the end of this month, and are the main reason we’re saying “March”. The printer for this book is testing our patience to say the least! At this stage we have no idea how they could possibly justify another delay to us so it seems safe to assume that they will be shipping out next month.

IN CONCLUSION

You guys are wonderfully patient and supportive and we appreciate you oh-so-much. We don’t take any of it for granted — every indignant email is written for you, dear backer! And with that spirit we will get these books out the door. Please bear with us a little longer!

After several days of laborious sketching and packing and stamping and mailing, we've sent out the Australian half of your rewards! (Or are about to. We need to find a post office with $800 worth of international stamps.)

That means no books, but we HAVE sent:

• Your Jessica charm
• Your character prints (if you bought a book!)
• Your sketch (if you paid for one!)
• Your various bits of non-book non-figurine merchandise (if you pledged for them!)

Expect it all to be winging your way by the end of the year. If you haven't got your non-booky non-figuriney stuff by the end of January (hey, we gotta allow for Christmas chaos!) let us know at orders@bittersweetcandybowl.com and we'll sort it all out.

We really hope you enjoy everything! And feel free to post your sketches over on Candybooru if you feel like it!

BUT THE BOOKS!

Oh yeah! The books. Well, we finished them! And we sent them to our printers. And we're ALMOST done approving the proof copies they sent out to us. It basically works like

Printer: REQUEST!
Us: QUICK RESPONSE!

*3 DAYS ELAPSE.*

Printer: REQUEST!

And so on. Right now we're waiting on them to send us a couple packages and a contract to sign.

At this stage all we know is that the books will be printed by mid-January, but we're not entirely sure how many delays will get inserted between that point and the point where your book is on a delivery truck in your home city. It could be January, it could be February. We hope January! And we will let you know when we get any further details on delivery estimations.

A CHRISTMAS COMPROMISE

I did say the books were done, though, right! So how about this:

On Christmas Eve, eBooks will be emailed out to those who pledged for them.

That way you can read them "early" if you want to, or just ignore the links and wait for the physical book to arrive, but AT LEAST YOU GET THE CHOICE. And you can enjoy all the other little things we sent your way. Right?

Anyway. Time to find those stamps. Thanks for all your patience!