Terrain Essentials

A Message from Mel, and a new Pledge Level!
almost 6 years ago – Mon, Mar 25, 2019 at 01:59:36 PM

Over the past week, I've been busy keeping an eye on things, making Updates, and discussing a few cool new ideas with Mel for things we'll be able to reveal once we're happy we've fleshed them out properly, and Mel has been getting stuck into answering as many comments as he can: here, on YouTube, on Facebook, and responding to the many wonderful emails he has received. Today, he was able to take a breath and put together this update for us all about where things stand. 

“1. Comments - I want to be as responsive to your questions, requests and suggestions as possible folks. BUT, it works this way, if it's terrain or book contents related, I'll answer the best I can. If it's kickstarter/logistics stuff, I'll answer if I'm 100% sure I know the answer, if not, I'll wait for Dave (Keeper of the Tome of Campaign Planning) to answer, then chip in afterwards.

Note - if I haven't replied to your non campaign/logistics question, I ain't seen it. I'm finding this is happening in the update comments, so if I don't reply on an update, ask me in the main comments :-D

2. I know a lot of you want a pledge or way of buying a signed copy. As far as I'm concerned, you all deserve your copies signed, hence going with the bookplate sticker idea and to be honest, even though it was only a small make it happen and make it special now sort of stretch goal, I feel a lot better we've absorbed it into the campaign. I just didn't feel right to charge you for my signature, even if it was a just to make it happen goal.

Now, I am aware that there's a few of you wonderful folk out there who'd like us to come up with more ways for you to support us and Dave's looking into it for later in the campaign. 

In the meantime, if you really do want to help me, get me pages, upgrade your pledge, gift a pledge to a mate, share and endorse the campaign, endorsements always help best! But above all, it's those pages I want! 

You see, after all this campaign has ended and you all have the book we made possible, that book will be going into retail. Fingers crossed, over the next few years, it'll become a small regular income that will help support me and my family, one that isn't reliant on me constantly producing content like patron, to put it simply, a bit of stability in a world where sites can change policies or shutdown overnight. So, the bigger this books get, the more I can put in it and the more likely someone will take it off a shelf and buy it. 

So as I said, if you really want to support me and show your appreciation for what I've been doing for the community for these past 5 years, get me pages and help me over the next 5 years folks.

3. Since we're talking pages, I've been getting a lot of requests for things to be included. Now, the book is planned out, I know what's  going in it at every stretch goal. That being said, I factored a spare page every couple of stretch goals. I did it so that if I wanted to run a chapter over it's allocated pages, I could do so without cutting into another chapter. If there's any spare pages at the end, I'm happy to include requested stuff.

So if you have any requests, let me know in the comments and if it's doable I'll add it to the info wishlist and set what I can do as I near the end of writing and know if and if so, how many spare pages I have.

Finally, thanks for making this last week probably one of the most memorable for a very long time, you're an awesome community and I don't think I'll ever be able to say thank you enough, but thank you folks, you rock!

Catch ya on the Sunday Nighter folks! :-D”

So, folks, if you want to get it straight from the horse's mouth, make sure you check out Mel's vlog (posted tomorrow morning) and his live Sunday Nighter (tomorrow night at 9pm GMT, 5pm EST, 2pm PST) on The Terrain Tutor channel and feel free to ask him all the best questions about terrain!

In addition to this lengthy update, we also wanted to reveal our new pledge level. Many of you have asked for it. Who are we to refuse? Now you can pledge at the "Let's Crack On!" level - $95 gets you two copies of the physical book PLUS a copy of the PDF, all in one pledge. To switch to this level, head to the campaign page and click on the Manage Your Pledge button and adjust it. If you have any problems, please message the campaign or pop your issue in a comment and we'll be there to help you out.

And remember, TERRAIN ESSENTIALS will be going into distribution (which means it’ll be stocked in gaming stores, hobby stores, and bookstores) after we’ve delivered to you wonderful backers. This means that a bigger, better book now helps build on a stronger future for Mel and his channel, so keep sharing and pledging!

We're almost at 250% funding and the book is growing!
almost 6 years ago – Mon, Mar 25, 2019 at 12:33:18 PM

Thank you all for your continuing support. Mel and I are still blown away by it all. We're very close to cracking the fourth stretch goal and having an additional 32 pages in the book - for a total of 128 pages (sooooo close). Our next Stretch Goal after this is to make to book a hardback, and then we can jump back into the business of adding more new builds to Terrain Essentials like the fun stuff Mel has planned next for the Water and Snow chapter!

This morning, Mel and I had a chat about last night's Update and the Stretch Goal we revealed in it (Mel signs all the bookplates). After a bit of back and forth we decided that we didn't want it to be a financial goal. We want to save those for continuing to expand the book with Content and Quality Upgrades. So, we're still keeping the intent of the goal, but we've reworked it a little bit to clarify that it's not taking funds away from the book. Instead, we're going to check it off as a done deal once we reach 2,750 backers. Let's keep moving forward and bringing more backers to the project!

Add-ons: I mentioned Add-Ons in the last update and we definitely have something in the pipeline, but we'll have more clarity once we get to sit down over a beer at AdeptiCon next week. I'm very excited for that too. 

Cheers

Dave

We all know Mel's a great guy, but...
almost 6 years ago – Sun, Mar 24, 2019 at 06:21:42 PM

For those of you who know me and/or Mel, you know we like to do good things that help people. I was looking through the comments section tonight and saw a comment from Mel where he was describing what his plans are for the unique builds he's making for the book once we've done all the fun book stuff we need to do. 

Please note: this is about what will happen after the project has wrapped up. You're a good man, Mel Bose. 

Another 8 pages have been added, and a new Stretch Goal revealed!
almost 6 years ago – Sun, Mar 24, 2019 at 08:52:11 AM

Thank you all for continuing to share our campaign around the globe! We're seeing backers coming in from dozens of countries - hundreds of people who, like us, love to build great terrain. 

These new backers have helped us all reach the latest Stretch Goal and unlock another 8 pages, this time focused on content for the Rocks and Hills chapter. The book now stands at 120 pages!

The next Stretch Goal is now in our sights. Once we reach $100,000 we'll unlock 8 pages on Buildings and Ruins, everybody's favorite (well, one of my favorites, at least). 

And then it's on to a Stretch Goal that I know is near and dear to Mel's heart. Once we reach $120,000 we'll be able to upgrade what is a very nice softback book to a very sturdy hardback edition. 

In our next Update we'll talk about a few answers we've been discussing. Answers to some of the great questions you've been asking. Stay tuned for that!

Terrain Essentials FAQ - Part One
almost 6 years ago – Sun, Mar 24, 2019 at 08:51:37 AM

Thank you all for your continued support. Your sharing the project is bringing more terrainiacs at a very steady pace!

We’ve had quite few questions asked in these early stages, and we thought we’d cover two of them this evening:

1) Add-ons like T-shirts and coffee mugs - we really appreciate that you would love some great TTT swag, but we want to keep this campaign focused on the book itself. All of our planning has been around that, and we’d hate to make a mistake and end up having issues with different shipping costs, International charges and tariffs on cotton t-shirts, and broken mugs. We do have some ideas that we’ll be discussing, but they’ll be more closely related to the ideas behind the book.

Having said all that, once the campaign closes, we’ll be looking at places like teespring to bring you some fun shirts so you will be able to represent TTT whenever you are out and about!

2) Autographed copies - We know that many of you would like a signed copy of Terrain Essentials, and would be willing to pay. Mel and I talked through a number of different scenarios, and we both feel a bit odd about charging an extra $10 for a signature, plus additional shipping that it would no doubt cost. So, we’ve decided to revive a classic - the bookplate!

We’re going to print a Kickstarter Exclusive bookplate for each book sold through the campaign and pledge manager. Mel will sign each and every one of them, and they can be much more easily shipped to our fulfillment hubs for inclusion with your books. We hope you like this, and you can check out the mini-stretch goal graphic below for a mock-up of what it could look like.

Finally, not really a question/answer, but Mel has popped up a quick chat video on The Terrain Tutor channel here: https://youtu.be/VIZzN9257Y4