Quote from: thedungeondelver;1139999I'm already not a fan of Mr. Raggi's work but this?  Now I wouldn't touch his products with a ten foot pole.  Perhaps second-hand...but definitely not direct purchase.  Sorry, waiting months for books is...ehh...no.

At a guess either its POD or they are shipping from overseas? Or worse... Both.
POD services can take a bit. Some wont do a print till X number of orders are in. Some will print off just one and go with it. Verry YMMV. As is the print quality. POD is a hidden minefield of potential problems that can trip you up.

Quote from: wmarshal;1140007I wonder if it wasn't due to COVID-19 then Raggi's model may have been sustainable.

Seems the case. Were it not for all the problems this year they would likely not be in trouble. Maybee not as great sales as the SJW disease spreads. But probably able to at the very least cover the debt.

Though one does have to wonder what they heck Raggi was spending a little over 100$ on?

Quote from: Brad;113999106/15/2020    Pending Payment Approval    
06/15/2020    Processing    Processing from checkout_process.php
06/15/2020    Paid For    Your printed items normally take 2 to 5 days to print (or up to 14 working days for full-color books), and will then be shipped to you.
06/15/2020    Sent to printer    Print order sent to printer (order PPO.M06151500)
06/15/2020    Confirmed    Printer has acknowledged receipt of order.
07/03/2020    Shipped    Product The Hero's Companion has shipped.
Tracking Number: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX(it may take up to 24 hours for this tracking number to become valid)
Date Shipped: 2020-07-02
Shipped via: USPS

 Status
Pre-Shipment

July 9, 2020

Pre-Shipment Info Sent to USPS, USPS Awaiting Item




Like...wtf

Mine was entirely processed from payment up to "Confirmed Printer has acknowledged receipt of order" on 6/23/2020, so they are close to their expanded limit. Like some parts of Amazon, I am expecting some of these status updates are BS - but that last one of yours - yeah, its shipped, except when it isn't.

Quote from: jeff37923;1139854Yeah, that had absolutely nothing to do with the lawsuit TSR filed against them over Gygax jumping ship to do Lejendary Journeys in your eyes, did it?

Gygax was forced out of TSR. And the game he did for GDW was Dangerous Journeys. As far as i know, while the lawsuit was pretty ugly, it was ultimately settled with TSR buying the game outright (including inventory) so I'm not sure GDW lost much, if anything, other than time and energy. DJ was kinda a dog of a game.

I think what hurt GDW was the CCG craze that blitzed the industry. They didn't try to get into it, but it probably sucked away a lot of their sales.

Quote from: JeremyR;1140129Gygax was forced out of TSR. And the game he did for GDW was Dangerous Journeys. As far as i know, while the lawsuit was pretty ugly, it was ultimately settled with TSR buying the game outright (including inventory) so I'm not sure GDW lost much, if anything, other than time and energy. DJ was kinda a dog of a game.

I think what hurt GDW was the CCG craze that blitzed the industry. They didn't try to get into it, but it probably sucked away a lot of their sales.

I recently completed my collection with a copy of Epic of Aerth signed by Larry Elmore and honestly...it's a pretty decent game. Seriously. I'm going to try to run it sometime soon, actually.

Quote from: Brad;1139991July 9, 2020

Pre-Shipment Info Sent to USPS, USPS Awaiting Item

A positive note this morning:

Product Silent Legions has shipped.
Tracking Number: 924199999166555830101XXXX (it may take up to 24 hours for this tracking number to become valid)
Date Shipped: 2020-07-15
Shipped via: USPS

So it took almost exactly the 22 or so days extra delay. Assuming this isn't BS like your Pre-Shipment

Looks like LotFP could yet survive:

Raggi's latest video

Video is 2 hours but the relevant info is in the first 10 minutes. No solid numbers but he does say if he wanted, he could probably now walk away without huge debts.

Anyway, I think most of you are being way too hard with him. There were 3 things going on simultaneously during these last 2 years:

- creation of an US storefront with dedicated warehouse
- Zak
- Covid

The first one makes complete sense once you hear him say (in the previous video) that 80% of his profits come from sales from his own site. I'm guessing it's due to it being (so far) the only way to get physical books plus not having to give a cut to anyone else as it happens for digital sales on Drivethru.
The shipping costs within EU have become insane in the last 3 years, and I'm guessing for the US even more so. And given the size of the print runs he allocated to EU/US for his latest books, it looks like at least 65/70% of the sales come from the US.

So he had to invest money to setup the US side of his operations. At the same time he got hit by the Zak mess, which stopped him from reprinting 3 of his 4 best sellers (which by his own admission are STILL the best sellers as PDF on Drivethru, which hasn't removed them with the excuse that it would damage the other contributors and so they've "just" banned any future Zak's works).
On top of this, he had to scrap a big incoming product on which Zak was working and was already in an advanced state, and then Covid hits.

That was a triple-whammy, and it's likely he'd not have been in this trouble if not for being hit by multiple catastrophes simultaneously.

Quote from: Luca;1140207Looks like LotFP could yet survive:
Video is 2 hours but the relevant info is in the first 10 minutes. No solid numbers but he does say if he wanted, he could probably now walk away without huge debts.

Anyway, I think most of you are being way too hard with him. There were 3 things going on simultaneously during these last 2 years:

- creation of an US storefront with dedicated warehouse

The first one makes complete sense once you hear him say (in the previous video) that 80% of his profits come from sales from his own site. I'm guessing it's due to it being (so far) the only way to get physical books plus not having to give a cut to anyone else as it happens for digital sales on Drivethru.

The US Storefront is essential. Drivethru and any other PoD delivery service is expensive and cuts deeply into profits. Shipping here in the U.S. is reasonable, but since the U.S. Postal Service dropped out of a sweet postal union shipping price agreement last year, International shipping has become insanely expensive. My average International shipping costs have gone up 400% since last year... Might be able to ship in bulk and avoid that robbery on the high seas. Throw in the new Tariffs, and well...

If you have your own printing service and reasonable shipping you can survive as a  RPG publisher. Also happy to hear he has the financial reserves to handle the debt.

Quote from: Lynn;1140203A positive note this morning:

Product Silent Legions has shipped.
Tracking Number: 924199999166555830101XXXX (it may take up to 24 hours for this tracking number to become valid)
Date Shipped: 2020-07-15
Shipped via: USPS

So it took almost exactly the 22 or so days extra delay. Assuming this isn't BS like your Pre-Shipment

Still says pre-shipment...literally one month has passed, no books. That is just stupid.

Quote from: Brad;1140232Still says pre-shipment...literally one month has passed, no books. That is just stupid.

Have you tried calling?  That's just crazy.

Quote from: Lynn;1140326Have you tried calling?  That's just crazy.

Was gonna contact support today, got side tracked, and look what showed up in the mail...finally.

Quote from: Brad;1140420Was gonna contact support today, got side tracked, and look what showed up in the mail...finally.

It is insanity with shipping right now. I ordered two used novels of Amazon.ca first week of May 2020 and they both arrived last week nor on the same day.

Quote from: sureshot;1140495It is insanity with shipping right now. I ordered two used novels of Amazon.ca first week of May 2020 and they both arrived last week nor on the same day.

if you had ask anyone in 2000 if they thought that doing business on the Internet would be a serious contender in the retail business you would have been laughed off the street.  This year though, retail has taken a dire hit, and there is such a jump in online sales that there is a shortage of shipping and transportation companies to fulfill the demand. Now would be a good time to buy a delivery fleet of vehicles and arrange to deliver products purchased online.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1140499if you had ask anyone in 2000 if they thought that doing business on the Internet would be a serious contender in the retail business you would have been laughed off the street.  This year though, retail has taken a dire hit, and there is such a jump in online sales that there is a shortage of shipping and transportation companies to fulfill the demand. Now would be a good time to buy a delivery fleet of vehicles and arrange to deliver products purchased online.

Funny thing is at my previous job I had to do follow-up with customers to see how well that delivery and those that delivered them measured up. One specific shipping and transportation companies would always get negative reviews about their drivers. In Winter drivers are supposed to wear special soles to avoid damaging the interior of homes about 80%+ of the time they just ignored the clients wishes and were and/or also rude to them. If it could be proven that it was due to driver negligence we offered compensation and the delivery company had to pay for damages. While also hiring anyone who could drive with zero to negative social skills so again they would be refunded the transportation fee. Many of the people who take these kind of jobs don't realize how physically demanding it can be.  

On the other hand their clients also have highly unrealistic expectations on what, when something will be delivered. 30+c, of snow fell overnight you can bitch, moan and complain all you want it's not coming the next day. Scouring the internet for the cheapest, biggest, flat screen perfect you find one good. Hopefully the manufacturer has lots of stock because if not your getting another TV not at the same price. Not to mention it's you as the consumer to make sure the stairs are clean and safe for the delivery people to bring the item to your home. They are NOT going to clean the snow, dirt, debris, etc. No one cares of you walked on the same debris safely they are not going to take any risks delivering the product. As well as to mention if the stairs are small or the areas to bring the item in requires a two man or four man team. As again NO one cares if you think it's safe and if it's not the item is not delivered.

Long story short in my new job I found out that the terrible shipping company went bankrupt due to Covid.