LESS THAN 30 MINUTES LEFT!
almost 3 years ago – Thu, Jul 01, 2021 at 02:42:54 AM

HEEELLLLOOOOO LOVELY BACKERS!

They said it was impossible! They said it couldn’t be done in 24 hours! BUT THEY WERE WRONG!

We, my dear backers, are GETTING PINS!

You read me right. You all came out in such incredible numbers—pulling in friends, up-pledging, being general badasses—that we unlocked our final, dream stretch goal! Imagine the entire art team squealing in unison (a tricky thing in five different time zones). But WEEEEE!

I’ll get to designing these buggers the moment I sleep for… at least three days solid.

BUT BEFORE THAT, we also have the final results of the Booster Pack voting. Here’s what you all voted for:

If you’re all too tired to read that (I get ya), here it is in a list:

· The Lovers: Hades and Persephone (Greek Myth)

· Death: The Masque of the Red Death (Edgar Allan Poe)

· The Star: Amaterasu (Japanese Myth)

· The Moon: The Rabbit of the Moon (Far Eastern Folktales)

· The Magician: Anansi (Akan, West African, and Caribbean Folklore)

If anyone wants to add this booster pack to their pledge, it’s just five buckeroos in the add-on section (here’s a link to the FAQ section, if you look at the final question, it will walk you through how to select an add-on!).

Okay friends. Less than thirty minutes left! Thank you all for making this dream a reality. It’s been such a pleasure to bring together all these amazing storytellers, work with our art team, and run this campaign with all of you. THANK YOU. You’re making a lot of very sleepy nonprofit geeks very, very happy.

Cheers,

Dani, Helen, and the Brinkeroos

Fancier Books, Enamel Pins, and One Angry Black Cat!
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Jun 30, 2021 at 11:13:43 PM

Hello lovely backers!

Oh wow oh wow. We are so overjoyed and grateful and sleepy and in awe of this last push! Thank you so much for all your kind remarks, for dragging your friends into the fold, and for being so insightful with your booster pack votes!

Goodness, we just couldn’t dream of a better group of backers. THANK YOU.

Alright, we’re rocking very little sleep, so let me attempt to be as coherent as possible...

NEW STRETCH GOALS

Right, well, you blew through our fancy ribbon so quickly I ended up making the unlock graphic only hours after making the locked one! What fancy book boxes we will all have!

Next up, as promised, is a bit more swanking out of the big book. This hardbacked baby is not only gonna rock a new design from our artist Edge and be covered in gold foil designs, but if we hit this goal, the book will have GORGEOUS gilded gold edges just like your deck!

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!

I can’t believe I’m even gonna type this, but apparently, I get to toss out a fun stretch goal that I’ve so been craving ALL CAMPAIGN. Helen with her big, practical brain kept reminding me that it adds a hell of an expense fulfillment…but you all have been SO INCREDIBLE and pushed this beyond our wildest dreams, so I FINALLY got the greenlight from the practical Brit to reveal…

Enamel pins, my friends! BEAUTIFUL PINS! If we unlock this goal (and it’s a big goal), this will NOT be an add-on. Oh no. As a HUGE thank you to all you amazing backers, we’ll be giving it away FOR FREE to every single backer backing for a physical deck.

If we make this goal, I’ll mock a few pins up for you all to vote on (you know how much we love voting). 

Here’s what the artists and I are thinking for now (a mix of favorite characters from the cards and the cool Literary Tarot symbols Sam and Edge made!). But we also think it would be cool if all the minor suit artists designed little gold pins for their suits (imagine a cool lantern for the suit of light, a badass quill, dripping with new ideas, parchment roll holding all our secrets, etc). 

If you have ideas, dear backers, do toss them in the comments! I always love to hear from you all!

NEW ART REVEALS

As I just revealed a whole slew of new cards yesterday, the art team have only just started cranking out the next batch, but I do have two to show off (one that’s not completely done yet, but I just LOVE it). Let the guessing game begin!

You see the one with the menacing cat? I can tell you that the phenomenal Benjamin Percy paired that baby. If you haven’t read any of Ben’s books or comics, he is INCREDIBLY talented, and way back when were just an emerging little nonprofit publisher, Ben was the first big celeb to take a chance on us, and he’s been a powerhouse of support and encouragement for our mission ever since.

Thus, please forgive me some shameless pushing, but Ben has a new book that just came out—The Ninth Metal—and it’s just as brilliant as you’d expect. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what Stephen King said about it:

“[In THE NINTH METAL] debris from a comet drops a fabulously valuable new metal on Northfall, MN., turning it into a bloody, brawling boomtown. Great characters, fine writing, totally engrossing.”
—Stephen King

The point is, if it strikes your fancy, give it a try! It's rad!

IN OTHER NEWS

If you missed it, here’s some really lovely things from the interwebs:

• No big deal or anything, but Stephen Fry tweeted about us (SQUEEEEEEEEEL)
• Pat Rothfuss wrote a RAD blog post about his Fool pairing
• Erin Morgenstern continues to be charming as hell
• Backer Bradley Beacham informed us that we now have the second largest number of backers for any tarot campaign (only after the amazing Seven's Alleyman campaign) AND backer Richard De Angelis added that we're the most backed totally original deck. So that's...you know...mindbogglingly cool!

Thanks again for being so incredible! Your enthusiasm for this project and our nonprofit mission are so humbling and amazing. THANK YOU!

Cheers,

Dani, Helen, and the Brinkeroos

P.S. Don’t forget that Booster Pack votes are due tonight at midnight PT! Here’s the Google Poll link for ease.

Patrick Rothfuss Tier and Livestream today!
almost 3 years ago – Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 12:40:04 AM

Hello lovely backers!

We try to not bother you all during the weekend, so I promise to make this short!

GENTLE INSANITIES AFOOT!

Patrick Rothfuss—badass author of the The Name of the Wind and man behind the Fool Card pairing—ALSO runs an incredibly cool nonprofit called WorldBuilders. Uniting geeks from around the globe, they raise funds for education, opportunity, and sustainable self-sufficiency for families and communities worldwide. In short: I’m a big fan.

And although it’s the last days of our campaign and the tail end of Pat’s fundraising cycle—and neither of us should be attempting ANYTHING else—we asked ourselves “hey, what would Don Quixote do?”

And the answer was simple. If there’s a windmill to be vanquished, we should charge in!

Thus, we are revealing our “Foolish Together Package.” In this special tier, not only will you get the Literary Tarot Box set, but Pat helped create a fun exclusive postcard using the beautiful art from the Fool Card!

If that's not cool enough, 50% of post-project sales from this tier will go to WorldBuilders!

To get the word out, Pat and I will be doing a livestreaming today at 5pm EST. If you wanna hear Pat and I talk about the Fool pairing, how much we love Don Quixote, the origins of Don’s gold helmet (and very likely hear Pat sing some songs from the musical), tune in! It’s 100% free and 200% irreverent!

Oh, and for anyone at the Patron Package, although this isn’t technically a stretch goal, we made sure Pat’s postcard will automatically be added to your treasure trove of goodies! We’ll also make a donation to Worldbuilders for every Patron!

STRETCH GOALS

Wow oh wow, friends! WE BROKE 600k! Not only does this mean we’ve OFFICIALLY raised more for the charity in this campaign than ANY OTHER FUNDRAISER in our 14-year history, but it also means that we unlocked the totally rad tarot cloth!

For anyone wanting to add this to your pledge, but is struggling to do so, here’s the link to the instructions Seven and LoopyCat wrote up (last of the FAQs)!

We’ll be back tomorrow with our next stretch goal, and don’t forget that tonight is the deadline to get your ideas in for the Booster Pack!

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

Cheers,

Dani, Helen, and the Brinkeroos

Stephen Fry, Fulfillment News, & Booster Votes!
almost 3 years ago – Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 12:39:15 AM

Hello lovely backers!

The day has come! We are less than 48 hours from the end of the campaign! And we’re geared up to make the most of it!

First, let’s share some stellar news! I’m overjoyed to welcome these fine new literary folks to the ranks. It’s madness to see so many of my literary heroes in one line up. Damn!

Man, I’m so distracted by that graphic that I keep forgetting how to type. FOCUS DANI!

STRETCH GOALS

After an incredible weekend, spurred on by the 2.5 hour long livestream chat I had with Patrick Rothfuss (if you didn’t join us yesterday, you can watch the video here), we knocked through yet another stretch goal:

Woot! Helen has finally done it! Here’s the skinny on your cheaper international shipping straight from the lassie’s typing fingers:

“Hello friends! We have officially found an option that will allow us to partner with a series of warehouses around the world to drive down the shipping costs for our international backers! As such, I’ve updated the shipping estimates tables accordingly. Since this is based on shipping NOW (instead of next year), I can’t give you the exact penny pricing, but the fulfillment center assures me these are close estimates. But the stonking good news is that this will drive down prices AND ensure all our volunteers’ fingers don’t fall off sending out thousands of decks! Your wallets and our fingers are STOKED.” -Helen

Up next, we’re making all your decks just a bit swankier AND more functional by adding a wee ribbon to your deck holders. Not only will this make these shiny book boxes look EVEN MORE like old tomes pulled from some ancient library, but it will also make it infinitely easier to get the deck out of the box!

BOOSTER VOTING

Speaking of the booster pack, THANK YOU ALL for all of your incredible pairing options. We’ve pored through all of them, checked them for copyright status, and put all the suggestions that were in the public domain in the following Google Poll.

For anyone interested, please get your votes in by midnight PT tomorrow (June 29th).

Small note: Yes, we will include the meaning of the boosters in the big book and free pdf of said big book, so everyone who pledges for digital access or higher will get them!

LAST PUSH!

Aside from rolling out rad stretch goals, answering all your questions, and running endless Kickstarter tech support, our main goal during these last two days will be to get the word out about the campaign! All our authors and artists and editors will be doing posts, and we’ll be calling our grandmothers and accosting strangers at the coffee shop, but if any of you are interested in helping us get the word out, we’d be hella grateful.

1) If you’re active on Twitter, please Tweet out this URL, along with a short note about why you are excited to support this project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brinklit/the-literary-tarot?ref=57t4cq

Make sure to tag @LiteraryTarot (and/or a favorite author) so we can RT!

2) If you are on Facebook, please share that URL far and wide, along with a quick note about why you are backing this campaign!

3) If you are on Instagram and want to spread the word, steal any fun art from the campaign and tag our publishing kiddos (@frictionseries) along with the #LiteraryTarot (so we can help boost!)

4) If you’re not on social media, you are making great life choices and we are full of envy!

ART REVEAL

And you thought I’d get through a whole update without showing you art! AND YOU’D BE WRONG! Let the guessing game begin on these beauties!

Thank you all for an incredible 28 days. So excited to finish strong and so incredibly grateful for all your support and enthusiasm. Woot!

Cheers,

Dani, Helen, and the Brinkeroos

Tarot Cloths, Fulfillment Update, and Lev Grossman’s Pairing Logic
almost 3 years ago – Sat, Jun 26, 2021 at 01:36:36 AM

Hello lovely backers!

TWO NEW stretch goals have been knocked down, so now artist Edge will NOT ONLY be designing us a swanky new book design for the Big Guidebook, but she’ll also get to gold foil that baby up!

Which means it’s time to talk about our next big goal!

New Stretch Goals

For our next stretch goal, we are so excited to reveal something Sam and I have been cooking up all week, based on the suggestions from all your comments. Get ready for a swanky Tarot Cloth!

This gorgeous 20x20 inch flannelette cloth will be silk-screen printed with our beautiful Literary Tarot design pictured above (didn’t Sam just rock that?). I know there is a fair share of tarot-newbies here, so for anyone who’s like “what the hell is a tarot cloth?” it’s a lovely piece of fabric that you lay your cards on top of for a reading. We’ll be unlocking this add-on at $600k for $10. For anyone at the Patron Package level, fret not: you get this added automatically!

Fulfillment News

Helen’s been meeting with everyone and their grandmothers about fulfillment, and she has some good news to report. By partnering with international staffers, we can significantly drive down our shipping costs for Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. As such, we’ve updated our wee table of shipping estimates!

What about shipping to other countries? Helen’s working ferociously on that too. She will hopefully have this all worked out before the campaign ends (as she’s dedicated her week to just stalking the fulfillment centers!). MORE SOON! And thank you for your patience.

Peek Inside the Big Guidebook

As promised, I’m back with a dive into the Big Guidebook. Lev Grossman has been generous enough to allow us to preview his pages early for you all (though we are still toying around with finding the PERFECT quote from Sir Malory, so that might change before we finalize). For anyone who has been following the project since we started pairings back in January, you’ll know that Lev was the very first celeb to sign onto the project, and I’m so tickled by the innovative angle he took for King Arthur:

Since I’m also bananas about the art Sam did for this piece, I thought you all might enjoy a wee glimpse at the process (that I probably shouldn't have stayed up all night making, but I got TOO EXCITED!):

You can also see a full process video of the 20+ WIPs Sam toyed with to make Lev’s card here.

Booster Voting Schedule

So no one misses out on voting for the Boosters, we’re gonna lay out a schedule to make sure everyone can weigh in!

For the Lovers Card, suggested pairings will end tonight at midnight PT. If you wanna add new suggestions, please do so in the comments of Update #6.

With just one week left of the campaign, we’ve opened up the rest of the booster pack suggestions (for Death, The Star, The Magician, and The Moon) in the General Comments. For the sake of organization, we’ve added four comments that are labeled “BOOSTER PACK VOTES” and then the name of each card. If you could add your suggestions as replies to each corresponding comment, that would be AMAZING. The deadline for these four cards is Sunday (27th) at midnight PT.

We will then compile all the most popular pairings into Google polls so everyone can vote before the campaign ends!

Thank you all for your excitement about this booster. We are all enjoying reading all your suggestions and I love the push toward diverse pairings. Really a joy to read!

New Card Reveals

Last thing! 13 Dimension and Comic Beat did lovely reveals of several new cards. For anyone who wants to play the guessing game, here you go…

For anyone who wants to cheat at the guessing game, here’s the 13 Dimension and Comic Beat articles!

Thank you all for your continued support! So excited to reveal more cards and something very cool we have cooking up with Pat Rothfuss.

But Wait, There's More! 

Last thing, friends! We stumbled on another campaign that’s running right now that we really dig. Creative Brendan Marnell (who actually did a card for Seven’s Alleyman deck) launched a really beautiful tarot deck inspired by the natural wonder of the Pacific Northwest. The art is stunning and immediately made me miss the years I spent bouncing around those rain-soaked forests. Here’s a look at the art, all done by Brendan:

If this sparks some PNW nostalgia in your heart, please give it a look. The guidebook even includes a little short fiction for each card, and the two foxes for the Lovers make me smile every time I see them!

Cheers,

Dani, Helen, and the Brinkeroos