Tea time - Everything that went wrong with our physical merch
Featuring several mental breakdown
Hello hello, as promised here is all my struggles for ordering and shipping the physical rewards. I am more salty than the dead sea, so don’t read if you want positive energy lmao
Me during the whole thing
Some context
We ran a Kickstarter campaign for Imperial Grace in May 2023 with 3 physical rewards, a sticker sheet, a bookmark set and a physical lore book. They were all designed to be able to ship in a flat enveloppe (since it has some special rate).
The stickers were printed immediately, and for the bookmark I decided to wait the lore book (since it was the same printing company).
In 2026, after anoter threat to increase tariff and the world in fire, I got scared and decided to shift my priority into the lore book to produce and ship everything asap. This is the story.
Part I : Producing the rewards
When I decided in January that I had to ship everything asap, I happily contacted again the people we had an agreement with before the Kickstarter. Of course, I was fully prepare to a price increase due to inflation, but it was a real cold shower.
The printer didn’t want to print the hardcover anymore, or do as we initially planed for the bookmarks (printing a A4 page and then cutting them which was cheaper then printing 5 design individually), and the shipping company never answered me, I learn through the press they were going bankrupt. With everything crumbling under my feet I had to start from scratch.
The book
I liked the first printer because they were local (like literally in the next city) so ecologically it was the best option, but I could still find a European one (Italy). At least this change had one positive aspect because the new printer does some kind of gold foil and I freaking love gold foil, so ultimately our lore book have gold foil in the cover and the result is so pretty.
It was the first picture of the book I found, and it's perfect.
The bookmarks
As you may have understand I love gold foil, so after I discover it wasn’t that expensive with our printer, I HAD A VISION: bookmarks with gold foil instead of the numerical gilded border. I crave them so bad I spend hours trying to make it possible but the printer don’t want to do it :( They can do invitation card (which are 10cm width so way too wide for a bookmark) so I considered the option of just doing that, putting two bookmark on one thing and have them cut but no one want to cut them. I called every freaking printer around, they all have the cutting machine they just don’t want to bother to even give me a price. I then considered cutting them myself with a semi-professional guillotine paper, I don’t mind doing the ~750 sheets, but I’m too afraid to cut them wrong, like having edges unclean, not perpendicular lines, or to strain the foil with all the manipulations etc. Of course, I also looked for other printers that could do it, but their prices are 4x times more expansive so it’s not realistic…
So ultimately we got normal bookmarks like peasants, but they also turned out quite pretty in my opinion.
French administrative stuff
France wouldn’t be France without ton of paperwork to do, typically while doing extra research, I discovered I needed an ISBN for it even if it’s not sold in library, some websites say you don’t but they are wrong. The problem is that it takes a long time (you know France administration) and it’s not free, so it’s just another extra 50€ surprise and 3 more weeks delays, I tried to get it done ASAP but our publisher was at the hospital and couldn’t deal with things sooner. We also had other things to do like asking for an EORI number for the customs service and creating pro account at LaPoste the french shipping company (more on that later).
Also, as a book lover with a librarian degree, I was sad I couldn't deposit myself the book at the French national library anymore, we can only ship it now :v
The test copy
I received the test copy for the lore book a week after ordering it, it was almost perfect, I just had a few images too close to the border in my taste, one that was too light and a discrepancy in the page number. (the page in the right were in the left and vice versa). Easy fix.
I also found the bookmarks were a little too flexible and fragile to my taste so I ordered some transparent protecting sleeve to make sure they didn’t get damaged in the transport, I wanted our backer to be able to use them and keep them a long time. Plus I discovered later that it helped with the custom, since they were packed together I could declare them at one item.
I weighted everything and I was just at 500g, perfect, it was my shipping bracket, everything was on the right track, it was time to order our 200 copies.
Part II : Ordering the lore book
Honestly I was trembling a little when I ordered all the copies, since it’s extremely expansive, I made sure to double check everything but then, my publisher (who handle our KS money) told me me there was a problem with the price: it was higher than planned.
We had to look into it for half a hour before we understand the problem. Basically, when you order a test copy to this printer, you pay for it fully (and one book is very expansive it was like 70€ with shipping, the price per exemplary drops significantly when you order more), and you get a coupon to use on your real order to be refund. The thing is, they have a 10% discount on every order which are not emergency (so more than a week before delivery) and applying the coupon removed the 10% discount which was higher than the price of our test copy. So we had to chose between the two and pay a little more than expected.
After that, I had to upload the file, and that’s when things get really difficult. In the two weeks separating the test copy to our real order they changed all their interface and software, and suddenly they were rejecting my file because “non compatible fonts”, after a lot of research I understood it was all the effects on text (like outlines and so on), which are everywhere.
I still see myself here at 10PM trying to send my fucking file white as a sheet because I am here wondering if I have to order another test copy if I do significant changes on the design, plus we are supposed to provide the file within 24h and I don’t know what happen if we don’t.
I tried flattening the file but it was creating super shitty artifacts on the text. Out of despair I tried their assistance bot, and then miracle, I am sent to a real human despite the ungodly hour, here, Idriss my bro, with a connection so bad I suspect it’s like 4G manages to help me and flatten the text in a way that looks decent, it just took us like 2 hours for me to send him the file and him to send it back to me. After an extra back and forth because their software detected a problem, that was it, the order was placed.
Receiving the books
I thought my trouble were over, but no. Because now, I had to received 200 lore book in my tiny apartment, it’s a special transporter who does that, and after several delays, I finally receive my tracking number… which is not working. I have no way of knowing when they will deliver it, so I had to contact Idriss once again which told me they would be delivered a Tuesday.
Well, it’s not ideal, as you know, I work full time and you can’t just have a 100 kl packages on a pick-up, so I had to ask for a day off at my work, except I am a teacher so I don’t really have “day off” I can use at will. It was a whole negotiation, but I got the permission and I waited at my house anxiously the whole day…. And they never arrived. I was in full agony the whole day and THOSE FUCKING LIARS NEVER CAME.
They arrived like flowers the next day when I was fortunately at home. Finally, I had to carry all the boxes one by one to my apartment because the elevator couldn’t fit the whole palet. Later in the afternoon, I opened the boxes in live, some cardboards where heavily damages so I wanted to double check there were nothing crushed. Fortunately they were carefully wrapped so all the little piles inside seemed intact.
I discovered later that 9 had printing fault on the cover (like wrinkles) so I had to do a reclamation and they were shipped about a month later, but since I ordered more than I needed for safety it wasn’t urgent anyway.
PART III : Shipping cost
I knew the shipping would be more expansive because of USA tariff and just general inflation, I had made some math and since we collected a little more than we needed we were still pretty good just ~600€ above. Thank god, books are exempted of tariff, they still need to be declared to the customs but you don’t pay taxes on it.
So, here am I am preparing my first packages, weighting it out of reflex… and realizing it’s now 520g. Flabbergasted, I went to my local postal office, wondering if my scale was broken but the number is the same.
Turns out, between the test copy and the real ones, they reinforced the covers to straighten the spine and avoid creasing, which weight 20g more. And those extra grams, those fucking extra grams literally ruined us.
The packaging was only 10g, so even if we used something else less protective we would still be over the 500g bracket. And there is no 750g bracket, it’s directly 1kl. So, for 20g more, we were paying 1kl packages.
To give you an idea shipping to USA 500g cost 18,30€, shipping 1kl cost 27,10€. I was devastated. I tried calling every service I could to figure out a solution, but everything else was more expansive or not shipping to USA. We had no other choice than bite the bullet and watch all our safety net being eaten by this tiny little mishap.
Since it wasn’t devastating enough, I also realized the service I wanted to use to ship the smaller packages weren’t available to the USA due to the tariff situation (which would have cost us around 9€), I had to use the same service than for the larger packages and their smallest bracket is 250g so 15,30€ for something which weight less than 50g package included.
Ultimately, we collected around 2 400€ for shipping fee, and we ended up paying 4 345€ for it, when I said it ruined us, it really did. Since the bookmark set were at 5€ we literally lost money on every sale we did for it(at least when shipped to USA.)
Shipping
You think it is over? Oh no! First, we discover we need a special tax number to send to UK so we had to apply for it, then, for shipping to France I need to use a different service, and this one require to deposit your packages to a specific point and despite repeating multiple time that I wasn’t in the same region than our publisher, they still give us the wrong address and it took weeks to be fixed.
We also had one backer in middle east to whom we couldn’t send their packages because the ongoing war but they were kind enough to let it go so while I am deeply sorry it wasn’t a problem in the end thanks to their kindness.
And thank god I had gentle, patient backer, because our troubles were not over!
Most of our packages are international, so after I swallowed my salt for all the money we lost, after literally 8 HOURS to import all the addresses and custom document on their broken lagy website, we package every order and ship them on a Friday at my local post office.
On Monday, I realize the tracking number are still not activated, they are marked as “to deposit”, I contact my referent and they give me a number, I call, they tell me they will “investigate the question” and I never hear about them again. For days, I stare at the website every day and all the packages are just lost.
Fortunately, when the first backer received their order it unlocked the tracking for everyone and I could relax. But you know what they did?
YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DID ? Two weeks later, when most of the packages were already received and tracked properly, those incompetent idiot at Laposte, they send me a message saying “we haven’t find your packages, they are lost, we will not reimburse you a dime sorry”.
Those incapable morons, not only their tracking service can’t find packages that are literally back in the system, but apparently they can just wave of their incompetence and never pay back the thousand in shipping fee and merchandise if they do lost them for real??? This is straight up evil, I hate and despise them with all my heart.
There is still a few packages that haven’t arrived yet, so I hope they are not lost and I pray for their safety, but this is mostly over now.
In conclusion, those two months shipping merchandise were among the most horrible of my life, and the worst experience as game dev I ever had, but still I learn a lot from it.
Mostly that I shouldn’t ever do physical good I cannot produce immediately after the campaign’s end. The world is too crazy to ship something years later like I did.
Honestly, I love our lore book, it’s so beautiful, but if I could get back in time I wouldn’t include them in the campaign. Of course, back in the day I really genuinely thought our game would be finished quickly, now, I know I cannot trust my sense of deadline when it is too far away, but we are living really troubled time and I am really glad this is behind me because who knows what other crazy thing will happen in the future.
Anyway, now I am back 100% focusing on the game, after all the stress and negativity I feel good again. Once I accepted the great money loss, what was left was how grateful I am for the kindness and patience of our backers which were nothing but sweet and supportive during this whole ordeal.
