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The World of Warcraft Diary

Created by John Staats

If you missed Kickstarter's most-funded nonfiction book in history, you can order it here! The WoW Diary was written by the game's first level designer and covers the story behind making Vanilla WoW. With over 130 behind-the-scenes images and 336 full-color pages, it is the must-have book about game development.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

PDF issue is getting fixed
over 5 years ago – Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 09:11:02 PM

I figured out source of the PDF problem. 

Everything with the UV spot color is "printing" solid white instead of invisible, effectively blocking out the images. I have NO idea why this isn't the case on the PDF when it's viewed on my computer. But that's not important, other than it slows down my testing process.  

I'll make a new PDF, send it to another machine to verify that I've fixed the issue. I'll let you know when it's fixed.

Thanks!

Email Issues
over 5 years ago – Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 02:20:54 AM

The mystery behind backers not receiving emails might have something to do with people logging into Kickstarter through Facebook accounts using old emails. I wish Kickstarter wouldn't allow this, because it could be the source of many headaches. 

Some backers just aren't getting mails from Backerkit for some reason. I know this because Friday night I sent a Mailchimp message to everyone who hasn't completed a survey (again, check your spam/junk folders), and many of the non-respondents have already replied. If you've filled out your survey, you wouldn't have gotten this email. 

I cannot help if you haven't received a survey. The customer support staff who can are reachable at https://thewowdiary.backerkit.com/faq#contact-us -- but first check your junk/spam folders for a message I sent Friday night called "The WoW Diary Survey Link."

I'm putting together a file for electronic delivery, which I'll issue to my backers through Backerkit's delivery system. I've never used it before, so it might take a day or two of monkeying around with Backerkit tools/support staff. eBooks and PDFs should be in your hands later this week! 

Next week, I fly out west to be on press for The WoW Diary

All surveys have been sent!
over 5 years ago – Wed, Oct 17, 2018 at 02:58:45 AM

My surveys asked only for addresses and whether you wanted extra copies.

The surveys look like this.
The surveys look like this.

If you haven't received an email asking these things, please tell the Backerkit customer reps. They're very good at fixing things. It's what they live for: 

 https://thewowdiary.backerkit.com/faq#contact-us

I sent the mechanical layouts for the book, cover, slip case, bookmarks to the printers today. I'll send the end sheets and supplemental booklet later this week. Their tech staff will chew over my templates and let me know if anything wasn't correctly set up. Next week I'll get a round of proofs and then we'll be printing on Halloween. 

I'm collecting delivery addresses in surveys today
over 5 years ago – Tue, Oct 16, 2018 at 12:58:20 AM

The "smoke test" revealed an issue. Backerkit's automated system was pointing backers toward a placeholder file, but this shouldn't be the case any longer. I deleted it. Fill out your surveys but ignore any download codes. I'll send codes and download links for eBook/PDF files in a week or so. 

I'm emailing surveys in batches because each takes a few seconds to send. You'll receive a survey email within the next 12 hours. I minimized the questions (extra copies, upgrades, and delivery addresses), to make the survey as unobtrusive as possible.

If all goes as planned, this is the only thing you'll need to do for your rewards. ;)

Smoke test is Live
over 5 years ago – Mon, Oct 15, 2018 at 01:49:30 AM

If don't get an email of the survey, don't panic, it's another delay in the works. 

Since I have a lot of backers, I need to do what is called a "smoke test," which is emailing only 5% of my backers with surveys to foolproof our data collection and store configuration. If everything is fine then I can email surveys to everyone tomorrow or Tuesday. Thanks for your patience.