DELIVERABLES!
over 3 years ago – Tue, Sep 27, 2022 at 02:45:24 PM

Hello There!

THE BOOKS ARE OFF TO THE PRINTERS. I know it’s been said, many times, many ways, but now this project truly IS out of our hands. All that matters now is how fast the Printer will be able to print all the things we need and, hoping against hope, you will all have your lovely hardcovers of Murka’s trilogy in your sweet, sweet nerdy hands by the holidays!

Which like, yay! Supposedly the Don is going to make another run at the Crown this election cycle so just think how relevant all those stale memes will be. It’s like they’ve been reheated, or refried. Mmmmm refried memes.

If you want more of the nitty gritty, written by someone with less of a penchant for using the word penchant, check out this post by Bailey in the Chromatic Gamut Kickstarter that explains it all! (Link to bailey’s update).

What’s Next?

Really, truly, the next thing that happens is that come (the inferior to halloween) holiday season, you should have your books. We estimate no later than the end of December for physical copies to arrive, depending on where you live! We’ll be able to provide a more clear schedule when we get one from the printers.

After that, we’ve got a number of things in the pipeline that we are excited to share with you but CAN’T just yet. However Come early 2023, look out for [TEXT REDACTED BY ORDER OF SALIEN WELF].

Huh. That was weird. Anyway, I wanted to tell you about what’s coming next, the [TEXT REDACTED BY ORDER OF SALIEN WELF. FURTHER ATTEMPTS TO DISSEMINATE CLASSIFIED INFORMATION WILL LEAD TO E.D.G.E. TROOPERS BEING DISPATCHED TO YOUR LOCATION.]

Ohhh, Uhh... Well, nevermind, I guess. More on that later!

Conclusion

As always, your support, understanding, and frankly, general excellence has been a balm in the burning times. You, our supporters, mean everything to us. If we’ve been less than forthcoming with updates, please understand it’s because I’ve had 6 jobs in the past 2 years, caught covid at least twice (and had several more scares), and everyone else has been hard at work making the things you gave us money for the best they possibly can.

So thank you for giving us all that opportunity,

Brad and the Action Fiction Faction

Post Scriptum:

WANNA EXPRESS YOUR ANGER IN PERSON? WANNA GIVE US A HIGH FIVE? WANNA PUNCH JARON IN THE FACE?! You can legally do 2 of those 3 things at PAX Unplugged* 2022! We’ll be there and we’ll have a booth, hopefully with books and signage in tow! If not, we’ll be there and probably have things you can throw at us, and swag! Come find us in our booth OR come to one of our panels (we hope to be hosting at least 2!)


*provided they keep and enforce their current health strictures, as public health remains something to which we are committed.

Errata Edits Complete! New PDFs will be available soon!
over 3 years ago – Sat, Jul 30, 2022 at 11:54:33 PM

Greetings, fam!

It’s ya boi, Jaron! I don’t get to write many of these things, so I’m excited to talk to you today. I spend most of my time tugging at all the invisible behind-the-scenes strings that make a business “go,” or I spend most of my time editing, or writing and developing shiny new stuff. For most of this year, it was editing Murka stuff, but as we mentioned in our last update, our editing was reaching its final phases. I’m happy to report to you all that those errata updates are now completed!

So what does that mean?

Good question, me-pretending-to-be-a-backer-for-perspective! It means that we’ve corrected all the misspellings and misquotes and balance issues and typos that we found in the PDF for R&R, and now our layout artist is laying out a brand new version of the PDF that will be free of those errors! This is the version of the PDF that we will be sending to printers.

Right now, we’re discussing printing options for a few different printers and manufacturers. This is the part that I sort of dislike the most, for a few reasons:

1. It isn’t very fun or exciting
2. We’re so close to a finished product I can taste it, but the final steps will remain out of my hands and in the hands of our very capable printing team
3. It precedes SO MUCH WAITING while books get printed and then travel all around the world
4. It makes my wallet cry

Okay okay, but when will we get our books???

We are currently estimating books will arrive stateside in November, and will arrive to your homes before the end of the year! We know you’ve been waiting for… *checks notes* almost two years, and we appreciate the patience you’ve shown us immensely. This was our first expansion to the Murka universe, and it saw us through some IMMENSE changes. From expanding our team of Action Fictioners from 3 at the beginning of R&R to 9 (we most recently gained an art director, Bianca Papalardo, who has been contributing art to the world of Murka since our first book!), to the global pandemic affecting printing and shipping costs, to developing a whole second expansion while this one went through its edits.

We have learned so much, and we are so excited to continue to bring you amazing games from so many wonderful minds, talented writers, and incredible artists. We’ll keep you posted on future updates, like when we nail down more specific dates, when we’ve chosen our printer, and when the errata’d PDFs are available for download through Backerkit.

OH ONE MORE THING!!!

We got our webstore up and running, so for anybody who may have missed our Kickstarter and would like to pick up a PDF of any of our Murka supplements, they’re now available on our webstore! Check out www.ActionFiction.com for those.

Also, I’m excited to inform you that this may be the first thing I’ve ever written without using the em dash. Everyone at AF teases me for using it—which is fair, I use it a lot—but this time I…

Wait…

Damn it. Oh well. Maybe next time.

All my love, life, time, and effort,

Jaron R. M. Johnson and the Action Fiction Faction

Some Shipping Info and Errata-Edits
over 3 years ago – Mon, Jun 20, 2022 at 03:56:48 PM

HELLO FRIENDS!

After a momentary leave of absence due to capitalism crushing my soul, I HAVE RETURNED! I hope you all are doing excellently, moreso because I bring you glad tidings:

Post-Errata Edits on both R&R and CG will officially begin very soon!

I know that many of you are likely frustrated to hear that there are yet more edits to be waded through. However, getting to all of these edits tends to take at maximum 2 editing sessions, as opposed to the literal months that pre-weeds and final edits took.

But Mx. Brad, What’s Errata?

Errata is a word derived from the same latin root that we get the word “error,” and it has come to mean “all the stuff that the writers of the book need to clarify.” We released R&R a little bit ago and since then, you have all been giving us fantastic feedback regarding everything from balancing to grammar to art styles in our discord. We’ve taken all of that feedback and put it on a list. During errata edits, we go through the book implementing these important changes you’ve pointed out, and THEN we send it off to be printed and shipped.

As a reminder, to save costs on shipping, AND ensure you have all the Murka physical copies you desire, we will be sending both R&R and CG to be printed and shipped together. This means a couple things.

1. YOU SHOULD HAVE A PDF OF BOTH R&R AND CG IF YOUR PLEDGE LEVEL GAVE YOU ONE. If you do not have such a pdf, and your pledge level says you should, we will rectify that for you. Please send us a message here, a DM on twitter, an email at [email protected], or ping one of our mods in our discord and we will rectify that for you as soon as possible.
   
2. If you have PDF copies of either CG or R&R and have something you want fixed about them, you have until 11:59pm eastern time on the 23rd of June to send them to us for them to make it onto the Errata-editing agenda. After that eratta, rule clarifications, and word-of-god rulings will be kept exclusively in the proper channel on our discord.
   
3. You will very likely have your books in the next couple months. It would be much, much sooner, but shipping in this industry is an absolute nightmare and there is, unfortunately, precious little we can do about it except try to get the process started as soon as possible. Please believe us when we say that we are doing all in our power to do that.

Just one of MANY nightmares surrounding this book

Conclusion

As always, your support in these endeavors has been absolutely fundamental to getting us to where we are now. We are so very close to the end of this process and that you all have stuck with us through it has been so encouraging, so we say it all the time, but once more thank you.

I hope you can soon hold in your hands the books that we’ve made together,

Sincerely,

Brad Roberts and the Action Fiction Faction.

The Eagle Has Landed! I Repeat, The Eagle Has Landed!!! [PDFs Released]
almost 4 years ago – Fri, Apr 01, 2022 at 03:43:51 PM

 The PDF of Monsters of Murka: Restaurants & Retail has been released! 

Seriously folks, check your inboxes RIGHT NOW because if you backed at a level that receives it (which most every level does), a PDF of Monsters of Murka: Restaurants & Retail should be in there. If not, please reach out to us. Preferably on Discord, but here will work just as well!

What that means:

It means we’re done! Remember how we said the book was, for the most part, out of our hands from here on out? That’s even more true now, because they’re in YOUR hands! 

In the next 24-48 hours, another survey will be coming out from BackerKit, confirming all of your addresses and charging the shipping for those who got physical books so that, once the physical books are printed, our fulfillment team can ship it straight to y’all. We’ll make sure to keep updating you as the shipping process continues, but that information will come as fast as we ourselves get updates, and the way shipping is in this particular industry right now, that could be frustrating.

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Here’s an article we think is a pretty detailed explanation of the whole situation, but please believe us when we say that we are continuing to work as hard as we can to put everything we can into your hands.

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Conclusion

Look, I know we say all the time that you all are a vital part of the process. However, it’s really important not just to me, but to everyone involved in Action Fiction, that you know that the product you have in your inbox right now ABSOLUTELY would not exist were it not for you. You have been such an amazing, supportive community. Many of you have come to the Kickstarter to leave the team words of encouragement, and have been so understanding when we’ve had to delay to avoid crunch culture, or to address a team member’s needs. Thank you so much for that.

The sentiment that has been going around our work Discord is the same from everyone, but I think JB (@DropTheDie on the bird app, and our esteemed editor/layout artist) expressed it best when he said:

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“I just hope people like it. It’s been a hell of a 2 years, so if this makes anyone feel good - it’s worth it”

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That’s how all of us here in the Action Fiction Faction feel, so while you’re reading all the horrors we’ve made for you in this book, please know that every drop of blood, sweat, and espresso-infused chocolate milk spilled has all been in an attempt to live up to the sheer amount of support and belief and grace you all have provided to us.

So, from the very bottoms of our hearts, the hearts of our bottoms, and in the wryest, sincerest way I can possibly express it:

  Thank you, and enjoy.

Brad Roberts, Jaron R. M. Johnson, CJ Thomas, and the Action Fiction Faction.

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EDIT: Some emails are being delayed. If you don't see the email yet, log in to BackerKit and see if it lets you download the PDF from there. If not, reach out and we'll get you sorted out! Also, we know there are a small amount of errors we're seeing now. We will collect feedback and release an updated PDF with (fewer) errors in it next week!

Lift off!
about 4 years ago – Sun, Mar 13, 2022 at 01:56:24 AM

WE HAVE LIFTOFF Y’ALL!

Hey friends, it’s been a second since the last update, but that’s mostly because our contractors have been hard at work for the last few weeks trying to finish the book, and guess what?

We Have a PDF. That’s right, we officially have a Version 0 PDF. Now, I have been threatened with a knife by the editor against promising any delivery dates, and as I like my throat right where it is, I am going to maintain my silence. However, If I were to HAPPEN to drop a cleverly ciphered estimated PDF delivery date and say that the key is somewhere in this update, nobody could fault me for that right? ...Right?

kiw wae bh dsgmi

Oh boy how’d that get there?!

For those of you wondering, a Version 0 PDF is about as close as we get to the real thing before the actual real thing goes live. The only thing left to do NOW is to go over it one more time. As we found out with the original version of Murka, sometimes when you compress things, it reverts back to a previous form or messes with the orientation of the art. So, we’ll need to do a cover to cover read to try and catch all those errors left by the InDesign gremlins

For those of you who are more visually-focused, we also have a couple of screengrabs of the Version 0 that we’re going to put right here.

Conclusion

It has been a long road, significantly longer than I think any of us expected, but as I say often at the end of these, we are so very close to the end and there is absolutely NO way we could have gotten here at all without YOUR support.

Be on the lookout for the update that says the PDFs are in your inbox coming in the very near future, as that will likely ALSO have our final survey for updating and confirming the small things like where you want your things shipped, size changes, and the like.

Sincerely,

Bard and the Action Fiction Faction