Delivery and takeaways
Where we are with everything.
It has been a busy summer here at Red Hook Stories. We have been steadily putting together the new series, which is coming along nicely, and we have been working hard to get all of the Crowley merchandise out the door.
Crowley
As of today, which is a holiday in the UK, everyone who is receiving Crowley merchandise should have had an email from our fulfilment company, Gamesquest, to confirm delivery addresses and, all being well, everything will start to ship in the next few days. As mentioned before, European backers will receive their stuff a little later (hopefully only a week or so later) because of the additional admin required, most of which is now, thankfully, done.
Crowley was our first crowdfund campaign, and the learning curve has been incredibly steep. But learn we have, and we are hoping to put those lessons to good use with The Call of Cthulhu; we are already prepping those items which are not reliant on a finished show so that we can have them manufactured early and store them with the fulfilment company, ready to go. We also now have something of a handle on the EU admin, and many of the licenses etc that we have set up for Crowley will carry over. We also have a much better idea of how long things take to make and ship, and so we can plan accordingly this time. We really want these campaigns to become a well-oiled machine, but there is a LOT of oil required.
Live Show and Cthulhu Release
One of the elements that we have planned for the new series is a live show in London. Christmas shows mean that theatres are booked up in December and therefore we are hoping to secure the venue we want in late January. That's is still an ongoing process but, as people are now returning from their summer holidays, we are hoping to get something locked down this month.
Accordingly, we are likely going to push back the release date of the show until after that time. The plan is to get the show ready to go this year, and then hold onto it while we manufacture the CDs and scriptbooks etc. That should mean that we have everything stored and ready to go by the end of January and we can get all the necessary admin done at the same time.
If that goes according to plan, then the live show will be a real premiere – the first time anyone in the world hears the first two episodes of the show – and we will release the show digitally the following day, or maybe at midnight that night, and ship everything out to backers at the same time. It's an ambitious plan, but that is what we are going to aim for, if the theatre date falls into line. It makes more of an event of the whole thing, as opposed to the drip-feed of release and shipping that happened with Crowley.
Previous seasons in Hi-Res
Between now and then, we are looking into making all previous seasons of The Lovecraft Investigations available to buy as hi-res downloads - they will still be available to stream for free, but those who want to own high-quality versions, or who are understandably nervous about the vagaries of streaming windows, can have their own digital copies which will be DRM-free and can be listened to any time.
Charles Dexter Ward CD book
We are also hoping to release the first of our deluxe CD mediabooks this year, for The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. This will be the same design as the Call of Cthulhu CD set that was part of the recent campaign, so the opportunity will exist to own a full set of these mediabooks as we (slowly!) release all the seasons on this format.
The Village Shop
Finally, we have come to an arrangement with our shipping company that, with a little bit of finessing, will mean that we can start selling physical items in the Village Shop - watch this space for news on that. (Those who missed out on Crowley can already pick up a download of that in the shop).
And that's our news. Keep an eye on this space for updates (subscribe if you are able - even free subscribers get the essential updates). I'm heading back to the grindstone to work on The Call of Cthulhu, which Kennedy and I are very excited for you all to hear.
Matt.