The Bloody Unicorn and Other Delightfully Dark Drinks

Hello, backers!

The surveys for The Bloody Unicorn are just about ready to go. The first step in that is to send out what BackerKit calls a "smoke test," in which they send a small portion of the surveys to a random sprinkling of backers to test it out and make sure there are no glitches that got missed in review.

This has been sent out, so if you got it and have already filled it out, thank you! About half of them are still at large, so please be sure to check your inbox and your spam folder and see if you got one. The ones that have been filled out all seem good, so I should be able to send out the rest of the surveys in just a couple of days!

Friendly reminder to those of you who are getting the "Recipe Card" edition: You are eligible to upgrade that to a recipes-only book at no extra charge. So, when you see the question about upgrading, I just want to make sure everyone knows, that's not an upcharge! And the book will have the photos of the drinks too, just like the cards; just not the stories or the illustrations. Perfect for anyone who just wants the cocktails, but isn't interested in the anthology aspect of the book.

Same goes for anyone who wants to add it on; because you backed the project initially, you can get that recipes-only book for the same cost as if you had just ordered the recipe cards.

Cheers,
Anna

Okay, so I have some news, especially for those of you who backed the Recipe Card Edition tier or got a book box that comes with recipe cards. If you're not sure whether or not that applies to you, don't worry. Surveys will be going out probably within the next week or so, and that will remind you of what you ordered and give you a chance to mix things up, if you want.

First, I want to show you a couple of photos I've taken for the book!

This one is for the Dead New Yorker:


And this one here is for The Bitter Cup:


I'm still tweaking and editing and taking photos, but I'm really pleased with how they're coming out, and I think they're going to be even better in print!

Now the exciting news about the Recipe Card Editions! I initially put that option in there in case anyone *cough* my mom *cough* thought the stories and illustrations were too dark, but still wanted the drink recipes, and cards with photos on one side and recipes on the other seemed like a really practical way to do that, since I thought it wouldn't be enough pages to put into an actual book.

But! And this is exciting . . . I have found a way through the printing company I'll be using for the hard covers, to do a small, lovely little paperback booklet! So, it will have the same content, but in a much easier to use and display format! And this way you'll also get the beautiful cover, designed by Kelley York, since it's a book and not just a stack of cards!

This will be available for anyone who ordered the Recipe Card Edition, at NO ADDITIONAL COST. I want to be very clear about this. Yes, it's a higher end product, but I will not be charging you more for it. Also, if you do, for any reason, really want it in card form instead, don't panic! That will still be available. It will be an option in the survey, once those goes out, to choose whether you want the original format or the cards.

And if you didn't order the cards, because that wasn't really of interest to you, but you do actually want the book, all backers will have the opportunity to add it on in the survey as well!

Hiya, backers! I know we're a little bit behind on the original timeline. There has been some Life happening on the part of me and Summer, the illustrator, but things are moving again, and I'm now looking at getting everything shipped out in July.

Art is happening, photos are happening, page lay-outs are happening! Wheeeeeee! You can expect more updates now that we're really getting close. I just know that I hate it when I get a gazillion updates that basically say absolutely nothing, so I wanted to wait until I had something! 

You can also expect surveys to come your way in the next couple of weeks too, so watch for that!

Thanks for your patience, y'all!

-Anna

Hiya, backers! I just wanted to pop in and share where we're at with The Bloody Unicorn! I know a lot of other Booktopia projects have already fulfilled, but of course this one was always going to be later, since the campaign was specifically to fund more art.

Summer Faught is hard at work creating said art, and I thought you might like to see the process, in action, of creating commissioned art for a book. 

There's generally a lot of back-and-forth in the beginning. I'll give the artist a general idea of what I'm looking for, and they'll very tactfully ask for clarification of pretty much everything, because I am in no way a visual person and have no idea what I'm talking about.

Some artists have a formal questionnaire that they send all of their clients, and others just ask questions specific to this particular commission. 

Once they have all the info they need, they'll send me a concept sketch, often accompanied by some ideas for alternative set-ups, poses, backgrounds, etc. 

For example, this video Summer sent of the concept for A Crapload of Skulls, in which she walks me through what I'm looking at, why she wants to put the dog in this particular spot, and so on. BackerKit won't let me add a video here, so I put it up unlisted on YouTube just for you: https://youtu.be/o-WPKcJfCeo

Usually the concept sketch is nothing like what I actually pictured, but so much better than anything I could imagine, which is why I pay artists to do this for me! I'm good at words, not at pictures.

Then I give feedback, which is usually, "OMG, I love everything about this!" or sometimes I'll ask for tiny tweaks here and there. If the artist gave me a couple of options, I'll specify which appeals to me most.

And then they'll come back with a more polished, but usually still not entirely finished, piece for my approval. Here, you can see this looks almost finished, but we're doing little pops of color in every piece in this book, and she hasn't included it yet. Her suggestion was to make the dog's pee bright yellow, which I approved, so that's what the finished piece will have.




We are still on track to fulfill this project early next year, as promised during the campaign!