James Roberts project news

[Denyer]

Pre-orders for MTMTE notebooks 3-4 and another run of 1-2 will be taken in September:

https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/ ... 6500225329

(Apparently previous customers will be contacted by email).

Also this: https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/ ... 6248633848

"I’m thinking about releasing a big new book celebrating the old school Transformers fanzines of the 80s and 90s, to be released in time for the 40th anniversary"

Could be fun for the analysis, although in all honesty I haven't read everything that I've gotten over the years.

Judging by trying to find the second post again on desktop, Xitter no longer seems to be indexed by Google. The site also no longer seems to show replies under posts when users aren't logged in, including posts by the original author, so might be better to pay attention to other places such as https://www.instagram.com/j.roberts332/

[Unicron]

I'd been mildly wondering what JimBob had been up to lately.
Also didn't know about those notebooks. Might have to get an order in, depending on pricing.

Thanks for the heads up

[Clay]

Speaking of which, have they figured out what to do about the availability of the IDW stuff? Amazon has listings for the hardcover collections, and the collections I bought through kindle have been grandfathered in (they're still on my desktop, at least). Has the digital option for the (many) parts I'm still to get to been nixed?

[Denyer]

For the moment. I think everything got delisted from Comixology for new purchases at the turn of the calendar year, with Hasbro not having made any arrangements. Ethical piracy or dead tree would seem to be the extent of the current options.

Not quite the scorched earth and radio silence of, say, the Boom! Studios tenure with 40K, but I don't think digital comics were really a thing back then.

IDW had the licence since 2005. If you were Skybound would you want whatever you're publishing now to be competing with that much existing material, particularly at launch?

Might have to get an order in, depending on pricing.

Unless printing and shipping has come down since end of 2022 they're about twice what you'd expect to pay at a convention, a fair bit pricier than TPBs. 38/45/47 GBP with shipping to UK/Europe/RoW. I haven't had time to read them properly yet, but the volumes aren't just a case of each volume = X issues, roughly the first volume and a half covers story ideas then the second half of the second is about per-issue blocking of plots/subplots for 1-14. Each about 85 pages of fairly small print, interspersed with scanned notes, etc.

Personally I think it'll depend what volumes 3 + 4 cover. I'm much more interested in concepts and beginnings as a rule than mid-arc and endings.

The fanzine project sparks more curiosity, although being around for a lot of that period and still having some I'm not under many illusions about the quality and range. it might be one of those projects that sounds better than it could read, or lives better in memory.

There are two notable high points in my recollections of early online TFs and fan work. One of those is Eugenesis as probably the biggest TMUK achievement -- there's some other good stuff but overall the mixed bag you'd expect from an affiliated collective of fans. Some is still online at https://theunderbase.co.uk/ and a few other places. The other is 90s ATT culture fan fic by people such as Birgit Staebler, Greg Sepelak, Raskha, etc, and Charl is still running Lexicon as a going concern: https://www.transformersfanfic.com/ -- and ATT also played host to things like fan awards. Also served along with forums as a pinboard for artists such as Hmb3 and Lex. (One of these years I'd like see what can be salvaged, collected and maybe written about, the 90s was generally a fun and inventive period before RID and DW, and not much of the early web in general, not just TFs, has stuck around -- cultural history* is endlessly fascinating).

None of which really classes as fanzines. Zines usually contained fiction, but most of the notable fiction wasn't published as zines, paper or otherwise. The action was online.

*I'm deep-diving on works about Frank Richards stories at the moment, which is a few generations before us. The revivals were post-WW2 and in the 50s and 70s. The most recent referencing is probably in Moore's Black Dossier as mentioned here.

[Clay]

For the moment. I think everything got delisted from Comixology for new purchases at the turn of the calendar year, with Hasbro not having made any arrangements. Ethical piracy or dead tree would seem to be the extent of the current options.

Not quite the scorched earth and radio silence of, say, the Boom! Studios tenure with 40K, but I don't think digital comics were really a thing back then.

IDW had the licence since 2005. If you were Skybound would you want whatever you're publishing now to be competing with that much existing material, particularly at launch?

Yeah, I fully understand it's my own fault. Hopefully it'll be available digitally again by the time I can get back to it.

[Denyer]

edit: I don't think TFs is going to go gangbusters for Skybound whatever they do, the situation might settle down sooner rather than later.

Email update. I think I'm going to pass unless it goes to eBook later, I'm sure the content's interesting and appreciate that people like physical objects, but two small format volumes out of a set of six works out in the same ballpark as something like this or (adding shipping) this or this.

Hi

According to my records, you bought Volumes 1 and 2 of the MTMTE Notebooks -- and I promised to let you know when Volumes 3 and 4 were available to order.

If you have received this email in error, or you don’t want Vols 3 and 4, please ignore and delete. No further action is required. But if you DO want Vols 3 and 4 – or Vols 1 and 2 – or both sets – then keep reading. In fact, keep reading all the way to the end. There’s a lot of ground to cover.

If you’ve emailed me about Vols 3 and 4, what follows should tell you everything you need to know.

THE BASICS

Volumes 3 and 4 of the MTMTE Notebook series are finished. A limited number were available at TF Nation. The next step is for me to place a bulk order with the printer so everyone who wasn’t at TFN can get their copies.

Vols 3 and 4 are in the same format as the first two volumes: same size, same page count, perfect bound, thick stock cover. They cover Season 2 of More Than Meets The Eye, i.e. issues #28 to #55. In the books you’ll find out more about all the ideas that made it into Season 2, as well as those that didn’t, as well as the S2 story breakdowns I sent to IDW, character arc notes, and a special bonus feature on the extra worldbuilding that went into ‘The Custom-Made Now’ (#35) and the Elegant Chaos arc.

I've attached a QR code that should take you to my instagram, where I've shared some pictures. If it doesn't work, search Instagram jroberts332

I also have available a limited number of Volumes 1 and 2 for anyone who missed out first time round.

I might one day make the MTMTE Notebooks available electronically, but for the foreseeable future the only way to own them is as old-fashioned (beautiful looking) hard copies. A final set – Volumes 5 and 6, covering Season 3/Lost Light, and looking at What Might Have Been – will be available this time next year.

ORDERING YOUR BOOKS

If you want Vols 3 and 4, and/or Vols 1 and 2, I need to receive your order, with payment, no later than 30th September 2023. After that, when I know precisely how many copies are required, I will place an order with the printer.

To make things run as smoothly as possible at this end, admin-wise, I need you to provide specific information in a specific way. Here’s everything you need to do:

All payments are to be made by PayPal to j.roberts332 at goog le mail dot com

When making payment, select ‘goods and services’ unless we’re actually friends or acquaintances in real life, in which case go for ‘friends and family’.

I’ve had to put prices up a little this year. The cost of making the books has increased, as has the cost of shipping them to me, as has the cost of posting them from Guernsey to their final destination. The following prices are for one set of books (each set includes two volumes) and include all shipping charges:

If you live in the UK: £44.00

If you live in Europe: £48.00

If you live in the US or Canada: £50.00

If you live anywhere else: £54.00

For more than one set – and you can order as many as you like – just multiply the prices. For example: two sets (four books) to the UK costs £88.00. (Below I explain why I’m sending each set in its own envelope.)

If you’re ordering from outside the UK, enter payment in your own currency and let PayPal do the work of converting it to GBP. You may need to adjust your payment until you hit the right amount.

Here’s a super important bit: make sure that your PayPal address (the one connected to your account) is the address you want me to send the books to. If it isn’t, or if you need to add extra detail to increase the chances of a successful delivery (your address should start with house name/apartment number and end with country and post code), update it.

This matters because once all the orders are in, I take all the data from PayPal, including the address data, and put it in a spreadsheet that I use to keep track of who’s been sent what.

If you’re using someone else’s PayPal account, or if you’re using your own account but you’d like the books to be sent to another address, don’t panic. Just make sure you put the delivery address in the PayPal comments/reference field before you make payment. (The data-gathering exercise above takes data from the reference field too, so I can make sure my master spreadsheet contains the right address.)

Please also use the PayPal reference field to tell me other info that will help me link your payment to you, including exactly what you’re ordering. If your PayPal name/account is different to your real name, or to the name in the email address I’m using to send you this message, please flag this up. So, for example, you might use the reference field to write:

“This is [name I know you by] at [email address we’ve used to correspond] and this is payment for [e.g. 1 set of Vols 1 and 2; and 2 sets of Vols 3 and 4]. Please send the books to [full address IF DIFFERENT from the address attached to your PayPal account]”

When you’ve made payment, you don’t need to email me to tell me. PayPal will notify me. Which takes me onto the next bit:

DON’T EMAIL ME UNLESS YOU REALLY HAVE TO

Of course, I love hearing from people about MTMTE – however, if I get a lot of general messages and enquiries unrelated to the notebooks, it slows everything down. I simply can’t reply to non-notebook related queries – sorry!

So please, only email me if you have a question about ordering the notebooks. And if you do email, DO NOT simply hit reply to this email: I’ve sent this to you and hundreds of others at the same time, and the mechanics of Gmail mean that if you and others simply press ‘Reply’, your email might get lost in an avalanche of replies.

If you have a specific question about the notebooks (and I hope they’re all answered by this mammoth email), it’s best to start a new email and give it a clear, descriptive message header. But again, please bear in mind what I’ve said above about emails unrelated to the notebooks. I don’t want to seem rude by not responding, but I honestly can’t handle a big wave of emails.

CHANGES FOR 2023

To speed things up this year I will not be signing or personalising Vols 3 and 4. As well as saving time, this will remove the possibility of me dedicating the books to the wrong person (because lots of you go by different names or buy extra sets to give to friends).

I *will* sign new orders of Volumes 1 and 2 so that everyone who collects the books has my signature, but – for the reasons above – I will not personalise them. Sorry!

I’m not offering badges or any other items this year, just the books. Again, this will make things simpler and quicker at this end.

A friend in Canada has very kindly agreed to act as an overseas distributor: if you live in Canada or the US, he will send you your books. I looked into printing books in Canada, but printing costs over there, surprisingly, are a lot higher than in the UK, so my UK printer will send a single shipment of books to Canada, for onward distribution by my friend. This should reduce the risk of books going missing and cut down on shipping times.

Even though American and Canadian readers will receive their books from someone nearby (relatively speaking!), I’m afraid the postage costs won’t go down. This is because it costs a lot to send a pallet of books across the Atlantic; plus there are import taxes to pay.

If you live outside of Canada and the US, you will receive your books from me, like last time.

Like last time, each envelope will contain one set of books, i.e. two volumes. This is because putting four in an envelope increases its thickness to the extent that it becomes classed as a ‘large letter’, which pushes it into a higher postal charge category. So if you order two or three sets, you’ll get two or three envelopes.

And like last time, I will send one set per envelope. Doing so keeps each package in the ‘large letter’ category, which means postage costs are lower than if I put four or six books in a single package.

I won’t be arranging tracking on any of the packages because doing so creates a considerable additional administrative burden (delaying everything) and adds significantly to the cost (e.g. the postage to the UK goes from £3.38 to £11.48).

You can reduce the risk of a package going astray by making sure the address you give me is (a) up to date, (b) as detailed as possible, and (c) formatted as follows:

House Name/Apartment Number

Street Name

County / District

Country

Post Code

Again, the best thing you can do is make sure that the address connected to your PayPal account is up to date.

While I’m not arranging tracking, my arrangement with the Post Office means I know which packages were sent and when. I will tell you when your package has been sent off. If you live in the US and Canada, I will tell you when my friend has received them.

RETURNS POLICY

Last time, less than 1% of packages were returned to me, but most of them came back from China and Russia – I think because of problems with the addresses.

I considered not accepting orders from those countries and to ask people living there to order via a friend living somewhere else. But as I don’t want anybody to miss out, I will accept orders from China and Russia. Again, I will tell everyone when their orders have been sent -- but I will not be replacing any copies that do not reach their destination. If they are returned to me undelivered and in good condition, I will refund you.

That goes for all books that come back to me: if they are in good condition, I will refund you; or, if you want to try again and you pay shipping costs again, I will re-send. I want to emphasise that very few packages come back; over 99% were delivered successfully last time.

I think that’s it! Thank you for making it to the end. As you can see, I’ve tried to anticipate every question.

I remain thrilled and humbled that enough people care about MTMTE to make these books happen. Thank you so much for keeping the flame burning.

[Unicron]

That answers my questions about pricing, thanks Denyer