But the HELLAS books did show up at Gencon, and they were quite well-received. We sold out of every copy of HELLAS we had, including some unfortunate "Battle-Scarred Editions" that hadn't fared so well in the plane's cargo hold. (We did not purchase a first-class ticket for our three boxes of books.) We ran out of Quickstart rules, and demo CDs. We even ran out of HELLAS buttons, and we had brought like a billion of those. Andy Kitkowski, who was also at our booth, sold out of Maid. I sold out of Ninja Burger books and t-shirts. By the end of the convention, we had literally sold some empty ketchup and mustard dispenser props off of the table. It was a smashing success, despite the fact that most booth sellers we talked to said it seemed like sales were slower than they should have been, especially on Saturday (which is usually a big sales day).
But despite our success, we weren't out of the water yet, because our books were.
We had begun preorders for HELLAS on August 1, based on the understanding that the books -- now all printed, bound, and boxed since the printer had pressed that big red "Go" button back on August 8 -- would reach our distribution warehouse within a month and a half. This is what we had estimated based on overseas shipping routes, and the time it would take to get the books from the port, through customs, and then to the warehouse. It seemed more than reasonable that we would begin selling books and fulfilling preorders no later than the end of September.
Unfortunately, it didn't work out like that at all.
As we learned, when you ship books (or anything) from overseas, they don't just put it on a speedboat and rocket it across the ocean to you. They load your books in boxes, and they put the boxes on pallets, and they stick those pallets in containers, and those containers then sit on a dock waiting for room on a ship. And when they're loaded on that ship, the ship waits until it's full. And only when it's full does it leave port. So while the time it takes for the ship to sail is a known quantity (based on how fast ships can go), the time it takes for all that other stuff to happen is fuzzy math at best. It's like trying to count stalactites in a cave, with your eyes closed. While being attacked. By harpies. Who are flinging horrible, horrible things at you.
The next month and a half was irritating to say the least, since there was nothing we could do but sit on our hands. I'll spare you the details and skip to when the official Bill of Lading showed up in my email on October 15, about a month after it had been expected. At last, we had the name of the ship, and we could track its progress across the Pacific Ocean, through the Panama Canal, and up to its port of call in Virginia (praying that there wouldn't be another typhoon, or a pirate attack). Fortunately, Hoseidon (the God of Sailors in HELLAS) smiled upon us. As expected, the ship made steady progress, and about a month after it had left Taiwan the books were deposited at the port of call in Virginia (the closest large port to our warehouse of choice, when considering shipping times and costs).
And then came the EXTRA fun part.
On November 13, we learned that the HELLAS books could not be released from customs because we did not have a customs agent or import broker. No one had told us we needed such things. Phone calls were made. Emails were exchanged. Forms suddenly had to be filled out. Powers of Attorney had to be given. Large checks had to be written that we were unprepared for. There were urine tests and polygraphs and... OK, it wasn't that bad, but it was crazy. As it turns out, there's a lot of paperwork that comes along with getting a few boxes of books through customs. At one point, they even asked us if the books were religious texts. I can't imagine what would have happened if we had glibly said yes. Possibly I would be writing this from Guantanamo Bay.
After a week or so of nightmarish emails and phone calls, we finally got the books released, and on November 25 we were ecstatic to receive the email alert that the books had been delivered to Key20 in Medina, OH. The books were almost two months later than we had hoped for, but they were finally where they needed to be, and all was right with the world.
Of course, some of you are covering your eyes right now, because some of you realize that Key20 is no longer in business, and hasn't been since the end of January, 2009... just two months after the HELLAS books arrived on their doorstep.
Various people know various things about the hows and whys of Key20's demise, but I won't get into details because I don't know enough about how or why to have an educated opinion. Some people are enraged, and others are understanding, and I generally fall on the understanding side because in the end my accounts were settled. What I am somewhat frustrated about is that HELLAS preorders (some of which had been made as early as August 1, remember) were supposed to start shipping on December 1, but some of them were not actually sent until mid-January, in some cases not arriving until over 40 days from when they were first processed. This was disheartening to Jerry and myself, but unfortunately it was also completely out of our hands. We explained what we could to our fans and customers, and I believe everyone was understanding (if impatient). There was little to be done but to watch and wait.
In retrospect, of course, it seems clear to everyone why we were having these delays, as by mid-February the Key20 website had stopped working, and emails started bouncing. Those of us who had books in Key20's warehouse were given a bit of advance notice so we could move our books elsewhere, but it wasn't much time to react. In the span of just a few weeks, we had to locate another warehouse that could take two skids full of HELLAS books, and then find another distributor that could ship them for us. Ultimately we did, and on February 5 of this year -- just a few months ago, as I write this -- our books finally landed where they are now. For some reason, it cost more money to ship fewer books one state away than it did to ship more books from the coast to Ohio; this must be that "new math" everyone talks about.
But will our books have to move again? Who knows? I hope not, but things being what they are, it seems inevitable. What's important right now is that we've sold a bunch of HELLAS books, they're in distribution, they're in game stores, and people are enjoying what we've created. There have been some concerns and bumps in the road, but we've done everything we can to address the needs of our customers, and ultimately I think the ratio of naysayers to genuine fans is pretty low. As a whole we've come through pretty OK.
Odysseus, it seems, has made it home to Ithaca.
