urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:seanan_mcguire The Journal of Seanan McGuire Seanan McGuire 2015-06-09T21:45:29Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:seanan_mcguire:627865 2015-06-09T21:45:29Z 2015-06-09T21:45:29Z Thea Gilmore, "How the Love Gets In." Yesterday I mailed the last of the international shirts. Of the original order, only two packages have not been mailed: both are slated for hand-delivery, and aware of their status.<br /><br />Today I packaged the shirts that were not included in our initial delivery from the printer. These will go out sometime in the next few days.<br /><br />Tomorrow...who knows?<br /><br />If you have any issues with your shirt (wrong size, wrong color), please drop a line to the merch address by <b>June 24th</b> to let us know. Why June 24th? Because that's the day after the date that everyone in the world should have their shirts, regardless of how far away they live from the me-centric starting point. This will give us some time to deal with any shipping issues before we hit July, and I go into convention season hell.<br /><br />Now, the common questions.<br /><br /><b>Why did this take so long?</b><br /><br />There were several factors. This was the third time we'd done this particular design, and the demand was so much higher this time than either of the previous two that we were honestly caught flat-footed. We didn't expect to need this sort of infrastructure, and because the people who help with this are all volunteers, we really didn't have the resources.<br /><br />There was also the matter of, well. The more people show up, the more people will assume that I am a corporation, and not a girl who is likely to be making these updates in her pajamas. Several folks were very rude to my merch team. Several people did not pay until months after our initial deadline, which put the whole project behind schedule. These may seem like small problems, but they killed a lot of our enthusiasm for stuffing shirts in mailboxes, and slowed the whole process down.<br /><br /><b>Ouch. Will you be doing this again?</b><br /><br />No. This was our last bespoke shirt run, for the reasons given above.<br /><br /><b>Are there any shirts left over?</b><br /><br />Yes, a few. I'll be selling them at conventions, once we're absolutely sure that everyone's shirt issues have been ironed out and that everybody is happy.<br /><br /><b>Will you sell them via mail?</b><br /><br />Probably not. Postage is expensive, and I'm tired of mailing things. If you're in desperate need of a backup or replacement, feel free to send me an email; if I have your size, we may be able to work something out.<br /><br />And that is all. Thank you all for your patience.<br /><br />We are almost done.