By Crom!

NEWS POST ALERT:

Thanks to your feedback regarding the shipping costs, and to my printer for making me multiple prototypes, I have squeezed The Collected By Crom out of the package shipping category and back down into the lettermail shipping category! This means it is literally just over a third of the original price to ship them, and I am so immensely grateful because I know the shipping cost was a big hurdle for some people.

This also means it’s not absurd to ship internationally! Non-north american people can still get this book!

Guys I am so glad this was doable, oh man.

So, if you were frustrated by the shipping price, go take a look now, as it is considerably improved!

And for those excellent people who preordered anyway, I have issued you a refund for the difference in shipping. It should reach you via your paypal email this afternoon! If you don’t hear from paypal or receive your refund please contact me immediately at rachel at portablecity dot net. Please also contact me if you have any questions about this!

So, thanks to my printer, and thanks also to the Canada Post counter woman who weighed and measured things with me for a while this afternoon.

And in other news, all of the current orders for volume 1 have been shipped! 

Man, what a day.

So, that update I was promising!

Firstly, over the next 6 or so weeks while I prep the big book and collect and prepare all of its extra content and do prepress and copy editing and promotion and all of the awesome things one gets to do when one self-publishes, I do have to put By Crom’s comics on hiatus.

What does that mean for you guys, here, watching this space?

Well, I promise to keep Tuesdays a day when you get a sneak peek into the book! A lot of the content I’m working on now will never be published online in its entirety, but a joke here, a Conan there, and this blog will stay active while I get this book to the presses. So, here’s the first of many tiny vignette Conans you’ll be able to find in the book!

In addition, news, updates, places you can find me with a stack of By Croms, and all related activity will still be centred here. And I’d love it if you guys also kept in touch! You can bug me via tumblr, right here.

Secondly, the next place you can find me and a big pile of books is at VanCAF! I’ll have some convention-edition Collected By Croms (only a little bonus content, but ALL of the web comics ever published) on sale for a convention price, as well as prints, originals, postcards and a stack of paper to do requests on. I’d love to see you West Coast folks there!

So, here we go, into an age undreamed of! 

Here’s a sneak peek into the layout process for The Collected By Crom! I’m using it to lure you into a GIANT THANK YOU POST.

Firstly, to EVERYONE who has preordered the book or the pdf, to everyone who has grabbed a Vol. 1 book or pdf, to everyone who has reblogged or linked or spread the word, thank you so very much! 

Next, to everyone I met at the PCAC’s conference last week, and to all the excellent conversations on stories and media and framing devices and fan culture, and to the PCAC itself, thanks and thanks again!

And finally, to Friendship Edition who hosted By Crom at TCAF and to every single person I interacted with there, thank you! To be in the land of my heroes, and have people want to talk about Conan with me, well, that’s about as great a day as a girl can have, I think. 

So yeah! Woo! You all rock! Thanks so much!

Tomorrow: ANOTHER COMIC. And then a giant news post about what’s coming up next for By Crom.

(just a hint - it’s VanCAF!)

OH MY GOD IT’S A PREORDER.

The Collected By Crom is coming! For reals! I’m so excited, guys! So, how can you get it?

Well, if you are attending VanCAF (May 25-26, Vancouver BC), I will have a limited run of saddle-stapled convention copies with all of the comics and the paper doll! And I’ll be on hand to sketch and sign and make Conan references with you all! OH man I can’t wait!

But for the sweet, sweet perfect-bound copy with all the unpublished bonus content and all the silly pinups, you’ll want to preorder here (it comes in dead tree OR in pdf!) All preorders placed in May will get sketches, either in the physical books or in a .jpg in your inbox if you’re a digital distribution kinda person!

This book will be launching on July 5th so until then watch this space for bonus content, sneak peeks and updates! And thanks so much for all the encouragement and support and enthusiasm and fellow nerdiness along the way - it’s been amazing.

I’ve been working hard on the collected book, and some of the most fun stuff is the cover design! Here’s the inset painting - the whole cover I’ll save for some big news coming VERY SOON.

(Here’s a sneak peek at a WIP of the cover design for the collected edition!)

Hi there new followers! Thanks to io9.com, geeksaresexy.net, and those excellent people on metafilter and reddit for sending a veritable internet horde my way this past weekend, it’s been crazy exciting hearing from all of you!

Thanks to everyone who hit up my store - all the non-digital orders for you guys should be shipping out early next week, so keep an eye out for my “it’s in the mail!” email then. 

Thanks as well to everyone who’s linked or reblogged or shared as well, guys, I’m just completely overwhelmed by the attention these past few days have brought!

This is an exciting month as I prep a big shiny collection of all the comics and man, am I ever pumped to have you all along for the ride!

Clearly, this is what is best in life, by Crom!

Work is progressing on the full collection of By Crom! Here’s me starting the cover design with paper and digital mockups.

We’ll be launching at VanCAF, May 25/26 in Vancouver, and will be shipping out once I’m back home later that week. Holy hell I’m excited about this book, guys! It’s gonna be very silly. But also probably a little snazzy! And it’ll be the definitive collection.

In honour of this, I am phasing out Volume 1, which means it’s on sale in the shop for $3! There’s limited supplies left and I’m not going to be printing any more. All profits go towards printing quality on this, the whole damn thing book.