Fail to Deliver Book Campaigns

Was wondering about books that were promised but failed to deliver. What would you say were some of the most anticipated or hyped books that you may or may not have put a deposit on but were never delivered for whatever reason? People complain about the lead times and poor communication about presses like Thornwillow, but eventually the book materializes.

For me, it was Pride and Prejudice by the Bowler Press. Whatever happened to that? Luckily I didn't have enough money at the time to put a deposit down but it seemed to just fizzle out.

I have been waiting for Dracula, The Evidence, from Beehive Books for more than four years now. They send updates every 6 months or so though.

I've been left hanging with an illustrated edition of the Völuspa on Kickstarter, which I invested over 500$ in since I was supposed to be able to get one of the original drawings for it in addition to the book. The artist was first not 'inspired' due to travel restrictions under covid, did travel to Iceland (at our expense) in the end, came to the conclusion that he wasn't really paid enough for how much time the illustrations took him, promised to deliver despite the fact that in the time that passed, prices for printing and shipping had risen a lot - and then was never heard from again. He also removed his other social media so people couldn't contact him outside of Kickstarter. And Kickstarter doesn't have any measures in place that would stop frauds like this one. Suffice it to say, I've been thinking twice about supporting Kickstarters from people I don't already have experience with, and certainly nothing that expensive. I'm also feeling even worse about it because I was letting other people know about this Kickstarter, so indirectly inflicted the same upon them.

>3 SF-72: That is quite unfortunate. What was the artist’s name?

I have never pledged for projects on KS before, though the temptation has been there.

>2 wcarter: beehive is similar to Thornwillow though: you will get the books eventually but without much fanfare or updates along the way

Ithaca Scrollery. Funded in 2019, I spent 180$ on it and got nothing. Last update was about two years ago. Letterpress printed scrolls. It was an interesting idea but unfortunately they seemingly had no competence to fix it.

Honorable mention to the 25th anniversary edition of Little, Big, which did come out--on the 40th anniversary. I think of it every time I'm grumpy about a book being late.

>4 What_What:

J.D. Thomason / Joshua Thomason, at the time situated in Canada, I think. edited to add: I just saw that the name was misspelled on Kickstarter, it's J.D. Tomasson and you can actually still find his (deserted) Instagram under that name. But he hasn't been active there for several years now, same on his Patreon.

For fairness, sake, most of the Kickstarters I have supported (in a much lower price range, though) have turned out well enough, but with it becoming more of a topic among artists / authors after Sanderson's huge success, it has become more risky in my experience. Apart from the one that never delivered, there was also an extremely unprofessional one where the illustrations were blurry and highly pixelated, probably because the files didn't have the necessary resolution to fill a whole page. Still, I did discover some good stuff there that I wouldn't have found otherwise. Still, these days I'm unlikely to risk someone I don't have experience with yet, and then I'd never invest more than a small sum.

>7 ambyrglow: Same here. People complaining about two year delays have no idea.

>1 chase.donaldson: Curious also about the fate of the Bowler Press P&P, if anyone here backed the campaign...

>10 MyrddinWyllt: Bowler were supposed to have done an edition of “A Modest Proposal” too, but I never heard whether that happened.

>8 SF-72: Ab that’s too bad. Sorry to hear of your experience.

>7 ambyrglow: lol. at least that eventually did come out and was nicely done. but that was definitely my record in terms of waiting . . .

I am “patiently” waiting for both Dracula, The Evidence AND Voluspa (no hard feelings for SF-72). I did eventually receive the delayed Thornwillow’s Ulysses AND the marathon Little, Big.

The vast majority of my Kickstarter pledges (sometimes years later) are successfully rewarded. One disappointment (not a publication) was a clear case of absconding with the funds and another offered the equivalent of the pledged amount for similar items on their website.

Most of the project artists and developers are very conscientious about updates and replies to questions. Two of my best examples (not endorsements) are Ampersand’s Tristan Reader (timely updates and bonus background information) and the lesser known Lazarus Press’ Aurelie (frequent updates hilariously provided in character for her individually published three volume manuscript). That said, my new pledges are limited to experienced publishers.

>13 howtoeatrat: I couldn't imagine waiting that long! I'm younger than the wait time lol

>12 What_What:
>15 EdwinDrood:

Thank you. And I am sorry, EdwinDrood. It sounded like a great idea at the time, but that illustrator turned out to be as unprofessional as it gets.

I still blame William Morris for not being able to finish his Froissart's Chronicles.

>18 Lukas1990: Aye, I was an Early Bird backer on that one, so you can imagine how long I've been waiting.

>18 Lukas1990: I once had four pages from that book. It was a reproduction of some page proofs reprinted by Fred Goudy at his private press, The Village Press, in a hard folder. Still kicking myself for letting it go and that was years ago, about 40, I think.

This one is theoretically still on track to deliver, but it's has indeed been a while since it launched.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/caminopress/a-printers-garden-of-ornament

>21 Shadekeep: I love how at the bottom it states "I am confident in being able to complete everything within schedule", while the estimated delivery date is 2020. I wouldn't say 6 years is within schedule but who am I to judge.