Summary

Kara's Update:

• Kara Stewart, VP of Merchandise & Events, announces adjustments to Light Day based on fan feedback. All bundles and new items will be available at once today (11AM MDT, 5PM UTC) to support international fans.
• Reminder: Bands of Mourning leatherbound can’t be reserved in the cart, so prioritize purchasing it.
• Fulfillment team expects high order volumes, so anticipate 3-4 week delays in processing.

Brandon's Update:

• Progress on White Sand novelization prewriting is at 35%.
• Janci Patterson’s Blightfall is in its third draft; release date pending.
• Light Day (Dragonsteel’s Black Friday replacement) runs until November 15, giving employees Thanksgiving weekend off and ensuring holiday delivery.
• Expect shipping delays due to high demand; Dragonsteel prioritizes worker treatment over rapid delivery.
• Best deals of the year and blog updates are available on The Cognitive Realm blog.
• Halloween Livestream scheduled for Thursday at 6 PM MDT with Brandon and his wife, Emily, in a themed couples' costume. 

Full Transcript

KARA: Hi. I'm Kara Stewart. I'm the Vice President over Merchandise and Events. I'm popping in to this Weekly Update to let you know we heard you. Our team saw the feedback regarding the Light Day structure, and we're going to switch things up to make it a little more inclusive. All bundles and all new items will now be on sale on the store today at 11:00 AM Mountain Daylight Time to make things easier on our international fans.

A reminder about the Bands of Mourning leatherbound. We are unable to reserve your copy in the cart. So if you want a signed and numbered copy, you may want to purchase the leatherbound first and then return to the store for all the other really fun things. You're going to want to browse and pick your sizes and orders and all the fun stuff. So now you know your order of operations. Keep in mind that this change does put some pressure--a lot of pressure--on our fulfilment team. So please, please be patient. We will work to get your order to you as soon as possible. But please expect delays from three to four weeks. We're expecting a huge amount of orders, so please, please be patient with us.

Thank you guys so much for letting me pop in and make this new announcement. Turn the time back over to Brandon in the Lair.

BRANDON: Hey! Brandon here with your Weekly Update. So, Whitesand novelization prewriting is at, Bing! About 35%. So making some good progress on that. Still haven't started writing it. Still not sure if I'll finish that by December when I need to go on to other things. But we are making some progress, and I feel good about that.

As a reminder, Blightfall from Janci is finished in its third draft. So our next news for you on that one should probably be when a release date is picked. That's going to be really between Janci and the publisher and things like that. But it's looking really good.

Light Day, our replacement for Black Friday, is today. As you can see, I am wearing one of the swag items that we have for sale starting today. It ends November 15th. As a reminder, one of the reasons we're doing this is because we want to give our employees a chance to not have to work over the Thanksgiving weekend. And also we want to be able to guarantee people can get their things by the holidays if they order them. And so we figure having something that ends actually before Black Friday is a good idea. So this is going to last for about a month, a little under, I believe. And you can go there, and you can get all sorts of things like this, or like, Poof! Ah! And the nice Stormlight holiday sweater, which you can pick up if you would like. In addition, as just appeared in my hands by magic, the Bands of Mourning. 

Now be aware, we expect a lot of orders. So while we are going to start shipping these immediately, it could still take a couple weeks for you to get these. In fact, something you order now might take a while for us to process and get sent. It depends on how many people are ordering and how soon your order comes in. So they may not go out the next day. We are not Amazon. For one thing, we treat our workers a little bit better, which also means that we're not going to get you these things overnight. But we are going to be able to get them to you by the holidays if you order during this period. These are our best deals of the year. Watch our blog, the Cognitive Realm blog, for deals, discount, and bundle dates. 

Cognitive Realm blog is the blog run by my team rather than one that I write because I have not written any blog posts since, like, what? The Outside essay from, like, two years ago. You know. I think everyone would rather have me writing the books and doing the Weekly Updates here. So check out the Cognitive Realm blog. 

And speaking of things here, Halloween livestream is this Thursday, 6:00 PM Mountain Daylight Time. I will be in costume, as will be my lovely wife. We have a very nice couple's costume this time. We are a married couple that you might recognize. So we will see you then in two days for the livestream.