#admin: casthewise

[tohellandbackanthology]

OUR POP-UP SHOP IS LIVE (AGAIN!)

Happy Valentine’s day/Destiel wedding, folks!

As we mentioned here, we ran into a snag with our original store. After refunding everyone and doing some serious research, we’re back better than ever with a pop-up shop for extended pre-orders of To Hell + Back: A Destiel Anthology. For the next two weeks ONLY, from now until midnight on February 28th, 2021, at 11:59 pm PST, you have one last chance to pre-order your very own copy of the book via this link! We are currently on track to ship all orders, from both our Indiegogo fundraiser and this pop-up shop, in April 2021.

Please note that while both the PDF and the hard copy of the anthology are available for sale during this limited window, we will not be offering any merch; to keep things very simple, this is a book-only event. We are sorry for any disappointment this may cause!

If you notice the prices seem higher than on our Indiegogo, don’t panic! We are operating in Canadian dollars and not USD this time, for easy banking purposes. (We have already done a test transaction and have slightly edited our copy to ensure we remain online :P).

If you previously purchased a PDF copy from our Indiegogo campaign and would now like to upgrade to a hard copy, please email us at tohellandbackanthology@gmail.com with your IGG order number, and we will send you your very own discount code for $10.00 off your book. You will still receive your PDF copy as well, because all orders for a physical copy of the anthology also include a free PDF version!

Finally, we would like to remind everyone that this is truly your last chance to get your hands on To Hell + Back—after this pop-up shop is closed, it will never again be available for purchase, so if you missed out the first time, please hurry and get your copy today!

Keep an eye out on our tumblr during these next 2 weeks, as we will be re-circulating sneak peeks of the beautiful stories and artwork featured in our book.

[tohellandbackanthology]

An Update: Part Two

Earlier today, we posted a brief update so please do see part one if you haven’t already!

Now for the big news: we’re going to eat our own words and take the bold step of doing something we were certain we weren’t going to do once our Indiegogo fundraiser finished. That’s right...we’re planning to open up a simple pop-up web store for two weeks only, from February 1 through February 14th, so that anyone who missed out on the first round of fundraising can get a second chance to preorder either a hard copy of To Hell + Back: A Destiel Anthology, or the digital format. 

After the sheer pandemonium that ensued in the wake of episode 15x18 airing on November 5th, which brought an enormous influx of SPN fans both old and new into online spaces to discuss canon Destiel (we still can’t believe we get to write those words either), we noticed a significant increase in our followers here on Tumblr, as well as a general resurgence of fandom activity, and fielded several more inquiries about whether we would ever make this book available for purchase again. With this in mind, we discussed in-depth the possibility of doing a pop-up online store despite our previous resistance to the idea, and agreed that it was feasible if it was handled carefully and responsibly. 

“But wait,” we hear you saying. “You guys said you didn’t want to do that because it’s harder to be transparent about what money is coming in and where it’s going, and transparency is kind of your whole thing!” 

And to that we reply: you are absolutely correct, and we want to assure you that the trust of our supporters and contributors is something we have never taken lightly. To Hell + Back has been a not-for-profit initiative from its conception and will be until its conclusion, and one of our core values as a team is to be absolutely open and honest about how the funds we have collectively raised are to be used to produce this anthology. (You can read our original mission statement here if you like!)

Now that our funds are finally in the project bank account and ready to be used to purchase books and merch, you can expect to see a consolidated financial statement posted here at the end of each month that briefly details our expenditures as well as any additional funds raised by the upcoming pop-up shop. Funds raised through the two-week pop-up shop may not be immediately visible to backers as part of our grand total the way they were on Indiegogo, but we are committed to showing our accountability regardless. We will report on all books purchased in the pop-up show after the two-week purchase period has ended and our first full financial statement will be posted on February 28, 2021, after we have made our first purchases.

As for details about the upcoming pop-up shop as well as details about our project for those who are new to fandom, please keep your eyes open during the coming week for further posts detailing exactly where and when books will be available for preorder. We’re so excited to be moving forward!

Finally, we once again want to reiterate that it has been a joy working with everybody to bring this project of ours to life and we simply couldn’t have done it without your support. When the finale aired and we saw the aftermath, we were heartbroken. We shed tears, mourned, and made it through with the support of this fandom. These characters that we had loved for so long, and Dean and Cas’ relationship especially, weren’t given the proper resolution they deserved. If this goes to show anything, it is that fans always do it better, and a large part of our desire to open up this small pop-up shop is in the hope of healing our community, even if it is in a very small way.

Many of the stories enclosed within To Hell + Back are stories of happiness. They are stories where Dean, Cas, Sam, and all their loved ones find hope and healing and love and warmth, happinesses that are unique and different in so many ways, but always with the fundamental message that happiness is what we all deserve. We hope that once these books arrive in your hands, you will enjoy the works within them as much as we have, and that they will bring you some happiness, just as they have brought to us.

Sincerely and with much love,      

Your TH+B mods

P.S. As always, don’t hesitate to send us an ask if you have any questions, or reach out to us via email at tohellandbackanthology@gmail.com

[tohellandbackanthology]

Hi, I just wanted to know if it would be ok for me to print out my pdf of the anthology for myself since I wasn't able to secure physical copy...

Hi anon,

Sorry for the late reply! Some of us have contracted COVID so we're a little slow to answer these days. Yes, if you want to print out the PDF, you can totally do so :) Our philosophy is that as long as you don't resell the book (we ask that people don't on the copyright page because of the potential of making money off of fanworks), you can do whatever you want with it!

[tohellandbackanthology]

Hi! I big time missed out on this and am forever sad. Do you have any leftover pdfs lying around? I would love to get my hands on one but if not that is a-okay too. You guys did an amazing job with this, much love <3

Hi there,

Unfortunately, this was a one-time printing and sale for the physical copy and PDFs! So there are no more available... but contributors can post their work to our AO3 collection as of Dec. 23rd (if they want to share it more widely), so keep a lookout there :)

[tohellandbackanthology]

An Update: Part One

Hi folks, remember us? That’s right, it’s time for another update, and at long last we are getting to the good stuff! This one comes in two parts, so keep an eye out for part two, which will be released at 2:00 PM PST. It is a BIG ONE so you definitely don’t want to miss it!

Despite indulging in some much-needed holiday downtime after our project funds finally (finally!) landed in the bank, our team has nonetheless been busy behind the scenes finishing up the fine detail work of preparing our beautiful book for print, as well as plotting an updated delivery timeline that should finally see this anthology ship out to all our wonderful contributors and backers sometime in April! We know this must seem slow from the outside, but while there’s still a lot of work to do, just know that we’re definitely beginning to see the end in sight. 

Here’s what things look like right now:

All content edits will be finalized by January 31.

All merch to be ordered by mid-February.

Book design completed & accurate printing quote with final page count obtained by March 31, and then the book goes to print. (Woohoo!) Current estimated ship date: mid to end of April 2021 (to be confirmed once all other items are finalized). 

As always, we promise to keep you all in the loop with these milestones as we meet them, and we ask you all to keep your fingers and toes crossed that everything runs as smoothly as possible from here on out!

Yours sincerely,

The TH+B team

[tohellandbackanthology]

Thank you so much for the resale!! Is there any chance that there will be more digital books available as PDFs? Worried that there are hundreds of us.. thank you!

Hihi!

Totally understand that anxiety, but not to worry. In order to prioritize that, until all the physical bundles are gone, the ability to only purchase a digital copy will not be possible. BUT the sale is going to be for 2 weeks, so if we sell out of physical bundles before then, we will most definitely make digital copies available for sale! If that happens, we have an unlimited number of PDFs, so there will definitely be enough for everyone :)

[tohellandbackanthology]

Will it be possible to buy a digital copy only, no merch, during the extras sale?

Hi! We talked about this at length, and the short answer is no, but let me explain a little bit. The extras sale is really to get the rest of the books and merch out of @pray4jensen's house, because it's been there for like... months and months now, and it's taking up a ton of room. In order to prioritize that, until all the physical bundles are gone, the ability to only purchase a digital copy will not be possible.

BUT the sale is going to be for 2 weeks, so if we sell out of physical bundles before then, we will most definitely make digital copies available for sale!

[tohellandbackanthology]

Restating our commitment to transparency and accountability

Hello everyone! Given our recent update about us opening up a pop-up shop to make available more copies of our anthology, we just wanted to elaborate a little re: why we’re doing this and how we intend to remain transparent and accountable during this process, as well as how this affects the timeline for those of you who ordered a book back in May during our Indiegogo fundraiser.

We know that those of you who supported our initial fundraiser may be a little confused, given that we still haven’t shipped those books out. We totally understand this sentiment and it is something we discussed heavily before coming to this decision. To better clarify why we’re taking the steps that we are, here are three reasons why we felt this pop-up shop was needed:

* To give us a better cushion. When we first obtained a quote for the cost of printing our anthology, it was almost a year ago right before we opened up our fundraiser in March 2020 to begin funding our project. Quotes expire, and over our lengthy struggle with Indiegogo to obtain the money that we had raised, our quote did indeed do just that. Given that this is a new year, we anticipate that our updated quote will be a little higher, making the cost of our project more expensive, and we want to be sure that all those extras we promised back in May are still applicable. 

* To help us achieve our hardcover goal. We talked a lot about hardcovers over the course of our project, as we knew that if we sold enough books, we would be able to upgrade everybody’s paperback copy of the anthology to a hardcover for free. Last we spoke about this, we indicated that we were close to our hardcover stretch goal, but just a tad bit short in all likelihood. If our pop-up does well, we feel that it is feasible to afford hardcovers for all. If we still fall short, there are still benefits! As we promised earlier, leftover money will first and foremost be used to make everybody’s books more beautiful, not to mention possibly allowing us to do things like including extra bonus merch for everybody for free. Any money remaining after that will be donated to a local charity, Wish Vancouver, to help vulnerable women in our community.

* To help our fandom heal. We won’t lie. We were adamant about our fundraiser on Indiegogo being a one-time deal, and though we received numerous requests about opening up shop again, we declined every time citing our commitment to transparency and accountability. While our values have not changed, our negative experience with Indiegogo and our heartbreak after Supernatural’s series finale had us reconsider our earlier stance. Dean, Cas, Sam and all their loved ones deserved a better ending than they got, and knowing that fans always do it better, we felt the best way we could help our corner of fandom heal was to share further the many beautiful works of happiness and good endings that are enclosed within our anthology. For that reason, we felt a limited two-week long pop-up shop was the best way to do this: it gives new and old fans one last chance to get a copy! 

Please read under the cut for more information about our project timeline and how we will ensure accountability and transparency over the course of our project:

So why are we using a pop-up shop and how does this affect our transparency and accountability? As you know, despite ending our fundraiser in May 2020, Indiegogo did not disburse our funds until recently, just shortly before Christmas. We cannot emphasize what a difficult and frustrating experience we had with their customer service; by the end of November, all of us were having earnest conversations about whether we ought to refund everybody’s money. However, your support was overwhelming and we kept pushing on, and then, lo and behold, our money at last came in! We took a big sigh of relief that we could at last get on with our project, and after taking a short and much needed holiday break after our six-month long ordeal, we pulled up our sleeves and got to work once again, holding a team meeting on Dec. 28, 2020 to discuss our next steps.

At that meeting, all of us discussed the pain that we felt after the show’s finale, and the hurt it caused not only to our fandom, but Supernatural’s queer community especially. At the same time, we noted how many more requests we were getting for the anthology again, as it seemed many more people wanted our book, especially after watching Supernatural’s final episode. It became clear to us that our anthology could be a small way for us to help our community heal. We agreed to reconvene on Jan. 17, 2021 to discuss further after we conducted more research about the idea. 

Ultimately, we concluded that opening a pop-up shop would not harm us and our backers because:

* Opening up a pop-up shop will not delay our timeline. For those of you who ordered books back in May during the initial fundraiser, you can be sure that this pop-up shop will not cause your books to arrive at a later date. As we mentioned in an earlier update, we now anticipate that everybody’s books will ship in April 2021. Even if we had not done a pop-up shop, these books would still have shipped out in April regardless. The extra books sold in our pop-up shop will be printed at the same time as the books sold last May on Indiegogo, ensuring that everybody gets their books together.

* Opening up a pop-up shop will only benefit everyone who has purchased a book already; as we mentioned before, these extra books will not only provide us with an extra cushion for our finances, it will also possibly help us upgrade everybody’s copies to hardcovers for free, something we know everyone has been eager about, including us! 

As always, transparency and accountability were at the forefront of our minds during this meeting. We could not use Indiegogo as a platform again, so ultimately concluded that as long as we provided evidence of our pop-up shop’s transactions, we could still undertake our new goal in an honest way. For that reason, we will be making a detailed report of how many copies we sell and how much money we earn through this shop, and to ensure the integrity of our project, we will disable all options to purchase the anthology immediately after the two-week pop-up shop period has closed. We will never again make our anthology available for purchase after Feb. 14, 2021. We are a registered incorporated non-profit society in British Columbia, and as part of the requirements of being a part of this society, it is strictly forbidden that any member of our team make any profit from money we acquire. Furthermore, a financial statement will be released by us at the end of each month beginning in February, detailing all our expenditures.  

At this present time, we are holding another meeting on Jan. 25, 2021 to further discuss our pop-up shop and our overall project. Please keep tuned as you can now expect to hear from us more often with more details and updates about our progress and the upcoming shop!

Thank you very much for your support in this endeavour. We cannot express enough how excited we are about these books, as we know that they will be in all our hands soon! We know the journey getting here hasn’t been easy, and we are eternally grateful for your continued trust and patience and encouragement. As always, should you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us. Our team is committed to transparency and accountability at every step, and we are more than happy to share any information that will answer any thoughts that you may have about our project.

Sincerely and with much love,

your TH+B mods 

[tohellandbackanthology]

Another Very Important Update

November 8, 2020

Hi everybody! We’re back again with another big update. There’s a lot of information in this one, but very important information at that, so we encourage you to read through this carefully! We apologize for the delay since the last announcement; we always strive to be as transparent, accountable and communicative as possible, and while we had hoped to have big news for you very soon, the reality is that these things take time, and our talks with Indiegogo dragged on longer than we had hoped.

About our difficulties accessing our fundraiser money:

We’ll get straight to the point: we still don’t have our funding. After incorporating as a non-profit society and even going as far as acquiring a business number, our disbursement failed for the 7th time. This is incredibly frustrating—after jumping through so many hoops, we found ourselves at the same dead end. As such, we had a very firm discussion with Indiegogo and let them know that this was simply unacceptable (see below the cut to view screenshots of our ongoing communication with them; we want to make it very clear to our backers that we have been trying as hard as we can to keep this project on course, but also that delays have been largely out of our control). After we stressed the importance of our project to Indiegogo, they escalated the situation to their very highest level of support at our insistence, as it is clear to us now that the problem with the disbursement lies with them and not with us. We have our fingers crossed that we will hear from them soon, but as the holiday season is approaching—not to mention that COVID-19 cases are on the rise—we expect further and longer delays than usual.

We know that this news is disappointing—we’re in the same boat as you. We cannot emphasize enough how passionate we are about our project, especially now that Dean and Cas’ relationship has been textually canonized on the show (we’re still shaking after this week’s episode)! We want to assure you that we have been working tirelessly to resolve this disbursement situation with Indiegogo and we cannot thank you enough for your patience and support and encouragement—without you on our side, we’re not sure we would’ve been able to keep going this long, but knowing how much these books mean to our backers has been a critical driving force for us, and we just want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

On our end, the E-book version of our anthology is nearing completion (we’re so thrilled about how beautiful this book’s final form is looking!), and we have done everything and anything we can to speed up the process of this book’s printing, but the fact remains that without any money, we simply can’t go very far. We promised you all that we would never spend your money until we were sure we could deliver and we intend to keep that promise to the best of our ability. For that reason, we won’t purchase our materials for merch nor place an order to print the anthology until Indiegogo releases our disbursement to us. This way, we protect both ourselves and you financially, but this also means that at this point in time, we are at a standstill. We can’t move forward until we receive our funding and while we remain hopeful that the solution is very much within close reach, we unfortunately can’t speed up this process any more than we already have—it all comes down to how quickly Indiegogo responds to us.

About when we’re going to ship out these books:

This unfortunately also means that we have to revise our project shipping date again. We had previously been hopeful that we would be able to get these books out to you all by December 2020. Now we see that this won’t be the case. We are not expecting our issue with the disbursement to resolve before January 2021 at the earliest (and that is simply due to our expectation that Indiegogo’s operation will be slower due to short-staffing during the Christmas holidays); therefore, it has now become fairly clear to us that these books will go out sometime in late winter or early spring 2021, but without our funds becoming available to us, we won’t be able to pin down a specific date just yet. As soon as we receive our funding, we will make clear a firm deadline and let you know immediately. As we have completed nearly all of the book work on our end, shipping will follow quickly after a disbursement reaches us successfully—we won’t wait around to get these books to you and will work at top speed so that you can enjoy the wonderful works contained within our anthology as quickly as possible! Trust us—our content contributors did a phenomenal job and we couldn’t be more proud of them!

About whether these books will be hardcovers:

We also talked about hardcovers back when we initially ended our campaign, and again more recently. As we mentioned last time, without a resolution to our disbursement issue, it’s very difficult to determine whether we can afford them. As this project has now veered into the new year, we expect new quotes from the printer which could be higher than we initially received when we began fundraising. All in all, with the amount of money we expect to be disbursed to us, we can 100% afford softcovers and account for all merch in every tier. So to reiterate: a physical book is definitely coming—there has never been any question of that—and so are all the things that we promised you, but whether it will be a softcover or a hardcover is something that we simply can’t be sure of until we have better news about our disbursement situation.

About changing your address if you’re moving:

Lastly, we know that since our shipping date is uncertain, there may be people who will have new addresses at that time. Please don’t worry about this! When we are ready to ship, we will email everybody and ask them to confirm their addresses. You will have the opportunity to change it then. You are welcome to email us now with an address change but we urge you to wait until we contact you, because even if you provide us with a new address now, we will still ask you again to confirm it later! Rather, it is far more important to make sure that you regularly check the email address that you used when donating to our campaign on Indiegogo—we will always use that as our primary method of contact with you.

In conclusion: 

We want to acknowledge that this process has been a longer one than any of us expected, but our passion and love for this project has not changed. We remain committed to delivering some beautiful books to you very soon, and we thank you so much for throwing that same passion and support right back at us! 

As always, should you ever have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us! 

Sincerely and with much love,

Your 8 Nerds

P.S. We’re still freaking out about that episode.

See below the cut for screenshots of our communication with Indiegogo:

June 8, 2020: We reached out to Indiegogo after our first disbursement failed to reach us

In the following months, every 2-3 weeks, Indiegogo tried disbursing the money we raised for the anthology and it failed again and again. To resolve this issue, we tried many different things, not limited to creating a non-profit community bank account, incorporating as a non-profit society and obtaining a business number. It became clear after so much hard work on our part that we were not responsible for the failed disbursements. This was directly the fault of Indiegogo and we urged them to take the matter to experts in their company.

October 27, 2020:

  November 4, 2020: We finally received a reply. After our contact at Indiegogo contacted Stripe, the company responsible for sending our disbursement to us, Stripe confirmed that our information had always been correct, but that Indiegogo did not input it to Stripe correctly. We are now waiting for them to try another disbursement which, fingers crossed, will finally go through to us!

[tohellandbackanthology]

Hi! Do you know if the camp chit aqua key chain is being sold independently by the artist/maker? I’d love to get one, but the only bundles it’s included in are the more expensive ones. If not I totally understand, just differed I’d ask. :)

Hi hi!

So, that keychain was actually designed by us :) We as a group decided on the text and then I (@casthewise) just called a US company that makes those keychains in bulk and told them the colour and how we wanted the thing to look (i.e. with the stamping). So those aren't for sale anywhere else, unfortunately! And they were the most expensive merch we made so we get very few extras :/

Sorry about that!

[tohellandbackanthology]

Aprox when will you begin shipping and will there be any issues mailing to the U.S.A? (I know mail everywhere is wonky atm).

Hi Anon,

We'll try to start shipping ASAP after the sale is over, and we're hoping that there won't be too many delays shipping to the US, but like you said, supply chain issues have made all mail kind of a crapshoot. It's been pretty good within Canada and receiving packages from the US here, so we're hoping that trend continues and applies the other way around!

[tohellandbackanthology]

Hi, I'd like to purchase a pdf copy, but it still prompts me for a shipping address. I'm not comfortable giving it out. What are my options?

Hi anon,

Good question :) Put in something fake (like an address of a school or of a restaurant or something? Or make one up)! We won’t be shipping you the PDF, so as long as your email is correct, you’ll get it no problem :)

[tohellandbackanthology]

Hi! I was wondering how much shipping to Europe (outside The EU, Eastern Europe) will cost? I can’t justify buying it to myself if i don’t know how much shipping is and I can’t seem to find it anywhere? (Sorry if it’s obvious!)

Hi!

All International shipping (anywhere outside the US and Canada) is $35. We know this is a big ask, but the book is gonna be huuuuuge. I got a bound sample from the printer that you can check out here to see just how big, beautiful and heavy it’s going to be!

Hope that helps!

Alex

[tohellandbackanthology]

Hey. Will the payment options be the same as last time for the pop-up stuff?

Hi anon,

It’ll be similar! We’re using SquareUp, and they offer Apple Pay, Google Pay, all major credit and debit cards, and Square eGift cards :)

Hope that helps!

[tohellandbackanthology]

On the shipping address form it asks for a phone number. Since you're shipping internationally, should the number include country calling code, or is how we write it for calls within the country okay?

Hi anon!

Yes, please include your calling code :) This is in case we need to get in touch with you for whatever reason, so that would be super helpful to us :D

[tohellandbackanthology]

Hey so I wanted to buy the anthology today and couldn't for obvious reasons. So will there be a chance for those of us who weren't able to place a pre-order yet?

Absolutely! Everyone who has been refunded and wants to repurchase, or who has not been able to purchase yet will have to opportunity to do so. We’re holding an emergency meeting within the next 24hrs to figure out where we’re going to set-up our next shop, which will be open for 2 weeks. So far, it looks like we’re going to use Big Cartel. 

We don’t have set dates yet, but we’ll figure that out ASAP and post an update and link to the shop as soon as we have it!