Hey there, hope all is well by you. 

I'm sending out a quick update to let you know that I'm diligently working behind the scenes to get this book published but have recently run into a few obstacles in trying to accomplish that. I'm going to be completely transparent about this process to keep you informed and to educate anyone that may want to walk down the publishing path as well...

- I could not come to a workable agreement with the first two publishers that I spoke to. The fees to work with them were 2-3 times the amount of money that I earned from this funding campaign. That has pushed me towards the self-publishing option as my main viable path to get this book to you. 

- I have a meeting tonight with a self-publishing platform so that I can get a better idea of what it will take to navigate these new waters. I'm confident that this path will lead to great things and a professionally printed product. I already have an account with Ingram spark to self-publish the book, and they have a quality printing option that I'm leaning towards. It's the most expensive of all the printing options, but I'm dedicated to making sure this book is of the highest quality. (consequently, the last publisher that I spoke to was going to publish my book through Ingram spark as well so I'm confident that this will yield the best results. Once I found out that Ingram Spark was a self-publishing platform I realized that I didn't want to pay a publisher almost $8K to publish this for me when I could just do it myself for about $4K)

So here we are, about to walk down the self-publishing trail. It will be more work on my part to learn and navigate this path, but in the end, it will mean that the product I put out will be entirely in line with what I intended in the first place. The good news for you is that you will most likely get the book faster this way. I'll know more on timing after I have this meeting tonight. The publishing route would have taken till about Christmas to complete. I'm hoping this path can get the book to you much sooner...

Thank you for remaining patient along this journey with me. I want to get this book into your hands as much as you would like to receive it. I just need to do what's right for both the book quality and the budget I have to work with. 

Ps. I may be offering some unique and limited items at a discount to help fund the rest of this project. I'll know more about this once I talk to the self-publishing platform tonight but from my calculations, the book was priced too low in the initial funding campaign, and I'll require additional funds to get these books printed and shipped. It looks like the retail price of this book is going to be $45. The initial campaign priced it at $20-$25 which was much too low for a full-color 220-page book like mine. In my naivety, I was unaware of how much it would cost to print this. If you choose to take part in an additional funding campaign, you will receive incredibly valuable art and maybe even jewelry as a reward. :) I'll know more after tonight what the plan is. 

Much love and many blessings. 
Can't wait to get to the finish line with this. 
Pete