Table of Contents
Welcome Back (00:00)
Project Updates
From Parts Unknown #4 is in prelaunch! (01:57)
Big Smoke Pulp Vol. 1 on KU Right Now! (02:30)
Big Smoke Pulp Vol. 2 - Call for Entry (02:58)
Media Updates
Hear Me on Two Geeks Talking This Saturday (03:38)
Newsletter Updates
No Longer Going Elsewhere (04:01)
Main Story
A Lot at Once (04:46)
Rethinking the Book Strategy for Volume 2 (05:44)
Comics and Reworks (06:40)
Tariff Trouble (07:34)
Lesson Learned: Slowing Down (09:05)
Leave a Comment (10:20)
Updates and Upcoming
Coming Up on the Substack (10:26)
Upcoming Appearances (10:57)
Pesto Comics Release Calendar (11:35)
Instant Ink Comic Book Podcast (12:11)
Super Secret Epilogue (12:52)
Welcome Back
I've been extremely busy lately and because of that I've started to feel burnout creep in. I've been warning for weeks that it was coming. Although I thought I was on top of it, it’s becoming clear that I’m not. I have a few plates spinning at once and I need to start choosing which ones to focus on rather than trying to do it all at the same time.
If you read the paid post on the weekend, you know that I'll be cutting back on the amount of socials I participate in.
It's not just socials though. It's everything.
In 2025, I wanted to maximize the amount of Kickstarter campaigns I could get out in a year, and in doing that, I found myself crammed with constantly launching and fulfilling without a break.
I’ve fast-tracked my Kickstarter experience in doing this and learned more than I ever would have going half speed - but I didn't get much time for the creative side.
Big Smoke Pulp has made it into backers hands, but Naked Kaiju Woman came shortly after along with From Parts Unknown 2 around the same time. I’ve been trying to keep backers updated while keeping this newsletter going, editing and hosting the Instant Ink Comic Book Podcast, planning for upcoming conventions and trying not to lose track of my full-time job.
I’ve been surrounded by boxes for a few weeks now and that’s the least of my worries. I haven’t had much time to write, so I’m making a change to prevent deadlines from slipping away entirely. Learning to draw has become more of a burden than a fun exercise given the axe swinging over my head.
To be clear, I'm not complaining about any of this.
I'm very happy with how this all went and it's beyond my wildest dreams that I'd be sending packages all over the world for people who want to read the work of myself and the amazing artists and authors that I work with.
If anything, this has been a good time to really reflect and start to pick and choose what is important in this business. There are still a whole bunch of projects that I want to get off the ground and if I'm ever really going to do that, I have to start making some big choices.
None of that matters until I get the comics we’ve created into readers’ hands.
Before we get into it, I have a few updates to share with you…
Project Updates
From Parts Unknown #4 is in Prelaunch!
I’m likely going to push the launch for From Parts Unknown #4 back by a week or so to make sure we can give it the gigantic launch it deserves.
This double-size finale has combined issues #4 and #5 into one mega issue making for 40-pages of nonstop action.
I’d also like to get From Parts Unknown #2 and #3 into backers hands before asking these backers to join in for the finale, but I will ask that you follow!
If you haven’t read it at all yet, this is the best time to jump in as you can get the whole story at once.
If you’re feeling a bit more literary…
Big Smoke Pulp Vol. 1 on KU Right Now!
Do you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited?
I’ve done a quiet launch on KU in the past week and we’ve already had some readers take a look. If you have it, you can too!
This will only be available on KU until August, at which point I’ll be pushing this out wide to as many digital retailers as possible (including Kobo Plus, Canada’s non-exclusive version of KU).
Big Smoke Pulp Vol. 2 - Call for Entry
The long-awaited Call for Entries for Big Smoke Pulp, Vol. 2 is nearly here.
My goal is to get this campaign launched around the same time that I did Vol. 1 last year in the Fall. I learned a lot with the first volume, which is something I’ll talk about today, and I'm going to apply these lessons to make Vol. 2 go even smoother.
If you have a short story under 5000 words, I want to read it.
There's no cost to entry. If your story is accepted, authors are paid 1¢ CAD per word, receive a free digital copy and discounted physical copies upon funding of the Kickstarter campaign.
If you're interested, you can find the entry form at bigsmokepulp.com.
Media Updates
Hear Me on Two Geeks Talking This Saturday
If you haven’t had enough of me already, you can hear me talking on Two Geeks Talking this weekend.
This is all part of the lead up into From Parts Unknown #4 , but we talk all things Pesto Comics.
I had a great time chatting with Kurt. You'll enjoy seeing me squirm as he asked some pretty straightforward questions and I struggled to answer them.
Check it out on YouTube this Saturday.
Newsletter Updates
No Longer Going Elsewhere
I mentioned in the preamble that I've had to make some really tough choices, and one of them is cutting back on the experimental, additional newsletter that I've been putting together: Elsewhere in the Universe.
As much as I've enjoyed exploring things outside of the Pesto Comics realm, it's just a little too much to focus on with all the things that I need to do to grow Pesto Comics itself.
It's been the least read posts of any from this newsletter, including the paid ones, so I decided to take that as a sign and cut my losses.
With all that said, given that I’m slowing down the launch cycle for upcoming Kickstarters, I’ll have less posts talking about launches and post-mortems and more room to do Elsewhere-like posts on the regular Wednesday feed.
Less is more. It’ll be a theme in this post and going forward…
Main Story
A Lot at Once
445 packages to 20 different countries. Over 700 comics and over 150 books. These are numbers I could have only dreamed of hitting in the past.
The sheer volume of packages that I had to put together is unlike anything I've done before.
That was just one challenge.
Form factor was something I didn't really put too much thought into until the books arrived at my door for Big Smoke Pulp. These books are huge! My usual stayflats only worked when I was shipping one book with nothing else. When somebody ordered multiples, which happened more often than not, things got a lot more complicated.
Naked Kaiju Woman, on the other hand, was just a matter of volume.
It was more or less the same process that I've always had with my previous campaigns. The normal mailers worked great, but things got thrown out of whack once I threw in the books for Big Smoke Pulp as an add-on — and that was just one add-on problem I ran into. More on that later.
Basically, comics are easy, books are hard.
Rethinking the Book Strategy for Volume 2
I wasn't entirely naïve about print-on-demand for books. All the tools that are available to indie authors is something I've been researching for well over a decade as I threatened to dip my toe in (and never really did it).
Instead of using this opportunity to try the format, I went to printers I was comfortable with for printing comics. However, books and comics are totally different things. This is news to no one and shouldn’t have been to me either, but I got excited when I designed the book.
With Vol. 2, I’ll actually use print-on-demand to my advantage.
I'm reworking the Pesto Comics website along with bigsmokepulp.com to integrate with print-on-demand tools. This means when you order your copy of Big Smoke Pulp, or the unannounced projects I have coming, it'll get shipped directly from the printer.
I've already sent every copy of Big Smoke Pulp that I had in hand out to backers, so even Vol. 1 will be managed this way going forward. It’s a bit of a relief, to be honest.
Comics and Reworks
For comics, I'm always going to want them in hand. I want to be able to bag and board them myself before putting them in a package. When it's a huge fulfillment like it was for Naked Kaiju Woman and From Parts Unknown #2, where I'm sending well over 700 comics, it can feel like a lot but I think it's well worth it.
Something I've always wanted to do, and just haven't made the time to, is to put personal notes for repeat backers. There's quite a few, which I'm super grateful for, and I'd love to show that to them, ut I always seem to find myself chasing fulfillment rather than having the timeD to do these personal notes.
If i do everything right with From Parts Unknown #4 and the follow up to Naked Kaiju Woman later this summer - I should be able to.
I learned a lot of specific little tricks, in terms of how I organize my fulfillment area, to keep me on track and it’ll allow me to do a lot more with the time I’ll be saving. It’s the one benefit of going through this trial by fire.
There’s one more thing, in particular, that I’ll be ready for…
Tariff Trouble
I've been keeping an eye on Section 321 for a while now.
I knew this had a chance of becoming a problem, but then Canada was exempt from a lot of tariff concerns. I thought I was free and clear of any of the issues that this would present - completely forgetting the enamel pins that I ordered as part of the #make100 event for Naked Kaiju Woman and continued with From Parts Unknown #2 were made in China.
As I write this, I don’t have a reasonable way to ship these into the US from Canada, where I am, without having huge tariffs and fees applied. There has yet to be an option for me to cover it via DDP, as there is with other parts of the world. The tariff on a $4 CAD item would be minimal, but the problem isn’t the cash.
With a lot of Canadian vendors mislabeling their shipments to circumvent the tariff, the shipping companies that I use here are refusing to ship anything manufactured in China using USPS. My only option is to ship using Canada Post, which includes a $9.95 processing fee and the tariff going DDU (meaning the receiver must pay it.) This feels unreasonable.
Rather than holding onto everyone's packages that happen the order a pin, I decided to send them their comics without the pin - for now.
This is a big cost to me as I now have to ship a brand-new package whenever this whole tariff nonsense settles (as of this writing, it’s already gone down from 145% to 30%).
To me, it’s better this way than to have backers negotiating with the post office to get their main product: the comics — which are made and printed locally in Canada. I’ll be looking for more local vendors going forward.
Lesson Learned: Slowing Down
I love the fulfillment stage of campaigns, but when it becomes a burden it can rack up your anxiety like nothing else. For writing projects, it's all abstract. There's nothing that exists until you start writing things down on the paper. It's a blank page. Being delayed on fulfillment, however, means you're surrounded by your mistakes until you're able to start shipping everything out.
For a couple weeks I've been surrounded by boxes, books, comics and pins. I have a good system in place and that system was truly put to the test this round.
I'm not feeling terribly overwhelmed, but I do know that things are starting to slip. I barely pushed the campaign for From Parts Unknown #3 and the amount of backers we got there showed it. I want to spend the time to launch with full-energy from now on. If that means spacing projects out a bit more, so be it.
It’s also not the smartest thing to launch From Parts Unknown #4 before backers have had the opportunity to read #2 - let alone Issue #3.
Those examples are just campaigns. I have a number of writing projects that I owe artists and editors too. If I don’t get those in order, I’ll have caught up with campaigns and have nothing for a year or more.
Giving everything the time it deserves is really the only way to go.
I've learned a lot and pushed to my limit. Now that I know where that is, I’m more ready than ever for the next projects.
I hope you’ll be here to join me.
Until next time…
Do you have experience fulfilling big orders? Any thoughts on the process? Any tips or tricks to share?
Let me know in the comments.
Upcoming and More
Coming Up on the Substack
Wednesday May 21
Pesto Comics (Free)
Not Quite 40
Looking over the cliff of my next decade.
Saturday May 24
Pesto Comics (Paid)
Building a Kickstarter page
Finding a formula that works
Wednesday May 28
Pesto Comics (Free)
Burnout Revenge
Rethinking the Pesto Comics Release Calendar
Wednesday June 4
Pesto Comics (Free)
The End: From Parts Unknown #4
Wrapping Up From Parts Unknown with a double-sized conclusion!
Upcoming Appearances
Pesto Comics Release Calendar
Kickstarter Comic Projects
From Parts Unknown #4 - May 28 to June 27, 2025
Naked Kaiju *** (NKW #2) - August 20 to September 19, 2025
“Unannounced Project” #1 - January 7 to February 6, 2026
Naked Kaiju ****** (NKW #3) - March 11 to April 10, 2026
Kickstarter Novel Projects
Big Smoke Pulp Vol. 2 - October 22 to November 21, 2025
Kindle Unlimited Projects
Big Smoke Pulp Vol. 1 - Available Now until August 11, 2025
“Unannounced Project” #1 - July 16 to October 14, 2025
“Unannounced Project” #2 - October 1 to December 31, 2025
“Unannounced Project” #3 - December 10 to March 10, 2026
Instant Ink Comic Book Podcast
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