Later today, tomorrow, or Friday, if you pre-ordered the premium package for the SKT: Revelation, then the e-mail for the Book of Maps will be in your inbox shortly.

I apologize for the delay. In a previous status update I said I’d get it to you in the first two weeks of May, but regrettably, that didn’t happen. Life got in the way. =)

If you do not receive it, first make sure to check every single e-mail inbox for the addresses you might have given to us. Second, make sure to check the Social or Promotions tab in Gmail or your spam folder. Our communication might’ve gotten caught up in there. If truly a glitch has happened and you did not get the e-mail, please reach out to abelldelivers@gmail.com.

Full-Color Book vs. Grayscale

There is a $10 price difference between the full-color version of the Book of Maps and the grayscale or black & white version. But the aesthetic value of the full-color version, in my opinion, is worth way more than that $10 price difference.

That’s because the Book of Maps is image-heavy. If the book was only text dominant, then yeah, grayscale all the way to keep costs down. But unfortunately, given that this book is as much tarot artwork as it is text, the pricier full-color one is worth your investment.

Due to the nature of the artwork, to print them, they would take in a lot of ink. When printed in full-color, it all works. But when all of that ink that’s called for is monotone, what can end up happening is the print job will look like a big grainy blob.

Whereas, on the other hand, the full-color version is really quite pretty, if I may say so myself. =) And the prettiness of it just inspires you to want to reach for it and flip through the pages. So you’ll actually use the book! If the $10 price difference is also the difference between you using the book and you forgetting about it on your bookshelf, I say go for the full-color version or don’t buy a paperback at all and stick to the digital PDF, amiright? =P

All that said, the grayscale option is still available for anyone who reads all this and decides that it’s still the best option for them. ❤

The Tarot Journal

You’ll have noticed that in addition to the digital files for the Book of Maps, you also got the digital files and direct access links to a spiral-bound SKT tarot journal.

Usually these tarot books have a section on reading spreads, right? Well, instead of having that in the Book of Maps, I moved anything I’d want to say about spreads to the tarot journal. I also moved the reference tables of correspondences from the BoM to the journal pages.

Some of you might remember the 22 Weeks thing that came with the premium package for the First and Vitruvian Editions. That got incorporated into this journal concept.

A dedicated 22-week workbook was probably a bit too rigid and difficult for the majority to follow through with and complete. Something a little more forgiving in terms of how to schedule it into your life might work better. Hence, the modified structure I’ve presented here.

Day of Mercury activities are logged in a dedicated section just for all Wednesday entries. Now you don’t need to feel forced to stick to a daily, consecutive schedule. You enter notes on any Wednesday at all, logging the exact date in the “Entry Date” column. This enables the scheduling to be a lot more open-ended.

The end pages of the spiral-bound tarot journal includes these blank Notes pages. So you can really customize how much space you need for each weekly activity entry. For example, a 5/19/2021 Day of Mercury activities log in the Log of Wednesdays will take up a little more space than your average. Simply write “cont’d on Notes p. 262” (for example) and then flip over to the Notes section of your journal and continue your 5/19/2021 log there.

There are prompted workbook-style pages that walk you through a particular type of card reading. Those who went through the previous editions’ 22-weeks workbook might remember some of these.

There are page spreads for you to record some of your more serious readings with the deck. I find that writing out your readings really help to reinforce tarot proficiency. Nevermind the incredible value of revisiting these pages later on in life and seeing how the divinatory readings actually panned out. =)

And then there is a section for concise notes on one-card or two-card + I Ching daily/weekly/monthly draws.

The way this tarot journal is structured, compared to the previous editions’ workbooks, means you’re not committed to a set period of time. You just work with the prompts in the journal as you can, for whatever period of time ends up working out the best for you.

SKT Production Status Update

There is a long version to the story and there is a short version, and personally I think the long version is super informative. I will probably make an unlisted video about it all, sharing everything I’ve learned and my insights, and it’ll be part of the Launch a Tarot Deck course pack thing I offer. Don’t worry if you already purchased that course– I’ll e-mail it to past orders as well. It’s just content I didn’t want to make public, but at the same, wanted to rant about, because I do think there are valuable lessons to be shared.

Anyway, getting the margins just right turned out to be a bit of a hiccup, and slowed down my progress. We were editing at tenths of a millimeter to try and get this right.

The margins as shown on the uncut sheets were okay, but I mean, why settle for okay if a little bit of tinkering at tenths of millimeters can get you exactly what you want? =)

Above you’ll see the uncut sheets of the final draft that’s headed for production as we speak.

The background wallpaper on the box design is the same as the Book of Maps cover design, though the goldish things added to the book cover art does mean it won’t be matchy-matchy.

That was another point of prolonged consideration. Do I want the deck box design, the book cover art, and the card back design to be matchy-matchy? I made pros and cons lists. I printed out proofs and stared at them. Finally, I decided not to go with matchy-matchy. They complement (or so I hope).

At this time, full production mode has begun. We settled on a print run of 3,507 decks. By my estimations, June to complete printing, July to complete overseas shipping, first two weeks of August for James and I to get all our ducks in a row, and so that brings us to mid-August for the first big batch of decks to be mailed out. Then we’ll be mailing in daily batches through August and September.