The first print run of the SKT Revelation deck has now sold out.

We sold out on December 2, exceeding our projections. Based on the numbers from the First and Vitruvian editions, plus the number of pre-orders for the Revelation, we did our best to project the print run quantity we would need to ensure that anyone who wanted a deck in 2021 could get one, and have some surplus to last us until Spring of 2022. Oops.

Second Printing Waitlist

CLICK TO JOIN THE WAITLIST

Although you probably won’t get e-mails from the waitlist newsletter anytime soon, other than that initial canned introductory message, if you are sincerely interested in purchasing the SKT Revelation deck, second printing, please be sure to put your name on the waitlist.

This is very useful to us, because it helps us to gauge interest, what to do with production, the pre-order process, timeline, everything. So if you’re interested in getting a deck in the future, join the newsletter group.

Shipping Status

Everyone who pre-ordered prior to Oct. 6, 2021 has already received their decks or your deck is in-transit and heading your way now, with the exception of some Australia orders.

Some Australia orders are sitting tight while we wait for the US post office to resume mailing to your country. (The private UPS mailing option is still available for those who are in Australia, but the cost of it is pretty crazy.)

We are now making our way through the post Oct. 6 orders. Our ship-out date, meaning when your deck is packaged and sent out by us, is still set at late December.

If you ordered after October 6…

…then yes, you are still waiting on your deck and it won’t arrive until mid- to late December.

Let me try to explain the process.

We opened up pre-orders for the deck while it was in production. That was March 2021 through the first week of October. That’s about 2,500 pre-orders give or take.

Once the decks arrived that first or second week of October, we commenced packing and shipping out those pre-orders.

We just finished all 2,500 pre-orders around Thanksgiving. And that was working around the clock. The fact we managed to ship out 2,500 decks in 1 month is pretty impressive, if I may say so. This is all while my day job, which I have to work quite a bit of overtime for, has been exhausting. So you’re welcome. =)

Then for Thanksgiving– a national holiday by the way, but no worries, yeah sure James and I can work through it– we took 1.5 weeks “off” doing SKT decks to fulfill Metaphysician’s Day Planner orders and we were working around the clock through the holidays to get all the Planner orders out.

And now finally we’re back to working on the SKT deck orders that came in after October 6. Beginning December 1, we’re working on the October 6 and onward decks.

Second Printing TBD

While the black and white First Edition and the sepia-toned Vitruvian Edition were closed editions, meaning whatever the print runs for those editions were, that was that, the Revelation Edition will remain open. A future reprinting– the second print run– of the Revelation Edition will happen.

But just not in 2022. I have a lot of different projects I want to devote my time to next year, and I just know that if the Revelation Edition is going on, I won’t get much progress on those other projects.

The international shipping crisis, exorbitant postage rates, and inflation are all still going on, and from a business perspective, I’ll probably want to do a “wait and see” to see what’s going on with those fronts.

You might recall that the previous editions were $55 and during the pre-order stages, the first printing of Revelation was $57 per deck, and $67 to get the bonus Book of Maps. Even with the decided $2 increase, we made less net profit per deck at $57 this year than we did at $55 in the previous years, all because of inflation. I’m not crying poor me at all. We still did great, and we’re grateful.

But it just seems prudent for us to choose “wait and see” for now.

Although it’s still too far into the future to give any accurate information about a second print run, right now our thoughts are set on 2023. We’ll do a reprint not next year, but the year after.

A reprint of the Revelation is going to be just that, a reprint, with maybe a switcheroo with the card back design and correcting typos in the accompanying guidebooks, changing around the box a bit, but that’s about it in terms of changes. It’s a reprint. Not a new edition.

“Other Projects” 

I mentioned in a previous paragraph that a major reason why I want to hold on SKT Revelation stuff next year is because I want to work on other projects.

Will there be future deck projects? Yes. But not in the same vein as the SKT. The SKT was deeply personal.

Instead, I’m thinking, like, translating Etteilla and reconstructing an Etteilla keywords deck, adding my own little spin to it. Or maybe instead of the Etteilla, then the Tarocchi di Mantegna, but if I go with the Mantegna, fun fact– I already looked into getting price quotes for the Mantegna deck, and printing 50 cards is the same price as printing 80 cards. Which… I mean… I’m not going to print a 50 card deck when I can print an 80 card deck for the same exact price. Ya know what I mean? So now I need to think about how I want to balance art/design with business sense.

Since I’ve already invested so much effort into learning art, I’m definitely going to do my own artwork for these decks, so they won’t be historical reprintings. They’re reconstructions. Meaning I’m doing all of the artwork from scratch, but will try to remain as faithful to the original compositions as I can, and still add my own artist style and voice to it.

And technically speaking, in either instance of a deck project, it’s not really just a deck art project; it’s equally a book writing project, since either deck is going to require quite an extensive guidebook.

Reflecting Back on the Experience

The kinda funny thing is this undertaking has kept me so busy I didn’t even have the time to come on here to whine and complain. 🙂

Because it was a lot harder this third time around than either the first or second. The first was scary, because I didn’t know what I was doing and there was a lot of uncertainty, but then in retrospect, it was fairly painless and easy. We had more printing errors and hiccups in the second edition, but still, the process was fairly streamlined. Fulfilling 2,000 decks in a couple of months is just about what we were able to handle, which was still overwhelming, but manageable.

Fulfilling 3,500+ decks in a couple of months was insane. I don’t know what we were thinking.

Even a simple, minor step like moving the boxes in one by one from the garage, where the truckers dropped them off, inside into our packing and assembly room was exhausting. You’d be moving them and just wondering, omfg, there’s still more boxes out there?? I’m still not done??

And it was not just a matter of physically packing decks to ship out. That was about 50% of the full scope of the job. You have to stay on top of your e-mail inbox (well, James did) and that’s like 150 e-mails per day. A much larger percentage of decks in-transit got lost or were delayed or were jetsetting around the world going everywhere except the desired destination, so we also had to spend a lot of time tracking shipments for customers. We could barely stay on top of the roster of pre-orders as new orders were coming in, which we had to confirm, log, and do intake for. And stay on top of people who were missing stuff, or package and ship out replacements for damaged stuff, etc.

By the way, if you are one of those individuals waiting on a replacement of something and you haven’t heard back from us at all– so very sorry– please e-mail me a follow-up and just remind us. We might’ve dropped the ball on your case. Sorry! So yeah. Just send us a friendly e-mail and be like, hey, what’s up. =) And make sure you get back on our radar.

Okay back to packing and shipping decks. =)

Thank you!

I would like to express my deepest gratitude for everyone who supported and rooted for me throughout this SKT journey. Your love gave me so much strength. Thank you.

Your words, the videos you made, the posts sharing information about my deck and helping me to promote it, your kindness, your thoughtfulness, your patience, all of it means so much to me. I wouldn’t have found the courage to do all this without you. I’m so, so very grateful.