Carved in Stone

First look at the finished book!
5 months ago – Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 06:03:47 AM

Hey Picts and pals,

A wee update this fresh autumn morning! The finished print run of Carved in Stone is now wrapped up and on its way via freight to the USA and UK. The printers sent a few copies ahead, and I've filmed a preview for you all just below:

The UK-bound books will arrive with me sometime next week (estimated the 3rd to the 5th), and the USA-bound books will arrive a bit later in mid-to-end November.

I'm getting everything ready to start fulfilment and get these delightfully weighty tomes out as soon as possible. Not long now!

See you all on the other side of a mountain of paper,
-- Brian

Shipping Update & Pin Badge Preview
6 months ago – Fri, Sep 26, 2025 at 05:36:20 AM

Hello everyone,

This update is all about shipping profiles, and there's a little preview of the penannular pin badges at the end, too.

General Shipping

Over the weekend I added up-to-date shipping profiles to the BackerKit portal. I’ve done my best to evaluate all of Royal Mail’s services and determine the best balance of value and service.

I will be locking surveys on the 3rd of October. After this point you won't be able to change your survey answers, address, or add-ons any more.

I will charge cards on the 6th of October. At this point you'll be charged for shipping and any add-ons you've pre-ordered. If your card declines, you'll still have time to resolve that before we begin fulfilment.

I recommend going back to your survey and checking over the updated costs, especially if you’re sending rewards outside of the UK or the USA. 

You can use this link, https://carved-in-stone.backerkit.com/, to log in and see it. You can also return to it via the email you would have received when you first completed your survey.

Books are expected to arrive in the UK in late October, and in the USA sometime in mid-November. I’ll be handling UK, EU and International orders; Indie Press Revolution (based in Nevada) will handle USA orders. 

I have several convention shows coming up from the end of October through to the end of November; if I have Carved in Stone, I will be selling it in person at these events. If I don’t, I won’t be able to pay rent! Otherwise, the book will be debuting publicly on November 12th in the UK.

Shipping Prices

I’ve compiled some helpful tables for the recently added shipping prices. The majority of orders are either receiving a set of postcards (highlighted in yellow) or a single book, postcards and pin badge (highlighted in green). 

International orders below 0.250kg sent outside the UK or USA won't be tracked. 

All orders above 0.250kg will be sent with tracking. Relevant tracking information will be sent to the email address tied to your Kickstarter survey.

FAQ

How much does Carved in Stone weigh?
About 1.2kg - it's hefty!

Can I cancel my pledge if these shipping fees are too high?
You can cancel you pledge so that you'll no longer receive a physical reward or be charged for shipping, however I cannot offer a refund. You'll still get digital access to the book.

I hope to offer alternatives to the no refund policy in the future, but my ability to provide that is uncertain at this time.

How have you determined these shipping fees?
I will be using Royal Mail's services to fulfil all orders, except for USA orders which will be fulfilled by Indie Press Revolution. I add about £1 on top of the rates set by both services, to cover the costs of labour and packaging. 

I have no control over the rates or weight thresholds set by these services.

Why have you opted for Tracking? Wouldn't untracked be cheaper?
Over the last year, since being acquired by new private owners, Royal Mail has been jacking up the prices of its lower cost services. It used to be that untracked services cost about half of what tracked services do, but nowadays they're only a couple pounds difference. However, despite similar costs, untracked deliveries aren't insured. Opting for tracked services seemed to be the best decision for getting these large, expensive books out into the world.

The only exception are those lower weight thresholds; untracked services for letters are still much cheaper than tracked services.

Penannular Pin Badges

Phew, what a lot to read over! As a treat, here's a preview of the penannular pin badges that were a reward for all tiers from Name Carver and higher. If you like the design, there's still a few spare that you can add-on via your survey!

That's it for this update,
- Brian
 

Digital Early Access and Survey Reminder
7 months ago – Sun, Aug 31, 2025 at 03:25:54 AM

Hello everyone,

I'll keep this update short and to the point!

Fill in your BackerKit surveys 

This is time sensitive, and access to your rewards will be significantly delayed / impacted if you don't do this! 686 / 887 of your have already done this, but that's still almost a quarter of you who haven't!

If you've lost your BackerKit survey email, you can generate a new one via backerkit by entering the email used for your Kickstarter account.

Digital Early Access is here

For everyone who has filled in their BackerKit survey, you should soon be receiving an email from itch.io with details on how to claim your digital download of Carved in Stone. 

That email contains a direct link to claim your digital key for Carved in Stone. After linking it to an itch.io account, you will be able to immediately download the early access preview of Carved in Stone.

If you're having any other issues, pop me an email at [email protected] and I can retrieve your digital key for you manually.

Other Progress

Overall this last month has been spent going through intense proof reading and editing on the final book. Heather and I are very pleased with the gargantuan beast of a book we've put together, though we're not quite out of the woods yet.

Due to delays on the delivery of artwork, I'm currently crunching to make sure that pre-press goes smoothly. I'm in regular communication with our printers, Booksline, and we're both confident that the books will be ready for October 15th later this year.

I'll be working on getting up to date shipping quotes ready in the coming weeks. For folks over in the USA, your rewards will be distributed by my American distributes, Indie Press Revolution. Trump's tariff shenanigans shouldn't impact us too much, but time and time again it's shown that anything could happen in the next eight weeks.

In other news, the pin badges and post cards have been sent out to production, and the book trove rewards are being finalised by the Society next week.

---

That's all for this update. It's been a very long haul, but we're nearly at the end. I hope you all enjoy the preview!

Brian

IMPORTANT: Backer surveys incoming!
8 months ago – Mon, Aug 04, 2025 at 11:39:18 AM

Hey everyone!

This update is SUPER IMPORTANT if you want to receive your Carved in Stone rewards as soon as possible, so please read the whole thing!

BackerKit surveys are going to be sent out in the next few days. They’ll be going to the email used for your Kickstarter account (so the one you’re most likely reading this email/update in).

The survey will ask you some important questions relevant to your pledge tier, and then allow you to pick extra add-ons for your pledge (if you like). If you’re receiving physical orders, it will also ask for the address you want your rewards sent to, and a payment card for you to pay for your shipping (and EU VAT, if relevant) at a later date.

Shipping

Shipping fees are not included in these surveys for now, because international shipping remains incredibly volatile at the moment. There will be a Kickstarter update and email sent to you when shipping costs have been added to the Kickstarter survey, hopefully before September 15th 2025.

European Union VAT

Stout Stoat Press is IOSS registered, which means I can pre-charge VAT on orders entering the EU, allowing packages to skip intensive customs checks and lengthy (well, lengthier) delays. You will see VAT estimates in your survey, and will pay these fees when cards are charged in October.

Add-ons

Alongside your base pledge rewards, you will be able to add extra items to your pledge. This includes extra copies of the book, some merch, other Stout Stoat titles, and the chance to upgrade a lower tier up to a higher tier by paying the difference.

Important note: Carved in Stone’s MSRP will be £50/€55/$60 when it launches publicly. I’m honouring the original 2021 cost of £30 for all existing pledges and pre-orders, and offering a discounted price for new pre-orders of £40 – this is only available until the surveys lock down in early October!

Charging cards 

I will be doing the following in short order at the start of October:

• Locking Orders. This means surveys cannot be changed, like adding or removing add-ons.
• Charging Cards. This means a charge will be applied to the card entered with your completed survey. This will pay for add-ons, shipping fees, and VAT (if you’re in the EU).
• Locking Addresses. This means you cannot change the address for where your rewards will be sent. 

There will be 48-hour warning periods between each of these actions, so you have time to review your survey, make sure you have the appropriate funds on your card, and check your address is correct.

If your card declines when charged, BackerKit and I will try to resolve this with you. However, you will take a lower priority to fulfilling the bulk of pledges.

Late Survey Responses

I will do my best to send out rewards to any surveys submitted after the early October deadline. However, my priority will be on sending out rewards surveys submitted in time, then ensuring pre-orders and wholesale distribution is sorted, before finally returning to late orders. At the end of the day, I am one person with no dedicated assistants; I appreciate your patience, and hope you'll understand if resolutions are slow.

In Summary: Important Deadlines

• Early September: Digital keys for Carved in Stone on itch.io will go out to backers. Surveys not submitted by September will still get a digital key, but processing may be delayed as I focus on physical fulfilment!
• September 15th: I will confirm shipping fees.
• Early October: Starting October 1st, I will lock orders, then charge cards, and finally lock addresses. After this point, orders cannot be changed, and digital-only pledges cannot be upgraded.
• Mid-to-Late October: Carved in Stone arrives from the printers, fulfilment begins.
• Mid November: Rewards begin to arrive with backers!

FAQ

Why are shipping fees getting applied later?

There are a lot of incredibly intimidating factors at play. The USA is applying tariffs seemingly at random, and Royal Mail has raised its prices three times in the last year alone. I have undercharged for shipping on a crowdfunding campaign before, and it left me in net-debt for the whole project. Making a mistake with shipping at the scale of Carved in Stone would put me at disastrous financial risk, or force me to cancel orders with no chance of fulfilment - so I have to wait until we’re closer to the point of fulfilment before I make my estimates. I’m sure you can all understand!

Can I cancel my pledge if shipping fees are too expensive?

It’s true that shipping costs have spiralled incredibly high over the last four years. While I have no control over them, I have done everything I can to make them as low as possible. 

Throughout Carved in Stone’s development, I’ve been transparent about how production of the book has been close to a full time job for both Heather and myself, though it’s gone entirely unpaid. Our remaining budget has been spent on paying artists, editors, consultants, and now printing the books for backers. 

At this time, I can’t offer refunds for pledges made on this Kickstarter, but I will absolutely still deliver digital rewards. In an ideal world, I hope to offer alternatives to the no refund policy in the future, but my ability to provide that is uncertain at this time.

Why has the price of Carved in Stone gone up?

Because it took three extra years to make, and neither Heather nor I have been paid while we made it. That, and printing is more expensive globally, inflation has devalued the original funding we received, and we received drastically less grant funding alongside the Kickstarter than we anticipated. Raising the price is the only way we can be sure that Carved in Stone will have a future - such is the way of things. We have tried to price the book as low as possible, to maintain its accessibility.

Are you still planning to release Carved in Stone for free under a CC license?

Yes! Our goal is to release the full book digitally under a CC-BY-NC-SA license around 1 year after its public debut, which should be November 2026. The book will be ‘Pay What You Want’, so anyone can download it for free, or donate to the project. While it’s too early to discuss plans, I and the Society of Antiquarians of Scotland are working towards something special for that re-launch.

–

That’s all for now! Can you believe the book is almost here?
Brian

Behind the Scene 14: Assembling finals!
9 months ago – Thu, Jul 17, 2025 at 04:57:44 AM

Hey everyone,

So much has been going on the last six weeks. There's been ongoing communication with our 18 artists throughout the drafts and into finals, which requires a lot of constant attention. Even this late into the process, the smallest details seem to reveal hard decisions we have to make to pull artistic celebration and historical accuracy into the same space (which often feels more like wrestling).

Let's start with the good stuff! Here's a selection of previews from the final book. You can click on each of them to see a higher resolution version (and yes, I've got the permissions set up correctly this time!)

So many hours have been invested into this book, facing the gargantuan task of sifting through hundreds of sources and reconciling those into convincing and humanising artwork.We think the work being produced is beautiful (hopefully you do too). From showing it around academic peers, the general consensus is that this sort of conceptualisation has never existed before for the Picts, and there's a lot of excitement!

Not all of the final artwork has been submitted yet, but over three quarters of the book is complete. Some of our team have been unexpectedly sent to A&E and hospital, caught up in the balance between day jobs and illustration or facing other personal life delays I've set a longer deadline for delivery in Mid-August, so that out artists won't burn themselves out. (I'm sure you can all empathise!)

Alongside supporting our artists, Heather and I have been finalising the appendices, glossary and annotated bibliography, which includes a lot of checking back in with experts. It's worth highlighting that the budget of this project hasn't grown significantly over the last 4+ years, so a lot of the research and peer reviewing going on has been through in-kind networks. Without funding, we get to ask questions when they're convenient, which can often be far too late in comparison a traditional development process. Heather and I have been returning to polish sections of the book regularly, even though we thought we we're "done". Once again I'd like to highlight the dedication of our artists to revise details and redraft scenes that had already been signed off on!

The next few weeks will be consumed with a lot of admin and small tasks. I've been having ongoing conversations with the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland about distribution, and 'what happens next'. We've said things like 'international distribution' and 'high-street chain book stores', so touch wood those sorts of connections pull together. Alongside all of that is the ongoing question of distribution. 

One of my tasks for the end of July is to resurrect the BackerKit portal, start collecting addresses, and perhaps even open pre-orders. This is a real time-suck of a task, because BackerKit is notoriously complex. I appreciate everyone's patience while I get this set up; I definitely don't want to make a mistake while processing close to a thousand people's personal data!

Over the last few years I've adopted the speculative-speak of other archaeologists (I say this lovingly). However I will say one thing for certain: this book will be here. Heather and I have been pushing this boulder uphill, it's passed over the zenith and it's rolling down at alarming speed. More to come in August and September!

-- Brian