Who said it was supposed to be some sort of historical document? From the get go it has been marketed as a book celebrating 30 years of Stern. A "dazzling representation of the world of pinball through the eyes of the Stern company".

Who knows at this point if they are removing all mention of Trudeau, but what company in their right mind would release a new book celebrating/emphasizing an alleged child pornographer?

This was always only going to be "a coffee table book", not hard hitting journalism.

I basically expected some nice pics of their titles, some well-known stories from Gary, factory photos, some bios of who works there. What else was it ever going to be?

I didn’t get it. Do you have Joe’s Email by chance?

Really, is that what you think?

Sure, IMO. Tilt Forums is great but smaller user base. Not aware of any other major message boards.

If you didn't get it I'd check your Kickstarter settings/account. I believe he is just posting the updates to the Kickstarter page and Kickstarter sends out the emails.

Alas, I did not go through Kickstarter as I found out about the matter right after it closed. I exchanged PM's with Joe here on Pinside and sent him the money for one regular book through paypal per his instructions at the time (that I still have). Now, I seem to be forgotten about and my period to do a charge back has passed... I know, I shouldn't have sent the money via paypal, but it seemed legit...

I'd be surprised if you don't get your book. Will it be soon? Probably not but in all likelihood you will get it. I've participated in over 100 kickstarters including this book. I have received over 95% of the items backed. That being said less than 20% were on time.

I get that Kickstarter is new to most pinsiders, but the sheer panic in these comments is somewhere between hilarious and absurd. Anyway the recent update says exactly what was obvious. Stern is having them edit some things. They didn't explicitly say it's because of Trudeau but they certainly alluded in that direction.

Every Kickstarter is late. I said it like five pages back and I'll say it again. As someone who has put thousands and thousands into Kickstarters and had only 2 fail to deliver (both video games), you'll get your books. But it's gonna be a long time. You're better off forgetting you even backed for a good long while and then you'll be pleasantly surprised when a strange book shows up at your door.

It's not even that. People are just pissed that he came in here to ask for money. If you had a question, it was answered. THEN after he got the money, he doesn't come back HERE and give a quick update.

Yeah, that's just common sense for that to rub people the wrong way. Add the radio silence to that and its really a recipe for a toxic mess.

I have backed some kickstarters and yes delays happen but this is just textbook jackassery

let's correct this a bit:
after he got the money, he left pinside and:
- hasn't posted anything to his own website forums since january 20, 2017 (paperflock.com)
- hasn't been seen here on pinside.com since may 14, 2017
- has only post a total of 4 updates on kickstarter since achieving the goal of $50K (june 06, aug 01, oct 13 and dec 08)

the only positive thing that I can say at this point is that it's a good thing that joe isn't authoring this thing:
here's just a sample of his less than stellar writing skills: We have hired Amanda Hudgins to edit the book! She is an amazing editor who has worked with Zack, our writer, before!

ps
this came from the oct 13th update (meaning that in addition to not having an author for the book, they also didn't even have an editor lined up until 6 months after the campaign ended

Yup, the "you guys don't know how Kickstarter works" is a non-starter--that's not what we are pissed about. Don't hound us for money for your project--which Joe shamelessly did--then disappear once you get it. Joe was always around on Pinside during the countdown to full funding--until suddenly he wasn't, and he has not been back.

Again, welcome to every Kickstarter. The website he’s selling the book on is Kickstarter, not Pinside. It’s really common to market to a target audience and then go work on a project. He didn’t “hound” anyone, come on. He mentioned a product was going to exist to the people most likely to be interested in that product.

I guess I do expect this sort of behavior from Pinside though. I’m just disappointed it never changes.

Yes, he did hound us until those of us on the fence finally bought into his project and funded it. Many were not really buying what Joe was selling, but he promised the moon if we would just get this funded. The moon set shortly thereafter. Joe's book was dead in the water without the support of Pinside and he knew it.

dude, what is your definition of "mentioned"? Once, twice, 3, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50?:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-coffee-table-book-kickstarter?tq&tu=JoeDP

Jesus you've been a broken record since the beginning when you were complaining about shipping charges. Over and over with your bellyaching. People like you make this hobby a chore instead of a fun diversion from real life.

Well, that's like just your opinion, man.

To be fair, someone created a thread for the project he was Kickstarting and he posted many times in said thread. He wasn't thread hijacking or anything. He only posted a handful of times outside of that thread and it was usually a video interview with a pinball designer.

So you are saying I shouldn't panic after I gave $120 for a coffee table book and have not heard back from the author in months or the company that the book is based upon. As for "well shit it's Kickstarter man this happens all the time". No it doesn't happen "all the time" and when it does, it happens from the poorly run Kickstarters. Joe and his business partner had a solid reputation in business and Kickstarter. That pretty much ended with me at least when they didn't update the backers and the only update we got was a backer attending the Stern panel who asked Stern where the book was. Stern pretty much said "yeah it's somewhat done just going through the review process for your $120 book". In reality it wasn't anywhere NEAR done and is many months away from being done.

th (resized).jpg

Bottom line, if they were more open and honest about the progress people wouldn’t be in panic mode. I think if they came out and said don’t worry, we’re a year behind because of rewrites but it’s getting there and this is where we are.....people would be ok. But people feel like they were ripped off and feel taken advantage of by the lack of communication. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for quarterly q and a’s for anything in Kickstarter. Just good business.

I’m saying that. It’s $120 not $12,000. Panic over $120 is just not worth it..

I've backed 30+ Kickstarters ..... about 85% run behind schedule..... 100% (excluding this Stern book) give frequent and honest updates about progress (even when they are at fault for the delay). All they need to do is send us updates and explain how things are going. Radio silence implies issues that may jeopardize the project

the sad part about kickstarter is that there is no legal recourse for the backers when a project is successfully funded and the project owner does not come through.
it makes me think that kickstarter should hold a portion of the funds in escrow so that if the project never comes to fruition at least a portion of the funds go back to the backers

maybe it's the part of me that has never taken money for something that is not complete and ready to ship (if you don't have the funds to back your own projects, then maybe you shouldn't be getting into it in the first place)

I'm no millionaire (heck, far from it), but I've been able to bring quite a few $5-digit projects to market on my own dime. I think that using your own money not only gives you a sense of pride, but also drives you to getting the project completed. when you're using someone else's funds, that incentive simply isn't there and you don't feel any pressure to [getting it done]

Completely agree with these statements. Anybody who has waited for something media wise and especially video games knows this all too well. I'm still waiting for Half-Life 3, a video game that will likely never come out in my lifetime. In fact I'll give a quick story that is similar to how this KS has played out.

Half-Life 2 was announced back in '03 and the company had a big event on Ellis Island in fact. An entire issue of then popular PC Gamer Magazine really showed off the game and the E3 Expo. They showed demo's and really advertised it and said it was coming out later that year. Later a kid from Germany hacked the company and stole the game and leaked it onto the internet. The kid was caught by the FBI but the damage was done. It showed that the game was nowhere near complete and the game barely ran. The game ended up being released a year later and just like the first became a landmark in the gaming industry.

Moral of the story is you shouldn't lie to your fanbase or investors. Even worse is to leave them hanging and not even respond back making you think you have been conned. If you are going to delay it, delay it and that is completely understandable. Nobody wants to play a half baked game or coffee table book with lots of pretty pictures and not much else.

It's literally a leap of faith and trust you must give to a project as you are investors. Think of a Kickstarter pledge as buying stock in a new company on the stock market. You look at trends on the company you are buying stock in but say if it's Disney you just know you are going to make money on. What I really liked about the Pinball Magazine book Kickstarter was that it was basically done, the author is already known in the pinball industry, and no funds would have been taken unless it was successful. When it wasn't, no money was taken. I think the worst ones are the ones that take money even if the Kickstarter doesn't become successful as you are hoping they make the product but under limited funding. Your not even sure if it's possible to get whatever you backed or it's a product that is different than what you expected. GoFundMe we won't even go there.

New update:

99759B3E-E0D2-434A-89B3-E0FC21AC83BB (resized).png

What a crock/crook

at least it is a update and it's Christmas so I will give them the benefit of the doubt but would like to see at least one update a month.

I have backed a heap of kickstarters and Pro Pinball was the worst and they still haven't delivered the designs for the cabinet decals and just blatantly ignore any questions and they have issued art to the dutch guys - Silver Castle to build a cabinet - Pro Pinball will never get a cent off me again

Hopefully Paperflock can do a awesome book with some see through pages as a bonus to make us all forget about the poor communication and delays

well said and very true, and I do the same with projects like the snackbar mods etc

Not at all like buying stock in a new COmpaNy. With stock you have some equity and have the possibility of selling the stock for more than you paid.
Here, you are basically pre-buying books. With a chance of never getting them or getting them late. Very late.......

Nothing new when the subject has editorial control

Hello Pinside.

I know many of you have been disappointed in my participation in this forum, the number of updates we have posted, and many other things.
Many of you have also contacted me via the private message system.

I do apologize about our lack of responses.

I will now be participating in this forum now until completion.
And I will be slowly responding to each of the private messages, but it might take me a little while.

There is a lot of good news!
The book editing has come a really long way over the last 45 days.
I believe the story is really compelling and engaging.
We will be posting a new update on the Kickstarter about this and other things.

This is one of the most difficult things to grapple with for this project as it gives the book it's structure and it's message.
And I believe we have gotten to a great place with all of these things.

We are currently on our 6th revision of the material and have sent it out to key readers, some who have no background in pinball, and some who are very knowledgable about the subject. And of course Stern is also reviewing this revision.

Our next steps will be to collect all of the comments from our readers and determine if any edits or additions would make the project better.

As I said, I will be on this forum now until the project is complete. I may not comment everyday, but if you address me I will respond.

Thank you all for your support and patience, I promise we are doing our best to create something we will all be proud of for years to come.

This was your post from 8 months ago.

Where have you been and what has been going on? Sorry but after you got all the money, you disappeared then came back once before promising to be engaged with the community you took the cash from... what is different now?

Very nice, as a Super Limited backer I just want you guys to keep working on this until it is the absolute best book you can make. Super jealous of the advance reviewers but good things come to those who wait. Looking forward to getting this as soon as it’s done.

I would have appreciated more frequent updates, but am glad you are back and that things are looking good with the book. The quality of the product is the most important thing for me. If the book is outstanding (and I am hopeful it will be!) the wait will have been worth it.

Thanks for the updates. Looking forward to the final product!

Godspeed from a member of the 444.

Hi, again thank you all for your support and patience.
It really means a lot to us.

As many of you know working with Stern to make a community based project has its challenges.
We have been working diligently on the book, and are excited by the progress.
Some things have changed and we have gotten blessing to resume our community out reach.

There is always give and take in these situations, and over the past 6 months there have been many changes.
Some have complicated things quite a bit, while others are creating more allowances.

Pushing / pressing issues at the wrong time can in many cases be detrimental to the overall well being of a project like this, so we were patient. Now we believe we can move forward quickly and finish this project in a really great way!

I'm sorry I can't be more specific, but just know, we are ready to move forward and excited to do so!

Do you have a new timeframe goal?

You know what would smooth everything over with everyone...... adding the translucent overlapping pages of the insides of a pinball machine

I mean, those would look fantastic in the book

Joe--welcome back. Hope you stay back. Wish you would have never left.

Hi Everyone,

Just today we had a long editing meeting and created our 7th revision of the book that reviewers will be reviewing soon!
Kickstarter update tomorrow.

Thanks for your question, we do not want to announce a timeline yet, but we are hopefully in the final stages of the copy (text) edit.
After we lock the copy it will be much easier to create an estimated timeline.

This was a dream of ours! Unfortunately we are pretty sure it is cost prohibitive at the purchasing capacity we have with current orders.
We will look a little deeper into it, but we know it is very pricey.

Thank you, me too

Until later, thank you all again for your patience and support, Joe

How many pages is this again? 200 or so? If you're doing the printing overseas, the translucent/transparent pages shouldn't add that much to the overall cost per unit, even for a short run, especially if there's only a dozen or two pages per book with this printing.

given that you're likely to end up being 2 years late to actually getting the book into the backers' hands than originally promised, it would be a nice "we're sorry and thank you" for everyone that felt like they got screwed with the lack of updates for the past year

btw, what ever happened to releasing photos of the zombie yeti poster and the dickie's jacket for the super backers? I'd like to think that jeremy packer completed the artwork for the poster long ago for the original slated delivery date

I thought the translucent pages was a given? Wasn't it on the list of features during the sales campaign?

The cost to do it certainly shouldn't be a reason to cut it because it's just not that expensive, especially if you're doing it overseas as they should for a run like this.

Shouldn't they have investigated the cost before listing it as a feature?