Okay kiddos, it’s time for a new update on the preorder of the Strays volumes. The biggest bit of information is the books are in production at this very moment and will be here by the end of the month! Woohoo!! They are on schedule to ship to us on December 20th and we should receive them within a week after that. Though we also have to account for a small delay for the holidays, so we expect to get them in hand at the beginning of January at the latest. To make shipping as easy as possible we are going to start with all of the book-only orders, then move on to the orders with extra items like prints/charms, then we’ll begin working on the sketched-in copies. I am going home for Christmas and won’t be back until January 2nd, so we can’t get started on the sketched-in copies until after that, but we’re going to get them done and shipped as soon as possible. Just please keep in mind it will probably take us a bit of time to draw in all of these! We also have a smallish change to the books: To meet required specifications we had to increase the number of pages for both volumes to 152. This means little to Volume 1, but Volume 2 now includes a few more bonus illustrations as well as two extra pages of concept art. To wrap this up, we ask again that anyone who has NOT sent us your bookmark choice (Feral, Meela, Piper or Holland) to do so now. You can contact us at sales (at) straysonline (dot) com. If you do not give us a choice by the time we ship your order you will receive a random pick. We are also ending preorders on Wednesday, December 18th. If you want any of the preorder bonuses be sure to order by then! The books will still be available for regular sale after the preorder ends.

Hi guys, we wanted to give you all an update on what’s going on with the Volume 1 & 2 preorders. We know we’re seriously behind in our estimated delivery dates, but we had no idea how different mass-production printing would be from our usual print-on-demand method. That on top of moving to a new reno house, conventions, keeping up with weekly updates and now my hand issues, we have really been set back on it. However I am happy to report we are just about ready to send it off to the printer. We just have a few more tweaks to make and I need to finish one of the bonus images for Vol 2 as soon as my hand is in working order. I’ve spent the last week working on other non-art details for the books with a mouse since I can’t use my drawing hand, but it’s all coming together really nicely. I wanted to take this time to share some of the new/different things for these two runs, as well as make an announcement about some preorder selections that may have been confusing:

1. If you preordered Vol 2 with the “2 book” option you will be receiving Volumes 1 and 2. If you do NOT want this, and instead want two books of Volume 2, please contact us right now.
2. If you preordered the books and did not give us a bookmark(s) choice, email us with your order number/PayPal email and choice now. You get one free bookmark per book you ordered. You have until we get the books in hand and begin shipping to tell us which one you want or you will be sent a random choice.
3. If you have contacted us about a change in your order and have not received a response within 48 hours, please try again. You can use both straysonline(at)yahoo.com or sales(at)straysonline.com

Now on to the good stuff – information about the volumes!

Volume 1

This will be a totally different book than the version we were selling before. We have gone back and made tweaks to the art of a small portion of the comic pages (mostly anatomy, facial expressions and some consistency issues) and we have also revamped and added to the title/credits pages. There will also be no ad pages in this copy! Well, except for our artist bios and perhaps a small blurb about GaMERCaT ;) In addition we have revamped the back cover (preview to the right) AND we now have ISBNs! This means we can sell the books on Amazon or possibly in book stores if any are willing to carry it. Other than that, the front cover and all bonus content will be the same.

Volume 2

Like Volume 1, for this book we have gone back to a good number of the comic pages and made adjustments to the art. Some of it has been updated on the site, but some of it will be exclusive to the book. For bonus content we are including six bonus illustrations, three of which have yet to be posted online. We are also including 3 pages of information on Lupians and one more page that provides the translated text from Yuen’s journal page in Volume 1. You can preview these below! We know this has been a long process and we truly appreciate your patience and support. We believe these are going to be some awesome books, so we really hope it has been worth the wait :) If you have any more questions please feel free to contact us!

Hey guys, we wanted to give you a little update on the progress of the Volume 2 preorder. We’re doing great on Vol 2 preorders and have successfully reached full funding for it, but we’re still in need of around $6k more to get Volume 1 printed. This means we need to sell at least 300 more book only options. Less if some people get both books or the add-ons like prints or sketches (which, by the way, will be discontinued once the preorders end!) This seems like a lot, but we know we have a lot of faithful readers. If you enjoy the comic, please please please consider supporting us by ordering a copy. It’s only $20! For those of you interested in both volumes, we have an update to the “2 book” option: Rather than sending two copies of Vol 2 if we don’t reach funding for Vol 1, we can hold your order until we DO have enough money to get it printed, so you will get both volumes eventually. I say this because even if it takes another 3-4 months (or more), we will continue saving every penny until we can get it printed. If you do not mind a potential wait and would like to help us reach funding for Vol 1, please consider buying both books. If you’ve already purchased one book and want to add the second now, please email us and we’ll get you set up. Alternatively, if you are low on funds, you can also purchase some of our other cheaper merchandise or even donate. Every dollar helps. If you can’t do that either, please spread the word! That helps too! On a final note, we noticed a lot of you are having trouble finding the method for adding notes to your order. PayPal kind of hides it, so here is a screengrab of the checkout page with the notes form highlighted: Use this to tell us which bookmark you want, who you want us to draw if you’re getting sketches, or anything else we might need to know. For those of you who already made your purchase and didn’t give us this information, don’t worry, we’ll be contacting you for it via email when we are ready to ship.

Are you guys ready? We’re finally getting Volume 2 into print! But we need your help! PLEASE READ, THIS IS IMPORTANT! In order to offer a better sale price we want to get this volume printed via offset printing rather than print-on-demand. What does this mean? It basically means we order in bulk, thus lowering the cost per book, but increasing the overall cost. We don’t have the money to fund this ourselves and, like most other webcomics, we could do a Kickstarter, but based on sales of the previous volume we believe that we can cut out the middle man and fund this via preorders alone. That’s right, we believe in you guys! But that’s not all we need. Volume 1 has recently sold out, and we would love to get that reprinted via the new printer as well. That task may very well need a Kickstarter of its own, but not if we get enough orders for Volume 2. We’re hoping to pre-sell enough books of Volume 2 to fund getting both volumes printed, and thus we are offering special bonuses for the preorder period. These bonuses will be available ONLY during preorders, so don’t hesitate if you fancy any of them!

• All preorders will come with a free bookmark, your choice of Feral, Meela, Holland or Piper
• The four prints set options include the 4×5 mini prints of Chibi Feral, Meela, Holland and Piper
• Sketched in copies include sketches by both artists. You choose the characters to be drawn
• The 2 book option will include either two copies of Volume 2 or one copy each of Vol. 1 and 2

The 2 book option will include two copies of Volume 2 UNLESS enough orders are made to fund the reprint of Vol. 1, in which case it will include one copy each of Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. You may choose to receive two copies of only Vol. 2 if you wish, just let us know when you make your purchase. We hope to get the books ordered and in hand by July or August, but that all depends on you, dear readers! The sooner we reach funding, the sooner we can put the order in. Sales from other items in the shop will also go towards this effort, so purchases of charms, buttons, prints, etc. will help as well.

• Go to the store here to preorder!

We’re counting on you! Please help us fund this!

We have finally set up a way to accept donations. For those of you who would like to support us but aren’t really interested in any of our merchandise, please feel free to use the swanky new donation button to the right. If you would prefer to get something more tangible for your money, don’t hesitate to visit the store and check out the goodies available there. All purchases do help us. Strays has always and will always be free to read, but support from viewers is very appreciated. You do not have to spend money at all in order to read the comic, but if you would like to help by purchasing our merchandise, donating, or even making sure not to block the ad box displayed on our site, we would really think that you’re awesome!