The Fox's Wedding: a Compendium of Japanese Folklore

It's time to lock addresses!
about 3 years ago – Tue, Aug 24, 2021 at 01:21:01 AM

Greetings yokai fans!

While I don't have a precise ship date, the end of the project is getting closer and closer. The books are printing now, and the add-on rewards are almost all ready to go. The printer tells me that the last chunk of books should be finished by October, and after that there will be a crunch of packaging and loading off to the fulfillment center, where the books will take their final journey to your homes!

So, in order for the fulfillment center to begin their preparations, I will lock down addresses in Backerkit after this week.

Please double check that your address is up to date by visiting https://kitsune.backerkit.com. If you are expecting to move soon, or if you have any questions please feel free to message me. After this week, if you need to update or change your address it will require coordination between a few different parties, and that will result in delays getting your rewards.

Finally, if you still have not finished your survey, or if you still have not paid for your shipping & add-ons, this week is the last chance to get that done to avoid delays! 

Yōkai 101 (free Zoom lecture)
about 3 years ago – Thu, Aug 05, 2021 at 01:12:39 AM

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to let you all know about an online speaking event I will be participating in this month. It's free to register, so if you're interested and your time zone allows it, please join us!

I will be speaking along with Michael Dylan Foster, who you may know as the author of several excellent yokai books. I imagine many of you have probably read his books already!

U.S. – Monday, August 16th, 2021 @ 4:30PM (PDT) Japan – Tuesday, August 17th, 2021 @ 8:30AM (Japan Time)

Visit here to register:

https://www.usajapan.org/event/yokai-101-exploring-the-thrill-of-japanese-folklore

I hope to see you there!

August Update
about 3 years ago – Wed, Aug 04, 2021 at 01:05:16 PM

Hello yokai lovers!

I have good news:

Zack Davisson, my editor, has finished with the edit of The Fox's Wedding, and I am currently putting the book together with his text revisions. So that means that the physical copies of The Fox's Wedding will go into production soon. Physical production of the other books is already underway. And you can expect the ebooks later this month!

As to the question of when the books will actually ship, that is still hard to say. Coronavirus has taken its toll on supply chains everywhere, and every company that I am partnering with has cautioned me that business is operating at a reduced pace compared to normal years. So it's hard to estimate the speed of book production, as well the speed of sorting and distribution. However, progress continues, and once the printing is underway I will hopefully be able to offer a clearer picture. 

Just as a reminder, there is still plenty of time to change your addresses if you need to. If you want to change your address or review your order, please visit http://kitsune.backerkit.com.

Feel free to send me a message if you have any questions. Thanks for your patience! I'll have more updates for you as more information comes to me.

- Matt

July Update + Map of Japan
over 3 years ago – Fri, Jul 02, 2021 at 02:32:25 AM

Greetings yokai fans!

I hope you're all staying comfortable in the intense summer heat (or enjoying a cool southern hemisphere winter for those down below the equator).

First, an update on the status of the books: Reprints of the first 3 books are underway. The printer suggested getting those done first to save time later, so that is happening now. I'm expecting the edits to the text from Zack by around the end of this month, after which the final production files will be built and the Fox's Wedding will also go to the printers.

The ebooks will be put together once the physical production begins, so the ebooks can be expected some time around mid-August.

Other rewards, like the postcard packs, bookmarks, and art prints have been ordered. I just had 20,000 postcards delivered to my studio this morning! I didn't know what that would look like, but it was just five very large boxes... so not too hard to manage.

Next, an update on charges: Nearly all of the remaining pledges were successfully charged in June. Only a handful of charges failed, and I will be attempting to re-charge those in July. Please note that if your shipping charges fail, I cannot ship your books. Same goes if you haven't completed your survey yet. So if you need to update your credit card information or finish your survey, do that ASAP.

Also, a request: if you have any questions or issues about charges, please contact me with your concerns! A few people may have been confused by them and reported them as fraud. That causes me to incur a heavy fine for each fraud claim, and hurts my ability to process credit cards in the future. I'm just one guy doing everything on my own here; I don't have teams of lawyers and accountants on hand to handle that sort of thing. I want each of you to be fully satisfied with the project, so please reach out to me before reporting fraud.

Finally, the map: I've been saving this final illustration so I would have something to share this month. This is the map of Japan, which appears in the beginning of the book. This goes back to my love of fantasy novels as a kid, which almost always have a map in the beginning of the book. But it also helps a lot when talking about Japan, a country which not many people have a close understanding of the geography. And since many of the yokai come from specific areas, it helps to visualize that.

For each map, I try to including something both interesting and entertaining. Earlier books have included the prefectures and regions, the old names of the provinces prior to the Meiji Era, famous ancient routes that linked the provinces together, and of course the topography, which helps explain why Japan evolved the way it did. (You can see how there are so many uninhabitable mountainous areas, and only a few flat areas where population centers can develop.)

For the theme of this map, I went with the main theme of the book: kitsune. For all of the kitsune in the book, I picked out the ones that were tied to specific locations and placed them on the map. This is not all of the kitsune in the book (and of course not all of the yokai!), but I left out the ones that are found everywhere across the country, in large ranges, or in unspecified areas; those just don't really fit with the map format as well.

You'll notice two different-colored entries as well. The orange one is Tamamo no Mae, and the green one is Kuzunoha. They are actually from different books (The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits and The Book of the Hakutaku respectively). Normally I try to keep the maps focused on only the yokai in that particular book, but in this case I made an exception. That is because Tamamo no Mae and Kuzunoha are perhaps the two most famous kitsune in Japanese folklore, and both of them are mentioned in The Fox's Wedding. Since I already covered them in previous books, I didn't repeat their entries in this one. However I thought it would be helpful to place them on the map.

I also included major Inari shrines. There are over 30,000 Inari shrines in Japan, so I couldn't possibly hope to include all of them. And because Shinto is very decentralized, there's not actually an official ranking of importance among shrines. It's nearly universally accepted that Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto is the origin and center of Inari worship, and the top 3~4 centers of Inari worship are mostly agreed upon. After that, it's a bit of a free for all, which each major shrine offering up its own list of the "top 3" or "top 5" or "top 10." I combed through a few of those listings and added the ones that were accepted to be major, even though there's no number ranking to them.

One oddity you'll see is that there are no major shrines in Hokkaido or Okinawa. While Hokkaido does have Inari shrines, they are all quite recent (within the last 150 years or so) and thus do not have the history of the other shrines. As for Okinawa, Inari worship never really caught on there. There are minor shrines to Inari that are part of larger shrine and temple complexes in Okinawa, but nothing that could be considered a "major" shrine.

I may add a few more shrines to the map, and when the text is finalized I will also add page numbers to the kitsune icons to make them easier to reference.

That's all for now! Thanks for reading!

* If anyone isn't sure about their survey/payment status, or if you want to update your shipping address, please visit kitsune.backerkit.com to review your order.

A Quick Update on Timelines
over 3 years ago – Sat, Jun 12, 2021 at 05:20:36 PM

Greetings backers (and pre-orders)!

No art today. I'm saving that for a later post. I just wanted to post an update on the fulfillment timeline, since we're approaching the deadline presented at the Kickstarter launch. 

As I've mentioned, the text is still undergoing its final editing check by Zack Davisson, fellow yokai author and folklorist. I'm very luck to have someone like Zack as my proofreader, since his familiarity with the subject matter makes him better at spotting things than most editors would be. Zack has told me needs about 2 more months to finish the edit. So that means, unfortunately, there will be a delay in the book's ship date.

I know you're all eager to get your books, and I know that many of you were hoping to have them in hand by the summer. I'm sorry that it won't be possible to get the books to you by the original planned date. However, the book will be all the better for that delay.

In the meantime, production has started on the reprint of the first three books. This will save time so that when The Fox's Wedding is ready, it will be one more print run instead of four. I'm lucky to be working with a local printer this time instead of outsourcing to printers abroad, as it gives me a lot more flexibility in those matters.

I'll post another update when I've got more information, as well as another update with the final piece of artwork in the book (the map of Japan).

In the meantime, please feel free to message me if you have any questions. Thanks for your understanding and support.

- Matt