June 29, 2004: Basic Set Deluxe - Update

The tip-in sheet. The signatures will appear on the gold plate.

In August 2004, Steve Jackson Games will release GURPS Fourth Edition, starting with the two-volume Basic Set. In addition to the regular Basic Set books, we'll also do a special, one-time Deluxe Edition. These will be available three ways:

• By pre-order from Warehouse 23.
• At GenCon 2004, while they last.
• And a very limited number will be available through retail stores which pre-order from their distributors. *

The print run will be based on pre-orders. When they're gone, they're gone; we will not reprint. On June 30, we will close orders for the Deluxe Edition . . . in the unlikely event that we have any left after GenCon, we'll open sales again.

These will truly be deluxe books. Both volumes will be bound in bonded leather with two-color foil stamping. They will have buckram-textured endpapers and cloth head and foot bands. Book 1 will include a special full-color autograph page in front, with the signatures of Steve Jackson, Sean Punch, David Pulver, and Andrew Hackard. (Yes, real signatures, not printed copies.)

The dust jackets. The metallic gold and silver will be foil.
The covers. Characters will be foiled in gold and white. Campaigns will be foiled in silver and white.

Each book will have a full-color dust jacket, embossed, laminated, and foil stamped. The two volumes will come in a heavyweight deluxe slipcase . . . also full-color and foil stamped, with linen texturing.

In other words, these will be NICE. Our print buyer has nearly 20 years of experience, but never before have we given her this big a budget, and she pulled out all the stops! Warehouse 23 orders for the Deluxe Edition will be shipped as soon as it's finished, a bit before GenCon, so pre-order customers will see the Fourth Edition before anyone else.

* Available In Stores?

Yes . . . available in stores. When this set was announced, our plan was to have it be a GenCon and Warehouse 23 only item. I didn't think that most retailers would want to shelve a big, costly item that on the average they'd sell just one or two of.

Bzzzzt. Steve was wrong. In fact, some retailers were quite unhappy that they couldn't get the Deluxe Edition. And I'm not in business to make retailers unhappy. We need our retailers and I do not wish to do them dirt . . . it's hard enough running a store without the publishers messing things up for you.

But there was time to fix the problem, and with the help of our distributors, we're making the Deluxe Edition available to retailers after all. So if you want to buy from your local retailer . . . let him know now!

This does put me in the position of having advertised a W23-only item that now will also be in stores. I hope that doesn't annoy anyone who has already ordered it. But if it does . . . write to me personally and I'll let the W23 crew beat me up, and we'll fix it. We can either take it off your order or cancel the entire order that it's part of, as you wish.
-- Steve Jackson

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