Because I don’t want to lengthen the backlog any longer than it already is.
Running maximum production since March 21st and recruiting some help to actually get BBotE & steins out the door *AND* have the luxury of sleep has been no small feat, ye tstill hasn’t obliterated the backlog in a satisfactory manner. The fact that I’m going to be on travel April 11th to 19th doesn’t help. On March 31st, looking at where things were going, I dropped an expected release date of May 1st on all items purchased from that point on so that people weren’t sitting around, anxiously staring at their mailbox, when they were 300 or so orders deep in the first come-first served queue.
That didn’t stop the backlog from growing either. Slowed it down, but didn’t stop.
By the time I get on a plane on Wednesday, I expect to have almost all of the orders placed prior to March 31st out the door, with notes of apology to those folks who were at the end of line. Today, I zeroed the inventory on almost everything but steins, because I want to clear the backlog out before I take more pre-orders. Feel free to drop me a line if you’d like an email when I turn pre-orders back on, but for the time being I don’t want to field anymore messages from people who failed to read “pre-order” on the listing, the warning of delay due to a long queue at the top of the description, or the link to the Admission of Defeat. This is an attempt to regain control while a stronger inventory control system is put in place that will more effectively meter orders vs. production capacity.
As I have said more than once, this is for fun. It is a hobby. The moment that it ceases to be so it is another job and, frankly, I already have one of those that I love far more than coffee.