We've been waiting on a reprint to make it to us. They should be available in distribution again soon, but I don't have a solid ETA for when.
Customer Service Representative
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From what I can gather after talking to our sales team, it seems like it will be available again in a few weeks, but there is not a more specific timeframe than that. And even that, at this point, is just an estimate. I'm sorry we don't have any more updates at the moment, but we'll be getting it to distributors like Amazon as soon as we are able to do so.
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Sales Associate
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There are other steps involved. We do not deal directly with Amazon, our distributor does. We are currently in the process of getting the books out to our distributor, who will then get them to Amazon, who will then presumably get one to you. None of these steps is really cut-and-dry, and there are many cogs in this machine, so this is why the estimate is "a few weeks" rather than something more concrete. Rest assured, though, we are highly motivated to get the books out as quickly as possible.
Not trying to speak in place of Paizo folks, but I don't think you'll be able to get a solid answer in regards to Amazon here.
That being said, if you're not cancelling the order or asking for a refund, I doubt Amazon will drop the order on you when the item is going to 100% be in stock eventually. If you don't want to be patient, ask for a refund and look elsewhere for stock.
Does anyone know if that date reflects the new shipping date for the ACG?
Amazon often fabricates distant ship dates when they simply don't know the correct one.
Given the time involved, I would assume Paizo has long ago shipped off a bunch of books to their distributor, whose process is a black box. We don't know what goes on in it but we can guess. They accept the product into inventory, sort it, potentially repackage it, then re-ship some part of it to their customers, such as Amazon. I would expect that's where this is held up at this point. Amazon doesn't know when the distributor is going to actually send product to them.
Sadly, this uncertainty is the price of ordering from not-Paizo. Yes, I know, sometimes it's worth it monetarily.
Hello J.A.,
I can't speak to what Amazon will or won't do (alias because this is not an official Paizo answer). Having ordered tons of stuff from them over the years, the few times I have ordered something that took a really long time to ship out what happened was they eventually sent me an email saying they were still working on getting it. The email had a 'click on this to let us know you still want it' link. Clicking on that took me to an Amazon page letting me know they would leave the order active and continue trying. I had one order that took almost half a year to ship out and I got probably 3 of those emails in that time.
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Judging from the product page the most recent printing is the second one, as of 2015. If you have the second printing, you are up to date, barring any errata waiting to be published in the next printing.
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New printings take even longer to move through distribution channels than they do getting to Paizo warehouses. The only way to be assured of receiving the most recent printing is ordering it direct from Paizo once they announce the printing is in stock. Otherwise, you run the hazard of hitting pockets of unsold earlier printings in Amazon and other channels.
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Chief Technical Officer
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We only increment the printing when we incorporate content changes. For this reprint, the content should not have changed. Unfortunately, one thing did accidentally change—the cover logo was reverted to the incorrect Adventure Path logo found on the first printing. The interior, however, matches the previous second printing.
So if your copy has the AP logo and says "Second Printing" on the bottom of the credits page, you have the current printing, which we started shipping at the end of January.
And to be very clear, we have never compiled errata with the intent to create a third printing. Only time will tell whether we do so or not.
You learn something new every day. I didn't realise there were "unlabelled" reprints from time to time. I thought you always* included new errata in a HC reprint.
Hello J.A.,
You can read the entire saga about the logo here.
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Chief Technical Officer
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You learn something new every day. I didn't realise there were "unlabelled" reprints from time to time. I thought you always* included new errata in a HC reprint.
Incorporating additional errata is a pretty big task. It adds steps (game design, editing, layout, proofing, prepress, approvals), people (designers, editors, layout artists), time (weeks—minimum), and expense (in addition to people costs on our side, the printer has to go though prepress again).
On the other hand, on a straight reprint, we just tell the printer to use the press-ready assets they already have as soon as they can schedule the press time. Fast, easy, minimal cost.
So when we go to reprint something, we have to consider a number of factors: Do we have a number of issues outstanding? (The GM Screen has been in straight reprints for years because we don't have anything to change.) Are the changes significant enough to be worth the effort? (The Beginner Box has a couple of known issues, but they're pretty trivial, so it's been getting straight reprints for a while.) Are the people we need to fix them actually able to spare the time to do so in the near future? (Always a challenging question.) How quickly do we need the product in our warehouse? (Sometimes we get surprisingly large reorders that decimate stocks we expected to last for many months, and in those cases, we don't even consider the other factors—we just order up the straight reprint.)
I've never counted, but it wouldn't surprise me if the Core Rulebook, which is currently in the 6th printing, has probably been on press something like 20 times over the years.
Thanks very much for spelling all that out, Vic. Really appreciate the behind-the-scenes look. I guess I was expecting that one day the 7th, 8th and 9th printing PDF errata sheets for the Core Rules would just be essentially the same as the 6th. FWIW, I think the errata policy you do have is beyond-the-call-of-duty - my comment was admitting ignorance, not making a criticism. :p
Are you able to share how the Adventure Path Logo made it back onto the cover (of the 2nd printing interior, as I understand it?) I can't visualise the chain of events allowing that to happen unless someone at the printer was trying to be helpful.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Are you able to share how the Adventure Path Logo made it back onto the cover (of the 2nd printing interior, as I understand it?) I can't visualise the chain of events allowing that to happen unless someone at the printer was trying to be helpful.
Unfortunately, this one is on us. They were able to reuse the interior from the previous upload, but we needed to give them a new copy of the cover, and somebody pulled the wrong file from the archive. (Curiously, the Paizo logo on the spine is different on all three press runs. The first printing logo has a white background and the word "Paizo" is in black; the other two printings have no background and the word "Paizo" is white... but the logo is slightly bigger on the new second printing.)