We need to reprint the extremely popular SEVENTY MAXIMS OF MAXIMALLY EFFECTIVE MERCENARIES. This eighty-page, hard bound volume of “malevolent canon” has been out of print since July of 2023, and if your requests are any indication, it is high time we addressed this.

The book is an in-universe artifact, printed to look like a retro-styled collectible one might encounter in the 31st-century world of Schlock Mercenary. We’re reprinting the "defaced" edition which was Karl Tagon's personal copy, carried for years, and which he subsequently gifted to his son. The younger Tagon eventually passed the book on to Alexia Murtaugh, who lost track of it briefly (she was dead for a couple of weeks), allowing Sergeant Schlock to steal it. All four of these characters left handwritten notes in the ample margins, reflecting on what the maxims have meant to them, and in some cases commenting on the notes left by others.

There will be no substantial changes to the book from the first edition, just a couple of small typo fixes. 

We’re also making a poster! It will feature all seventy maxims, affording the discerning collector of assorted aphorisms the ability to easily refer to the maxims by simply looking at a wall, rather than fumbling around with a book. 

If you have the book already (you lucky first printing holder!) you’ll be able to pledge for just the poster. (NOTE: we have not finalized the layout of the poster, nor checked the sample image for typos.)

If you pledge in the first forty-eight hours you get this handy Seventy Maxims Pocket Reference for free. After that it is available as a five-dollar add-on. 

We are keeping our pledge levels as simple as we can: PDF, book, poster, and bundle, plus a “just watching” level. We’ll also have both the book and poster available as add ons so that you can buy extras for your friends and loved ones. Books are great gifts, and self-help books really show that you care. This, of course, is not a self-help book, but it makes a fine gift nonetheless.

And remember, if you pledge in the first 48 hours and you’ll get a Seventy Maxims Pocket Reference for free!

Since we’re still fulfilling last year’s Kickstarter for Mandatory Failure, we’re being very careful about what we promise to add to our workload. But as Howard was playing with poster concepts he came up with several that looked promising. If this project reaches $30,000 we’ll add a second poster design and make it easy for you to get the one you like best, or both of them (for those of you whose abodes have more than just one wall.) 

Shipping is not included with your pledge. This allows us to combine orders for people who are backers for the Mandatory Failure Kickstarter, while fairly and accurately calculating shipping costs for everyone else. As part of the shipping process we’ll let you decide whether to have your poster shipped separately (rolled, crease-free in a shipping tube for an additional fee) or carefully folded with your books (at no additional cost).  

For a combined order you can expect US shipping to add around $5 and International shipping to add around $10.

For an uncombined order you can expect US shipping to be $10-15.  International shipping will run $25-35 USD. 
If your order only contains the pocket reference, you can expect shipping to be $3-5 for US, and $8-10 for international.

We can send this book to print as soon as we have the money in hand. The poster can go to print as soon as Howard finalizes the designs. We hope to have items ready to deliver by the beginning of May, which means this will fit quite comfortably with the shipping of Mandatory Failure which will also be happening around the same time. 

Howard and Sandra Tayler have been working together on projects since 1993 and have been making Schlock Mercenary together since 2000. Between the two of us we have thirty years of collaborative experience in publishing, and we have credits in nearly forty titles. We love the work we get to do and are very hopeful that you’ll help fund this project so that we can do more of it!