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November 02, 2006

Getting the Word Out

The glamour of bookmaking declines with each successive step toward the finish line. The fun part is in developing the concept: what will the book be about? How will the writing work with the illustrations? What format will we choose? How will the book be bound? The writing process is enjoyable, if bumpy. Robbi seems to enjoy the process of developing her illustrations once she lands upon the style and tone for a given project. My favorite step is when we sit together at the table, hashing out our concepts for each spread, trying to come up with ways to tell two separate, yet interdependent stories through the dual avenues of word and image. Her drawings are not literal illustrations of my words, but pieces that serve to advance additional ideas missing from the written narrative. My style is spare, leaving much unsaid. Robb's style is spare in its own light. She relies heavily on white space, establishing tone and important details but seldom filling the entire page. Together, our styles of incompletion work together to tell one complete story. At least this is our hope.

I have already devoted an entire entry to the production process and another to the pains of the production process. I have already described how much less fun the production process is than the creative process. Even less enjoyable than the production process is the mailing process, a necessary evil that must come between the production process and the arrival and being read part of things.

Now we know and like various people, but up until a week or so ago, we only knew where a few of them were. Consequently, we embarked upon a massive effort to track town our various friends and family members. The internet makes this much easier than it once was. Thank you whitepages.com. In addition to identifying the location of many old friends, I was offered the opportunity to purchase full criminal background reports on all of them. For $45 a pop. My various old friends are lucky that I'm currently more broke than curious.

Anyway, eventually all of the books were produced, the mailing list organized, the labels designed and printed, the cover letter proofed and printed. All that was left to do was stuff the envelopes, affix the labels, and attach the stamp. $.87 a pop.

Around 2:00am, we were ready to start. There were piles of letters, piles of books, piles of envelopes, and sheets of stamps. We dove in.

I remember arguing with Robbi about envelopes at Staples a few weeks back. "Let's get the kind you lick," I said. "I don't mind licking," I said. "I'd rather save the money," I said.

Robbi said something about how she'd go along with me this time but that I'd live to regret it. That some things were worth paying a little bit for, like peel-n-stick envelopes.

Robbi was right. I need to remember. Robbi is always right.

We folded, stuffed, licked, peeled, etc. for a really long time. Eventually, it stopped being late and started being early.

Robbi noted more than once that we probably would have been to bed at a reasonable hour had I not wasted so much time complaining about the horrible gluey taste in my mouth. She got surly around 5:00am.

Eventually, I think it was around 5:30am, we were down to our final envelope.

And then we were done.

This was last Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Just after noon on Thursday, October 28, 2006, the first Idiots'Books mailing went out. Early the next morning we left for Virginia, the gardening show in Reston, and the weekend at Wild Bill's place.

It felt good to send the mailing out. Not only was it the culmination of a tremendous amount of work but it was the first time that one of our books was going to be seen by a large number of people. I think a total of about 10 people in the world have seen each of our first three books.

Time to put an end to that foolishness. Life's too short.

Posted by bogenamp at November 2, 2006 01:35 PM

Comments

Posted by: shcool of rock at April 14, 2008 03:25 PM