send in those poetry submissions- the birth of chance press (1 Viewer)

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Excel is a great tool. I am constantly running reports in Foxpro, exporting the data to Excel, analyzing and manipulating it there, then dumping it back into a Foxpro table, running new reports against it, exporting it again to Excel, etc. But at home, I am low tech, keeping handwritten notes on everything I need to do. mjp, you need to embrace the inner Excel geek.
 
http://www.gubb.net

it's a 'list keeper'. great for people like me who love to make lists of anything and everything (eg. 'books i've read this year'; 'bookbinding materials needed'; 'immigration stuff') but never actually follow through with doing stuff.
Be careful with things like that. A lot of people trusted their bookmarks to a service with a pretty logo called Magnolia, and recently aaalllllll their data went bye bye.
 
jordan is actually an excel whiz - he can get it to automatically do all kinds of fancy shit. i, on the other hand, can only manage to separate things into columns and add all the info manually.
I took an excel class last year and at an employment agency last week I score an 84 on an excel class and the median is 67-I was very proud.
 
party? there was a party?

I'm sure my invite just got lost in the mail.

again.
 
The party was at your place, man. You don't remember?

Well, that's a sure sign of a successful bash.
 
well, I have a foggy memory of a drunk guy with a big beard and a husky voice insisting on giving me 'Eskimo kisses,' and telling everybody I was "cute as a button."

but I thought it was some kind of weird nightmare.
 
Don't worry, Hooch. You won't get pregnant...:D
 
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oh dear. before you guys scare everyone away from this thread, here's a little diversion:

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the recent book fair reignited an old passion for miniature books. this one is a gift for a friend who's going through a rough patch, so it's a collection of bukowski quotes taken from a couple of threads on this forum. accordion-style binding, encased in a souvenir 'grand canyon' trinket box that i found at a thrift store, hand-written with a 005 micron pen.
 
Wow, it's beautiful! What a great idea. Did you make the covers too, or did you find a miniature book and inserted the Buk text? Anyway, it looks real cool!
 
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the photo makes it look a little less sloppy than it actually is. the covers are just two pieces of corrugated cardboard cut to size, with some 'ponderosa green' cardstock pasted on, and a gold stamp of a stack of books.

the next i make, i'm going to try to get a more 'finished' look.
 
If you guys like the Micron pens you might want to check out Rapidographs. They are old school tech pens, and you can fill them with whatever kinds of ink strike your fancy at the moment. The tips are metal, and available in even smaller sizes than the Microns, if you can imagine. And they are much more consistent, as the tips can't spread out like a Micron can.
 
okay guys, so after much serious discussion and a lot of deliberation, we unfortunately have some bad(ish) news to announce: the price of the chapbook is going up to $12 (orders in the US) and $15 (international orders).

we feel pretty embarrassed and rather terrible about this, and we're not really sure what the protocol is regarding unpaid pre-orders, so here's the deal: if you pre-ordered in good faith that the price would remain at the initally advertised price of $9/12, then we'll accept that as payment (especially given the current economy), and you'll still be in line for a copy. but if you can afford to, and you think it's worth it, then you can pay the new and increased price.

basically, the initial price was me going "hmmm 9 bucks sounds okay, doesn't it? yeah, okay let's tell everyone that's the price". which was actually pretty stupid. it didn't occur to me to work out a real price based on materials and labour. and if we were pricing it based on true costs of labour it would be about $50 p/copy, so i guess that's something.

but anyway, a lesson has been learned, so don't judge us too harshly. we've spent the last few weeks agonising over whether we should hike the price, worried that would be just too unclassy. luckily i'm from new zealand and therefore lacking in class altogether.
 
No problem, Justine! Those extra three bucks don't make a hell of a difference (not to me anyway). Tell us when you're ready to ship...
 
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I appreciate your offer to stand to the original given prize, if necessary.

And I appreciate, you only considered a very small addition to that 'original' prize, even if that prize wasn't guaranteed anyway.

I appreciate you being creative and doing this thing at all.

So, even though I don't have any job or income (as many others here don't also, so there's no difference):
The copies I ordered in addition to my contributor's copies may be charged by 20.- USD each. That okay?
 
New prices still fair. Keep us posted.
 
justine. I wouldn't feel bad about that. You're making it up as you go along which is how it's done.
 
12 is cool with me? Did i send money already? I can't remember....

Oh and Justine that Accordion Book is WAY WAY cool.... very much like!:)
 
thanks for the support everyone, it makes me feel better. we seriously did not know what we should do about the situation, and we didn't want to come off like a couple of dicks for changing the price. i can honestly say i don't think this new price is too much, it's more that we feel scummy for saying it was one price and then changing it after accepting pre-orders. but this was also one of the reasons why we didn't want to take payment before the books were complete - we just didn't know how things would play out.

(kim, we haven't taken payment from anyone yet, and won't till the books are complete. re the accordion book: i'll probably be doing some more as i play around with the miniature format, i'll let you know if i have some available)
 
You can just call it inflation. Here in America, especially California, we are use to the line:
Prices are subject to change without notice due to monetary and market fluctuations.

I sent a letter by the US Snail so I'm barely in.
 
well, we've been busy... read all about it here.

note- ignore the prices if you have a preorder already standing with us.
 
the photos don't really do justice to the paper: it's a dark grey/green with a fine faux snake-skin texture.

we're still learning as we go... i had a number of revelations while doing the first 3, despite having done a bunch of mockups. #1, our copy, is pretty sloppy. but the rest look great!

we got a commercial paper cutter as a wedding present so we're waiting for its arrival to put the finishing touches on the books we've completed so far.

i would also like to advise anyone else thinking about making their first ever chapbook to avoid more than ONE signature: jesus christ it has been difficult figuring out how to bind in two signatures.

one more thing: since we're waiting for the paper cutter, my best friend is going to be here for a couple of days, then we're getting married in two weeks (!!), and it's a bit of a mission to get to the post office, we probably won't send any of these out till they're all done - probably about 2-3 weeks. we'll start taking payments soon, once we figure out the paypal thing and all of that.

which reminds me: you should all buy one of these, since it'll be the ONE AND ONLY chance press publication to feature my maiden name.

jordan linked to the page, but i'm going to go ahead an put a photo here, too:

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The book looks like it will have been worth the wait. Good job!

And congratulations on the marriage... I think it's the first time I've seen an official announcement from the two of you.
 
A commercial paper cutter? Like a giant guillotine cutter?!

Books look great so far.
 
looks great.

congrats on your upcoming nuptials. and your getting married.
 
thanks for the pics and congrats on the marriage!
You're a sweet couple.
Now give the world some nice little children.

xoxo
 
They are getting a Martin Yale stack cutter.

The Cadillac of tabletop stack cutters....
Ah, I see. I was thinking of the big Challenge and Polar cutters I used to run. Some of those Martin Yale cutters look good. They are kind of between the big commercial cutters and the little tabletop choppers.

Once you start installing heavy machinery in the apartment, it's all over. No turning back now.
 
tell me about it... a piece of equipment like that, we're basically obligated to keep making books. also obligated to stay together forever, since that thing will be hard to split in half.

mjp, jordan says to tell you: you're welcome to come cut stuff whenever you want ;)
 
Congrats, and beautiful work. I had to send a link to my mom and I know she will love the story about you two meeting on line.
Thank you
 
mjp, jordan says to tell you: you're welcome to come cut stuff whenever you want ;)
I'll keep that generous offer in mind, considering we trim all our book edges with a metal ruler and an Exacto knife.

But I don't know if I ever want to use a cutter like that again. Too many bad memories. ;) I think some of them are in Buk Scene #1! Ha.
 
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