Driven to madness
June 08, 2010 08:24 PM Comments - 0
After about a year of chipping away bit by bit and about a zillion changes, this morning I got my first hard copy of my tech book Driven through the post. Opening it made me feel a bit ill, probably as seeing what I’d seen a million times before on my screen - but now in print - made it all seem like a bad dream come true. For those who don’t know this is the first of many - maybe - in-depth (sounds better than anal or nerdy) technical climbing manuals, the sort of thing far too long for a mag to print (15,000 words +) and no publisher would publish. It’s also too much work to give away for free, and I’m guessing that my total world market is about 500 people!
First impression are at A4 (well 8inch x 11.5inch) it’s much bigger than I thought, and also thinner, but if I’d made it the same size as say John Midderndorf’s Big Wall climbing it would probably be thicker, and it looks the same kind of quality. Due to the low interest expected in this it’s been printed on demand by Lulu.com, which is the only commercial way to do a short run like this.
My plan has always been to use this one as test bed for more mainstream topics (like hauling!), both to work out the format and pricing as well as develop a style I liked, and I think this is spot on (at the moment), but look forward to feedback.
Price was a tough one, and I originally worked on a full colour version, then found to my dismay that it bumped up the price, so switched to B&W (out went nice colour images and illustrations). Then I said ‘fuck it’ and just did it in colour anyway. We’re talking £‘s here, not the national debt, so why compromise?
Price is £20 for a print copy or £10 for a download version, and although is maybe more than is normal for climbing media, but is cheaper than equivalent techie manuals for say web design. Due to the economy of scale, any less and it’s not worth even bothering (Dave Macload’s print on demand book is £15 and has no pics - so lets say pics and illustrations cost £5 extra). Anyway why am I defending myself!
If you’re a tight arsed climber then don’t buy it!
You get will be able to buy copies in climbing shops (guess most won’t stock it though), or via amazon, but the best option is just to go here and get it from Lulu (takes about 3 or 4 days).
Anyway sorry for the wait - number two (Down - a book about descending) will be faster (I hope!!!)
Plug Alert - I'm still trying to raise funds for my daughter's cheerleading squad (Cheermania!) with sales of my hand strength ebook, so if you've got £3 spare than please buy one here.
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