Count Down

cover

bathrobe project

Linen placemat/table runner project

There are now officially just 17 full sized copies of Magic in the Water; wet finishing handwovens left at the time of this writing (June 1, 2011).  I usually sell a couple of copies when I travel to teach so by the time I get home on June 12 there may be even fewer left.

Once these copies are gone, the book will not be republished with actual samples.  I am looking at converting the book to an ebook format.  The real wealth - and expense - of the book is in the samples, but hopefully a good macro-photo or scan will at least show the obvious differences in the textiles before/after wet finishing. 

But there is nothing like having the actual samples to handle.

Someone commented that once the book is out of print second hand copies will likely appear on eBay at huge prices.  On the other hand people who have the book seem to feel that it is one of the books that they will keep as a reference.  Which is exactly what I hoped when I decided to write and self-publish. 

I do, howeever, want to keep the information available which is why I'm investigating other options for publishing.  If it had not been for my brother allowing me to store the pages, samples, binders and completed books I would have had to pay for warehousing them on top of all the other expenses involved in the production of the book.  :)  Gotta luv little brothers!  A digital or ebook format would mean no storage issues.

Just as an example, 1000 2" ring binders fill a small bedroom.  Forty plastic tubs full of samples, 40 boxes of sample pages and 1000 copies of Magic text also fill a small bedroom.  The work space required to assemble the sample pages was two pool tables in length.  Magic lived in my brother's basement for more years than I'd planned or hoped.....

There are a few abridged copies of Magic left.  They are in storage so I'm not sure how many.  I'll be checking on that after I get home from the Quebec/Alberta trip.  I believe the abridged copies have 12 of the original 20 samples.

Doug and I will stay in touch re: any sales that happen over the next 10 days and as soon as I get down to 5 copies I will be pulling the Magic page off my website.  So in effect, there are actually only 12 copies left for sale.

I will also be working on the digital or e-publishing aspect as soon as I get over the chemo ick (next treatment is June 15).  There is a lot of work to be done to convert the files from hard copy to digital so it will take some time to get that done and source a supplier on-line, check costs, etc.  So I can't say how much an e version of Magic would cost.  Much less than the hard copy, obviously, as there will be no actual samples, just virtual ones.

And Canada Post is threatening to strike as of midnight tonight.  Any orders received will be held until the strike is over - if they should actually go out - and filled in the order in which they are received.  I've put my Art Fire store on vacation mode, but orders can be placed through my website.  Click on Store, then on Magic.  I have a Paypal shopping cart available for payment.

A huge thank you to those people who believed in this project and helped - there are too many to mention here but are listed on the acknowledgement page - and those people who ordered pre-publication copies.  I know how hard it is to purchase something that doesn't actually exist yet, especially when it's pricey.  Your leap of faith kept me going and helped 'birth' the book!

And a huge thank you to those people who have given me support and encouragement the past few months.  Again, you have kept me going and I am deeply grateful to you all.