The Vampire Prison flip through video
1. Different
A different format! I'm trying a different thing this time around, as you can see. Shopify has a 'blog' option and I'm wondering if that makes sense as a thing to use instead of the newsletter format.
2. The Vampire Prisoner flip through
The printer sent me the innard pages for The Vampire Prisoner. Here is a flip through video:
My pal Rebecca just happened to be visiting on a my-dog-was-sprayed-by-a-skunk-and-she-needs-to-check-if-it-still-smells-so-bad-that-it-is-not-allowed-in-her-house inspection when Fedex delivered the package. She was gracious enough to sit with me while I inspected the pages on video. I shot the video because I wanted to be sure to catch my reaction when I discovered whatever horrible problem was hidden in the page block. Having Rebecca there, ready to call an ambulance, was just good luck.
But, spoiler, nothing was spoiled. The pages look great.
I wish they were a little more contrasty, but that's it. And the paper is good. Not what I was expecting, but I like it. It's a pearly matte. I'm guessing the slightly matte paper is the reason the contrast isn't where I would like it to be.
And these are the -actual- pages that are going into the book. Like, they printed the entire run of innards and assembled the book blocks, THEN sent me this for a proof. That's a new one on me. Every printer is a new adventure.
And this was a new one on me: They printed an ordering number on each folded signature spine. Normally I get a stack of signatures and use a marker to make a sloppy diagonal slash down the spine side of the stack so that they can easily be put back into order. This is the first time I've seen organizing information printed on the signatures. Emphasis on SEEN. Maybe this is always a thing and I just never noticed.
So I'm happy with The Vampire Prisoner's guts.
A reminder: Everyone who backed So You've Met A Thousand Year Old Vampire is also getting a copy of The Vampire Prisoner. I promised you folks 600+ pages and the two books together make up that count.
I laughed while making the video because a dedicated person could read much of the book in the video. Don't do that, you'll wind up with a squint and a headache. I'll send out PDFs in the first or second week of October.
3. Short
I'm going to wind these newsletter/blog thing up early, even though I have more I want to write. I dunno if this is going to work as a newsletter so I don't want to get too invested.
4. I CAN EDIT!
Holy shit, I can edit the blog post after sharing it. I'm writing this after seventeen comments were added to the page.
Such a mixed reaction! Exactly what I didn't want.
What are the benefits of the blog, though? For some of you it is easier to read, for others it is harder. Lou points out that the blog makes the newsletter available to new visitors. I've had folks ask about access to old newsletters, so the blog would satisfy that demand (as thin as it is).
The sensible thing is to write the newsletter as usual then xfer it to the blog (or vice versa). Both make sense and having both in no way affects the folks that prefer one or the other. Somewhere there'll be a Shopify plugin that'll let me easily translate between them and it'll be worth a couple of bucks, I guess.
The only downside to the blog format is the inevitability of the blog's ending. I'm always suspicious when a group's "News" page hasn't been updated since 2022, even though they are still in business and only stopped updating because the intern moved on.
Happy Halloween Month Eve,
Tim H
Clicking on the link wasn’t a dealbreaker for me and I’m used having to add name & email before I can comment on blogs I’m not logged into, so again, no major hassle. I actually like the extra space down the sides (unlike Alan above), but I guess that is only a thing because I’m reading desktop not phone.
The book looks great. The numbered signature thing is a new one on me too, but I’ve never been sent a proof in this format, so maybe they all do it – it makes sense for ordering I guess.
I’m really looking forward to this.
I don’t have a strong preference, except that the embedded image didn’t load in my default browser setup because I have a lot of anti-tracking tech and apparently shopify hosted images won’t load by default. That’s a “me problem” though.
It did not ask me to login to comment, but it did require an email address. If you like getting comments all in one place that everyone can read then this seems superior to email.
I don’t have a strong preference, except that the embedded image didn’t load in my default browser setup because I have a lot of anti-tracking tech and apparently shopify hosted images won’t load by default. That’s a “me problem” though.
It did not ask me to login to comment, but it did require an email address. If you like getting comments all in one place that everyone can read then this seems superior to email.
I have no strong feelings either way on the blog Vs in email. I guess I lean slightly towards the in email as I like getting it in my inbox to read then and there, but it’s not a major deal to me to have to click a link, as long as the link is like this one (if it had tracking stuff in it, my adblocker sometimes catches that so that would make it less convenient for me). Like others I note that commenting requires an email, but since commenting wasn’t even possible before, that may be a bonus of the blog method. But I like the length and “oh and another thing I thought of”-ness of the usual emails, so if the shorter for blog thing would be permanent I’d definitely vote email!
Count this as another vote against switching to this format. I love getting your emailed newsletter and find this arrangement inferior in several ways. I had to copy-paste the link from the email, because it wasn’t clickable. The margins on this page are too wide. Email feels more personal, while a blog post is a broadcast to the world. Each has its place, but I subscribed to your email newsletter precisely because I want to read your missives in that format.