John and I have decided to make significant changes to the manufacturing specifications of the letterpress version of “Roman Workbenches.” So much so that I’ve taken the unprecedented step of deleting my post from Jan. 29 to avoid confusion.
After much research, we’ve decided to offer “Roman Workbenches” fully bound with a two-part cloth cover, sewn binding, heavy endsheets and headbands. The binding will easily meet (and likely exceed) what we offer on typical Lost Art Press Books.
The price (including domestic shipping) will be $87 – still less than the $100 we promised. The book will go on sale at noon Eastern time on Sunday, Feb. 5. There will be 500 copies available.
Why make the change to the binding? Well, once I started pricing sewing and taping the binding, it was only a little bit more money to simply complete the binding. So John and I decided to go all the way (with the book binding).
If you are like me and really really want to bind your own book, we will have some unbound book blocks and will put those up for sale once the 500 are bound. I suspect the price for the unbound book blocks will be $77 (I know, it’s not a big savings; hence, our decision).
I am sorry (and a bit embarrassed) at this change. We try not to alter manufacturing specs like this in midstream. But I know it’s the correct thing to do.
See you Sunday (I hope, or we will flush away many thousands of American dollars).
— Christopher Schwarz
Cool. I was not going to take the time to bind this thing myself, so I was just going to buy the PDF. Now I’ll try to be one of the 500, because I would like to have the book.
Don’t be embarrassed — you’re on the bleeding edge with most of what you do, and when you need to backtrack on something it’s better to backtrack than to tough it out! Remember, if you have to ask the question, you already know the answer… A wise man wrote that not too long ago.
;>)
I certainly intend to do my part to see you sell all 500. See you Sunday.
Don’t be embarrassed…it’s not like you changed the specs after you started taking orders. NBD!
I really like this change. Honestly, I would like to do my own binding, but in reality, I’m having trouble making time for my current hobby.
Thanks for your honesty and openness.
Chris…
does the unbound version come with all of the bits (board, cloth, end papers etc) to do the binding of the signatures?
cheers from Oz
Trevor
Nope. Those bits would be up to you.
cool… and thanks for the brilliant work with all of your books
Will there be a non-letterpress version printed later, or just a PDF? Sorry if this has been answered already.
We hope to print a standard edition. But no promises at this point.
Is there a way to confirm you received my email to reserve a copy?
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Hey Craig,
Sorry but we cannot reserve copies, I’m afraid. We treat all customers the same. Same pricing, same opening times for ordering.
The change is fine with me. I appreciate your personal style and willingness to experiment with interesting ideas.
Darn. I was hoping for the bookbinding beauty contest. 🙂
But for ten bux more, it really is a no-brainer decision.
Thanks,Yours was the right decision. I was starting to go nuts looking for a bindery to do the work. And for just $10. more, just makes my life so much simpler.
The right decision in my book!
Looking forward to this either way. Any chance we could we still get the blog posts as to how you would create the bindings yourself?
Yup. I’ll be binding one for myself.