Our warehouse has almost finished packing up all the domestic pre-publication orders for the deluxe version of “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture Making.” The packaged books should be picked up and headed out to their final destinations in the United States tomorrow.
For international customers, you should have received an email that indicates the extra amount of money we require in order to ship your book. This book weighs 17 lbs. – two healthy infants. Once you pay the invoice, we’ll ship your book to you.
The book is extraordinary. I have my copy exactly 6” away from me and marvel at its beauty, heft and readability. I hope you will be pleased.
I expect this will be our last deluxe edition until we dig up Noah’s treatise on ark-building. The press run for this deluxe book cost more than $170,000. So this is going to be a lean year for us as we work to rebuild our bank account.
Of course, I’m not supposed to talk about things like this – it makes us seem weak. But so be it. We are two guys with laptops running a publishing company. So this stuff is going to happen sometimes.
But even if we take a bath on this book in the end – even if we end up stuffing pages from it in our sweatshirts under the highway overpass – it was worth it. Roubo is bloody awesome. His books were a labor of love and they deserve this sort of insane risk.
So a toast to you, M. Roubo.
— Christopher Schwarz, editor, Lost Art Press
Personal site: christophermschwarz.com
Hear, Hear! I applaud the attitude and the achievement even though I can only justify the cheap editions augmented with the gorgeous Book of Plates. Those books plus the Charles Haywards are my favorites.
Eric Campbell ejcampbell1950@gmail.com +1 617 803 4824
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I look forward to seeing it. I hope it sells well, we need more fine press books in this world.
Here is a toast to an American small business doing it right! Congrats guys!
Keep your collective chins up!
You are providing a great service. You would
Not find me trying read a book in a language other
than English.
Thank you for all your amazing work, lots of knowledge sharing
Please keep making these deluxe editions. Charge what you need to at least break even. The world needs more well-made things.
Time to consider holding those volumes for ransom? Just kidding. Though I
was not willing to pay the price for your massive undertaking, I certainly respect your labor of love. Please stay in business. Raise your prices where necessary, but stay in business. We need you guys.
One of the greatest gifts my late father gave to me was the remark, “Every time you walk into a room full of people, know in your heart there is something you do better than anyone there. I may not know what that something is, and you may not know what that something is, but it is there.” You have no idea of the confidence that simple expression imparted for me to meet any challenge, It is a treasure I keep hidden in my heart.
As I reflect on the risk that Chris and John have taken with the Roubo Project that Michele, Philippe, and I have created over the past decade, and the confidence they express by putting literally their company on the line for it, I cannot help but react with a similar level of appreciation. I know that en toto the value of our combined investment in the project (Team Roubo plus Team Lost Art) is safely in the seven figure range by now.
Congrats on the effort coming to fruition. I wish I could afford the deluxe, but I will definitely pick up the standard edition later in the year after I catch up on my other reading and projects.
I have no doubt that you guys will continue to run a healthy, successful, and ethical business. You’ve clearly found a way to do things in a proper and fair way, without sacrificing quality. I know things go in fads, but it really does seem like — thanks to the work of LAP, Lie Nielsen, Lee Valley, TFWW, PWW, and a whole host of individual craftspeople that I should mention — that this whole hand tool thing has a real renaissance going.
I look forward to buying the 25th anniversary edition of a book like the ADB. 😉
I received an exquisite deluxe version of, “With All the Precision Possible” today… and just saw the hardbound book this past week in friends library… both books are worth the investment! This is an incredible accomplishment, and I am grateful for the translation. I can’t wait to read it!
I received the deluxe version in the mail last week. The book is, in a word, magnificent. It is practically perfect in every way. A true masterwork. Years and years worth of valuable study material contained within. I’m so fortunate to own a copy.
It’s funny, the Mrs. knew exactly what it was before I opened it.