The Anthe building – bursting with books (for now). Mark and I cleaned 20 years of grime off the windows last week.
One of the great advantages of having all our inventory in Covington – and employees to fill boxes – is that we can offer a free shipping promotion without setting a pile of money on fire. (Our storage and salaries are now fixed overhead costs; before we had to pay $4 for every order packed. Plus storage. Plus boxes, tape, etc.)
We have all our inventory in place. Mark and Gabe are well trained and ready.
So for the next two weeks we are offering free shipping on every product, from pencils to holdfasts. There’s no code to type in. No coupon. When you check out, you’ll see a button for free shipping. Click it. (Yes, even the new engraving tools I just added to the site yesterday.)
Thanks to all of you who have helped us get our fulfillment center up and running. We have heat and AC because of you. And an ADA-compliant bathroom.
This book should arrive at the warehouse any day now. Is the cover cloth going to be that bright green? I hope not. But if it is, we’ll include a warning label. Retail $33.
Letterpress poster.
“By Hammer in Hand” letterpress poster by Brian Stuparyk
We should receive our press proofs today. Unless something is dog-a-whumpus, these will sell starting in mid-November. We ordered 500 (probably too many). Retail $25.
The “2024 Workbook.”
“Workbook 2024”
This is something I’ve been thinking about doing for a long time. I record all the things I build in an antique “Daybook” – an old accounting ledger. I also write down design changes for my chairs, how much they sold for, the exact finish I used and where the customer lives. It is an invaluable record of my work.
You can’t buy a decent ledger shaped like this anymore, so we decided to make one. The “Workbook 2024” is a 64-page ledger printed on lovely #60 smooth and undyed paper. The pages are sewn and casebound in thick, cloth-covered boards. (We are using the same printing and bindery plant that does all our color books.) The book measures 4-1/2″ wide x 11-1/4″ tall.
An interior spread of the “Workbook.”
The interior pages are printed with blue and red lines that help you organize your information. And, because we can’t leave well enough alone, we added a short quotation to the bottom of each entry page. Megan selected all the quotations on the left-facing pages (verso). I picked all the ones on the right-hand pages (recto).
We are only printing 1,000 of these. Then we will see if we should do this again for 2025. Retail $27. (Note: Our margin is terrible on these and we don’t think we will be able to sell them wholesale.) These will be in stock by the end of November.
The A-square in maple.
The Anarchist’s A-square: A Kit
This is a fun project I have been working hard on. We are trying to create a three-piece kit of parts that you can assemble to create your own A-square (the tool shown on the cover of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest”).
The parts will be made of Baltic birch and have all the joinery and embellishments cut. You will just need to do a little fine fitting and then glue the parts together. I have made dozens of these squares for customers and friends and love them. And they are useful tool as well.
We are waiting on a prototype this week and hope to start production as soon as possible. Retail: under $50. But I don’t know enough to state a firm price.
Wooden bookmarks.
Wooden Bookmarks
My daughter Madeline is itching to get back into the sticker business. So I created these lovely wooden bookmarks that are printed in the US on a two-ply veneer. The bookmarks are 2” x 6” and come in a variety of species. The woodcut at the top of the bookmark is from Rudy Everts. The quotation is from John Brown.
Our logo on the back.
We have long been asked to make a nice bookmark. These are nice. Retail $5. Maddy will set up an SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) system this week and should start selling them next week.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. The Anarchist’s Gift Guide starts Nov. 10. If you want a preview of one of the items, check out today’s substack entry.
One of the six tasks I’m juggling now is a refresh of the Lost Art Press website. It mostly will make the site easier to search. And it will categorize our products to help new customers make sense of the things we make (we make more than 100 things).
One of the recommendations from our consultants is to add what is stupidly called “social proof” to our site. “Social proof” is basically kind words about the company from customers.
My inclination has always been to let the products sell themselves through word of mouth. But the consultants have reams of data that show that new customers need and want social proof before they’ll make a first purchase.
So I relented.
This is me wearing out the knees in a pair of jeans (i.e. I’m on my knees). If you are so inclined, could you write up two or three sentences (no more, there’s not a lot of space for this) about Lost Art Press or Crucible and what you like about us (writer cringes; feels dirty)? It helps if we can use your name, too.
Look how fancy we are. A metal sign (from Covington’s Sign Works/Todd Engraving company).
I don’t like to take books out of print. In fact, we have spent the last 16 years trying like hell to keep everything possible in print.
Recently, we took “The Solution at Hand” out of print, and our email lit up with people asking “why?” Interestingly, many of these people had not bought the book and were disappointed they couldn’t buy a copy. Which is one of the reasons books go out of print.
There are many reasons books are discontinued. Here are the common ones.
The book is a translation or reprint from another publisher (think “Grandpa’s Workshop”). When you buy foreign rights, it’s typically for five years. After that you have to re-up with a new and expensive advance. You do the math and realize you won’t make a profit until 10 years, so….
The author dies or becomes incapacitated. And the author’s literary heirs don’t want the book to continue in print.
The book stops selling. And it gets to the point where you lose money every month paying for storage.
To reduce our storage fees (and get more control over our operations), we bought the Anthe building in downtown Covington, an old factory. According to the inventory analysis we did, we had plenty of room on the first and second floors for our books.
Someone, somewhere made a mistake.
We were told we had three semi loads of books. After we unloaded the third semi, we sighed with relief. Everything fit, barely. Then John got a phone call. There were two more semis coming.
We don’t have elevator access to the third floor (yet), so we had to rent storage lockers to hold the 40 pallets of books on the last two semis.
So we are in a bit of a bind right now. Until we get the third floor ready for storage, we barely have any room to move. We have pallets of new titles on the way. “Cricket Tables” by Derek Jones should be here in the next two weeks.
Where are we going to put them?
And that’s another reason we have to discontinue books. John and I are working on a lot of ideas that should get us the space we need. But until then, we have to be careful. Otherwise, I’ll end up storing books under every bed, chair and table in my house – just like we did in the beginning years of this company.
So if I had any advice for our customers it’s this: If there’s a book you want to own someday, buy it now. I am still trying like hell to keep all our titles in print, but right now it’s an almost impossible task.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Some of you have asked if we could sell the pdfs of discontinued books. Many times the contracts we sign make that impossible. But it might be possible for some titles. So thanks for that suggestion.
The engraving cutter sitting on a newly cut spell.
We have Crucible Engraving Tools back in stock and shipping. This tool engraves straight lines and arcs in wood so you can create decorative patterns or “spells” found on peasant furniture in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.
Megan and I have filmed a new video on the basics of using the tool against a straightedge and in a compass. The new video is below. You can watch an earlier video of how to sharpen the tool here.
Our engraving tools are made entirely in the United States and were developed to create a simple and affordable way for you to try them out. The tool is $27 and includes a specially machined handle (that can be held like a pencil or installed in a pencil compass), plus two cutters and instructions.
Right now, the tools are available only in the U.S. and through us. We have some international retailers interested in them, but whether or not they carry them is their choice.
I developed these tools to help with my next book, “The American Peasant.” Right now the book is an ever-evolving substack (check it out here. Warning: my substack is not for kids). I am working on the book almost every day, and it looks like it will be complete in early 2024.
For now, I think you’ll enjoy trying the engraving tools – they are easy to sharpen and use.
