INDIE BOOK PUBLISHING

Introducing:

GOD SPEED THE BOOK! PRESS

I have founded my own self-publishing press which basically means I came up with this name for it and created an email (gstbpress@gmail.com). Its 2010 and the technology for printing books or similar projects from digital sources is fairly easy and accessible. GSTB!Press will be an on-going project of mine as long as my ideas for books keep coming (I smell some summer

projects...) [see end of post...]. Basically, I'm designing layouts in InDesign and seeking out affordable ways of printing/binding them. My source right now is at the Marriott Library. They offer a self-publishing service through their miraculous little book-making machine called an Espresso Book Machine (mostly intended for rare/unavailable books from GoogleBooks to be printed/bound paperback-perfect-bound-style on the spot for around ten bucks...). But you can pay to upload pdfs and then pay as you need them so its perfect for someone like me who can't afford the overhead of a huge run or large-edition of books. So hopefully I'll be putting out a few more projects in the months to come.

As for the present:

COLORING BOOKS AVAILABLE NOW!!!

GSTBPRESS@GMAIL.COM

GSTB!Press's first publication is out and I'm ready to take orders on COLORING BOOKs I-III. The COLORING BOOK series is based on the idea of a words' meaning being decided ultimately by the receiver. Each book contains a list of some fifty words centered on the page in outline form, allowing coloring inside the letters or in the space outside. Yesterday I got back my first printing order of five copies of each book. They are being printed on an as-needed basis

through the Marriott Library's Espresso Book Machine which prints the textblock and cover, then perfect binds them and trims it down to size automatically. If I have to ship or take orders through email, I'll probably sell them through ebay or set up a PayPal kind of thing... I've set aside a copy of each for me and have already begun coloring NO. ONE. Some of these words are going to be hard to color (BREATHE, EXPEL, COMPLETE...???)! The price is $6.00 each and I'd like to eventually offer a boxed set in a nice hand-made all-white box that could possibly come with a pack of colored pencils or some compartment to house coloring utensils or something like that... The price on that will depend on just how deluxe it is and how long they take me to make.

For me the book is successful if people will actually take the coloring part of it seriously and participate in imparting their own meanings on the words within it. Also, people should doodle/draw/color more! Its good for the brain! But we will see.

Here's a brief look into COLORING BOOK NO. ONE:

Other book ideas or projects for GSTB!Press are keeping me thinking these days... Flip books/ simple animations, photo-essays, collaborative ventures with other admired artists, books documenting other projects (I want to build an obelisk at some point), a book about birds in flight (and their symbolic triangles), exhibition catalogs, cheap xerox zines...

Muchas cosas... We'll see what materializes.

Pictures of my coloring coming next!

Have a good day everybody (although I don't think I have any "followers" yet...); Here comes Spring!