2/28

Had breakfast with Kevin at Capitol Bindery. I picked up 10 finished books and we discussed several projects in order for me to email clients with revised pricing. Worked on cover designs for several Snow Dog hardcover projects.

I am designing and producing dust jackets for the stack of books on the left.

Hardcover Score Card
6 books at Capitol to be bound.
15 books at my house. (9 waiting on client feedback)

Soft cover Score Card
0 books at Snow Dog to be bound.
1 book at my house waiting to go to the bindery. (I have 14 more that I am prepping covers.)

2/27

Shipped three softcover books (and paid my income taxes, yuck). Took the night off to read the Starman Omnibus 2.

2/26

Packed three soft cover books for shipping. Scanned elements for five full-color hardcover books. Answered more emails. Some people are impatient with me. I try to answer everyone at least once a day.

2/25

Got word from Kevin that he accident bound three pages upside down and asked if I could find a replacement issue for him. Called Krypton Comics and had the replacement issue down to him right away. Answered more emails.

2/24

Picked up a stray soft cover book (from Snow Dog) that had needed to have a cover redone because of an error on my part. While I was visiting we discussed details for several full-color hardcovers that he will be starting. Answered more emails.

2/23

Got caught up on emails.

2/21-22

Spent a rare weekend working at my day job getting caught up on projects and emails in order to make the coming week more productive. Played the music loud and enjoyed having the place to myself.

2/20

Six books arrived to be made into hardcover volumes at Capitol Bindery.

This stack of books will be made into five full-color hardcover volumes at Snow Dog Bindery.

2/19

Got all emails caught up. Worked on two different scan and bind projects that are seeming to take forever to complete.

2/18

Continued to answer the email backlog. Shipped eight books to Ohio.

2/17

Dug in and began answering a backlog of emails . Shipped five books to Canada.

2/16

Answered a few emails and then took the night off.

2/15

Photographed and packed 13 hardcover volumes for shipping to two customers. Then I spent several hours cleaning up scans to be used in various projects.

2/14

Had breakfast with Kevin at Capitol Bindery. Dropped off 16 books (11 for customers, 5 for me) to work on and picked up 13 finished books. We had an in depth conversation about various customers and the projects that we do for them. With Kevin now being a one-man operation for the foreseeable future (with Robert still out) we discussed the need to be selective about which projects we accept and which ones we turn down. Being a sales guy at heart it is hard to turn down any project but I understand where Kevin is coming from. Kevin’s first goal is to make the perfect book. My goal is to help make a lot of different books. Sometimes our goals are not on the same page.

The way things have evolved I now spend part of each day designing covers for soft cover books, designing covers for full-color hard cover books and designing dust jackets for hard cover volumes created by Capitol Bindery. These are exciting times. Instead of feeling restricted by the decrease in volume that Capitol can handle I have these other things to keep me busy.

Hardcover Score Card
16 books at Capitol to be bound.
9 books at my house. (9 waiting on client feedback)

Soft cover Score Card
0 books at Snow Dog to be bound.
1 book at my house waiting to go to the bindery. (I have a couple more I need to prep.)

2/13

Did final prep for 16 books going to Capitol Bindery on Saturday. Spent several hours scanning elements for various long term and short term projects.

2/12

Spent a couple hours scanning. It is always a struggle to make myself do the tedious part of the project before I begin the fun parts.

2/11

Shipped three boxes of books containing 9 soft cover books. In the evening I put some jazz music on and ran the scanner and worked on some layout sheets.

2/10

Photographed and packed for shipping 9 soft cover books. This was an interesting batch. I experimented with different color combinations and I have found that certain combinations are less likely to show slight imperfections that result during the binding process.

I was especially excited to examine the five new full-color hardcover samples from Snow Dog. Todd has hit upon the right combination of chip board used in the cover and the spines. Normally you think that the same thickness would be used for both. But in this case by using double the thickness, in the covers, for the spines results in a perfectly formed book. This is the benefit of testing and experimenting until we get it just right.

One of the reasons we have held off from accepting orders is the thought we might have to standardize the size for best results. But now with what Todd has discovered we will be able to do projects of varying spine widths.

2/9

Stopped by Snow Dog and picked up five more hardcover samples and 11 finished soft cover books. There was a mistake on one cover and needs to be redone. Made revisions to a soft cover design per customer input.

2/8

Spent a long day working on layout sheets, pricing estimates and lots and lots of scanning. Actually it was a very relaxing day and I got lots done.

2/7

No new books this week. There was a hold up on some dies that prevented an order from being completed. I will probably stop by Capitol Bindery on Wednesday at the soonest.

Four new books arrived to be made into hardcover volumes.

Todd from Snow Dog wrote to tell me that the rest of my hardcover sample books are ready to pick up. He also plans to have 12 softcover volumes finished on Monday for four different customers.

Hardcover Score Card
13 books at Capitol to be bound.
20 books at my house. (9 waiting on client feedback, 11 ready to go.)

Soft cover Score Card
12 books at Snow Dog to be bound.
1 books at my house being worked.

2/6

Did cleanup and rough design for a soft cover project.

2/5

Spent the evening answering emails from 11 different customers in real time. As fast as I would answer questions, more questions would appear. I also worked on scanning elements for a softcover book project.

2/4

It has been more than five years since I started helping people get the comics bound at Capitol Bindery. In that time, Capitol Bindery has only gotten better at making the best possible bound comics volume.

New binderies have come onto the scene. I am also proud to be associated with Snow Dog who offers exciting new soft cover and hardcover products for the comics collector.

For me it is the best of both worlds and I consider myself a lucky guy to be helping customers of both binderies!

2/3

Answered many emails about the new full-color hardcover samples and the new custom dust jacket design and production service. Some of my Capitol Bindery customers had been feeling left out but now see this as a way to incorporate exciting graphics into their projects.

2/2

Received many positve emails regarding the full-color hardcover samples that I sent out. I think Snow Dog has another success to be proud of.

2/1