Categories
events news

City as Material x The Haunter – Tuesday 19th June

For our next City As Material venture, we will be working with Tim Wright on his new digital public art project The Haunter, inspired by Thomas Hardy’s ‘Poems of 1912/13′, enacted 100 years after Hardy wrote his famous sequence of verses mourning the death of his first wife, Emma.

Participants will embark on walks along a specific route with a crafted wooden box, embedded with smart technology, ‘haunted’ by the legacy of Hardy’s poems. Able to speak, play recordings of poems, conversations and music, capture sounds and react dynamically using geolocation, the box will enhance and document their experiences.

On Tuesday 19th June we’ll be joining Tim and box developer Joe Flintham (amongst others) in Dorchester to try it out in the field – a day of ‘recording, beta testing, walking and talking’ – forming a book (or series of books) on what happened, ideas discussed, and creative responses to the walk.

For a detailed description of the day, check here – it would be great if you could join us.

Categories
publishing on demand

Your Stories… So Far

To coincide with our recent price reductions for A6 Short Run printed books, and lower minimum print run of just 25 copies, we are offering 50 books for the price of 25 for anyone wanting to make and print their own pocket portfolio, using the discount code “PORTFOLIO2012″.

Giles showcased two great examples of bookleteer portfolios in an earlier post; here’s another.

The unique and much-loved theatre company Cartoon de Salvo (currently enjoying major acclaim after their recent shows Made Up at the Soho Theatre and The Irish Giant at Southwark Playhouse) used bookleteer to create The Stories So Far…, an ebook of photos celebrating their production history:

They’ve also used bookleteer to document their Hard Hearted Hannah series of improvised stage stories, which you can read on Diffusion here.

Categories
making news publishing on demand

Jubilee memories offer

As a modest (and democratic) contribution to this week’s Jubilations we’re extending an offer for anyone wanting to make and print an eBook of their Jubilee memories : we’ll give you 50 copies for the price of 25 when you order via the Short Run printing service. Just quote this promo code “Jubileebook” and order before the 30th June.

Categories
news

Professor Starling’s Thetford-London-Oxford Expedition

We’ve just published our latest entry in the City As Material series: ‘Professor Starling’s Thetford-London-Oxford Expedition’ – three books documenting the investigative excursions of Professor William Starling and his research team (Lisa Hirmer and Andrew Hunter of DodoLab, Josephine Mills of the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Lethbridge artist Leila Armstrong, and Giles Lane and Hazem Tagiuri of Proboscis) during his trip to the United Kingdom in Feburary, where he sought to examine the rapid disappearance of the European Starling in contrast to the continued expansion of its North American cousin.

The first volume, Perquisitions, contains descriptions of the various participants’ thoughts on the expedition and its rationale. Congeries showcases selected items and ideas collected during their travels, and the final volume, Speculations, offers reflections and fantastical musings on the material gathered and testimonies heard.

Purchase a limited edition copy complete with specially printed ribbon here.

(Read the accounts of Thetford, London and Oxford on the blog)

Categories
education ideas & suggestions publishing on demand

Pocket Portfolios 2012 Special Offer

A couple of years ago we wrote about how bookleteer could be used to create shareable personal portfolios or pocketfolios. We continue to think that the eBook formats are ideal for making a simple pocket portfolio about your work to share and/or give way to prospective clients, employers, commissioners or funders. More than a business card or the generic student postcard, even the smallest eBook of 10 pages plus covers offers a chance to show what you’re capable of, what experiences you’ve had and who you could be in a highly personalised way that exceeds what any CV could indicate. Share your pocketfolio as a handmade ebook, online with bookreader or have them printed at low cost using our Short Run Printing service to stand out from the crowd and communicate something special about yourself.

As a new crop of students are preparing to graduate into one of the harshest employment climates ever, and with youth unemployment at an all time high, we have a special offer for anyone wanting to make and print their own pocketfolio – taking advantage of our recent price reductions for A6 Short Run printed books and lower minimum print run of just 25 copies:

    For every Short Run Printing order for 25 copies of a portfolio style eBook, we will send an additional 25 copies free. Just use the discount code “PORTFOLIO2012”.

Sign up for a free account at bookleteer today and get creating!

Meanwhile here’s an excellent example by artist and lecturer, Gair Dunlop:

And check out this lovely example of using bookleteer to publish a group catalogue of work, created by Mah Rana for the 2nd Year Jewellery and Silversmithing Course at Cass, London Metropolitan University:

Categories
news updates & improvements

What’s next in bookleteer’s evolution?

Following our major updates of last year – the user API, bookreader and integration of QR codes and short URLs bridging the physical/digital divide – we’ve been concentrating on using bookleteer in our own projects like Agencies of Engagement, Material Conditions, Professor Starling’s Thetford-London-Oxford Expedition and Pallion Ideas Exchange, helping others create their own eBooks and StoryCubes and generally getting on with the business of keeping things going through these tough times.

More recently we’ve had some time and space to think about what else bookleteer could do and how we might make some adjustments to improve its usefulness. Over the past month or so, these ideas have been gestating into actual plans, scenarios, requirements and site maps for our next round of upgrades and improvements. And these themselves follow the price drop for Short Run printing of A6 books, as well the new minimum eBook print run of just 25 copies, which we recently announced.

Going Public
The first change we plan to implement will be to allow users to publicly share their eBooks and StoryCubes direct from bookleteer. Members of the public will, for the first time, be able to browse (without needing an account) library pages containing links to eBooks and StoryCubes which users have shared. We also hope to build in simple social media links to enable these pages to be tweeted or shared on Facebook. And sharing via bookreader will also be available to all members. In addition to this, and reflecting our own practice of publishing series of eBooks and StoryCubes, we plan to create Collections – a new way to organise own eBooks or StoryCubes into named and distinct series.

Making bookleteer Economically Sustainable
To keep bookleteer going we need to encourage more people to use the Short Run Printing Service service to print their eBooks and StoryCubes. Other than donations to the Alpha Club this is the only source of income to pay for our hosting, bandwidth, development and maintenance costs. As you may have heard, Proboscis no longer receives funding from Arts Council England so we are having to find sustainable sources of income for projects like bookleteer. If we can significantly drive uptake of the Short Run printing service, then we hope to sustain bookleteer as a platform indefinitely. To help people with ordering we’re already working on building in pricing estimation direct into the ordering page. This should make it much simpler to see print estimates when you are considering using the Short Run Printing service.

Pledge For Print
This leads on to the biggest and most exciting aspect of what we’re planning. A couple of years back I wrote a post speculating on how a crowdfunding marketplace within bookleteer could transform the way people create, print and share their publications. We have been working on a model for such a concept – allowing users to offer Collections of eBooks or StoryCubes for others to “Pledge For Print“. We won’t be handling financial transactions to begin with, simply creating a mechanism for users who want to print an edition of 1 more more eBooks or StoryCubes (in a Collection) to know that there are people out there who will pledge to buy a copy from them once its printed. Ultimately we would aim to build in a full crowdfunding-type system, accepting pledges and automating the process of collecting donations once the pledge target has been reached to trigger the print run & shipping. Its a huge project for us – but we think it will transform bookleteer and publishing on demand in the process.

Community Support is Vital
To fund the development we’re hoping to entice more friends, fellow travellers and supporters to donate and join the Alpha Club and take an active part in the developing ‘community’ of bookleteers. We’re also aiming to attract a main sponsor for bookleteer – a company or organisation which shares our values and ethos of creating Public Goods and enabling people to make and share hybrid physical/digital stuff. If you also think what we’re planning could be the next best thing since sliced bread – please donate today!





And do please get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions.

Categories
news updates & improvements

Big Price Cut & Minimum Print Run Halved!

selection of highlights printed with bookleteer's Short Run service

Today we’re very excited to announce a couple of major changes to bookleteer’s Short Run Printing service :

  • Minimum print run is now just 25 copies per eBook – half the previous minimum of 50 copies
  • We have also slashed the cost of A6 printed eBooks between 30%-50% (depending on quantity ordered)

Check out the eBook price estimator to see how much your eBook would cost to print (we’ll also be overhauling the ordering system in the next few weeks to integrate the estimator there too).

We believe this makes it much more accessible for people wanting to experiment with having their eBooks professionally printed and bound but only want a few copies at a super competitive price.

We’ll be posting soon about our other plans for bookleteer which we aim to introduce in stages over the summer – all in all its going to be a very exciting year of changes for bookleteer and its users!

Categories
education inspiration publishing on demand

We Are All Food Critics – best reviews compilation

At tomorrow’s Soho Food Feast we will be helping the Soho Youth group (and a few others no doubt) from Soho Parish Primary School create their own reviews of the food on offer from the incredible array of chefs. We’ve created a simple notebook for them to record how their five senses respond to the foods on offer introduced by Fay Maschler, Restaurant Critic of the London Evening Standard.

Next week we will begin the task of scanning in all the children’s reviews and making a selection of the funniest, best written, most interesting reviews to include in a compilation book, which will also be made and published via bookleteer. We’ll invite the chefs taking part to have their say too – responding to the children’s reviews with quotes of their own, and ask Fay and head teacher Rachel Earnshaw (who’s leaving at the end of this term after 10 years) to write introductions. We hope to have the final book ready around mid June.

We’re inviting donations towards the printing costs and to contribute to the school itself – please use the Paypal Donation button below, visit us at our table in the ‘Dessert Ghetto’ at tomorrow’s Feast or, if you’re a member of the school community, drop into the office to make a donation and get your copy. We’re suggesting a minimum donation of £7.50 – for which you’ll get your name printed in the book as well as receiving a copy by post.

Donate to

We Are All Food Critics Best Reviews Compilation




Categories
inspiration

‘The Evolution of Books’

Reading an article by novelist Nick Harkaway on ‘The Evolution of Books‘, I was struck by what sounds like a very fitting description of bookleteer, particularly in the light of last year’s bookreader and QR code updates.

After concocting a brilliant, Terry Pratchett inspired scenario for future book technologies to diffuse any stale printed vs digital debates, Harkaway outlines what he believes is the real manifesto for books:

          “What is the future of the book? A physical object which communicates with the digital realm; a paper book which has an electronic shadow. A hybrid which sits easily in the on and offline world. 
”

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

Categories
events news

‘We Are All Food Critics’ – Bookleteer @ Soho Food Feast

Bookleteer will be at this year’s Soho Food Feast on Saturday 26th May – a one-day event of demonstrations, tastings and cooking contests, boasting many of London’s most renowned chefs and restauranteurs, in aid of Soho Parish Primary School.

We’ll be encouraging children from the school to sample dishes and become food critics for the day, capturing their responses with a specially designed bookleteer notebook illustrated by Mandy and introduced by Fay Maschler, restaurant critic for the Evening Standard. We’re also going to compile a book of the best reviews which will be sold to raise money for the school.

The line-up is beyond tantalising, and needless to say, it’s all for a good cause. Nom nom nom!

Take a peek at the notebook below.