12/14/06 THU:
---Spent today (part of it) re-doing Grasshoppers & Wild Honey: Chapters 1 & 2 to the same size as the other Lafferty booklets I have produced. The old format (half letter size) would have required me to make a trip to my old printer for stapling and trimming. Since he is never open on Saturdays and I am without an automobile during the week, I was seeking an alternative. I am pleased with how it turned out. It brought back old times: making a little dummy booklet, finding a glue stick, trying to keep from laying pages upside down, standing at the copier (drowned out by Sonic Youth--now as then), cutting open pages with my trusty letter opener, etc. In fact, I am almost psyched enough to want to get going again with further booklets in the series. I realize that part of what brought me up short back then may have been the change in format size. I really like the smaller booklets, shoddy as they may be (according to Gardner Dozois). They fit in the hand and open nicely, lending themselves to actual reading, rather than fear of damaging an investment. And finding well-wrought writing in such a DIY setting I found to be quite appealing.
---Maybe I went to the larger size because about that time text for me was getting blurry and small print was getting hard to read. I thought it was because of staring at the computer screen, because after sessions at the monitor was when the blurriness seemed (temporarily) to occur. At bit later, of course, a pair of reading glasses brought pages back into focus and I could read again. How wonderful that was! But meanwhile I had moved on from publishing booklets. With bookselling and everything else, I didn’t feel I could produce product that passed muster and give authors the promotion they (felt they or should feel they) deserved. Before, it was just like a cheapo stunt I did to get a little free advertising when I could get my publications mentioned or reviewed someplace. When I started being taken somewhat for legit I felt like I had to either actually be legit or move on. I moved.
---Now I kind of feel like doing a bit of it again. Still not quite legit, though. Mine was the original print-on-demand technology. My saddle stapler still works, having survived a couple eight-foot drops to the floor. The copier I have seems to be able to handle two-sided legal size paper--at least when humidity levels are low. But I’m not even sure I still have the rights to keep publishing the In a Green Tree novels. I need to try to find out about that. Until then, maybe I can fit a few text inputting sessions into my schedule.
---Now that I've reduced the size of the G&WH 1&2 booklet, price is dropped to $3.50 from $4.50.