Tour Blog for Charity: Book & Charity Updates

Hello again,

Just wanted to provide you with some more updates with regards to the upcoming hardcover edition of my Get Lucky Tour Blog (see the previous post, here). I am juggling between approximately two million things concurrently over the last few months… It’s nice, every now and then, to take a breather and do some writing.

Today’s entry won’t be long… Well, we’ll see.

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So, over the last few months, the vast majority of my otherwise-free time was dedicated to working on the hardcover version of my Get Lucky Tour Blog (link: http://gl.isaac.shabtay.com). In the previous post, I provided some technical details about the book, as well as a sample.

As some of you may remember, in my last tour post, I mentioned that proceeds from the book’s sales will be donated to charity. I had mentioned that the charity’s identity will be named by Mark Knopfler, or – if no feedback is received - by myself. Therefore, I should tell you that I did contact Mark’s management, provided details about the upcoming book and asked whether there is a particular charitable organization that Mark would like proceeds to be donated to.

Took the response quite some time to arrive, however it finally arrived a few days ago. I will spare you from the specific details of the response; for our purpose here, the bottom line is:

• The book may, indeed, be published (you wouldn’t expect me to publish this book against Mark’s wishes, now would you); and
• No particular charity has been named.

As a result, the decision with regards to the charity has been “delegated” to me. I am contemplating between two charitable organizations at the moment – both are Canadian; as it turns out, arranging something for charity isn’t as easy and obvious as one might expect.

Nevertheless, this doesn’t hold anything back. As it happens, I finished working on the book’s cover this last Sunday, which means that, as far as I can tell, the book is in the best state it could ever be. I placed an order for two copies – one in color and one black & white – just to ensure that nothing went awry (in the field of reproduction of digital material into printed media, there simply are too many pitfalls… and I would like to make sure that everything’s tip-top before I release it to the public.

I should have these copies ready within two couple of weeks, and assuming everything’s a go – public publishing is within a keystroke. And in case you’re wondering what the front cover looks like…

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Plan

The book will be published in two stages. The first stage will be private; only those who emailed me with interest for the book will get a copy during this stage (see clarification below). As this stage is basically a private distribution operation (rather than working with Amazon, for example), this pre-public edition will not have an ISBN assigned to it. My intention is for those “private distribution” copies to first visit my house before being spread out across the continents, in which case, all books will be personally signed. If there’s anything specific you would like me to write – let me know; if you would like me to write something but decide to leave it all up to me – well, make sure I really like you before giving me the go-ahead.

This stage will last one week only; all profits from this publishing stage will be donated to charity.

The second stage will be completely public. An ISBN will be attached to the book and it will be sold through major book retailers such as Amazon. The only updates that the book will see would be the barcode on the back (which will include the ISBN), as well as the ISBN number on the second page. This is by law, by the way.

As I initially did not consider publishing this book “publicly”, I still have to look into the feasibility and the work involved in donating all profits from the “public” stage to charity as well. There are quite a few things to consider – taxation is one of them – so I’ll figure out the details and will announce once everything’s settled.

Clarification (thanks Marie for pointing that out): the concentrated order for the first, “private distribution” phase will be placed one week after I receive the proofing copy, which should be some time next week. Whoever already emailed me with the edition they’re interested in, and whoever is going to email me by the time I place the order, will be a part of this bulk order. Sorry for the poor choice of words.

Pricing

The price of printing each book, assuming no discounts (see below), are as follows (prices are in USD):

• Hardcover, color edition (414 pages in full color): $98 (about €72).
• Hardcover, black & white edition (cover – in full color; interior pages – black & white): $25.38 (about €19).

Depending on the quantity of the initial order (for the “private” distribution), discounts will be applied. There are discounts for bulk orders of 20 or more, with the discount increasing the more I order, so the more people we have on board – the merrier. For 30 books, there’s a %10 discount, plus a significant discount in shipping (see below). For 60 books, there’s a %15 discount.

Not that bad of a deal, I reckon.

Shipping costs: if shipped individually from the store, each book costs between $7—15 (€5—11) to deliver, depending on destination and delivery type (mail, express etc.). Having said that, the initial bulk order will first travel through my house (for signing) so this may impact the price by a couple of dollars here or there. I will provide details about it when I have all the information.

The total price for each book, then, is the printing price, plus shipping, plus any amount that you would like to be donated to charity. A blog entry will be posted once I conclude which charity it is going to be (between the two that I am considering); rest assured that both are well worthy of every penny invested in them.

Payment for the Private Distribution Phase

I am going to arrange the order myself; PayPal appears to be, by far, the best option. After one week of collecting payments, I will issue the order to the publishing website and get the thing going.

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So… There you go. The last stretch. Off to do some recording now; my acoustic-electric Taylor guitar is calling.

Yours,
Isaac