Cheap, Good, Fast: Pick Any Two

I have now received my two copies of the "layflat", revised edition of Pentagonal Pool, and it is a very attractive object indeed: truly a thing of beauty, sturdily made and very nicely printed. Using it is an unusually immersive experience: to look at pictures spread across two adjacent, rigid 10" x 8" pages is very different from looking at them on the usual curved surfaces with an acute "gutter" in between and, even if I say so myself, these particular photographs do look very good presented this way. What a shame it has to be quite so expensive (although, to my amazement, one very discriminating reader in Houston, Texas has actually bought a copy: thanks!). I have to say, they also arrived individually packaged in a totally unnecessary clamshell "gift box", which I suppose reveals something of Blurb's intended customer-base for these things: wedding albums, retirement gifts, client presentations, and the like.

So, if I've been quiet for a few days it's because I've been busy. For a long time I've wanted to make some sort of "best of" book of these written posts, but the sheer scale of the task – both in editorial time and publishing expense – has always been too daunting, which is why I made those Idiotic Hat Annual CDs: it was far simpler to create a set of PDFs containing everything than to boil down the nearly 2000 posts I have published since 2008. A classic instance of Pascal's apology for sending such a long letter, having lacked the time to make it shorter. But it occurred to me recently that a series of small, cheap selections might actually be preferable to yet another lavish production that no-one can afford.

The key to this, I realised, would be to drop all or most of the pictures, and to use Blurb's inexpensive "trade" book format, printed on their cheapest "B&W only" paper. That way, even a fairly substantial little book of around 140 pages could come in at under £5. Any remaining pictures would look pretty awful, but that wouldn't matter. It surprised me, once I started to look, how many written posts could stand alone, stripped of their illustrative matter, and lightly edited to remove any direct references to the accompanying photographs, as well as to links to other posts and external material on the Web.

The idea of making thematic selections was the other key. It's a general rule in life that 80% of anything is rubbish, and blogs are no exception. Of the 2000 or so posts in this blog there are probably 400 that warrant stand-alone publication, plus some borderline cases that have a certain amusement or novelty value. Let's say 500, which is still quite a lot, given that a typical post would occupy about 1½ pages in print; moreover, deciding which posts qualify would remain a major undertaking. But, once you apply a thematic filter, everything falls into place quite quickly. You start out looking for caprines, which is a far simpler, if tedious task, and then you sort your little herd into sheep and goats.

My first thematic thoughts were things like music, my home town of Stevenage, and, oh, the meaning of life, the universe, and everything: subjects I've returned to repeatedly over these years. Repeatedly and, it has to be said, somewhat repetitively. You can be forgiven for, in effect, rewriting the same post every few years – perspectives change, new information comes to light – but when such posts are collated into a single sequence, a certain amount of further selectivity becomes necessary: not just sheep, but the prettiest sheep.

For now, anyway, I have decided to avoid any photographic topics, for the obvious reason that more actual photographs might be required, raising the cost of production. I want these books to be cheap. The first (music, probably) is not ready yet – I want them to be good, too – but shouldn't take too long. However, as the saying, goes: cheap, good, and fast – pick any two. To keep the cost down even further, I'll probably buy copies in bulk (as many as, like, ten copies!) and distribute them myself. Which, if past experience is any guide, will probably amount to giving them away.

So that's what I've been up to: how about you? I've been surprised by the absence of comments during this period of enforced leisure. I do hope you're not enslaved to interior decoration, confined to bed, or, ah, worse. Or maybe you, too, have been happily busy in the Cave of Making?