With the initial success of Rockabilly Night at work, I decided to change things up a bit and design a new poster while also sharpening my skills with pinstriping designs.
Professor Finneas Wiley's Curiosities and Contraptions - Volume 1
I realized today that I've been unintentionally putting this post off for far too long. So without any further ado, here goes.For those of you that have been following my "journey" in turning toy guns into steampunk and dieselpunk firearms through the Customized Steampunk Nerf Guns series of posts, I have some good news. When I last left off in Part 9, I had just discovered that I had successfully completed modifying thirty toy guns. Awhile back I stumbled upon Blurb (one of the better companies out there that allow you to self-publish your books through their print-on-demand service) and knew there was something I could do with it. Since I don't intend to stop customizing toy guns any time in the foreseeable future, I thought that I would celebrate the pseudo-milestone I had reached with another idea I had. Why not compile the first thirty guns into a paperback volume and then self-publish it through Blurb?
After a bit of time familiarizing myself with Blurb's BookSmart software, I modified the Victorian ads I had created for each gun to fit the new dimensions and began the process of compiling them into a 7"x7" photo book. To accompany the new 7"x7" ads, I placed pictures of each gun from various angles (that I had taken prior to selling them) on the opposing page. Once I included the copyright information, Table of Contents, Introduction, Chapter headings for each type of gun, and a list of collections that the guns are in, I was right at my goal of 80 pages (the maximum number of pages before the book gets put in the next price bracket on Blurb). As soon as I did a quick check for spelling mistakes, it was time to upload the whole shebang and order myself a hard copy to double check for any printing issues.
Unfortunately, on my first attempt there were a few spelling mistakes that I missed and I miscalculated the amount of bleed to include on the pages (which lead to some weird cropping on some of the pages). In addition, Blurb fails to mention anywhere on their site how much room you have for text on the spine of an 80 page book (the minimum number of pages for text to show up on the spine), so the title of the book ended up getting the top and bottom of it cut off. On the plus side, Blurb's customer support gave me a coupon for $10 off my next book order to meet me halfway on the errors.
So I had to go back almost all the way to square one and redo all the Victorian ads again and adjust the text on the spine to make sure that it would all fit in one line. After quadruple checking for spelling errors this time, I re-uploaded the book and ordered another copy of it. This time it turned out alright. The print quality is pretty close (if not equal) to most photo books for sale at Barnes & Noble, Borders, or on Amazon.
As a side note, it turns out that even though they label the book size as being 7"x7" on the site, it actually ends up being 6 7/8"x6 3/4" after they trim the edges. I guess 7"x7" sounds better.
"Professor Finneas Wileys' Curiosities & Contraptions Volume 1 - One man's attempt to create 'Steampunk' and 'Dieselpunk' art using toy guns" by Benjamin M. Bader is now available for sale to the general public. Feel free to check it out in my Blurb Store. If you'd like to peek within the pages, there's a free preview of the first fifteen pages of the book for you to get a better idea of the layout and appearance. The preview depicts the book as a hardcover with a dust jacket instead of a paperback, so just imagine the crease and flaps aren't actually there.
At the time of writing this, if you'd like to purchase a copy, it is available for $19.95US, 9.91GBP, or 14.86EU. For those of you in the UK and Europe, I got an e-mail that the price for British and European buyers would be going up August 27th. So if you're thinking about ordering a copy, now is the time to do it.
To close with, here's a couple of shots of the copy that I got to give you a better idea of what you can expect if you decide to order one for yourself or a friend.
