Four Color Press, 2,500 copies, and praying that IRFWD would be a blessing

I spent the Monday and Tuesday after Easter in at Your Town Press, Salem, OR proofing the copies of I Remember Fishing with Dad (IRFWD). It was a really cool process watching art meet German engineering. And it is another step in stepping out on a pretty big limb.

Here’s the story.

The first printing of IRFWD was printed digitally. The great thing about digital printing is that it is printing on demand. In other words, you can print one book at a time, and you only have to print as many books as you need. We started out with having 300 books printed, and they sold out pretty quickly. So we had another 200 printed. In all, we had 650 copies of IRFWD printed digitally.

Shelley Huston, the Executive Director  of Just Dust Publisher, who is publishing IRFWD, saw that the books were selling well, and began to talk to me about getting them done in a Four Color Press. A Four Color press gives you even better color quality – because it uses four presses to build the color on the paper. The only catch is that you have to print at lot more copies to bring the cost down. (If you have a large run of a book, you can print it for significantly less than with a digital printing.)

Shelley and I decided to go for it…To step out on a limb, to hope for, work for, and expect ongoing strong sales of IRFWD; to get 2,500 copies made!

She researched and found a great printer in the Salem area, Your Town Printer. It was great to meet with Dennis, who manages the operation. He walked us through the process. And it was super cool to tour the facility. The machines – most German engineered – are impressive. They even have an old book binding “sewing machine” built in 1912.

So on Monday and Tuesday we proofed each sheet (which has 8 of the book pages on it). Shelley had to sign as proof that we had approved of the colors, look, etc.

I was able to get a video of the Four Color Press in operation. I’m so impressed with the German engineering. It just hummed along. Here it is.

As we walked out, I shared with Shelley that I have been praying that the publication of IRFWD would be a blessing to Just Dust Publisher. I asked her in what specific way could I pray for it to be a blessing. She said that her hope and prayer is that after a number of years of taking a financial loss, and then a few years of breaking even or making just one or two thousand dollars, her prayer had been that Just Dust Publishers would make 20K this year.

It was glad to have a concrete goal to pray for. I invite you to join me in this prayer: that IRFWD would sell well, and that it would be a blessing to Just Dust Publisher, and that IRFWD would be a major reason why the dream of 20K would be made!