Happily Ever After
Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running
Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.
Oh Calamity
by admin - 17:40 on 22 April 2011
First there was The Great Binding Disaster. Now there's The Unbelievable Printing Calamity. Today, despite the gorgeous weather, has not been a good one.
I'd tried to remain optimistic yesterday when Andrew emailed to tell me that the print quality of The Bumper Book of Black Isle Snappery's new run was not the best. Duties at GNoME HQ meant I'd been unable to accompany him to Norman and Co's premises to see for myself.
However, when we went there this morning to make a thorough examination the results were even worse than feared. Not only was the print quality of all the books grainy and streaky, but there was also the added bonus that several of the random copies we looked at had pages in the wrong order.
The poor quality was most likely down to a machine that received its long-overdue service after our pages had been printed, we learned. Why the duff printing had not been spotted, or had been ignored, was a question that never received an answer. The page order, which I'd assumed was the bindery's fault, turned out to be Norman and Co's blunder too, for they collated the pages before dispatch to Wakefield.
Norman's enjoying an Easter break, so Brian and the office manager suffered Andrew's very polite wrath which left them looking like too small boys who'd been justifiably ticked off by their mum. There were no excuses and they didn't try to make any. Norman's back on Monday so we'll see him then and take it from there.
By then, Marten James will be home from Borneo. The keypad of his iPhone took some abuse today, but not as much as Norman would have received had James been with us rather than at the airport. He's keen to sack him now but Andrew and I think it's in our interests to give him a chance to reprint the books while we find a new printer and prepare for the third, much bigger print run.
Demand for the book is huge – as a despondent Andrew confirmed this afternoon when he told several very disappointed sales outlets that they'd have to wait a bit longer – but Norman and Co have blown their chance of cashing in.
In the end, we'll turn The Bumper Book's potential success into real success and laugh about the rocky road we had to travel. It will just take longer than we planned.
As Matchgirl will grumpily testify, I always see the glass half full (although sometimes it takes a while).
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