Journal – Page 36 – Teel McClanahan

Printer woes

To begin with, I will admit that I intentionally purchased the cheapest of all printers, the $20 HP D1415, whose (tiny-reservoired) included ink cartridge retails for $18. ie: I bought a $2 printer. This is because my previous near-$100 printer had died (taking >$40 in ink cartridges with it), and I wanted to take the time to shop for a printer with a better value proposition than average. The Canon printer, which had died, was selected because it’s replacement black ink (separate from color, of course) was $5 to $7 each – the cheapest of inks I could find at the time. This ~$2 printer had been selected because it was cheap, and the included ink should have lasted until I could complete research on what printer I actually wanted. Based on previous printing habits, it would have.

Alas, I recently started printing my own labeling for my audiobook packaging, which uses a lot of ink. Poof, need replacement ink. Went to the local Cartridge World and bought some cheap ink, will go back to talk to them about cartridges, probably. Ink is just one problem, though. Half-way through a two-sided print out (ie: one side is printed, the other side hasn’t started) the $2 printer suddenly started having paper jams. Sometimes that paper actually jammed, sometimes the printer simply seemed to be imagining that it was jammed. Doesn’t seem to like the heavy-weight paper for the Jewelbox inserts. Bleh. That is a very frustrating and time-consuming and wasteful fight. It does not make me happy.

So, I’m looking for a printer with:

Good value $$/ink
Ability to correctly handle heavyweight paper
As small of margins as possible, esp. on legal-size paper. (Like, .08″ if possible)

I had also been looking at the Epson R-Series printers, for printing directly onto CDs, but apparently Epson printers have terrible value/ink, even with the “high capacity” cartridges. So, I’m not 100% sold on that. Any suggestions/advice would be welcomed.

Speed Racer

Mandy and I went to see Speed Racer last night, and we both loved it. Laughing out loud, clapping, jumping out of our seats, cheering and hollering… We found the movie to be very engaging. We both agree that if that is what motor sports was like, we would watch them. I mean, that stuff is awesome.

In addition, as we got to see the world the film takes place in, the megalopopis city at the heart of it is just breathtaking. If there was a GTA-like game (ie: open-ended, explorable, sandbox type environment with cutting-edge graphics) set in that world/city, I would have a reason to buy that game. Ooh, and if it WAS part of the GTA franchise, if you got to play as those goofy gangsters, the central story line might actually be fun for people to play!

Of course, the hyper-saturated colors of the world, especially of the wardrobes, was awesome. If I could buy clothes as brightly colored as that, I would. I have only seen one or two garments available for sale with as richly saturated colors as most everyone in Speed Racer was wearing throughout the film, and I bought them immediately, or lamented their not being available in my size. Bright colors are awesome, and I wish clothes manufacturers thought so. It’s almost enough to get me to take up sewing, as well, and make all my own clothes from scratch. Almost, but not quite.

Oh, am I not saying much about the movie? Watch the trailer, it’s just like that, I don’t need to tell you. Oh, and I apparently missed it (on account of I try to avoid watching anything with commercials in it, if possible), but it was directed by the Wachowski Brothers and James McTeigue, with visual effects by Gaeta, which is largely what made the whole film an awesome experience. If I could afford it, I would go watch it again and again to try to catch all the thousands of tiny but wonderful background details in the effects shots. John Goodman was great. Matt Fox was less than great, but … alright. Susan Sarandon was … busty. Like, stuffed bra, like, distracting. Anyway. Speed Racer. Fun!

Incorrectly sad; music credit != big deal

I don’t know why, but this little thing is causing me all sorts of psychological trouble, a wrenching feeling in my gut… It’s pushed me away from the computer (the work space) in the middle of the day, and I’m laying in bed with the cat, feeling bad. I know, intellectually, that this feeling, this reaction, is incorrect, is irrational. Either way I decide to go on this tiny question, it barely matters. But I still feel very strongly about it and am having to fight with myself over it.

So, here it is: I’m working on changing the “outro” for the podiobook version of Dragons’ Truth, and struggling with whether or not to include a music credit, and if so, then how it should be put. I did everything. I wrote the book, I recorded the audio, all the voices, I composed the music, I’ll even be burning the discs for people who buy it. I did everything. It feels weird/wrong to list it all out. If I’d used someone else’s music, sure, credit them. Have to. In fact, NOT having to put in a music credit was probably 1/3 of why I decided to compose my own music… No one to press charges when I don’t mention the music is theirs. So now, being told by trusted voices in podcasting/podiobooks that I ought to have a music credit, even though it’s mine is… Weird. It feels wrong. It conflicts with my intentions.

I don’t know. Maybe I’ll take a nap.

post-First First Friday wrapup

Okay, so, two days later I think I’ve sufficiently decompressed. First Friday was … hard.

Getting everything together was psychologically taxing. Which paintings to take along to display, how to display them without spending too much, testing the generator/lights setup, thinking endlessly about signage, how much change should we have in the money box, how to fit everything into the car… And when I checked the official website for Roosevelt Row on Friday morning, they’d moved the setup time from 4PM to 5PM up to 5PM to 6PM, so I was aiming to leave the house by 4:30. Everything took a little longer than expected (especially fitting everything into the car), and there was unexpected “baseball traffic” and it was a little after 5:30 when I showed up. Bleh. Continue reading post-First First Friday wrapup

Trying to do, perhaps, too much at once

So, I’ve been working on the audiobook version of Dragons’ Truth (available now in paperback from Modern Evil Press) for the last several weeks. At least a full week, perhaps week and a half, was spent learning how to use the hardware and software tools I have available to reduce background noise as much as possible. In the future (when I’ve been at this for longer, and have more experience (and more equipment. ie: a better sound environment)) I’m sure I’ll want to re-record Dragons’ Truth. I’m somewhat a perfectionist, and this recording isn’t as perfect as I’d like. But it will have to do, for now.

That is the conclusion I came to after the first week of fighting with the background noise. The other few days were just me trying to get it “good enough” for now. It’s better than a lot of the stuff that’s out there, it’s just … not as good as I’d like. I’ve played it for a couple of “normal” people (ie: not audiophiles) through “normal” audio players (ie: not high-end closed-ear headphones; just a regular stereo, regular earbuds) and they don’t even hear the things that bug me about it, so … it’s good enough. Lost and Not Found, which I would like to tackle next, should be better.

I’m planning on podcasting these audiobooks, for free, through Podiobooks.com and perhaps through a Modern Evil Press feed that has everything. (Multiple books, videos, et cetera…) There are hundreds of authors/titles already on podiobooks.com, and a huge base of listeners, hungry for new books. The traditional model for podiobooks authors seems to be to only have a few episodes (or none) recorded ahead of when they hit the site (typically one episode a week). The guide recommends to have 5 episodes finished before your first episode goes live, in case anything slows production down the line – no one wants an episode to be posted late, and it’s a sure way to lose traffic fast. So, for most first-time podiobookers, based on what I’ve seen in the mentorship forum and from chatting with them on Twitter, they spend several months working on an episode or five, and then just try to stay ahead of the release schedule from then on. I state this for contrast from what I’m doing:

Even including the 1.5 weeks lost to my insanity, I’m spending less than a month recording an entire audiobook. I want the whole thing done, ready to go, before the first episode is available for free to the internet. I want the completed audiobook to be available for sale before the first episode hits the internet for free. I want to have links to where you can buy the audiobook as an MP3 CD (or AAC CD), as a set of audio CDs, or where you can subscribe to dl it for free, one episode at a time over months, and I want all three links to go up at once. That month includes composing intro/outro/bridge music (so I don’t have to pay or credit anyone else for that), editing, mixing, test-burning CDs and designing labels and packaging for them, because I plan to do all that myself, too.

All of this is possible because of digital tools available to me relatively cheaply. This audiobook is relatively short (it’ll probably come in at around 4.5hrs when I’m done), but with experience recording should go faster, so the next one will probably take fewer days per hour of audio, and at a higher quality. Packaging for the LaNF audiobook, which will probably be on 10+ CDs, I don’t know about right now, but I’ve already got some good ideas about how to package D’T, and some ideas about combo-packages I can offer (buy the paperback and the MP3 CD together and save!)… hopefully this will help with sales of everything.

Anyway, I’ve been somewhat busy lately with this one project, at the exclusion of almost all else, because I want to get this launched ASAP. I want to get the audiobook broadcasting (podcasting) as soon as possible. But since I also want to get the entire thing done ahead of time … it’s a lot. Oh, and people keep reminding me First Friday is THIS Friday, and am I ready? Of course I’m not ready! Are you coming?