Stencil Nation Books are Here!

A few days ago, Jennifer dropped off three cases of the actual, ink-smelling, dead tree Stencil Nation book. What an amazing site: three heavy boxes of books (I think the weight of the book is due to all the ink used for the full-color photos). They look great. Since they’re 8×8, they remind me of a 45 record sleeve. Haven’t read through them yet, but am enjoying the photos. I have wanted to work on the slide presentation, but am now in shipping and handling mode. Dropped off the first book to Laura, and wasn’t impressed with how the Sharpie pen signature worked. It was fun to go through the book with Laura for the first time. Gave a second copy to Al at Al’s Comics. He was the main connection for my getting the book offer in the first place, so I was glad to have him be the second person to see it. He took a few copies to sell on consignment too. Started to create a spreadsheet of all the business activities going on, set up labels for the mailers, and began to compile a list of family and friends who get a copy. It’s a small list (I only got about a dozen free copies). My roomie Halsey is the zen pen master, so he hooked me up with a nice Faber-Castell PITT artist pen (India ink, acid-free, water-based, dries fast) with a medium round tip. Love it. Ran errands today, so went to the art store to buy my own PITT pen or two and they were out. Bought a different brand, and only signed one book with it. Took 4x as long to dry as the Faber pen. Bought mailers today, more sheets of labels, some packaging tape, and some wax stencil paper to experiment with. Ready to start mailing! Started autographing and packing the books for a trip to the USPS tomorrow. The book weighs about a pound so we’ll see how my shipping fees work out. Got about half the orders packed tonight. Have been speaking with my alma mater’s Communications Director about putting the book in the Alumni Magazine. He asked if I could be profiled. Sure, why not!? My family back in SC is asking for a big order of books too. And, I think I figured out the funding for the rest of the year, so will be able to go to Australia and a winter book tour on the East Coast. Isn’t the life of an artist/author glamorous? Are you jealous yet? 🙂