Broken Kode Season One Complete
It’s late. What’s definitely becoming endemic of my life in general (being late with projects), Broken Kode | Season One is roughly 8 months late. This book was meant to have been completed and at the printers end of February so that I could put it forward for the Blooker prize. Wasn’t for the prize to be honest, but so that I could at least adhere to a deadline and get the book finished. I remember pressuring Michael to sort out the introduction and then I subsequently missed the deadline (sorry Mike); who knows maybe I’ll put it forward for this year’s Blooker prize (although I seriously doubt it would stand much of a chance).
The first paper copy of the book sat on my desk (next to my mouse) for the past 6 months and hadn’t moved. It just sat there as a constant reminder to me that I had invest hundreds of hours in compiling and putting together that it wasn’t complete. I took it with me to America and completed reading it and annotating it on the plane there but couldn’t find the energy to sit down and correct everything.
If I get nothing else out of this vacation (which I actually have) I’ll know that I completed this book.
I’m happy to report that the copy has been sent to Lulu and is ready to be ordered.
The standard version is in glorious black and white, however I’ve included a colour version of the book as well for myself and to see what the colour printing of Lulu is like, as I intend to compile a design and illustration book in the not too distant future (yeah I know, but thankfully that’ll only be illustrations and a little commentary here and there). For all intents and purposes that’s all the tweaking I’ll be doing. I’ve gone through the original book soo many times, I’ve still got that feeling that I’ve missed something; maybe that’s because I’m soo close to this book that I feel as though I’m never going to really finish the book and that there’s always something to do.
The original book came in at over 285 pages long. After sitting down and thinking about it, I felt that a lot of the posts really didn’t deserve a whole page dedicated to them. So part of the exercise was to cut down the number of pages. The current page count is a more manageable 195 pages.
I’ll be providing a decent page for the book and sorting out my Lulu store front as well, until then the dead tree version provides a little bang for your buck, as it’s got the following goodies:- Introduction by Michael Heilemann
- 12 Illustrations (created during that year) which form the month covers
- Commentary for most of the posts
- Sketchbook material
- Afterword
As this is one big experiment, I’m going to write down some of my reasoning behind the layout and design of the book itself and other things I’ve learnt about the Lulu process. Hopefully these might enlighten those brave souls that are considering jumping into the book based on blog field.
One post equals one page
So here’s a layout of the pages themselves (click on the image for an expanded view). Now I’ve decided to put one blog post on every page. This allows you enough room to actually include a number of things, including the categories, the dates and other good stuff like commentary for the actual posts themselves.
All Posts?
For some reason which I can’t really explain I honestly thought it was a good idea to try and include all the posts I made in the book, regardless of their quality. The reasoning behind this was that I wanted to be a completist. Fortunately the voice of reason came upon me and I think it’s important to distinguish the difference between the online world and the print world. Publishing on the online world is cheap. I can afford to have crappy posts every once in a while. In a book however you really should put your best stuff out there otherwise the book won’t get a second look. People have enough books/movies/theatre/etc vying for their attention, I don’t think putting in my incoherent rants (and some of them are seriously incoherent I’ve found) into the mix and increasing the noise in your life.Comments or no comments?
When compiling this book I was in the pretty fortunate position that I didn’t really have to wonder too much about the comments themselves as I didn’t have all that many comments in the first year of the ‘Kode’s life. I think if I do go through with making Season Two, I might include the more important comments much in the same way I’ve included only the worthy posts within the book. It’s all about what enhances the book and makes it something more enjoyable.Extras?
I guess this section came about for a couple of reasons. The first was when I started thinking for reasons why anyone would want to buy a book based on my blog where all the posts are available for reading for free. It’s not like my blog is ground breaking or anything. It’s not like it’s got essential commentary on life, the universe and everything inbetween. I guess I wanted to make it slightly more worthwhile, make it stand out from the online version of the same content.Summary
It’s been a hell of a long journey, marred by the fact that it’s taken as long, I’ve got no one to blame really but myself. The saving grace of course is the fact that the Lulu process is pretty painless. I was able to set everything up and have it all up and running in a very short while. The site has been slightly updated throughout this year and is slightly more polished, however there still is room for improvement I think (at least from a usability point of view). What’s great is that the online help function is now working and I got a couple of questions I had answered straight away which was very satisfying.
Can’t wait to get my copy, if nothing else so I can figure out if it’s something I would want to do with BB.
↓ Quote | 27/10/2006
Dude, don’t you be buying anything! Your copy is in the post :).
↓ Quote | 27/10/2006
I dont want a copy………I want a couple:)
For my fire place…
IM KIDDING! Congrats on finisihing it
↓ Quote | 27/10/2006
Looks great, but what’s it about?
Sorry, but I don’t exactly read everything posted here. :P
↓ Quote | 29/10/2006
Andre said:
It’s a blook, so erm it’s basically the first year of my blog, in paper format. Done for many reasons, mainly an experiment to see what Lulu has to offer and for me to give to friends and family (and the more I got into it so see if there was any interest in this sort of thing to other people as well).
↓ Quote | 29/10/2006
I am looking forward to getting this in the post as well, once I order it of course. I am excited to see how the whole thing came together.
Be sure to update us on how sales go.
↓ Quote | 30/10/2006
Wow. Is it really a book of archives of your blog? Does it come with a CD or something? I think this is the future and this will become big. Other bloggers will follow your footsteps and publish their archive of blogs in a book too. Nice idea. Great!
↓ Quote | 3/11/2006
stylemo said:
It’s not really my idea as it’s been around for a while, it’s just that not many people have been doing it, mainly I guess because blogs are disposable media? I dunno. I see more bloggers doing this to keep their words in one place definitely, will we be blogging forever? Maybe, maybe not.
↓ Quote | 3/11/2006
I still think this is kind of a unique idea, maybe its just because this is the first time I’ve ever heard of it being done? Anyways I think I might go pick up a copy, woulda been nice if the illustrations were in colour though ;)
↓ Quote | 5/11/2006
Hey man I love your website design, so cool =] keep up the good work mate
↓ Quote | 14/11/2006
That’s a cool concept. I’ll be buying this “blook” ;).
↓ Quote | 1/12/2006
Looks great. I bet it is great. I think I will get a copy.Congrats
↓ Quote | 28/3/2007