"Bell D188A Mach 2 VTOL Fighter Project" now in print

Orionblamblam

Orionblamblam

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Ta-da...

http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/157099

Preview
 
Not as yet. I want to see how the printed paper version sells. The PDF version, if it comes, would likely be marketted straight through my usual approach, as MagCloud takes a fairly substantial percentage.
 
Scott, I am always very interested in your publications, and this looks as good & interesting as your other (always first class) publications. Well done. My 5 cents worth: I have to think twice these days about buying books as the postage is now the main cost of any purchase. A good example is that I purchased a copy of Lloyd S Jones "U.S. Bombers" (4th ed) a few weeks ago. I found a copy in almost new condition for a mere $1.69, but the postage was about $25 - surface mail.
 
I found a copy in almost new condition for a mere $1.69, but the postage was about $25 - surface mail.
Click to expand...

That's why I asked for the pdf edition...
 
foiling said:
Scott, I am always very interested in your publications, and this looks as good & interesting as your other (always first class) publications. Well done. My 5 cents worth: I have to think twice these days about buying books as the postage is now the main cost of any purchase. A good example is that I purchased a copy of Lloyd S Jones "U.S. Bombers" (4th ed) a few weeks ago. I found a copy in almost new condition for a mere $1.69, but the postage was about $25 - surface mail.
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True. That's why I stopped buying on eBay because I ended up spending a LOT more than I initially expected.

Still, you can consider that $26.69 for U.S. Bombers is not a rip-off... the book is worth it!
 
I'll point out that since the D188A book is derived from a couple articles in APR, it *is* more or less available electronically.

It has been reformatted of course, with some minor revisons to the text and some changes to the illustrations to make it applicable to the 8.5X11 pages. The PDF file that was sent to MagCloud to be turned into the printed publication was saved at a higher fidelity than the APR versions, and comes in just short of 100 megabytes, which would make is a bit of a beast for downloading purposes.
 
Stargazer2006, always good to hear your input. You are quite right; Lloyd's "US Bombers" is unquestionably worth $26, and I immediately ordered the other books (US Fighters & US Naval aircraft). The former has arrived and is excellent, too. Not in any way disagreeing with you, my point is that quite often the postage makes the cost of a book double the price, and not infrequently, quite a lot more than double. As a book fanatic, I do not hesitate to spend a substantial part of my rapidly dwindling pension on good books but I do resent such a large part of the cost going on 'something I will not receive'. And delivery has become troublingly slow since late last year. I used to boast that books arrived from the UK within 10 days - 2 weeks, sometimes even less, and from the States in about 2 months. I had to wait 3 months for an eagerly anticipated copy of Handbook of Birds of the World (Volume 15) costing about $265 from the UK, posted in November (before strikes, snow and Christmas rush), and a worrying 4 months for a copy of "Damned by destiny" from Canada, posted in October. All said & done, there is nothing like the feel, the scent and the visual pleasure of a much desired book.
 
foiling said:
All said & done, there is nothing like the feel, the scent and the visual pleasure of a much desired book.
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Quite so... and the pleasure lasts on and on, and on and on... you just go back to the bookshelf, grab the book, turn the pages, and like the perfume of an old love, it feels like the first time over again, every time! ;D ;D ;D
 
I did so yesterday evening with my old love from the 1966 edtn. :p
 
Very nice, indeed. Did anyone notice in the pictures of the mockup, what appears to be a mockup of the D-190 in the background? I'd like to see a little more of that, myself.

Good work, Scott
 
Fascinating book on a machine that was way ahead of its time. Imagine if they had been in NATOwide
service in the 60s instead of Starfighters and Super Sabres. Builderscience on Ebay has a neat little model
 
"Bell D188A Mach 2 VTOL Fighter Project" now OUT OF PRINT

Due to repeated production problems, the D188A title has been withdrawn. The text was trimmed off by a letter or two on the outside edge. This problem was *supposed* to be fixed, but clearly wasn't. So unless and until I can get a reliable print of it, the title is on hiatus.

So if you have already purchased a copy, congrats! You are now the proud owner of something that fewer than 20 people on the entire planet have.
 
Re: "Bell D188A Mach 2 VTOL Fighter Project" now OUT OF PRINT

Orionblamblam said:
Due to repeated production problems, the D188A title has been withdrawn. The text was trimmed off by a letter or two on the outside edge. This problem was *supposed* to be fixed, but clearly wasn't. So unless and until I can get a reliable print of it, the title is on hiatus.

So if you have already purchased a copy, congrats! You are now the proud owner of something that fewer than 20 people on the entire planet have.
Click to expand...

Okay, publisher/layouter really made use of maximum of available space ;D , but no single letter seems to be missing in my copy. Has anybody got delivered a copy with deficit of text?
 
Re: "Bell D188A Mach 2 VTOL Fighter Project" now OUT OF PRINT

boxkite said:
no single letter seems to be missing in my copy. Has anybody got delivered a copy with deficit of text?
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Yes. I had a few complaint emails come in, so I withdrew the pub, reworked the format (tightened up the margins *again*) and am now waiting for yet another proof to show up in the mail. It seems there is some variability at the printer from copy to copy.
 
Ahhh, you've discovered the Achilles Heel of digital print; Image Shift.
Unlike an offset litho press, digital printers have no 'lays', devices which *precisely*
position the sheet in two dimensions [up/down, and left/right], prior to the actual
printing action.
This leads to the aforementioned image shift, also known as mis-registration.
From personal experience I know this shift can be up to 5mm, sheet to sheet,
and is particularly severe when printing duplex [double sided] jobs.
The only real cure is to be generous with your margins, including at the centre
gutter, when laying out your jobs...


cheers,
Robin.
 
In over twenty years of preparing documents for print, I can confirm that whatever you do, the printers will find new and inventive ways to screw up your work - and then blame you for it! Printers are Bad People and will all be punished for their crimes, come the Glorious Day!

10mm margins, 5mm gutters, minimum 3mm bleed - never use the Bold or Italic buttons - use the proper typeface, proof in CMYK, don't scale pictures up beyond 110%, if at all, 300dpi minimum, TIFF for images, EPS for line art... spell check or die, no more than -3 tracking, no hairlines, get someone who's never seen it before to proofread it, turn off auto hyphenation, no widows or orphans (single words on a line, single lines of text at the top of a para), use style sheets, you are allowed to use a page curl once in your life, and never, ever, EVER use Microsoft Publisher! Quark Xpress... the industrial strength tool for the job.
 
aemann said:
In over twenty years of preparing documents for print, I can confirm that whatever you do, the printers will find new and inventive ways to screw up your work - and then blame you for it! Printers are Bad People and will all be punished for their crimes, come the Glorious Day!

10mm margins, 5mm gutters, minimum 3mm bleed - never use the Bold or Italic buttons - use the proper typeface, proof in CMYK, don't scale pictures up beyond 110%, if at all, 300dpi minimum, TIFF for images, EPS for line art... spell check or die, no more than -3 tracking, no hairlines, get someone who's never seen it before to proofread it, turn off auto hyphenation, no widows or orphans (single words on a line, single lines of text at the top of a para), use style sheets, you are allowed to use a page curl once in your life, and never, ever, EVER use Microsoft Publisher! Quark Xpress... the industrial strength tool for the job.
Click to expand...

Surely an invaluable reminder of how things should get done. Thanks for sharing! ;)
 
Printers are Bad People and will all be punished for their crimes, come the Glorious Day!
Click to expand...

That's me done for, then...... ;D

Seriously, Aemann, what's your experience with image shift on digital presses?
It's a serious problem with my colleagues, especially as the artists seem to favour designs
needing precise registration, even on things like business cards...


cheers,
Robin.
 
A new proof showed up in the mail today. This one looks fine... but I'm going to tinker some more before re-releasing, due to the advice and doom-and-gloom-dmaned-printers I've seen.

The re-tinkered version will probably be visibly different from the prior release, by way of consolidating some of the mockup photos to two per page rather than one.
 
robunos said:
Printers are Bad People and will all be punished for their crimes, come the Glorious Day!
Click to expand...

That's me done for, then...... ;D

Seriously, Aemann, what's your experience with image shift on digital presses?
It's a serious problem with my colleagues, especially as the artists seem to favour designs
needing precise registration, even on things like business cards...


cheers,
Robin.
Click to expand...

To be honest, I've not had much experience. I worked in a studio some years back when it was all taking off, and it seemed to be fine - I suspect, and I don't mean to cast aspersions here, that it may mostly be down to the operator and how the machine is used. If you know that that's the intended destination, it may be possible to design to that - be a bit more generous with trapping for a start, but generally don't rely on the registration being spot on. Sounds odd but it's possible - try to anticipate, identify and remove the problems before they get to the printers.

Mind you, even with offset printers there's problems, so always get a proof if it's available. Also, check the terms and conditions of the place that printing it, and see if there are any clauses relating to registration problems, or anything in the setup info they generally provide.
 
"Bell D188A" Available Again and ON SALE

OK, I've adjusted the margins inwards a goodly amount and consolidated some of the full-page mockup photos into two-per-page, reducing the pagecount to 72 (and reducing the price accordingly). The *previous* iteration proof showed up in the mail a few days back and looked ok, but I decided to move the margins inwards a little further. I'd prefer to await yet another proof before re-releasing this... but MagCloud is currently having a 25% off sale, so I'm re-releasing this *now.* The current sale price is $15.55 rather than the regular price of $19.40.

http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/157099

Most of the images were not effected by the margin reduction.

Additionally, the sale also impacts my little photo-test-booklet as well:

http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/144139

Cheap at only $7.25.
 
Got mine. Still good despite those little problems. Good job!

Regards,

Greg
 
Congratulations Scott!!


Regards
Pioneer
 
Download: "Bell D188A Mach 2 VTOL Fighter Project"

The book is now available for download as well as in print. The download version is cheap at only $5. It can be picked up either here:
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=10357

or here:
http://www.up-ship.com/eAPR/articles.htm

The latter link also has 33 other Aerospace Projects Review articles that are available for individual (and cheap) download.
 

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