Dispatches, thoughts, and miscellanea from writer Jon Konrath

Another book idea

Okay, I have decided (until I possibly flip-flop a month from now) that I will be doing a ten-year anniversary book for this journal. I’ll start on it after the new year. I don’t think I want to do it in a chronological order, though. I’m thinking about grouping things vaguely by topic or something. And I’ll add in a few “why I did this” essays to break up the monotony. It will be on lulu, and I will try to make it as cheap as possible, although I don’t forsee selling more than like five copies. Anyway, if you have any favorite entries from over the years, or have any other ideas on what I should include, let me know.

An excellent review of Air in the Paragraph Line is located at http://www.anus.com/zine/books/. Don’t worry about the URL, it is not a porn site or anything. The disclaimer I will add is that it was written by a contributor. But I agree with what he says, and I’ll take any publicity I can get.

Speaking of which, this journal anniversary reminded me that this year is the decade anniversary of Air in the Paragraph Line. I wish I would have thought of this earlier and somehow hyped this up. Most blogs and web sites are old geezers when they reach the one year mark, but I’ve been doing the zine since before a lot of people even knew there was an internet. Maybe I will send out a press release or something. And an email from John Sheppard had me thinking about the next themed issue. Maybe it will be another component of life, like death, love, hate, sex, food, something. I’m not sure at this point. I am also vaguely wishing I would have gone ISBN/Barcode/distro with this one. It’s a lot like wondering what you’re going to bet on the superbowl before the season begins.

The all-consuming thing for this week has been Blurb, a service where you can put together glossy color books. I guess lulu lets you do this too, but Blurb has a wizard program you download that has templates you stuff with photos to make very pro looking books. So I’m messing with a travel book. It will be prohibitively expensive, maybe $30-40 hardcover, but I plan on just printing one or two for myself, and then putting it out there in case anyone else wants one. I wish I would have thought of this a month ago; I would have used it to make xmas gifts.

Okay, time for lunch.