Today I took a concrete step toward the transition from home-based printing to using a print-on-demand company, Lightning Source. I signed up with a consultant who has considerable expertise in that area, and I will be bouncing questions off of her for the next several days. I expect to convert the book to having all black-and-white photos in the interior to cut down on production costs, and let Lightning Source take care of distributing the book to Amazon and other sellers. The book may not get into bookstores this way, but it isn’t in stores now and is selling fairly well through online channels.

Today we received our new blade for the Martin-Yale cutter accompanied by a set of instructions that would make the standard knockdown furniture instructions look like a simple nursery rhyme. To be fair, the instructions had an introduction saying the blade should be installed only by a qualified field service person. Clenise made a valiant effort to install it, but soon realized she needed professional help. Remarkably, she called the company and they directed her to a local service man, who came right out to our house and installed it! I was amazed, and now the cutter cuts like a blazing sword through melting butter; an incredible difference.

The laser printers are a different story. We received another shipment of refilled toner cartridges, and they are not doing so well, though we switched them into the other printer and now we are able to print some good copies.

Today we received an order for 21 more books from camerabooks.com, and we’ll ship those tomorrow. I think I’m going to have to cancel all outstanding orders from Amazon Advantage, because it’s too costly and difficult to produce enough books to fill those orders. Once we’re up and running with Lightning Source, Amazon will get books through that channel.