Dschibonka wird gedruckt – Jibonka is being printed

Mal ganz schnell: Nach der Druckfreigabe ist Dschibonka jetzt tatsächlich im Druck. Die Produktion wird etwa 30 Tage in Anspruch nehmen. Und dann kriegen wir fix je drei Vorabexemplare pro Sprache. Zwei deutsche Ausgaben gehen dann unverzüglich nach Frankfurt, wo sie irgendwie auf die Buchmesse gelangen – dazu dann mehr.

Just a very quick update: Jibonka is being printed while I type this. In about 30 days all books will be done and we get three advance copies of each language. two of the German copies then make a trip to Frankfurt, where they eventually will end up on the bookfair – details to come.

Details and quotations

While Jörg is working on the cover art – it deserves its own post – I finally try to get all the details nailed down with the printer. What will be glossy, what will be matte? When should we upload the artwork for the CD? Costs for mailing a dummy? And lots more. All this needs to be addressed and to be agreed upon.

So far the saleswoman of our printer was very helpful and answered all my questions promptly. Of course, after recent events proofed that laws in China only apply if the government likes them to be applied (a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry even said so in a press conference) one has to reflect doing business in China. But we are not dealing with the Chinese government. We deal with a private company in a special econimic zone. The same city actually, where a Taiwanese company exclusively produces the iphone and the ipad. And somehow I never heard anybody saying: “No, I will not use any Apple product because it is made in China.”

Anyway, the final quotation we will get is valid for two weeks and thus within the next two weeks we will finish our part of the production.

Quite some team

Incredible as it may seem (to us at least) Jibonka is almost finished. All the pages of the story are done – that leaves us with the work for a new cover and the inner pages with all the necessary data.

Meanwhile our printer gave us a good idea of size and weight of 2000 copies, which will give our shipping company enough numbers to figure out how much they will have to charge us. So in a few days we will know how much of our budget will be eaten up by printing and shipping.

Mentioning the budget reminds me that we have to be grateful to some people. People, who in different ways helped us with Jibonka. By bearing with us all those years, by setting us right about a few over-the-top-ideas, by helping us with the translation, by giving some good advice or opening doors, by forking out some serious dough or by providing me with freaky Black Forest Cake sweets.

Our Jibonka Team

They all make up the team which will help “Jibonka” find the way in some people’s shelves (we already have a few orders, so we know some copies will eventually share shelfspace with who knows what other books). And so our credits ended up as a team licence for the Jibonka Super League.