“Slow and steady wins the spaghetti”—that’s what is usually mumbled in passing as someone from our team works on one of the books. While silly, it perfectly portrays my (and the Amaranteam’s) approach to our creations—to make them as perfect as humanly possible.
As our production slowly, but steadily, moves more and more in-house, we can introduce even more features. However, this also means occasional delays. Catch-22 is proving to be quite a challenge, but at least we’re in the binding stage right now.
You can read more about the production updates below, but if you’re in a hurry, here’s the TL;DR: Catch-22 essential edition will start shipping first, hopefully at the beginning of July; Catch-22 numbered edition will ship slowly over the course of the summer, due to (well-earned) vacation time from our team; Catch-22 lettered edition will be shipped last, but it will feature more than a couple of surprises.
The Essentials
About two weeks ago, we received the covers for the essential edition of Catch-22. I was not satisfied, to say the least. So, in our usual manner (some of you will remember the Bandersnatch hard reset where we threw away a lot of oak), I’ve cast them away and ordered new ones to be made.
Fortunately, it’s a relatively fast process because the book blocks, endpapers, and slipcases are all ready. However, the covers are something you’ll admire (and touch!) the most, and not having them perfect would irk me to no end.
By the looks of it, we will start shipping at the beginning of July, but it could happen sooner. In any case, you’ll receive an address confirmation email beforehand. Once you do, you’ll know we’re in the packing process.
On a Mission
The Mission Edition of Catch-22 has turned out great, but as each book is bound by hand by the Amaranteam, and with handmade endpapers for each book, it’s taking a bit longer than expected. This is mostly because summer is here, and people had vacation plans made earlier this year. Since overworked people and fine press bookbinding do not go well together, I’ve decided it might be best for everyone if people get some rest before finishing up the process.
This means some of you will receive your numbered edition in July, while others will receive it in August. I’m sorry it couldn’t be done earlier, but the end result will be worth it, as you can see in the pictures.
What About the Bomber Edition?
As hinted at a few times before, the Bomber Edition is going to feature quite a few upgrades. I wanted to create something more ambitious.
This will not, of course, affect the price. The price is as set before and we will not change it. But that’s great news for all of you who have already purchased it because you’ll be getting a stunning new edition.
I don’t want to spoil it, but just to give you a little taste of things to come: we’ve added real shearling, more leather, some metal, and even more marbling. I can’t wait to get it ready for a video presentation where we’ll take a deep dive into the presentation of the final product, letterpress and all.
This might be one of the things I’m looking forward to the most!
2001
Fortunately, 2001 will be completed much faster than Catch-22. The simple reason is that we’re moving (again) to a bigger (but still temporary) space, because our own offices are still under construction.
Our future offices will be an exciting space, designed to both inspire and offer expanded in-house production capabilities as time goes by. However, time waits for no one and we wanted to increase our production capabilities sooner than that. This new temporary space will help us achieve that, allowing us to drastically cut the production time for 2001.
The biggest challenge so far has been acquiring all four different papers that will be used in these editions at the same time, as well as relocating Heidi to a new place, but the move should be completed this week. After everyone is recharged from vacation, we’ll be able to tackle the production with full strength!
In the meantime, you can watch the presentation video for each 2001 edition on our YouTube channel. Just hit the link and enjoy the show!
What Comes After
We are in the process of securing the rights for the next two titles, so if all goes well, I’ll announce both of them along with our next Sherlock project. I truly hope we can announce this soon because I’m absolutely thrilled about both of them. As a hint (or a tease, depending on how you look at it), I’ll just say that they have been requested multiple times before.
As our in-house production becomes faster and our Amaranteam grows, our goal is to ramp up production by the end of the year. Not only will we publish and ship both Catch-22 and 2001, but we also plan to publish (and ship) at least two more titles. The transition to this is slow and sometimes painful, but we’re getting there (remember, slow and steady wins the spaghetti)!
This also means we could use some input on what comes next. More specifically, what comes in 2025. So hit the link below and vote in our latest poll. It’s a multiple-choice poll, so feel free to click on everything you’d like us to do.
