Previous |
Main
| Next
Chain Mail Jewelry
"Chain Mail Jewelry - Contemporary Designs from Classic Techniques" is “my book” (well, my second book), which is perhaps a little unfair, as I do share co-authorship with the book’s editor and project co-ordinator; Terry Taylor. Also, only 4 of the 29 total chainmail jewelry projects in the book are my original work.
However, I did create some 384 original digital illustrations for the book and wrote (and re-wrote and re-wrote ad nauseam) all the step-by-step instructions in the book. So I do feel very close to every single page of what is currently the prettiest mainstream book on the construction of chainmail available.
The story of my involvement in the project is mostly a series of coincidences. Back in the late fall of 2004 I received a forward email from one of my website clients from here on the island; Judith Martin. The email was an open call from Lark Books looking for chainmail jewelry artists to submit projects for consideration to be included in an upcoming book.
I contacted the aforementioned Terry Taylor and he sent me the forms for submitting projects, the deadline was some time in January of 2005. Shortly after the New Year and with that deadline fast approaching, I finally got my act together and submitted a whole pile of jewelry projects that I thought would be cool to include. The submission process was actually a complete mess, as due to a freak winter storm I lost my Internet connection for over a week, so with scant hours to go before the actual deadline I ended up hauling all the submissions to a friend’s computer for emailing.
Time passed and more time passed, eventually I received a broadcast email from Lark looking for submissions for a second chainmail jewelry book. I kind of shrugged my shoulders and figured that none of my submissions had been good enough to make the cut, so what was the point of submitting to a second book? So I went on with my life.
Then a few weeks later I received another broadcast email. It basically said that everyone being contacted had projects that had been accepted for inclusion in the book and that we would be contacted shortly on an individual basis with details on how to submit our projects.
True to their word, I received an email that confirmed that 4 of my projects had been selected, which I thought was pretty cool, a notch on the belt and a nice way to pick up a little extra cash. I was also very excited that all I would have to do is include some general instructions with the projects and that I wouldn’t have to created any blasted illustrations, which are pretty much the hardest component of creating chainmail instructions. I mean, a huge publisher like Lark Books surely has hundreds of artists at their disposal for this sort of thing, right?
I think that’s what really did me in, as shortly after confirming my inclusion Terry asked me if I could call his office. I figured that they just wanted to clear up some details about dealing with a submission from Canada or something like that. So, I called Terry and chatted with him for a bit, he soon asked me if I would be interested in taking on a larger role in the production of the book. It seemed that they wanted to have the instructions worked over by an experience technical editor, the only trouble being, nobody at Lark had ever made chainmail. However, they did have a copy of my first book, which made it quite apparent that I had the knowledge and skills to make sure that instructions on how to make chainmail were clear and concise, so he asked me if I would interested in taking on the role of Technical Editor.
Now, I have to take a pause in the story here to say just how funny I considered this offer to be. You have to understand that I’m a literal public school drop out, I have no formal training in English, in fact, the last time I was in school “English” was still called “Language”. (I don’t consider the handful of creative writer classes and groups that I have been involved with to be “formal training” and the fact that I have written a few technical columns for the local newspapers is also irrelevant.)
I also owe a great deal of thanks to an old friend, Jezebel, who took on the role of technical editor for my first book back in 1998, when it was only going to be an electronic publication. She was the only person that had the courage to let me know that I “didn’t have it right” and who eventually pushed me hard enough to scrap the original version in favour of learning the 3D skills necessary to go on and produce my best-selling first book: The Art of Chainmail – Volume I.
Which means I very well knew the power that a Technical Editor could wield, however, I also knew in my heart that I could indeed handle this project. I mean, how often does such an offer come about? I’m just not the sort of person to let opportunity pass me be, especially one that calls on such esoteric skills.
I said “yes” almost immediately after being asked.
A few technical details where then discussed, after which Terry asked me if I would speak to a gentleman named “Chris Bryant”, who was the temporary art director for the project. I said “ok”, assuming that there were just a few more technical details to go over to get the technical editing aligned with the illustrations or something like that.
After a short wait I was put on the line with Chris, after introductions he explained to me that he had gotten together with the art department to discuss options for illustrating the book. Various ideas had been tossed around, but then they were all introduced to my first book and there simply wasn’t anyone in the meeting that could think of a better way to illustrate chainmail instructions. Which, I will admit, was quite a compliment and nice validation for the illustration technique I developed for the Art of Chainmail.
He went on to explain that they had two options they were looking at pursuing for illustrating the book, one was to go with a professional 3D illustrator in New York City, the other option was to have me do all the illustrations in conjunction with my work as technical editor.
I will also admit that I did have to enquire as to how much illustrators where expected to earn for this kind of project for committing myself. Knowing very well how hard it was to work on this level of illustrating, I had to make sure the compensation would adequately cover the hundreds, if not thousands of hours involved. Needless to say that his reply was acceptable, so with no small amount of trepidation in my soul, I accepted the roles of both Technical Editor and Illustrator for the project.
The first order of business was to prepare instructions and illustrations for 5 sample projects, which would be put together as a mock up for the sales department to use as what seems to be called a “catalogue” inside the industry. This seems to be some kind of tool that is used to present upcoming publications to book store chains and such to pre-sell them on purchasing the next year’s titles.
After that I was asked to complete all the technical editing before proceeding to the illustrations. This was actually very tough for me, as I really preferred to create illustrations at the same time as instructions, just to keep everything straight. However, I could tell that the folks I was dealing with were from an industry that revolved around the written word, no pictures, so I did as I was told.
At some point during this time I visited the “local” Chapters in Sudbury and on a whim decided to investigate the craft section for other Lark and Sterling titles. It didn’t take long for the scope of what I had gotten myself involved in to hit me square in the jaw like a sucker punch from Sugar Ray Leonard. The shelves where stacked with titles from both Lark and Sterling and each and every one of them was beautiful! Up until this point, I had actually though I was dealing with a small time publisher, D’oh!
The main issue that I faced was that there was no coherency to the instructions that the various artists submitted. Some where very obviously well versed in writing instructions, others obviously were not. I soon realized that I would basically have to re-write each and every set of instructions in order to give the book a clear and common voice. Clarity is not easy to achieve in such uncharted ground, I mean, knitters have “Knit Purl Knit Purl” instructions going back to the dawn of time, but the voice of chainmail instructions is just in its infancy. However, after much consternation and controversy the task of rewriting the instructions for all 29 projects was complete.
It was after receiving the final instruction drafts that Lark offered me Co-Authorship of the book in recognition of all my hard work. There was, of course, a royalty offer that was tied hand-in-hand with the co-authorship, which I readily accepted.
Immediately it was time to dive head first into the illustrations, after consulting with the new art director for the project, Kristi Pfeffer, on several technical details the ordeal began.
I call this period “the ordeal” not just because creating 384 illustrations is actually a monumental task, but also because I was right in the middle of my summer market season here on the island. This was also during the time that threw out my back bad enough to end up taking an ambulance ride to the hospital because I couldn’t pull myself up off the ground at one of those very markets. At this point I always like to add that I am in serious trouble if I ever need “real” pain relief, as after a shot of Demerol and Gravol, a handful of muscle relaxants and nearly 200mgs of Morphine over just a few hours I didn’t even feel the slightest buzz, let alone relief from my back! Just a little, little bit of queasy stomach. I have a sneaking suspicion that my brain simply doesn’t possess the correct chemical receptors for opiates, but that’s another story.
There was also an emergency 2 week road trip to Colorado to deal with family business, along with other trials and tribulations that delayed my illustrating work.
Not to mention that a lot of the add-in findings and components were entirely new concepts for my limited self-taught 3D skills to conquer. I think that I have a story about how hard some aspect of each and every project was and I still possess a fierce rivalry for several projects that nearly beat my talents into submission.
Kristi was hoping that I would be able to complete the illustrations by the end of November, but I told her that I wasn’t going to be able to make it, even if I had access to the narfy time travel watch that Hermione abuses in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. She and everyone at Lark were more understanding about the delays than I had expected from a large company and eventually the torture ended on December 19th.
Well, I thought that the torture had ended, but I was wrong, Kristi quickly informed me that I now had 2.5 days to look over a digital version of the completed book to catch any potential errors. Oi Vay!
I set to the task and pretty much didn’t sleep for 2.5 days, going over each and every page with a fine tooth comb. This was actually the first time that I had ever seen the completed book, I was blown away! Kristi and her art department had done an absolutely fantastic job laying everything out and the pictures were simply stunning! I don’t think chainmail jewelry has ever looked so good!
There was also a nice compliment from both Kristi and Terry during this final period, when they admitted how much of a difference that the illustrations made to the overall accessibility of the title. Which I took as an exoneration for my insistence on including so many illustrations way back when all Lark seemed concerned about was how well the instructions where written.
After that Lark Books and their parent company Sterling Publishing took over and the rest is history! Chain Mail Jewelry was released in the spring of 2006 to mostly positive reviews, in fact, the only negative I have ever come across in regards to the book is an oddly biased review on Amazon.com that seems to have been written with little knowledge of the actual book itself.
In fact, anyone that has stuck with my story thus far and happens to own a copy of Chain Mail Jewelry, I would be most grateful if you meandered on over to amazon.com to write an honest review of the book!
Sales numbers are still being processed, but it sure seems like a heckuva lot of copies have been sold, I have seen it up to the 2200s in amazon’s daily sales rankings, not bad for what is essentially a “craft book”!
Since I didn’t have the opportunity to write a dedication for the book, I would like to put my official dedication here:
This book is dedicated to all the contributors and to all the great folks at Lark, to Audrey and to all the folks that told me not to do it.
Thank you for your support!
Dylon
P.S. Refer to a future post on “Naked Snow Angles” to find out how I actually celebrated the completion of this 9 month project!
Posted by Dylon on November 6, 2006 11:32 PM |
Permalink
April 2008