APR V2N6 and V3N1 now available at MagCloud

 aircraft, APR, awesomeness, books, drawings, history, new products, news, projects, rockets, spacecraft  8 Responses »
May 262011
 

Now available are the official print editions of Aerospace Projects Review issue V2N6 and V3N1. Incorporating some of the lessons learned putting the D188A book together, these came out really quite nice. On the whole they are pretty much the same as the PDF downloadable versions, but with some obvious shuffling around and resizing to fit within the page restrictions. Also included are revised CAD drawings of several vehicles; I wanted to see if the CAD drawings would come out to proper scale. And they did, which opens up the prospect of putting out a few books of my CAD drawings at specific scales.

My MagCloud page: http://scottlowther.magcloud.com/

 

Considering their size (132 pages and 124 pages) and that MagCloud charges by page, they are more expensive than the downloadable version. But they are the official printed versions of these issues, and in my opinion they look *great.* And they fit much better on a bookshelf than a CD-ROM or a slap-dash printout of the issue.

At my MagCloud page, you’ll find a few more goodies that I’ve made available.

And like the D188A book, I plan on releasing a few more individual articles converted into stand-alone books. Currently in the pipeline is “B-58 Derived SSTs,” which will be fairly short, and “BoMi,” which will be pretty sizable. Both will be updated with a bunch of new stuff, including color artwork created specifically for these releases.

 Posted by at 6:23 pm

Advertising update

 AARRRGH, APR, blather, models, new products, news  9 Responses »
May 122011
 

Preliminary results are in for the performance of the ads. In order to generate something resembling a living income, I’d need to bump up page views slightly. Just a little bit. A minor amount. A factor of only 50 or so.

Gah.

Any suggestions?

Since I started the blog, there’s been a grand total of *one* day when viewership was that high. And that was based on THIS blog posting. The reason why it generated so many views was because it got picked up by FARK.com. Sadly, I post news scoops about internet memes only once a decade or so.

Sales of the drawings & documents have been falling for a few years now; I made a major strategic error with the Dirt Cheap Documents. As soon as I offered those, sales of the other documents essentially ceased. It makes sense… why spend five bucks for a document when you could spend 50 cents for another. Sigh. And Aerospace Projects Review has similarly crashed… the last issue only sold about 40 copies. Bleah. This is why I’ve been more focussed on getting the display model biz up and running again, and working on books for actual publication. But if I could get the blog viewership numbers up, I’d start offering up new high-rez drawings and docs *here* for free, converting from a “selling” business to an “advertising” business. But after three years of the blog, I’m still two orders of magnitude low. Once again… suggestions welcomed.

 Posted by at 9:01 am

D188A Again

 APR, books, new products  1 Response »
Mar 182011
 

The sale’s over, and the FedEx guy just showed up with a pack of copies of the book: all the interior margin issues look to have been resolved, it looks pretty good. Lessons learned for the next release.

 Posted by at 10:29 am

“Bell D188A” Available Again and ON SALE

 aircraft, APR, awesomeness, blather, books, drawings, history, new products, projects, sales & specials  No Responses »
Mar 142011
 

OK, I’ve adjusted the margins inward a goodly amount and consolidated some of the full-page mockup photos into two-per-page, reducing the pagecount to 72 (and reducing the price accordingly). The *previous* iteration proof showed up in the mail a few days back and looked ok, but I decided to move the margins inwards a little further. I’d prefer to await yet another proof before re-releasing this… but MagCloud is currently having a 25% off sale (through March 17), so I’m re-releasing this *now.* The current sale price is $15.55 rather than the regular price of $19.40.

http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/157099

Most of the images were not effected by the margin reduction.

Additionally, the sale also impacts my little photo-test-booklet as well:

http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/144139

Cheap at only $7.25.

 Posted by at 12:43 pm

D188A ARRGH update…

 AARRRGH, APR, blather, books, new products  6 Responses »
Mar 092011
 

Emails continue to come in regarding the D188A publication. Some are complaints that text is hacked off, others notifications that the text is *close* to being hacked off. There is clearly some substantial variation from one print to the next. I’ve been informed by someone who’s been down this road before that this is common with print on demand services, and that the stuff on the page can be shifted around by 5mm or more.

Awesome.

This was *not* mentioned in the documentation. Or if it was it was buried in the small print. So, a revised version proof has been mailed to me and should be here within a week. At that time I’ll determine if even *more* tinkering needs to happen, or if I can re-release it. I really hope for the latter, as each proof costs me money… and with less than 20 sold, it only takes a few proofs to wipe out what little profit I’ve made.

Assuming I can get this satisfactorily worked out, I’ll figure out something for those who got screwed  up copies. The best I have at the moment: if your copy has text hacked off, send it to me, and I’ll order a replacement for you. Don’t do this just yet, of course… there are no replacements.

Arrrrgh.

 Posted by at 7:12 pm

D188A AAARRRGH

 AARRRGH, APR, books  No Responses »
Mar 082011
 

Numerous purchasers of the D188A book have pointed out to me that there is an annoying “trimming” flaw with it… the text extends to close to the ouside edge , and got sliced off by a letter or two. This was a problem that was obvious very early on, and was *supposed* to have been fixed… but clearly wasn’t. So until I’ve got this damned issue nailed down, the D188A has been pulled from availability.

 Posted by at 9:17 am

“Bell D188A Mach 2 VTOL Fighter Project” now in print

 aircraft, APR, awesomeness, blather, books, drawings, new products, projects  No Responses »
Feb 262011
 

And here it is:

http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/157099

This is the real First Edition of the thing, with (hopefully) all the bugs worked out. It is revised from the original test release in having some major page formatting changes, some changes in illustrations, some minor re-writes. At 76 pages, it sells for the low, low price of $20.20, and is actually a fairly substantial publication. While MagCloud markets as selling magazines, it’s not printed on flimsy magazine paper, but good, sturdy trustworthy paper.

So, buy ’em up! The faster it sells – and the more it sells – will help determine just how enthusiastic I’ll get about further publications. Tell all your friends!

 Posted by at 2:18 am

1/3 off everything sale

 APR, sales & specials  No Responses »
Feb 052011
 

Haven’t had a sale in a while, so here ya go, one-third off of most items.  All downloadable drawings and documents and APRs, as well as Reichdream items. Sale excludes matter-mail items and APR subscriptions. Minimum order: $20.

There has *got* to be a way to do this with Paypal in a way that doesn’t seem lame, but I don’t know what it is. So, here’s what I’ve got: order the “coupon” below (a nominal fifty cents), and at least $20 more items… and I will refund you 1/3 of the total. More steps than would seem necessary, but I think it should be workable. Sale will remain up throughout most of Sunday, I expect.

Remember to order the “coupon” and the items all in one order. Otherwise… it won’t work. No “coupon,” no savings…

Sale has ended.

 Posted by at 10:06 pm

D-188A D’oh!

 AARRRGH, aircraft, APR, books, new products, projects  2 Responses »
Feb 052011
 

OK, the “proof” of the D-188A issue showed up in the mail today. First impressions: it’s a good sized work (it can consider itself a book without shame) and the image quality is pretty good. The photo quality is good, the colors are about right, line drawings are good and crisp. Where it falls down, though, is that the formatting is *way* off. I used the Word doc “blank” that was provided by Magcloud, the same one I used on “Photographing Stuff,” but the margins for the text are well outside the printed region. At least two letters are chopped off the outside. Bah.

So, I gotta fix that…

 Posted by at 12:42 pm

MagCloud Bell D-188A available for a limited time

 aircraft, APR, awesomeness, books, drawings, history, models, new products, nukes, photography, projects, weapons  2 Responses »
Jan 292011
 

Yesterday I uploaded the first cut of the “Bell D-188A” booklet to MagCloud and ordered the proof. It should get here within a week. When it arrives, I will make some adjustments to the issue, up to and including passing it along to a graphic artist who may greatly change it to make it less dull-looking. In any event, I’ve decided to make this first draft available… until the proof arrives. When the proof arrives, the draft will be permanently withdrawn from availability. So think of this as an opportunity to buy a collectible.

http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/157099

 Posted by at 9:03 am
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