New Year, New Book! Coming Soon To Kickstarter 🚀
Hello Maker Family!
To kickoff the new year with a bit of excitement, I just wanted to give all of you who are following the blog a sneak peek into a top secret new book project I've been working on.
I’m simply calling it The Maker’s Field Guide: Updated and Expanded Edition, and it will be a newly updated paperback version of everybody’s favorite maker book — this time with a new black / red cover!
Shortly after it’s release, and after many great positive comments and reviews, I ultimately felt the gold color scheme of the former updated & expanded edition hardcover didn’t quite reflect the democratic nature of the Maker Movement. I immediately had the vision of wanting to repackage the book in a way that mirrors some of the more iconic power tools and 3d printer brands that exist within the DIY marketplace (i.e. Milwaukee Tools, MakerBot, etc.), and also thought the cover to do a much better job at reflecting the wide breadth of different technologies, tools, materials and processes that are contained within. That includes 2D soft goods / cut & sew, 3d printing, and electronics / robotics in addition to many more besides an overly-simplistic set of hand tools and a can of spray paint (it's honestly been harder than it looks to reflect all of the content covered within the book on one single cover design in a clean, modern and minimalist way — without appearing too cluttered, gaudy or gimmicky).
In addition, the new edition of the book will be offered at lower mass-market price point, which will include free shipping throughout North America and a greatly reduced international shipping rate. The latter should be great news for international backers / readers, and will be possible since this time around I’ll be working with a 3rd party fulfillment partner (final intl. S/H price is still TBD).
Finally and probably most importantly, a few extra goodies such as an expanded terminology section and Index at the back of the book will also be added this time around — resulting in page increase from 346 pages in the former expanded GOLD edition, to a roughly 378+ page behemoth this time around.
This ultimately means the 346 page GOLD edition will be treated as a limited edition print run of 3,000 copies only, and will be effectively phased out and replaced by this new black / red paperback version going forward. That said, there are only a few hundred copies of the GOLD edition still available, so the is your last chance to pick up a copy of one of those on Amazon or from the direct book website here. When they’re gone, I will not be reprinting them again, since it will be a borderline-impossible feat to sell and distribute two different books at the same time as a small independent author & publisher.
I’m also considering phasing out the first 208 page non-updated / non-expanded paperback edition — since that is a print-on-demand arrangement and the costs are much higher to produce — in comparison to a mass produced book which is made by a professional book manufacturer. I also plan to use the same USA based factory out of Illinois, who manufactured the hardcover book which many of you backed here on Kickstarter — since they're extremely professional and reliable, and the print quality was phenomenal.
The price hasn’t been finalized just yet, but will be somewhere around the ballpark of $25 - $28. Be sure to stay tuned for more information to come out shortly, with a Kickstarter launch planned somewhere by the end of January or the start of February.
You heard it here first!! Please be on the lookout for more details to drop soon here on the blog or by subscribing to the email newsletter on the MFG book website here!
🛠️ Christopher Armstrong