JULAY dear Friends!
We are very happy, and immensely relieved, to announce that our book is finally going to print on the 3rd of November! It's been a long wait, we know. The contents of the book have been completely updated after out second trip in 2015, we decided to make it bigger and better, and to shoulder the additional costs without any outside help. Little did we know how many more obstacles would come our way... But let's recap the full story step by step.
Firstly—our sincere apologies for the delay... It doesn't really matter how many excuses we pile up before you, the fact remains that the book has been delayed for nearly a year and a half now. In all that time we've managed to achieve a great deal in terms of helping our little friends, but part of our contract with you, our dear Supporters, was delivering a beautiful photography book in due time. So what exactly happened?
Seeing that the book itself was pretty much finished and the design signed off towards the end of Spring, it is quite unfortunate that the final steps have taken so long. This has been partly due to the fact that the printer we chose (Chromapress, based in Piaseczno near Warsaw, Poland) had to move their printing facilities in July. The news reached as early in June, and it became quite apparent that our projected printing date would be delayed for a good few months. Moving substantially heavy equipment, complete with analogue printing presses and complex machinery, is no easy feat! Not to mention the back-log of jobs which was created as a result of the operation.
It would be very hard to match the relatively low costs and the high quality that Chromapress has offered us, so we had little choice but to wait. Since the book has expanded from a planned 50 pages to over 100, the cost has increased significantly from the projected £2,500, which we originally secured through Kickstarter funding for the purpose—to a little over £4,000... But because we've made you wait so long, we have decided to cover the additional costs from our own pockets. We hope you will agree that it was worthwile!
Another cause for delay was the time-consuming process of printing analogue proofs and sending them from Poland to London. It's impossible to skip that stage, unless we were willing to risk that the photographs in the book would turn up completely different than expected. There are many factors to take on account, such as the texture and unique features of the paper we chose, and the analogue printing process itself, which differs significantly from the digital; it was no surprise then that the first AND the second rounds of proofs we received were quite off the mark! Doing all the corrections remotely was a rather tricky business, but let's say we have found the perfect balance now, and we can finally print our little book and share it with you... And that's real JOY!
The printing will start on the 3rd of November. We will travel to Warsaw to oversee the process and make sure everything turns out just as planned. The binding will take another few weeks, as all the books will be beautifully hand-stitched; and we must add another week or two (just in case!) for 500 copies to be delivered from Poland to London on a truck. Having said that, we are quite sure that no matter where you are, you will have your own copy of the "Children of Zanskar" before Christmas.
Well, that sums up our first update after a long, long break... Next one to follow will highlight everything we were able to achieve in 2015 and again in August 2016 in terms of our material help for the children. YES, we have returned again this year to complete our mission—and we have a story to tell you!...
JULAY lovely people!
Back to top