PLA Book update

[rbcp]

But what I'm curious about because I really haven't read through the forums/care to read through/checked anything/basically been completely vacant from here for nearly a year, is how you were able to get the book published? Rather, are you funding your own printing and shipping costs? What company are you going through for this? Can I ask costs?

http://www.createspace.com is the service I'm using to have the book published.  It's Amazon's in-house publishing service and there is no up front cost at all to use it other than a few bucks to send yourself proofs of your own book.  It's a really easy system to use and anyone can publish with it.  For an extra fee, you can make your books available on Amazon and available for people to order from book stores and libraries.

CreateSpace also lets you create CDs and DVDs, so once I'm done with this book thing maybe I'll make the old PLA prank call CDs available again.

[murd0c]

Yeah, like anyone reads books or buys CDs anymore.

[rbcp]

Yeah, like anyone reads books or buys CDs anymore.

Just wait til we come out with PLA prank calls on vinyl!

[nyphonejacks]

think i am going to have to wait for the 8-track

and beta copy of all of the PLA videos...

[MIB]

Don't forget about phonograph records. I can get a phonograph player at Walmart for 6 bucks on Black Friday.

And how am I supposed to download the torrents for the book on my ENIAC?

MIB

[kingmob]

Has the 12 cassette audiobook's narrator been cast yet?  If not, I'd like to suggest either Jan Michaeel Vincent or DJ Green Lantern.

[rbcp]

Has the 12 cassette audiobook's narrator been cast yet?  If not, I'd like to suggest either Jan Michaeel Vincent or DJ Green Lantern.

I should get various PLA people to do audiobook chapters for me.  Laugh Track Matt's chapter would be especially hilarious since he'd burst into laughter every few minutes.

[kingmob]

Yeah, like anyone reads books or buys CDs anymore.

Just wait til we come out with PLA prank calls on vinyl!

This must have crept into my subconscious because I dreamt last night I got the Mildred Monday calls on vinyl and there were a bunch I had never heard on it.  It was a picture disk shaped like her head with her face on both sides but her eyes where whited out on Side B.

[rbcp]

Spessa and I have talked seriously about putting out a 45.  Just one prank call per side.  We know it'd be pointless, but it would be cool!

Book update!  I ordered 100 copies of the book on Monday.  The delivery time is scheduled for 2 weeks, but they're always earlier than they schedule.  My guess is that I'll get the books around the end of next week and I will start shipping them out to the people who preordered immediately.  There's around 75 copies to mail and I think I can get all that done in 2 or 3 days.

I'll see about getting that stamp done for the first hundred copies this week or next.

About e-books - I will be using a service that makes the book available on all the major e-readers and the price will definitely be lower than buying a real book.  I'm not sure about DRM, but if there's DRM, I will give purchasers who ask a DRM-free PDF of the book.  I'll try and have all that ready at the same time I officially release the book to the public.

[kingmob]

Wow, you and Spessa should keep that idea very much alive.  I think it is so pointless that is has to be done.  Have you discussed which two calls you'd immortalize on vinyl?
 
Just imagine the PLA sigil spinning at 45 rpm! It'd be cactnotic!

By the way, does anyone know of any phone pranks albums that were released on vinyl?  I seem to think I have something...maybe one of those old Stag 45s that have some calls on them.  I know Ted Leo and the RX took a phone prank thing from The Best Show on WFMU and turned it into a song for a split 45 with Zach Galifianakis but that is all I can think of right now.

Does or did anyone ever listen to The Best Show on WFMU?  There is a lot of very clever phone play on it, or was.  It's gone kind of downhill since about 2008.

Thanks for all the work you're doing on the book!  I can't wait to get it!

[rbcp]

Wow, you and Spessa should keep that idea very much alive.  I think it is so pointless that is has to be done.  Have you discussed which two calls you'd immortalize on vinyl?

We wanted to do pranks that included me, her and Mr. Spessa all together.  I think we decided on the dealership call, where we tell a lady we blew up her car.  And then that guy in the hotel, freaking out because a front desk lady was rude to him.
 

By the way, does anyone know of any phone pranks albums that were released on vinyl?

The Jerky Boys came out in '92 or '93 and they were still making vinyl then so I bet their first album is out there somewhere in vinyl.  I just checked Amazon, and they have a listing for a record of JB, but it's sold out.  It was just 3 years later that Ball Busters, Tube Bar and 976-GIRLS came out, so maybe they were on vinyl too.

[kingmob]

Thanks for the info!  I also found JB 3 on the JB site, 2LPs for $40 and it comes autographed by Johnny B or some shit.  For some reason, I think its $40 only for the autograph, not the obscureness of having JB 3 on vinyl.  I may research this and put together a list of prank call albums released on vinyl and post it elsewhere.

Oh man, and I am not suggesting you do this, just musing on the thought that the PLA book with one of those cheapo flexi-disc inserts would have been killer.  The last time I saw an insert like that was in an issue of Grand Royal back in the mid 90's. 

[rbcp]

Oh man, and I am not suggesting you do this, just musing on the thought that the PLA book with one of those cheapo flexi-disc inserts would have been killer.  The last time I saw an insert like that was in an issue of Grand Royal back in the mid 90's.

What's a flexi-disc insert?  Like a CD-ROM included with the book?  They still put those in school books.  I'm planning to include a PLA Media DVD with every book if I can get around to burning a bunch of them before I start shipping them out.

[kingmob]

What's a flexi-disc insert?  Like a CD-ROM included with the book?  They still put those in school books.  I'm planning to include a PLA Media DVD with every book if I can get around to burning a bunch of them before I start shipping them out.

There were/are flexible sheets of vinyl with grooves, looked just like a square 45 but you could bend it like paper and they usually only had one song per side.  They would bind them in with magazines and such as promos and they usually contained supplimentary audio material to the printed stuff.

[rbcp]

Here's a reading of one of the chapters in the PLA book, for those who missed it on the Phone Show a couple weeks ago:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/GV_vrWpacU0&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/GV_vrWpacU0&rel=1</a>