Happy new 2023 everyone! I was skiing in Austria this past week so this post is a bit belated.
2022 was an amazing year for the Collectible Book Vault. Full preliminary bibliographies were added for Suntup Editions, Folio Society limited editions, Lyra's Books, Amaranthine Books and Curious King. Work on Centipede Press is 2/3rds done. I added basic info about author, artist and focus on getting a picture of the front board / traycase and signature page at a minimum. I have plans for adding info about productions details (paper stock, binding type and material) but will probably not be able to do this for all presses.
Slated for entry on CBV in 2023 are Arete Editions, Conversation Tree Press and Zagava. But I made a deal with myself to finish work on the existing ones before I do so. So probably in Q2 I will start work on the new presses. I have Grim Oak in my sights as well...
Sales data are maintained for all presses currently live on the website. The latest addition for sales data includes Subterranean Press. I handle SP a bit differently because of the huge backlog. Once I come across a SP title, I add it to the database and add all known sales for that title going back 1-2 years. I hope to gather the most relevant titles this way within a few months. So bear with me ;)
Highlight of 2022 for me was the start of our wonderful blog series Minds of the Press by Zach. He manages to ask the questions I always want, but never know how to properly put into words myself:
Minds of the Press vol 1 with Anthony Kaye of Curious King
Minds of the Press vol 2 with Marcelo Anciano of Areté Editions
Minds of the Press vol 3 with Tony Geer of Conversation Tree Press
Minds of the Press vol 4 with Mike and Rita Tortorello of Pegana Press
Minds of the Press vol 5 with Rich Tong of Lyra's Books
And we have many more coming! Thank you Zach! Also my eternal gratitude to Anthony, Marcelo, Tony, Mike & Rita, and Rich for allowing a look behind the scenes, inside your creative minds, and letting us share it through CBV!
The website costs currently almost run break even due to all the patron plan support. So thank you everyone for supporting our efforts! You know who are. Special thanks to Timothy, Dave and Hal for always helping out with pictures of rare books on extreme short notice! Yegor and Warwick deserve mentions as well for allowing me to share their years worth of pictures of rare books and lots of early folio society limited editions. Thank you!
New years messages aren't complete without musings on future thoughts and ideas. I want to complete my work on aforementioned presses first, but I am letting my mind play around with special collector pages for individual authors and 1st/1st editions. This is obviously a huge undertaking and something I would have to collaborate on with other collectors / authorities on specific authors.
So in short, I'm excited for the work that will go into CBV in 2023. It still feels as fun and not as work. Once that changes I will have to come up with a new strategy. Stay healthy and keep reading!
Endpapers of The World doesn't End by Charles Simic, lettered state published by Suntup Editions