The Quitter book received a new review in the latest issue of Zine World (#27).

Quitter: Good Luck Not Dying: Compendium of the first five issues of Quitter zine, in a nice hand-sewn hardback, with dust jacket and stickers. Trace’s essays wander appealingly and wittily around, as he searches for something real in our cosmetic world. Issue #2 is the standout: Trace flies over the Midwest, musing over cultural impermanence. I liked this greatly, but however nice the book and stickers are, $19 is more than I would have paid for it.

Making books is not what I’m looking to do with my Spring and Summer.  It is more of a Winter project, a project that I failed with horribly this year.  I am behind on books – way behind.  If you ordered a book recently, you will get it within the next few weeks.

So I am again looking into getting the book printed in softcover, either through a self-publishing avenue or by a publisher wanting to run with it.  All options are open, but I simply can’t keep up with a hand made book…

If anyone out there knows of a publisher, is a publisher or just wants to help out, let me know.

I will continue to offer the paperback version as well as individual issues, but I am taking the hardcover version off the shelf.

Since the June 2008 release of my book Quitter: Good Luck Not Dying, I failed to reach my goal of one-hundred books sold by the end of the year.  I sold a little over sixty, which isn’t bad for a six month effort.  I know it doesn’t sound like much, but sixty hand-made hardcover books represents about two-hundred-plus hours of work.  Design, prototyping, printing, cutting, gluing, etc. paid me about $4.00 an hour to do.  Add in the cost for materials, and I almost broke even for the year.  Almost.

So, for 2009 a few things are changing.  For one, the price of the hardcover is going up to $18.  I am not looking to get rich with this effort (it is working so far, right?) but the process should at least cover the associated costs.  In addition, I will also start printing a softcover version for around $8, give or take, that I can start shipping really soon.  The softcover will also be full color and individually numbered just like the hardcover.  Both versions should be available through The Abundance Foundation pretty soon.  In the meantime, check out the Quitter page to order.  If you live in Chatham County North Carolina, I’ll take payment in Plenties at the old hardcover price of $15 (1 and 1/2 Plenties), paperback at $5 (1/2 Plenty)!

If that were not enough, the ideas for Quitter #6 are rattling around in my head, on scraps of paper thrown all over the heres and theres of my life or sitting alone somewhere, talking to themselves and waiting for me to go pick them up.  I’ll get on that shortly…

And finally, I hope to commit issues one through five to audio in the very near future.  Look out!

From Zine World #26 -

quitter #4: Every once in awhile you read a zine written in beautiful prose. It’s great, you don’t have to commit to read beautiful and complex descriptions for a whole book; instead you get a brain massage for just a few moments while waiting for the bus. My favorite story was on the author’s experience living out in nature for three months studying birds: “Early on in the study I passed the time chewing on birch twigs and inventing commentaries, developing arguments against the domestication of humans, and settling philosophical disputes between pebbles and sticks, using a slow flowing creek as the adjudicator.” Other stories discuss an unnamed health condition and a treatise on fish sticks; “plastic wrapped… fully reduced from sentient parts of an underwater ecosystem into full color anthropomorphic cartoon representations of happy fish enjoying a full plate of their own ‘fingers.’” Trace [$1.50 everywhere, or trade 20XS :15] –ailecia

Gianni Simone, a mail artist residing in Japan, writes zine reviews for Xerography Debt as well as their own blog Gloomy Sundays.  Gianni recently reviewed my Quitter: Good Luck Not Dying book.

He (Trace) has been putting out his zine Quitter since 2005. After publishing five issues, he has decided to collect the whole lot into a 40-page hand-made book and he was kind enough to send me copy #35 (I know because each copy is numbered). The object itself is a little jewel, with a great color cover and color and b/w illustrations throughout. And then there’s the writing, of course. Put it simply, I believe that the best writing is the kind that 1) manages to be engaging regardless of the subject; 2) makes me think; and most of all 3) makes me feel like I want to take highlighter and pen and cover the pages with comments and orange marks. Quitter managed to do all these things.

Trace writes what he calls creative non fiction, and through the years has developed the ability to put common words together in original combinations. He manages to be sophisticated in a natural, unassuming way. At the same time, he anchors his rants with stories taken from his memories. Sometimes he will write something like ‘I was born with an extra pair of ribs’ and the reader (or at least a dumb reader, such as myself) will search for hidden meanings until he realizes that is the plain truth. Apart from the autobiographical notes, the common theme that returns in all the five issues is Trace’s decision to ‘quit’ the kind of world that humankind has turned into a huge pile of garbage. Quitting a job he hates and translates into ‘someone else’s hopes and mortgage and car payments;’ quitting unconscious consumption; temporarily quitting the civilized world in order to live for three months in ‘solitary confinement’ in a forest and study the breeding habits of a small songbird… What he will not quit is fighting to ‘preserve the history of (…) an idea that would often be considered irrelevant by the dominant culture,’ and writing ‘for an audience that is resilient in its opposition of being taken for granted.’ What can you ask more from a zine?