The procedures at ModCon were free for attendees. Not free because they were free, but free because ModCon (ie. BME, ie. me) paid for them. Sure I can use the photos from the event itself in the book, but it's not as if I even close to break even on it. The book is being done to reach the public, not to rake in money. Anyway, I asked everyone who had procedures done to send photos of them to BME. You'd think that out of fifty or so procedures I'd get some pictures back… but as of last check only The Eternal, joshcantyoyo, and the great ORBAX have come through…
I've even seen pictures posted on some IAM pages of people's mods that they got there that for some reason they decided not to share with BME. Doesn't do wonders for my faith in people… Lets hope they're just waiting for complete healing to send in their pictures.
Oh well. Blair tells me he goes through the same thing — he'll spend hours with someone doing the perfect custom brand for them, and they thank him profusely and promise to send him healed photos… big surprise, he never hears another word from them.
What's the rule that's analogous? “Never loan money to friends…”
There were a few people — not a lot, but a few — that had the very clear “I don't care what I get as long as its free” attitude. I've really got to wonder when a person doesn't care what mod they get, and prioritizes it by price — it's like the idiot that walks into a tattoo studio and asks, “What can I get for forty bucks?”
I talked to Saira about it last night at dinner… I figure that of people involved in heavy mods, a quarter of them are involved because they're legitimately interested and would have done it even without the media. Half of them are doing it for legitimate reasons, but would never have done it if the media hadn't told them about it. The remaining quarter are involved ONLY because the media or their subculture has told them it's the cool thing to do…
Sometimes I wonder if I'd just be better off going back to building custom telephony software. I know I'd have a lot more money and a lot more spare time, and probably less stress… If only I didn't have this damn belief that this is important.
(end of rant)
I just got the numbers back from the printers — they're estimating that the price of printing the 10,000 copies will be about $36k CDN. That doesn't include the DVDs, which will probably add arounda a dollar a copy plus mounting costs… So… We're in need of basically $30k USD.
This book will be published by a totally new company, “BMEbooks”, which has also recently negotiated the rights to published a number of Japanese piercing books as well.
Here's the problem: We need investors. If you have $5k or more to invest (and I mean invest, not loan or donate), please contact me via email at glider@bmezine.com. The book is basically ready to go — as soon as we raise the cash, it's a GO!
So ask yourself… Do you want to take part in one of the most significant publishing moments in modern body modification?
Just got back from doing laundry. For some reason, laundry is this incredibly productive and incredibly creative time in my life. I stayed up until about 4AM last night assembling a prototype of the ModCon book as it stands now, and spent my laundry time this morning going through the first forty or so pages massaging the layout and editing the text.
Seriously, I'm incredibly proud of this book. Not just because of my own egotistical horn-tooting, but because it's an amazing collection of people who I think do a wonderful job as ambassadors to the rest of the world — and that is in effect what this book is. It's not like the first one where we sold 750 copies to an already converted audience via the website. Here we're talking TEN THOUSAND copies — and hopefully more — in “normal” bookstores, hitting “normal” customers.
I was flipping through “Rack Rope And Red-Hot Pinchers: A History of Torture and It's Instruments” by Geoffrey Abbott (Headline Book Publishing, 1993) and came across the following reference to what is, I suppose, an incredibly early reference to a Madison piercing:
“Chain through the Neck
In the more exotic parts of the world, more exotic punishments were administered. In China, monks who broke their sacred vows were punished by hacing a hole burned through their necks with a red-hot iron. A long chain was then passed through the hole and, stark naked, he would be led along the streets, any attempt to relieve the pain caused by the weight of the chain on the open wound being thwarted by the application of a whip carried by another monk bringing up the rear.”
In about an hour the troops will start arriving, and about two hours after that, they'll go to battle. I think a dozen or so suspensions are scheduled. Plus Phil is bringing his 4×5 camera (no shitty digitals or 35mm's for iWasCured!) to document….
