I think I've been pretty forthright about the delays and problems with
Sleeping Beauties, but I just realized I forgot to share something here that I shared on the CD Forum this week, which you might find interesting. So here I go, with a little more detail since I have some additional time tonight! But I'm also pretty exhausted, so many more bonus typos for you... we shall see!
As you all know by now, last June one of our printers closed their doors without warning -- and with
Sleeping Beauties and other projects trapped inside. (And the deposit payments, some quite large, never to be seen again, unfortunately.)
Anyway, we shifted gears, moved the projects around to our other two printers, and got things rolling again... but a few weeks after we started
Sleeping Beauties at the oldest of our printers, the one we printed our very first book with in 1992 (!), they privately notified us that they had entered bankruptcy proceedings...
This slowed the production process WAY down, which is why the book printing took nearly six months longer than planned to finish from the time it started with them.
Every time they went to order a special material, they had to pay upfront (a process their system wasn't configured for and caused endless headaches) and some vendors still wouldn't work with them.
They’ve also been losing trained staff along the way as people have left for other gigs, and of course they haven't been hiring replacements for the people who left, leaving shifts short. (Our favorite account rep at
any of the vendors we work with had to bail, which I’m still bummed about. He was a guy who could Get. Things. Done.)
The good news is, they did finally finish
Sleeping Beauties and it's beautifully done, and at the same time, they completed the bankruptcy process with one of our
other much bigger printers buying them. So, their facility is getting rolled into this much bigger and healthier company, which is great for the terrific people who work there.
Now, I know some people will ask WHY we didn’t post about this sooner...
The main reasons are:
1) Based on their situation headed into bankruptcy, we knew they would finish the book, even if it was the last book they printed and there was one guy there doing it by candlelight.
2) We didn’t want to cause a panic among our collectors given the trouble this book had already gone through. If, for some reason, they did close their doors without completing the book, we would have been able to try again with another printer -- probably the one who bought them. (It was clear from the beginning they had valuable assets that would be bought and rolled into a bigger company, and we were fairly sure who it would be.)
But, we did want to share this information
now, so you'd have a better idea of what had happened along the way with this project. We know some people will see this as us "just making excuses," but they probably would have also been unhappy either way, and I'm not sure what "making excuses" is good for now that the books are done and will be shipping this month.
Thank you again to everyone here, as always, for being awesome.
Brian
Originally Posted by Brian James Freeman
Working on photos of the Sleeping Beauties slipcased Gift Edition tonight. These aren't finished, but I am just about for the night... ha!
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I was just curious as to what else might have been trapped along with SB. 
