FlipBooks make great corporate give-aways. A friend of mine owns an agency here in town. They have a new client who's company manufactures and installs modular office walls. They could use time-lapsed photography to show how the walls are set up. This would be a perfect application for a FlipBook.

We also gave some sample books of an artist who will be performing at Country Music Fest next month. These books will make great autographed items for his fans. I'll keep you posted on what feedback we get.

New Press Installation

Today is an exciting day at Marshall & Bruce Printing Company. We are having a brand new press installed. It's a KBA Genius UV press. The minimum sheet size is just under 8.5 x 11 and the maximum sheet size is 14 x 22. The Genius will also print on paper, plastic and other substrates as thick as 32 pt.

What does all this mean in terms of Flipbooks and Me Having Fun you say? Well, I'll tell you. Let's say your company has decided to give away flipbooks at your next trade show. You have gone out and created a really nice video showing something compelling about your business and you have decided to order 5000 flipbooks. The Genius is perfect for larger quantities. Normally, we print all our flipbooks on our digital press but if you get up and over 2500 or so, it is better to print them in the traditional offset method.

Consider flipbooks as your next company promo.

HYSA Soccer experiment

Over the weekend, I set up our MHF tent and promoted our flipbooks at the semi annual soccer tournament. The fields are in Bellevue and about 3000 people attend this event.

HYSA gave us a prime location and we had lot's of flipbook samples out for everyone to see. I was even available to shoot video if someone wanted to order a flipbook on the spot.

Here's what I learned from this experience and shooting flipbook video at the Middle Tennessee Pony Club event. When people are at an event where there child is participating, they are almost "task oriented". Particularly at the horse show. They don't have time to look at something fun. We sold flipbooks at both events but not what I would have imagined.

Our website has seen a small spike in visits. I would imagine that will continue thru the week.

I have new ideas that I will share later. Stay tuned. I'm not giving up this easy. Every single person that looks at our flipbooks, loves them. Watch out trade show attendees and folks on vacation. You're next!

Soccer Tournament

This weekend, we will be setting up at the HYSA soccer fields in Bellevue. Every year, they have a huge tournament in the Fall and Spring. We will be encouraging folks to upload video. I also plan to shoot some video if anyone is interested.

Come out and say Hi. We'd love to see you.

History of the Flipbook

The title of this post is "History of the Flipbook". Before you read too much further, I don't really know the history of the flipbook. I only know my history with flipbooks. I would imagine that they have been around since maybe the 40's or 50's though. In those days, flipbooks would have been made on an offset press with each sheet collated by hand. Much more labor intensive than the variable data type printing we use today. As a matter of fact, it's only been maybe the last 5 years that we could produce them in an efficient way.

I first saw a flipbook at Peter and Karen Cronin's house. Peter has always had fun and unique ideas. He had some really old books that he had saved for years. One was of Elvis Presley. These books would surely have been assembled by hand. Peter had a very clever idea using Nashville celebrities and hopefully will act on that idea soon.

That meeting started my obsession with flipbooks. We had the technology to produce these books, I just needed to figure out the front-end. Our partner from Xerox introduced me to a man who had been doing this for several years. He had already figured out the processing so we made a deal and the rest is history.

We can produce a single flipbook from a 10 or 15 second video for under $15.00. 10 years ago, that book would have cost $500.00. That doesn't include the video. 10 years ago, we couldn't shoot video on a cell phone. I wonder what we will be doing on our cell phones in another 10 years?

Here we go.

Well, I'm joining the"bloggersphere". It may not always be about flipbooks but I'll try to make it entertaining. Some posts may be about travel and some may just be observations about my neighbor Miles. Some posts may be about motorcycles.

Let's make this first post about flipbooks. All we need is a simple 10 to 15 second video. You can shoot the video with a camera phone or your point and shoot camera. You don't need a hi-tech, million dollar camera.

The next step is to upload the video to our site at www.MeHavingFun.com. Pick a cover design, give us a mailing address along with your credit card information and you will have a flipbook on the way. It's that easy.

Flipbooks make great gifts for family members. They also make fun corporate gift ideas. Nobody throws them away. Contact us for bulk pricing.