New Book (valuable tool) "Router Joinery Workshop" by Carol Reed

Rob Keeble

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One of the greatest gifts i think a person can ever recieve is a book. It follows my view of teach a man to fish, rather than giving him fish. And if we consider history books have been a way of passing down knowledge over the years.

So i posted these comments on my new book(btw i aint no book critic) given to me by a fellow member in the New Tools section of our forum because i feel a book is probably at the top of the pyramid in new tools. After all what is a tool of any kind if the knowledge on how to use it aint there.

The book "Router Joinery Workshop" which Carol Reed (one of our family members) covers the subject of routers and frankly i now wish i had bought the book before i bought a router.

This is just a preview to what i have discovered lies ahead. At first glance its loaded from the beginning with valuable information that you keep going :doh:doh Rob if only you had read that first and so on. But i have learnt its never too late to learn. People like me though seem to learn the hard way. I would like others to benefit from my hard knocks and if at all possible avoid them and the waste associated with the method.

So this so far is what i gleened and this i might add is only by glancing through the book and page hoping for 30 minutes.

The biggest bonus that occurred to me, is that Carol is a member here and if i come unstuck with something in the book, a PM will allow me to sort it out. Now that is a first for me.

1) Get the book before you buy a router.
2) Get the book before you buy another bit.
3) Found a neat so simple scraper shop jig that i could kick myself all around my shop like a seargent would do in the army comics.
4) Dont keep router bits you damaged. Oh boy the horder in us thinks we will recover this bit someday but the brain says you aint. I even put the book down went to my shop and have a bunch of bits that promptly found their way to the garbage bin as a result.

5) The router can do way more than i thought. Way way more.
6) There is hugely valuable info on selection of bits in this book. Someday the tool manufacturers will wake up and educate their customers. I dont think they actually realize that there must be many people like me that dont buy the fancy bits because they just dont know how to use them or that the selection is so vast they seem contradictory. So you hold off. That is until you get a book like this. Carol has a page that shows three bits that do the same thing. Mmmh i had that sneaky feeling when i see them in the store but hey who was i to say that with my limited knowledge so not wanting to get ripped off you just dont venture.
7)If you have a technical and mechanical intuition which i would think most woodworkers have, you might find at times a little voice saying to you why did the manufacturer not do this or that. Then you see what Carol has done with router bases and additional handles and you have the aahah moment. How did they expect us to hold that router in our hands with the torque it generates and do it with what 6 inches between our hands. Make that base 15 inches wide and put two decent handles on there and watch the difference. Thats what Carol has done.

There is a ton more as i say this is just a first glance. I will add more to this post as i go through the book.

Just for the record my first router was a B&D plunge router with 1/4 collet. I bought it for a specific project when i first arrived in Canada. It seemed like a good choice but if the truth be told it was the fact that HD had it, the price was right at the time and i thought a plunge would do all that a fixed base would do so i thought i was getting two for one. Its now in the place where the skill vibrating jigsaw lives and the other junk tools i bought without the knowledge. I shudder to think how much i would have saved had i spent a little time and only a few dollars to buy a book like this first and then do my shopping.

Thanks again Carol for putting pen to paper and i particularly like the loads of pictures in the book. Thanks Toni for giving it to me. :thumb:


I would urge all of you who find a particular book on our mutual hobby to post a few comments on the book and what you got from it on the forum. You dont have to be an expert to let other newbies know about the value in books like this. The magazines cannot make up in a couple of pages for what the books do in detail and as reference.
 
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Thanks, Rob. Glad you like it.

BTW, folks, it is out of print. New copies are hard to find and have become very expensive. (Wish I had bought a case and saved them for this day!)

But used copies still come on the market. Many libraries bought it as it has highly rated (5 out of 5) for a library buy by the Library Journal. But those copies are now coming on the used market.

To my knowledge (I don't keep track), no one else has approached the topic in quite the same way. I also rarely answer router questions on the forums. There are too many other "experts" out there and I am done trying to establish my credentials.

But I do try to answer private emails. It helps to have the book as a common ground for communication.

So, enjoy. If I needed a publicist, Rob, you would be at the top of my list. Thanks, again.
 
anyone that hasnt seen this book and is into woodworking should take the measures to get one.. its very well done..i almost bought one myself but i got one in the mail before i placed the order:)
 
Carol, do you own the copyright, or does it belong to the publisher? If you have (or can recover) the copyright, you may be able to publish it using the on-demand printing common today, or even as a PDF file.
 
Just bought a copy off of Amazon.com. Looking forward to the read. Don't usually buy unless it is in a store so I can see it first, but this one seems to be highly rated here and I truly respect recommendations from the family. :thumb:
 
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Thanks, guys. There is an awful lot on my plate right now, so looking into redoing or re-offering the book hasn't made my top ten list.

The problem with updating it, is that I no longer have the contacts with vendors and would have to buy the newer stuff that has hit the market since 2003. That's not going to happen on my nickle!

As for regaining the rights, I could look into it. It could be pricey though. They would also have to give me the photographic and drawing rights. They belong to yet other people. This gets to be a sticky wicket.

And the financial return is abysmal. On new copies I made a whole 60 cents a copy! On used copies I get nothing. From my perspective at this time in my life I have other things I find much more rewarding and prefer to invest my time there.

Unless there are any copyright/publishing rights gurus lurking here and could guide this process, I don't see this going anywhere.

Meanwhile, seek out the used market and have at it.
 
Carol, Obviously you must have spent a lot of time on the book. Do you think it was a worthwhile venture when you originally put out the book? None of my business, of course, just curious...
 
Brent, I spent about 5-6 months writing the book, refining the jigs, designing and building 'projects', having a friend build them all with only my proposed text for direction, taking my own photos to help the editor and technical artist understand what I wanted to say and show, doing drawings for the technical artist, and including a rather extended professional photographic session. (And THAT is another whole story!)

The book people took another three months or so to get the book ready for the printer - which was done in China. Was told they (at the time, end of 2002) had the digital presses to do the job. The first batch took three months getting back across the Pacific to the publishers' warehouse in New York. It hit the book shelves around the end of April 2003.

At the time I was recuperating from a very bad auto wreck, so it was a chore, but I had something useful to do during that time.

It is a LOT of work to assemble material for a book. It is not something one does for money. Having said that, would I do it again? Maybe, but a little differently. This is a different age technically speaking. Now there is also the question of hard print and/or DVD or digital distribution, like print on demand, e-book, or Kindle type. Or all of the above.

There is one thing that is easily overlooked with regard to writing a book. The most important thing is the distribution chain. I was blessed with an international publisher, so the book was distributed world wide.

I was told by an author friend that if the book sold over 25,000 copies and stayed on the market over three years before it hit the remainder distributors (like Abe Books), it was a runaway success. So at 60 cents a copy, is that successful?

BTW, a remainder distributor gets returns from book stores and sells them. I get nothing from those sales. Presumably, if the stores paid the original distributor, I got paid on those copies. Royalties took months. I got paid each quarter for the first few years, then annually. I still did get a small check a few months ago. I made more money on the book by comparison, by buying them wholesale and selling them direct, at shows and classes. I no longer do shows, and my classes are irregular and usually only one person at a time.

BTW, a decision to write a sequel is not one I make. The publisher is interested only in selling books. Their business model is to publish on a topic every three years or so, and likely with a 'new' voice.

A niche publisher like Taunton has its own stable of writers with whom they have had some success and so they tend to stick with them. Those folks are also in place in their lives where they are active in the show and demonstration circuit and that is essential for good sales. My day in that era has passed. I no longer have the energy!

Now that is probably a whole lot more than you wanted to know, but it is not a simple process, and I came away believing the least important person in the process was the author!

It is what it is. It was fun while it lasted. And it is fun being "made over" here by you wonderful folks. So thanks for the memories and if I can help you sort out some of your routing challenges, just directly ask me. This is the only forum on which I have made THAT offer
 
Thanks Carol!

Definitely not too much information. It just seemed to me like it would be a lot of work to put that kind of book together.

It is amazing how much things have changed since that time regarding technology. I imagine while publishing something might be easier now, getting paid for it might be harder. Seems like everyone wants something for free on the interwebs.

Thanks again for the insight into the process!

Brent
 
thanks for taking the time to enlighten us heathuns in the ways of the book life, never woulda thought that they get so little but i have seen it simiallry in the printing industry. the designers get all the time in the world to do there artsy stuff and then take the final proof that looks great on the scren to the printer who may have only a few days left to make the deadline set at the begining when they got the order to make it.. and they get more than we do for the parts .. but thanks for the labor you put into this and i am glad i was able to have one of them to go to as a refernce!!:thumb::thumb: oh and to meet the author well thats still out for the vote:rofl::rofl::thumb::thumb:
 
Wow thanks for the insight Carol and Brent thanks for asking the question. I was too chicken :D;) but was pleased to see the answer. Great insight into the world of being an author.

The esteem by which i hold you has increased 10 fold after hearing how little benefit one gains from a book of this nature. Its obvious it becomes a labor of love. I am glad i got a copy.:thumb:

I still believe in books in printed form and always will. Still love my library and my librarian (she is one heck of an Irish Lady).

The trouble with a lot of Tauntons products that I see is there is a huge amount of recycling of material that goes on. It sort of reminds me of a band that gets to be popular then the artist musician departs and the music starts to become manipulated for appeal and sale rather than message. Sort of like the value engineering guys getting hold of fine tools and taking away the very thing that made them fine.

Maybe its nostalgia and i am just getting on. But the fact that Pink Floyds music is still around says something about it dont it? You cant kill quality its enduring just like good books.:)
 
My copy of the book got delivered today.

The seller listed the condition as 'Good'. I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between this one and brand new.

Just breezed through it for a minute and it's going to go right on the coffee table so I can go through it in detail.

You are right Rob, it looks like a wealth of info!

Thanks Carol too! I know you don't get any profits from my little sale, but I'd like to thank you just the same!
 
I ordered a copy too after the reviews. I already had a book on routers, but was pleased to see some new ideas and topics covered in it. I really liked the mortise jig, it's definitely going on my to do list.
 
Just got mine in the mail today. Supposed to be used in good condition but looked new to me. A ton of information at first glance....looks like part of my weekend is "booked":rofl: A belated thanks to Carol for sharing her knowledge.:thumb:
 
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