A matter of size

As this project has grown and more and more people volunteer to be Tour Archivists, I have gotten a lot of questions about the album being big enough.  I just want to address that question and put your minds at ease.

For the actual album itself, I am using an American Crafts Modern Album.

It is mostly plain chipboard and I will be painting and decorating it this weekend.  (I am still hoping someone can create an SVG file of the phrase "Words of  Radiance" in Alethi script for me to use on the cover.)  The one I am using actually has a black linen spine unless I go to Staples this afternoon and find one in red.

The album itself holds about 60 pocket page protectors without being overly crammed.   I will be using two different page protectors for this project and will have them in the album when I give it Brandon. 

Design A

The first page protector is Design A from Becky Higgins.  This page protector holds 4 4"x6" and 4 3" x4" cards in each page for a total of 8 on each side.  I plan on having approximately 25 of these pages in the album.

The other type of page protector is Design F from Becky Higgins.  This page protector holds 1- 4"x6" card and 10 - 3"x4" on each side.  It definitely holds a ton of cards.  I plan on including 35 of these bad boys in the album.

Design F

So doing the math,
Number of slots x 2 sides x number of page protectors
Design A =  8 x 2 x 25 = 400
Design F = 11 x 2 x 35 = 770
Total :   1170 total card slots

So how many cards do I expect?  I thought about how many cards to send to each of the signings for a while.  I truly don't think every fan will want to sign a card for the scrapbook.  As cool as this project is, not everyone is going to want to participate.  I estimate that we will have about 30% of the fans want to fill out a card. For the big release party signing, I sent out approximately 150 cards.  For the other bigger events such as San Diego, Portland (still need a volunteer) and Seattle,  I plan on 100 cards being filled out.  The other remaining stops (all 13 of them) I figure about 50 cards each.  Totaling it up 150 + 300 + 650 = 1100.    So we should have about 70 spots for photos and other decorative elements.  I think I am being optimistic in my calculations.  If we end up with more cards, we can always add more pages to the album or change the ratio.

Hope that answers any questions.  Let me know if you have any questions by emailing me at wortourscrapbook@gmail.com.

Updates and Miscellany

Things have been going swimmingly with this project.  I have successfully sent cards to the Provo, San Diego and San Francisco stops.  I will be sending out the cards for the San Rafael and Houston stops tomorrow. I continue to get people interested in participating and being Tour Archivists.   Thank you so much!  Fan participation is what makes this project awesome.


On March 3rd - 5th I plan on scouring social media for pictures of people with their copies of Words of Radiance to make a photo collage for the front page of the book.  You can help me out by using the tag #WORelease.  This is the 17th Shard officially sanctioned tag and you should be seeing a ton of action on it.

That is all for now!  I have more cards to print and an album to paint!

A little something for my friends

Brandon Sanderson has some amazing fans.  It has been great to get a response and have people sign up to be Tour Archivists (the people handing out cards).  This weekend I was playing around with some concepts for the front of the scrapbook album.  I got a little carried away and created little sphere pouches with the Lightweaver glyph on them. 

If you sign up to be Tour Archivist, one of these will be winging its way to you.  Check out the Tour Stop page to see if you can help at your local tour stop!

Tour Stops

For an updated Tour Stop list, please consult the Tour Stop Page!


We have started to identify Tour Archivists (that is my fancy name for people helping out and handing out cards).  If you would like to volunteer, contact me at wortourscrapbook@gmail.com.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014 /  Provo, UT (midnight signing)
12am
BYU Bookstore
Tour Archivist - Kelly N.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014 / San Diego, CA
7pm
Mysterious Galaxy
Tour Archivist - Talenelat

Wednesday, March 5, 2014 / Huntington Beach, CA
7pm
Barnes & Noble #2743

Thursday, March 6, 2014 / San Francisco, CA
12:30pm
Copperfield’s Books – San Raphael
 Tour Archivist - Karin

6pm
Borderlands Books
Tour Archivist - Bartbug

Friday, March 7, 2014 / Portland, OR
7pm
Powell’s City of Books

Saturday, March 8,  2014 / Seattle, WA
12:00pm
University Bookstore
Tour Archivist - Me - Angie V 

Tuesday, March 11, 2014 / Houston, TX
6:30pm
Murder by the Book
Tour Archivist - Awesomeness Summoned

Wednesday, March 12, 2014 / Salt Lake City
6:30pm
The Literacy Promise (educator conference – speaker)

Thursday, March 13, 2014 / Omaha, NE
7:00pm
Barnes & Noble #2662

Friday, March 14, 2014 / Phoenix, AZ
7pm
The Poisoned Pen

Saturday March 15, 2014 / Tucson, AZ
Tucson Book Festival
11-11:30am Signing
Integrated Learning Center – Sales & Signing Area #4

3:30-4pm Signing
Integrated Learning Center – Sales & Signing Area #4

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 / Lexington, KY
7pm
Joseph-Beth Booksellers

Wednesday, March 19, 2014 / Dayton, OH
7pm
Books & Company
Tour Archivist - old aggie

Thursday, March 20, 2014 / Washington, DC
7pm
Barnes & Noble #2238

Friday, March 21, 2014 / Philadelphia, PA
7pm
Towne Book Center & Café
 Tour Archivist - Lexie 

Saturday, March 22, 2014 / Chicago, IL / Milwaukee, WI
2pm
Barnes & Noble #2622
Tour Archivist - Argent

7pm
Boswell Book Company

Sample page

I was thinking that you would be interested in seeing a sample page to get a better idea of what the book is going to look like. This is a very simple page. I have plans to add other decorative elements to the album including die cuts and embellishments.  I hope to have a title card for each stop of the tour like the one in the top left corner.  The photo is actually me with Brandon on his last tour.  The other cards (designed by Awesomeness Summoned) are blank but imagine them filled with thoughts from Sanderfans!
The endpaper image is a placeholder, I hope to include fan art and other fan photos to the album in these spots.

So what do you think?

Cards We Got Them

Can I tell you how cool Brandon Sanderson fans are?  Awesomeness Summoned from the 17th Shard forums is an amazing graphic designer.  He took my simple request to use his graphics and answered with wonderful cards.  Check them out, download them and fill them out.  If you are going to a tour stop, hand them to Brandon there or scan it and send it to me for inclusion in the album.  You don't have to be going to a tour stop to be included!

   

The Big Idea

I love to read.  I love to read books by Brandon Sanderson.  I especially am in love with Brandon's series, the Stormlight Archive.  The next book in the series is due out on March 4th and it will be called Words of Radiance.  Brandon will be touring across the United States and I feel the need to give something back to this wonderful author who has given me so many hours of enjoyment.

So here is my idea.  I would like to make a tour scrapbook/thank you book documenting this tour.  I do a style of scrapbooking called Project Life and I think it would be awesome to create him a book for this tour.  

How it would work:  I would provide the album and all the page protectors and we could have all the fans on tour stops fill out 3x4 inch cards with their thoughts for Brandon and maybe words of thanks for being the awesome writer that he is.  The cards just slip into the pockets and we can also put some photos in it.  I will put decorative elements on the page related to the books too.  I can make cards that are pretty simple and I would have Radiant ideals on them and maybe allomantic symbols on them and other graphical stuff from his other books.

I think it would be really neat if on the first stop of the tour he started getting some of these cards filled out from fans.  He probably won't know what to do with them.  I can print pictures that are posted on his Facebook page to slip into the album before the Seattle stop.  Once he gets to Seattle we can give him the album for all those cards he has gathered already.  At tour stops with 17th Sharders/people participating, they can print out cards and hand them out to fans to fill out to give to Brandon when they get their books signed.  I can even make cards ahead of time to send to bookstores if we coordinate this right.  For those who can't make it to a tour stop but still want to be included, they can fill out a card, scan it and send it back to me and I will print it out and include it in the book.  By the end of the tour, Brandon would have this scrapbook filled with thoughts and thanks from the fans.

I can scale the size of the album to how many people end up participating.  It would be a neat way to document his tour and an easy way for fans to say thanks in a very compact size.

This blog post demonstrates what I am thinking but definitely more cool and hip but with messages from fans.

http://beckyhiggins....ing-guest-book/

So sound off in the comments if you would like to participate and fill out a card.  Also if you are a graphic designer, I could definitely use some help designing cards and decorative elements for the album.  When I hand the album over to Brandon, I would of course give credit for all the people who helped me out with the project.  I would also love to hear from people who can hand additional page protectors to Brandon if needed.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me at wortourscrapbook@gmail.com.