[Bristol-Birds] Birds of NET reaches closure -- you will be pleased !

Area Birders:

Rick Knight's second edition of The Birds of Northeast Tennessee
is nearing press time.  We hope we have lived up to your expectations
and provide you many rewards.

The publication team met for several hours Wednesday and went over
the design and layout page by page and were pleased with the
graphic details and attractiveness of the book.

At this hour, the book appears to be finishing at about 124 pages
full color with a detailed and complete annotated checklist of the
species occurring in the five-county region.  Touch ups and
minute concept adjustments are underway.  Rick Knight needs
to make a final read and sign it off to the committee.

Mike Poe's vision for all this and his artistic implementation has
been very nice.

Nearly 20 local photographers will have an estimated 110 photos 
published in this edition.  Approximately 100 or more photos are
in full color.  The remaining black and white pictures are historic
and/or documented photos, some dating to the late 1930's.

The cover design is nearly finished, lacking only a few elements of
the back cover and the spine.  We are beginning to solicit cover
quotes.

The Library of Congress has acknowledge our application for a
Library of Congress number.  They indicate, if our application
process proceeds smoothly, we should be issued our number in
about a week.  Our ISBN is finally in hand and all of the graphics
for that and the barcodes have arrived.  The printer has these.

Michele Sparks has been all over the process and requirements
and seeing orders on their way.  She has compiled a notebook
of regulations, picked her way through a mile of red tape, phone
calls, calls on hold and recorded messages.  Don't even ask
her about the hours and frustrations surfing endless web pages
and fine print.  All of that while hosting the work sessions with
several mouth-watering gourmet dinners on her back deck.

We are still digging through files hunting specific historic photos.
A handful of species photos are needed to give the publication
more complete continuity and visual balance.  The committee has
decided which photos are needed, who has them, or where they
are and the remaining three or four will be inserted into reserved
spaces.  This will take only a day or two.

We have revisited our publication budget process.  An additional
exercise last week stood up under the test of printer cost estimates,
space allocation for key elements, important but costly registrations, 
printer page spreads (number of pages), mailing and handling of a few
copies.  

Our income and expenses are so whisker close that it is nerve
racking, intimidating and challenging.  We are living on a shoestring
and shuffling with them untied.

Your eyes will meet an entirely different presentation and the
contents will be valuable.  Many new species found during the past
15 years and countless new record dates, changes in species
status, distribution and peak numbers will be at your fingertips.

Any birder will immediately have the most up-to-date status and
assessments of their good bird finds in hand to help with identification
and to determine if your newest discovery is the maximum number
or first ever and such for more than a century of records carefully
archived for the five-county area for more than 100 years.

With many low valleys, wonderful large lakes, miles of rivered
valleys of the Holston and Nollichucky and the cloud-clad peaks
towering more than 6,000 feet to the state's highest mountain
valley and coves -- some of Tennessee's most significant birding
habitat -- your birding experience will be expanded.

Much is new and much is to be absorbed.  Records for Musick's
Campground transition to records at "Spring Creek".  This will
strike a consistency with geographical identities such as Roan
Creek and Austin Springs.  Musick's Campground, as
the most birded waterbird habitat birding access in the region, 
continues to be acknowledge and cherished.  It is, perhaps, the 
only such privately-held and locally-named access in the book.

Our sense of birding with digital photography will be forever
changed as the mind is riveted with fine photographers who not
only knew good image but know good records to document and
what each opportunity required.  Here we learn that pretty pictures
of pretty birds pale in comparison to great action photos of birds
like you don't often enjoy from local amateurs.  The way they look
at you and the way you look at them frames a new viewpoint.
 
This is a textbook about the ability to significantly enhance such 
photos with creative presentation, perfect placement and utility. 
Our birders will get a fresh breath and new expectations for the 
eventually publication of their fine photos in regional books which
are underway for other Southwest Virginia and Upper East Tennessee
counties. 

Here you will pause to watch author Rick Knight and
his editorial team use thoughtful connections of images linked
from the past and inserted in this new digital photo age.
 
We have begun to plan a book signing party -- likely as a 
Bristol Bird Club meeting program on Second Edition Distribution 
Night.  Wouldn't the third Tuesday in August be special ?  Keep
your fingers crossed.  The editorial committee has had its fingers
crossed for this target until we've cut off our circulation :-)

Our treasurer, Janet Martin will be delivered all of the checks you
good birders have mailed to me.  I will hand them over to her
at Saturday's BBC picnic, along with Rob Biller's payments for his
large order of books which came in cash in an envelope of nothing
but two dollar bills :-)  Was it a good Christmas, Rob ?  Janice
will deposit your checks next week and she will then settle into
the long and tedious job of receiving and paying invoices and
getting out reimbursement checks to those who have already
paid.  She will also write receipts for those of you who need them.
She will mail tax documents to the printer and continue to take
in monies from book sales and help us get out reminders to
those of you who need a little ribbon tied around your finger.

The bar is raised.  And in this Olympic year, none of us expect
anything less than a better mark, a quicker pace, a longer stride
and new records as often as possible.

We hope you, as judges, will put this volume at the top of your 
medal podium and reserve a cherished shelf space in your 
library and in your heart.

If you have not pledged your advance orders to purchase your
keepsake copy, send an e-mail order now and send your check
snail mail.  Just ten dollars each.  If you order one or two
books, you may still make a contribution for a greater amount.

Contact:  wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

One of our most recent contributions has a fascinating and
forward-thinking sense of generosity and selflessness.  
Don Holt pledged a major donation, asking that his dollars
go to fund copies to be placed in local libraries of the region.

That has spawned the creation of a distribution team headed
by the co-chairs of Michele Sparks and Lisa Tyler.  We are 
asking Wilma Boy and others to volunteer to help them by
identifying regional libraries for donations and delivery.  The
co-chairs will need some help preparing the counted copies 
for each individual.  Members such as Bill Grigsby, Zellie
Earnest and Ellen Parker are asked to join the committee and
deliver books to nature centers and park outlets, conservation 
offices and to lend a hand however.

Keep your cards and letters coming -- especially e-mail pledges.

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