Trad Climbing + is now available for next day delivery from our online ordering and it should reach most outdoor retailers by the weekend.

The book looks really good with the colours as vibrant as we have come to expect. It is always a strange experience these days when a book returns from the printers. Ten years ago it used to be the first time that you had actually seen the book in all its glory. These days pre-press on the screen and proofs are so good that the book hardly even looks new when it lands in your hands. That said, it is always a great feeling that a long project has come to an end.

Sadly it is not a great feeling that I can share with either of the two authors since they are both travelling and are currently both uncontactable. Hopefully they will be back soon and able to enjoy the fruits of their labour.

Our printers have excelled themselves and produced Trad Climbing + a full 10 days earlier than expected. That means the book will be available for dispatch from Monday 26th November and in the shops for the weekend of 1 December.

This is the fastest printing we have ever managed at just 18 days from submitting the disk to having the published books in our hand. Even more amazingly, we actually made some minor changes to the book last week, only 11 days before publication!

These are the benefits we get from using UK printers. Cheaper printing is available elsewhere but I have yet to be convinced by its quality and it is much more difficult to make last minute changes. The turn around time is also, obviously, much longer if the books have to come from China.

You still have a few days left to order a copy at the Special Offer Price of £17.45. (After Monday 26th November the book will be £19.95).

If you desperately want the book for Christmas then you can recommend it as a Christmas present for someone else to buy for you using our Recommend Form.

Trad Climbing + is now at the printers and will be published in the first week in December. As usual we are offering a special offer for pre-orders at £17.45 (plus delivery). This will get the book on your door step a few days after it is published and will be quicker, and cheaper, than any other method.

Pre-order it here

Recommend it as a present (for yourself) here

Download a sample chapter here

For the authors Adrian and John, we are now in the final stages of what has been at least a year-long project for them (infact even longer for Adrian since he was busy getting images for this book last year when he produced Sport Climbing +). We will be going down to the printers in Nottingham on Thursday 15th to see the first sheets rolling off the press. It is always a fun experience but also a useful one where we often make very slight adjustments to the colour to make sure it looks absolutely spot on.

The printing itself takes a couple of long sessions over two or three days before the ‘running sheets’ (large single sheets with 32 A5 pages on them) are cut and collated ready for thread sewing and binding. This is usually the only delay in the process since binders are in short supply in this country and we actually had to book them two months ahead. Once the books are sewn and bound they are then quickly boxed and sent off to the distributors in Leicester and Rock + Run in the Lakes for the online orders. Rock and Run generally turn round all the online pre-orders in a couple of days at most.

Mike Robertson’s superb Deep Water book has won the Mountain Exposition prize at the Banff Mountain Book Festival. The prize winners were announced on Friday 1 November and I got the text message from Mike at around 3am to tell me the good news. Mike had flown out the same day and landed only 3 hours before the evening prize giving started at an airport 70 miles away! But he made it in time.

The full list of prize winners is up on the Banff MBF web site. Another winner was Stephen Venables with his book Higher Than the Eagle Soars so, all in all, it was a great showing for the Brits, especially after the BMC’s success last year with their Burbage, Millstone and Beyond book. The BMC also entered their Stanage guide this year and this was chosen as one of the seven finalists in the Mountain Exposition category.

Here’s what Mike Robertson said about the award:

I heard about Deep Water’s position in the final with just 30 hours to spare before the ceremony, and got the next flight out, finally arriving in Banff with an hour left… Banff is a beautiful town, and the Festival itself is an incredible event; it’s a real high to win the Mountain Exposition category. Of course it’s a team win; without Mark and Alan at Rockfax, this just wouldn’t have been possible – as big thanks to them for all their support.