Dear Friends & Supporters, Fellow Pilgrims All ~

Christ is Born! Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

The suspense builds at our end as we prepare to send the book file to the printer to order the Final Proof Edition. Even during the holidays we have been working behind the scenes on final details.

See below for links and details on preordering.

In our most recent news, back at the start of December I had completed the last image edits and file conversions to 4-color (CMYK) mode, which optimized them for the book’s offset printing. The proofreader returned the completed text edits about a week later, and my editor at St Tikhon’s Press has since then been replacing the place-keeper images and text in the layout file. Sometime in the next several days I expect to receive a new “final” PDF file of the book, and my editor and I will review it together and make any final tweaks before ordering the Final Proof Edition.

New to this round of updates will be the final designs for the book cover, the dust jacket, and the end sheets. These are the finishing touches, so to speak, and will complete the “look” and “feel” of the book.

So, the Final Proof Edition is finally at hand. As I described it recently for a friend, “we are now days away, not weeks.” Later this week, I hope we will be “hours away, not days.” I’ll update you when it has been ordered, and we’ll move forward to the final pre-press stage, the inspection of the printed Final Proof, after which we go to press.

My heartfelt thanks to all of you who have supported The North American Thebaid Project through your preorders and prayers, some from the very beginning, way back in 2016! Thank you for believing in this unique photographic pilgrimage book project and backing it with your contributions and pre-orders. You have made all of this possible, and I am deeply grateful. 

My thanks again to all you who have recently pre-ordered the book. If you haven’t pre-ordered, please keep in mind that there are real benefits to doing so, such as the inclusion of a signed & matted fine art print from the project (not available separately), and the option to order the Deluxe Limited Edition (signed & numbered with leather-bound cover and signed & matted print), which will not be available through standard retail channels, but only through pre-order. See the below Pre-Order Notes for details and links.

Watch for another update when we order the final proof copy! 

Yours in Pre-Press Mode,

zosimas

† Pre-Order Notes:

• Pre-orders of The North American Thebaid book are still available for a limited time at The Thebaid Store.
• Discounts available for multiple copies of both the Standard Edition and the Deluxe Limited Edition.
• The Deluxe Limited Edition (Leather-bound, signed & numbered, with signed and matted print) is available only by pre-order for a limited time. Once the book goes go to print, we will close the pre-order Thebaid Store.
• Signed copies of the Standard Edition (with a signed and matted print) are available by pre-order until the book goes to print.
• The signed and matted 8×10 prints are only available by pre-order bundled with the book, and will not be available separately either before we go to print, or afterwards. There are currently no plans to offer individual Thebaid prints for sale.
• Pre-orders will be shipped before retail channels receive their copies for resale.
• Upon publication, the Standard Edition will be available through the STM Press Bookstore, and through other online and ‘brick and mortar’ resellers.
• Contact STM Press with queries about discounts for resellers and church bookstores.