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Okay I'm printing up my songbooks. Which do your customers prefer, listings by artist or by songs? Or do you print up both in your books?

James
Maninblack

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I serve no man and am loyal to only one God.

Being critical of a person's success in any respect speaks volumes about the lack of your own.

Love as though you've never been hurt, Dance as though no one's watching, Sing as though God Himself were listening.

Print both.  Some people know the song but have no idea of the artist and the reverse is true as well.  Having both lists is a nice cross reference.

Larry

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"Life is too short for diet soda and lite beer"

If your books are small enough to fit in a 1" - 1 1/2" binder print both title & artist - anything bigger just gets heavy & the books tend to get ruined more.  
Otherwise some people prefer title, some prefer artist, you can actually yield more books doing your books separately.  With a combined book - say you would need to print up maybe 15 books, with separate books, you can print up 10 (combined) books & separate them for 10 title books AND 10 artist books - 20 total books.  Just make sure you have 2 different color binders for each to be able to quickly distinguish.  Most people will have their preference of 1 over the other & they will learn quickly which books are which.
Just make sure you have a master copy at your station of both title & artist & complete with all versions of the songs (if you happen to weed out duplicates).

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You may have already figured this out but when you print your books, print on both sides of each page.  That will cut your paper consumption down by 50%.

Larry

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"Life is too short for diet soda and lite beer"

The sites that I had visited had said overall response was that most people preferred song listings over artist. But then it never fails that I'll have someone who always comes up with 'what do you have by so and so'. The biggest show around here has the books seperated by artist and songs. So I think that's the route I'll take as well.
I have my main book which stays with me that has both listed. I just wanted some feedback from you folks before I started printing everything up again.
Thanks,

James
Maninblack

_________________
I serve no man and am loyal to only one God.

Being critical of a person's success in any respect speaks volumes about the lack of your own.

Love as though you've never been hurt, Dance as though no one's watching, Sing as though God Himself were listening.

See I have more artist list lover where i'm at.  My next batch i'm actually going to be printing more artist than title.

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I use 8 Artist books and 2 Title books.  Title books are always the last to be used. Most people know "who" they want to sing.  They just don't always remember the title.  Artists books are Blue; Title books are clear.   Two column pages printed on both sides.  I use 11point ariel font.  Easier to see in clubs.   Right now about 9600 songs are fitting in a 1 1/2" binder.  Have room for about another 10 pages and then I'm going to have to use a bigger binder.

Kelly

Where I work, Artist books get used about twice as much as the Song Title books. I think Artist books are more conveniant because if I want to see how many Milli Vanilli songs it has, I won't have to flip to three different pages . When I do an occasional independent gig I prefer two Artist books to every one Song Title, at least from the demand I've seen.

Of course once you get through the time and expense of putting your books together you just know that someone is going to come up and ask if you have a certain song or what songs you have by a particular artist.  It never fails.  Some people just won't look at the book and can't understand why you don't have time to look up their songs for them.

Larry

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"Life is too short for diet soda and lite beer"

That used to happen a lot more often in the 90s.

Something I have seen from doing parties is people turning in a song slip with no name in hopes that someone will sing it.

I use both ways, and have dual columns... I know I tend to do more searching by artist. Just last friday, I was going ballistic trying to find "Mr. Roboto"... didn't know how the guy might have had it spelled... either "MR" or "MR." or "Mister" or whatever.

By the Artist listing it's pretty easy to scan down all the songs made by that artist... most karaoke folks I know prefer the artist listing over the song title. Song title works well when you don't KNOW who the person or group is that sings a certain song... like newer songs!

the other advantage, or point about, books listed by artist is that alot of karaoke singers sing multiple songs by the same artist and it is more convenient, and faster, looking down a list of all the songs by that artist.  When I go to a new place, an artist book is the first thing i look for so I can lookup certain artists so I can put in a song slip quickly.  This allows me to get a slip in with a standard song I sing so I get into the rotation.  I can always change out the song if I need to if i have time to look through the books in depth or it is a song I can nail if I am up quickly in the rotation.  If I have to look through a songbook that is just by title it will take me much longer to locate a song I WANT to sing and that time may put me further down in the rotation and longer til I get to sing... having at least a master songbook by artist is never a bad thing...

tig

Yeah I'm an artist guy myself. That's the first thing I look for personally.
When I took over this particular show, the only list they had were by song(printed on the back of old menus...jeeeze) So I've taken the time and the money to print up the books in a proper manner. Yesterday as I'm printing the books my printer decides to up and die on me, so of course I had to get another. The average customer has no clue as to how much time and money it takes to put these things together.
The cost of the notebooks, plastic protection sleeves, ink, paper. Thank goodness most of the stores are re-stocking school supplies and you can pick up stuff cheaper right now.
Heck I had no idea of how much time and money it would take. What I thought was just going to be a part time gig is now a full time job just gettting things ready for the weekend.

James
Maninblack

_________________
I serve no man and am loyal to only one God.

Being critical of a person's success in any respect speaks volumes about the lack of your own.

Love as though you've never been hurt, Dance as though no one's watching, Sing as though God Himself were listening.

I've reached the point where it is far cheaper for me to email my song book to PIP Printing and have them do it for me.  By the time figure the cost of ink, paper and wear and tear on the printer; not to mention my time; it's mch cheaper.

Kelly

I use Artists books.   I only print 1 version of each song.   The best, most musically correct version.   I have the same book by title for the customers.    I have two master books with all of the versions of all of the songs for me.    I don't print on the back of the pages.    I use two seperate pages, easy to read, no bleed through.     Stuffed into protective page sleeves.      Binders with windows for my laminated covers and a place on the back, for the monthly calenders.

OMG I would have used that as my excuse to insure that song did not get song. Got to be in the top 10 worst songs ever.

At one of our shows we have 10 song and 5 artist books, at another show we have 10 artist and 5 song and at a third we have 10 and 10....  The second show was changed because of requests for artist books.  The third show we didn't know which way to go so we did half and half.  They all seem to work well.  LOL - I guess I'm not much help am I!?!

Personally I prefer artist listings but have been know to read through a song listing book as well.

Susie

P.S.  We print them in our office, duplicate them two-sided and stuff them into page protectors.

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Have it printed at a font size that is readable under low light. I used to think it should be printed at size 14 , but now that I make it a point to bring along my reading glass size 12 is ok even in the 'dark'

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

If your book is still small enough, try to put "by title" and "by artist" in the same book. I spend a lot of time flipping from one section to the other and I bet I am not alone.

Sharon and I went to this place in Kilgore that did not use binders, just sheet protectors and some rings (like the ones in binders but not attached...I bet you have seen them). It was nice because you could fold the front pages all the way over. I bet you coud print a cover on card stock or cover stock and put it in a protector to give the thing some body and to also have an actual front cover for advertising. It was a win-win; they saved some bucks and the books were easier to manipulate.

I was having pretty serious eye problems a couple of years ago, and one of the volunteers from the society for the blind said that Verdana is the easiest typeface to read. I have also heard that a font with serifs (the little lines at the ends of letters, like Times New Roman has) were designed to carry the eyes across a line of type. IMO, though, this applies more to paragraphs of copy, where it is harder to distinguish one line from another.

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[glow=darkorchid]Musica delenit bestiam feram[/glow]

Hey Gigi, thanks for the tip on the font, very nice. I've been using Courier New and of course 14 for font size. There's nothing more unsexy than to do a killer tune then have to go over and grab your reading glasses just so you can read the next song...

James
Maninblack

_________________
I serve no man and am loyal to only one God.

Being critical of a person's success in any respect speaks volumes about the lack of your own.

Love as though you've never been hurt, Dance as though no one's watching, Sing as though God Himself were listening.