Fun With Printers
My podcast transcriptionist informed me that for the most recent episode her software heard “Today we are discussing why I don’t set up preorders for my books” as “Today we are discussing why I don’t set up printers for my books.”
Which is admittedly true. I don’t set up printers for my books since I do all the writing and editing on the computer. I mean, can you imagine the expense? I just sent the Word document of SHIELD OF CONQUEST to Brad Wills for the audiobook, and it was something like 270 single-spaced pages. If I wanted to edit it comfortably by hand, it would need to be double-spaced, so that would probably push it up to 500 pages. 500 pages times (give or take) ten books a year would come to around 5,000 pages I would have to print every single year. And then I would have to enter all those hand-written changes back into the computer anyway!
No, thanks! I just do the editing with Track Changes in Word.
I do have a lot of experience with printers because I spent a lot of time doing tech support before I became a full-time writer. While I am often nostalgic for those days, one thing I am most definitely not nostalgic about is printers, because printers break down, like, a lot.
Even the big laser printers designed for use for large departments. I got very familiar with the HP 4000 line of printers – the 4000, the 4050, the 4100, the 4250, the 4350, and then it was eventually superseded by the P4015 line. The P4015 was my favorite, since it tended to be very reliable and was the easiest one to service. Sometimes getting the fuser out of a laser printer is an immense pain, but in the P4015 it was just one panel and a pair of screws. They also didn’t tend to break down very often.
Some of the older printers didn’t come with network connectivity, so you had to buy an HP Jetdirect network card to add network functionality. Those were a pain as well, since they tended to die with regrettably frequency.
I realized I could probably ramble on about vintage laser printer repair for like another 1,500 words or so, but I’ll just cut it short and say that I’m very, very glad I don’t have to set up a printer for my books.
-JM
The trials and tribulations of IT printer support! I do not miss those days, when everyone HAD to have their own printer and it HAD to be the one they wanted. Thou shalt support HP, Canon, Epson and Brother, inkjets and lasers, color and b/w. Thou shalt have spare cartridges for every make and model. Oh, and buy paper too! What, you want a budget for this? DENIED! Yeah, ‘luckily’ my main job was engineering technician, not IT support, so I noped out and soon left.
The printer setup at my last job was actually pretty good. Zerox copiers with network connections, devices that are made to take a beating and pump out 20k plus sheets per month. Here’s your server, here’s the network printer, auto download and install software. They did not allow individual printers. So much better!
I can always remember one phone call to the IT guy at my last job, he answered the phone to me with ” Don’t you dare mention the word printer!”.
I had to be creative and told him “The label creation device has malfunctioned again”.