#40) Tour of Melkim Publishing

Hello, and welcome back to "Always Be Better" with Mel Windham.

Today I'm launching the Small Business track of this video series. And for the first installment, I'll give you a tour of my own business, Melkim Publishing. I should probably give a quick disclaimer -- this is not a paid endorsement, but rather just a simple tour. <money appears from the side, I reluctantly accept the money.> Um, you did not see that.

Let's see. Where was I. Oh yes ... I started this business toward the end of 2016. I sell sheet music -- mostly my music at first, but then I've ventured out to the music of other people, including some moderately big names such as Daniel Carter and Geoff Groberg. I'm also trying to help a few newer composers get recognized -- some individuals I believe have unrealized potential.

How it works: you can go to my website at melkimpublishing.com, browse selections, and order sheet music -- either in electronic format or print. If you order print, I will print it in house and mail it off to you. Sound exciting?

Well, would you like to take a look around? Come over this way, and I'll show you. 

<I walk away from the camera, and cut to Melkim Publishing. It's probably best to watch the video to catch all these visuals.>

Okay -- here we are. This is Melkim Publishing. This is where it all happens. This is where I print the music books. I'm going to show you each of these stations. First we're going to print the music, and then we're going to prepare the pages, and then I'm going to assemble the pages (you'll see this <stapler> later), and lastly, we're going to trim the music so it looks good for you.

But first it all starts with paper. I'll grab some paper here. What we're doing here -- we received an order for five books. So, I'm getting ready to print five books.

<I hold up a big sheet of paper.> And here is what the paper looks like before we put music on it. Isn't that awesome? Big sheets of paper!

So, I'll put this over here and stage the printer, and we're ready to print.

<Cut to printer churning.>

Okay. It's printing, so let's see what we got. On one side, we have two pages of material, and on the other side, we have two more pages of material. So each of these sheets holds four pages. I'll just put this over here.

<Cut back to the paper drawer.>

Okay. So, we've printed the inside of the book. Now, for the cover, I'm going to need a different piece of paper. Let me grab that. This paper is heavier. This is glossy paper. So, this is what we use for the cover. Let me go ahead and stage this.

<Cut back to printer churning again.>

Okay. So, now it's printing the cover. Let's see what it looks like. It's only printing on one side, and here we go. <I hold up the sheet, showing two pages of the cover.>

<Cut to the next station.>

Okay. That brings us to the next station. This machine is called a scorer. What it does is to prepare the glossy paper for folding. I can't just fold it right away like this, because without preparation it will make cracks in the paper, and it will look yucky, and you wouldn't want to buy any of these books. So, let's do this the right way.

I'm just going to put this into the scorer. And then I'm going to line it up. It has to be right in the middle. And then I pull this lever. And it makes a crease. Let me show you the crease. <I hold creased cover up to the camera.>

I'll flip it on the other side so you can see it a little bit better. This is now ready for folding.

<Cut to the staging area.>

Okay. We're at the next station now. This is where I'm going to assemble the books. And to do this, I'm going to use this special stapler. Check this out. Well, it's really a regular stapler attached to this long piece of metal, so this way it can fit over large pieces of paper.

So, I'm just going to grab me some inside material -- get that ready -- grab me a cover (remember this?).

I'm going to put it into the stapler, and I need to make sure everything is straight, and then I staple. And do one down here. And there we go. It's stapled. <I hold it up to the camera.>

<Cut to the next scene at the staging area.>

Okay. I've stapled the books, so now I'm going to fold the books. To do that, I'm going to use this. This is called a bone creaser. This is made out of bone, and it's really good at helping to fold the book so it looks nice. Let me show you what it looks like.

I'll grab a book, and I'm going to do a slight fold. I'm just pinching it lightly. The crease made this part easier. I'm going to get this a little straight, and then I'm going to do a light run of the creaser. And then I'll do one more straightening out here, and then I'll do a more forceful fold. And there we go.

We have a book -- almost done.

<Cut to the trimming scene.>

Okay. I've stapled the books, I've folded the books, and they are almost ready to go out. 

But first let me show you. No matter how perfect you fold these and staple them, it's going to get scraggly on the edges, because the inside pages will creep out. So, take a side look here and you can see how it looks all uneven and scraggly. You don't want a scraggly book like that, right?

Well, let's fix that with our paper cutter. I'm going to take this over here. I'm going to make room for it <opening the paper holder>. I'm going to put it in upside down here. I've learned that this helps with page turns. If I put it in right-side up, it feels backwards to my fingers. So, now I'm going to give it a chop, and check this out ... <I grab some scraps from behind the cutter.>

Nice -- it chopped some of the edges there. So, now when I show you sidewise here, you can see that it doesn't look so scraggly. It's more even and it feels nicer to the touch.

Check this out. We have a finished book, now. It is now ready to sell.

<Cut back to my office seat.>

There you have it. Melkim Publishing. What do you think?

Oh wait, I almost forgot something. I like to brag about my inventory. Want to see it? Okay, stay right there. 

<I grab a box>

Here it is. Most publishing companies have warehouses full of music ready to sell, but not mine. I use a Print On Demand model, which I'll build out as volume increases. That means I don't have to store warehouses full of music. I print, and it goes out the door the next day.

So, what's in this box? It's mainly first prints of music -- perhaps a few mistakes. The point is, everything I have fits in one box, which means no overhead costs for storage -- something I believe will be an advantage down the road.

<place box off to the side>

For me, this is a perfect side business that touches on several of my talents. At this point, it is also low-impact, so I can run it while still working my day job -- doing math and coding all day long. I picture this becoming a fun retirement venture in about a decade. We'll see.

Right now my business is still very small. Very few people in my target market even know Melkim Publishing exists. But hopefully we can fix this.

In future videos, I will share tips and tricks in case you're interested in starting your own small business -- how to keep track of finances, how to start a website, how to do the paperwork -- and so on. Or perhaps we can work together to get our existing businesses off the ground. We can share ideas and enjoy success. So many options -- we can see where this goes.

That's all I have for you this week. Thank you for watching. Make sure to like and subscribe, and I'll keep producing these videos. Next week, I'll introduce the economics track and we'll learn quickly about supply and demand. Lots of fun!

I'll see you next time here on "Always Be Better."