A MONTHLY UPDATE FROM INSIDE FIELD NOTES
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Hi, it’s Jim from Field Notes. This is our thirteenth monthly-ish newsletter containing a variety of stuff that doesn’t really fit anywhere else. Please respond to this email if you have comments, questions, or suggestions. |
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TLDR Version: Who Knows Best, Oh Shenandoah, A Real Rarity, Left Unsaid, Your Hood, Duly Noted, Visitors |
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Over the years I have been consistently poor at predicting the relative success of specific products before they are released. Given my track record, one might do a better job of prognostication by simply fading me. That is to say, just take the opposite side of whatever I predict. |
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Our seasonal limited editions do always sell out.† Knock wood. But some sell out faster than others, and while we think we know our customers pretty well, we’re frequently surprised at how individual releases perform. |
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There is however, one indicator that is almost never wrong. The catch is, we don’t get to see that data until the very last minute. Here’s a little inside baseball about our product releases. Several days before we make an edition public we share it with our network of wholesale buyers in a “for your eyes only” email. A large percentage of the stores that carry Field Notes are independent retailers, whose success depends on consistently and correctly anticipating the needs of their customers. They are very good at that. These proprietors don’t just offer opinions, they place bets. With cash. |
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When I heard about Rex Brasher and saw his magnificent work for the first time, I immediately felt like the making of The Birds and Trees of North America was exactly the sort of story that we tell best: through research, text, documentary film and especially through the products themselves. Let’s just say I was cautiously optimistic. Our buyers had a different viewpoint. More stores ordered more copies of our fall release than just about any product we’ve ever created. |
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Like headwaters that stream downhill, quickened with snowmelt, to gather and flow into a large river, multiple inspirations sometimes result in a single Field N0tes limited-edition release. An early spring drive along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a chance encounter with Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, and the power and poetry of the name itself resulted in the edition we called “Shenandoah” and the film we made to accompany it in 2018. |
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NOTE: This entry is adapted from an essay in Fifty, the Anniversary Desk Ledger that subscribers received with shipments of our 50th Quarterly Limited Edition in 2021. Scroll down on this page to see it. |
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Staple Day Readers: We have a few hundred 50th Anniversary Desk Ledgers on hand. Spend $100 or more at our site today (10/23) and we’ll include one in your shipment. No coupon codes, no bull. While they last, spend $100, and you’re in. Gift Cards not included. |
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As noted in a previous Staple Day, I have started a commonplace book to record quotes, lyrics, poems, and conversations that resonate with the present me, so that the future me knows where he’s been. Here are a couple recent entries. One from bird research, natch. |
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“When will they master the lovely ‘peter-peter-peter’ tune the chicks’ parents sang to them when their whole world was the interior of an eggshell?” |
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That’s from novelist Amy Tan, writing about young Tufted Titmice (Baeolophus bicolor) in her book The Backyard Bird Chronicles, in which she tells the story of learning to observe, identify, sketch, and understand birds by close daily observation of the bird feeders outside her California home. Tan’s insights are amazing, and her drawings lovely. BTW, she dubbed the juveniles of this species “Titmousekateers.” |
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Note: During his lifetime, the aforementioned Rex Brasher sketched every species of bird in North America, so of course he drew the Tufted Titmouse. (Plate 731). |
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In this particular case, I’m not including the actual passage I wrote in my commonplace book because it is the final line of “Vocation,” a poem by William E. Stafford. If I posted it here you’d miss the rush of excitement that comes from reading it in its proper place, concluding a poem that in a few short lines tells the story of childhood, a marriage, and pretty much the entire history of the American West. Remarkable. |
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Note: This poem came to my attention when Sean S. of Eugene Oregon added a link to it in the notes section of an order he placed on the day of our most recent newsletter, followed by “---This.” Thanks Sean. |
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The Shop Around the Corner
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Is there a store in your neighborhood that would be a good fit to carry Field Notes? It doesn't have to be a book store or stationery shop, lots of unexpected places stock our Memo Books: bait shops, barbers, taverns, gift stores, cafes, etc. Just reply to this email and tell us about it. We’ll reach out and if they agree to give us a try we’ll send you a nice Box-O-Swag. |
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Based on a tip from reader Lee A., I picked up a copy of The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen. Allen surveys every type of notebook imaginable, citing famous and not-so-famous examples through history. Highly recommended. I loved this, from novelist Patricia Highsmith. “It’s surprising how one sentence, jotted in a notebook, leads immediately to a second sentence. Close the notebook and think about it for a few days — and then presto! You’re ready to write a short story.” |
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Thanks to the 1500 or so people who visited HQ last week for our Launch Party Happy Hour, and during the Chicago Architecture Center’s Open House Chicago event. It was great meeting you all and sharing some nerdy notebook discussions and a lot of laughs. Mark your calendars, we’ll be hosting some sort of Holiday Market shenanigans on Saturday and Sunday, December 7th and 8th. Details to come. |
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Stay tuned. We are justhisclose to announcing a pair of collabs that we have made with people that we admire. Can. Not. Wait. |
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* Coined a long time ago in the Field Nuts Facebook group, “Staple Day” is traditionally observed when a writer reaches the exact middle of a Field Notes Memo Book, revealing the metal fasteners which bind the cover and the interior pages together. |
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† Occasionally a quarterly limited edition, or a remade version of it, will become a part of our regular line of products. Putting aside those; Expedition, Byline, National Parks, and Heavy Duty, 54 of the remaining 60 limited editions are now sold out forever. Also, only one of the three United States of Letterpress packs is still available. |
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