I approach this blog post with some reservation. It’s not that I have to tell you that there’s no big flashy news, just that I have to tell it to you for what feels like the seventeenth time. As usual, though, progress is still being made behind the scenes.*
We are continuing to enter songs into our database, but we still need signed contracts from lots of people. Currently I see that we have 339 songs entered, and though that is significant progress, it’s really a drop in the bucket compared to where we want to be. We do have lots of PDFs, but they all need to be cut apart, the page numbers removed, and the file properly labeled and stored in our “Ready to Upload” folder, which takes a while. Kirby and Savanna are doing lots of good work in the area of preparing and entering songs. Jed is typesetting a whole bunch of public domain songs for upload, which is just awesome.
If you are a published songwriter, we urge you to sign our contract if you have not already. Don’t worry, you don’t need to do the work of submitting all your PDFs. We’ll try to shoulder that burden ourselves if it’s too time-consuming for you. All we need from you is a list of titles of the songs you wish to sign up and for you to get any co-authors’ approval. The contract signing process itself is relatively easy. Simply go to our Signup page, add your contact information and co-authors’ information if applicable, and then list out the titles of the songs you wish to sign up. A contract will be automatically generated with your information and the songs you are signing up. Then you can electronically sign it, and you’re done! We want your songs on Stanza and we want to make sure the sign-up process is as easy as possible for you. You can contact us if you run into any problems. If you are unsure about putting your songs on Stanza or have a question or concern, please make it known to us.
I say there’s no big flashy news, but this is probably the closest. Kent contacted another guy to work on code for us, but he’s not starting quite yet. When he does, we will have two guys doing part-time work for us besides the work that Kent is doing when he can. I know I’ve mentioned numerous hires and fires in the last number of blog posts, so let me clarify. We’ve worked with or contacted four different coders. We ended the contract with our original coder about a month ago, and the second one we tried we decided not to work with. Our third is still working for us, and now this fourth guy will be as well. The first two were “professional” coders, so they were more focused, but also more expensive. These latest hires are on a more part time basis, but that doesn’t diminish their importance. We are glad to have them on board.
As can be seen on the top of our website, cups are coming back! We placed an order a while ago, and they’re supposed to be done sometime here in early November. We will definitely let you know when they are available. Hopefully we will have them in perfect time for you to get one as a Christmas present for someone who loves singing! Naturally, we are still accepting donations as well. Hiring coders, even part time, gets expensive after a while.
I guess that’s about all the news we have to share. As I always say, we are open to your comments, questions, and concerns at any time. Thank you so much for your support and for your patience as we work towards creating a better singing experience for all.
*In retrospect, after writing this post, I realize that there’s more news than I originally thought. Maybe someday I’ll learn not to start my blog posts on a negative note. Also, did you know that “tri-weekly” can mean either every three weeks or three times a week? It’s two radically different things with no context as to which one it means! Ah, English. Gotta love it.
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