Karaoke Forums

Just an added note to my previous. I only print the books once a year. I print a "New Additions" section at the beginning of my book. I need to print right now, so my new additions section is currently 869 songs on 13 pages. That is one years additions.

IF YOU USE A NEW ADDITIONS SECTION, PUT IT IN THE FRONT OF YOUR BOOK.
One lesson I learned is, that if you put it in the back of the book, they will not use it, even if you announce it's there in your show. PUT IT IN THE FRONT OF THE BOOK, AND THEY WILL USE IT.

Save a tree, and your customer's arms. Print 2 sided.

Felix the KJ

I've had people grab a book and spend over an hour going through it. It happens all the time. When I go over and ask them if I can help them find something, they'll usually say no... just looking. But usually they'll bring up something to sing eventually.

If the books weren't there they probably

1. Wouldn't have stayed
2. Wouldn't have sung
3. Wouldn't have come back.

I am in total agreement with you on this Bill H. I will drop in to someone's show and if the book is well presented - that is clean, not dog-earred, well organized, with a large enough font, I will thumb through it for quite a while, just comparing that book to mine. Frankly if there is no book, I'm not motivated to put a song up - I use a computer all day long and I really don't want to sit at a computer at a karaoke show...just a personal preference...even for 5 minutes. I don't like having people waiting behind me. I like to chat with friends at the table about songs, maybe try a new one, maybe convince someone else to try a new one. (I probably sing 500 songs and when I go to a show that is new to me I can't remember ONE SINGLE SONG I SING...CRS syndrome bad)

I might be the oddity here, but I put out 12 books,,all of which have both "by artist" and "by song". The artist pages are white,,and the by song pages are blue. I use the smallest text I can find -font size 8, to save printing pages, (very expensive), double column. The update pages get printed in yellow paper and go in the front of the books. When the update pages become almost a book of their own, I reprint the books and combine both lists. Bad thing, I have to use 3" binders to hold them all, so they are quite heavy, need 2 boxes to hold them all. And yes, most of my shows use them all.

Heck mrscott, I wish I could use 3" binders. My 4" binders are almost filled to capacity, and that is with 2 columns, and double-sided printing. 3" binders are cheaper than 4" binders, and alot easier to find. I won't use smaller font than 10 though. I wouldn't like that font for me to read.

Felix the KJ

Standard for me is 11 books. 5 by artist, 5 by title, and a separate "specialty book" of international or special songs. ( Yes, these songs are in all of my books, but this makes for a quicker lookup).

I use a bold 12 font.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

I just add to what I already have. I have zipper packets with slips and pens,also. I have quite and extensive library.

A quick comment about books vs. kiosk. Books help keep a crowd involved. I've seen it many times where one of my books may end up with a group of 4 people at a table that may not be ready to step up and sing but they are all checking the book out, commenting, laughing, reminiscing about a song, etc... as they flip the pages and watch the singers. I'm not sure if it kept them in the bar longer but I know that they are more involved than they would be otherwise. And many times, after flipping the pages from front to back (and a beer or two), they finally step up to the mic and are hooked.

kioscs are fine for requests only, not for browsing. It's great if you know you want to sing a certain song... but many of us like to stretch our wings, or sing a specific "TYPE" of song ("need something to WAKE this place up!")

If I ever had a kiosc, I'd STILL use printed books, or have to have some kind of kiosc at EACH table! Reminds me of the old jukebox selections at a soda shop... they had at each wall table a place to put in money and select which song you wanted. I only saw it once, and fell in love with it!

I run a kiosk and my books still get used as much as before. Knightshow is right. The kiosk is great if they already know what they want to sing, but the books are great for browsing.
Oh, and it's mainly the younger set who will use the kiosk.

After three years at this I've got my stuffing procedure down.

I pull the sleeves out of the box and line the sleeve tops up with the bottoms of the pages so I can assemble and turn the finished product over in it's own pile in one movement.

It's mindless work so I do it while watching TV. It goes by a lot faster now.

I use 8 Artist and 2 Title books. Same experience as Lonnie. Most people grab the Artist book. So far it works great.

I do the rolling replacement method and it works great. Every one to two months I print 2 Artist and on Title book and add them. If books get messed up or pages ripped out (yes, it happens all the time). Those are the first to get filtered out. I don't use page protectors. I just print them on paper and coil bind the book. Less weight, looks great and with the rolling replacement their always in good shape.

I have six. Three by artist, and three by song. I update ONE artist and ONE songbook every TWO months, and date them on the cover.

I have a computer, so its easy for me to find songs that aren't in the book... Which is a challenge if you use disks.

I make frequent announcements: If you don't see your song, just come up and ask me, I probable have it.

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

All my books are by artist and I have a total of 10 books; 5 for the bar and 5 for other events. I like to keep the 'other event' books nice and pretty and not soaked in beer.

I get asked if I have books by title perhaps once every 6 weeks. If they know the song they want to sing then I can look it up just that easy. Considering that frequency I didn't see the need to pop the money.

Totally agree, Gryf. I so seldom get asked about title, and sadly I'm 'blessed' with a brain that remembers the title of every song I've ever purchased (in fact, when we used discs still, I could tell you which song was on which disc and exactly where that disc was in my filing system...) So someone can ask me and I can pretty well just tell them yes or no, we have or don't have it, and if we do, just have them write the title on the slip (with the addition of artist last name if it is done by several different artists, and then manu if they have a preference.) I'm pretty good about knowing artists as well and if they can give me a title and the name of the artist, I can say yes or no. Wasn't it Einstein who said he didn't keep anything in his head that he didn't need to use? Damn, I still remember song numbers from 5 years ago.

Jeez Karen... I have a GOOD idea what discs had what songs... but no way could I remember EVERY one! You must have a photographic memory, or a memory system very similar!

I can usually remember if we have a title just from having to type it into the data base. But I couldn't remember the numbers or discs like Karen as numbers just won't stay in my head.

A clarification of this topic would be--how many books per number of people--for instance, we have just 4 books but we only have 15 to 30 people at the venue. Sometimes we put out two extra books with just the new songs in them if it seems there aren't enough to go around. I use bold 14 type because we have an older group but we only have 5,000 songs so it fits in the book.

Im at that stage in life that I cant even remember my singers names.

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HA! Caught me. I DO have memory lapses with names...it's just those darned numbers that must be occupying too much of my brain hard drive - time to do a memory cleanup/defrag I guess. Nothing is more embarrassing, is it?...than to have a person you may see 15-20 times a year at a show walk up to you somewhere away from karaoke and you can't remember their name? I say to myself, now what song do they song? and reconstruct from there.

You know when you've been at it too long when you see start subconciously translating car license plates to disc numbers- AND remembering singers and songs from that disc....

..... Now where's my Thorazine......

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."