Editing The Pen Addict 477/transcript (section)

== Squarespace Promotion ==


'''Myke:''' All right, this week's episode is brought to you by friends over at Squarespace, the all-in-one platform to build your online presence and run your business. They've got everything from websites and online stores, marketing tools, analytics. Squarespace has got you covered in one, just all in one place. With Squarespace, they combine cutting-edge design with world-class engineering, so it's more easy than ever for you to establish your home online and make your own ideas a reality. Whether you want to create a website because you've got that new big idea you want to share with the world, or maybe you have some art that you want to showcase, a portfolio design. Maybe you have some ideas that you want to get out, or a blog post. You have a business that you want to promote and give people contact information, stuff like that. Maybe you have an event coming up, a virtual event. Maybe you've got a small, like, in-person event, whatever it is. You can announce that and have all of the information that you need on Squarespace. And all of this stuff is so easy to do with their wonderful templates. They have templates that are created, professional, beautiful templates. They're really customizable with drag-and-drop tools. But a lot of them are purpose-made for you to get, like, an idea of how to actually create a business website. And it has all of the pages and stuff, and you just go in and edit with putting all of your own information. It's just really easy to help you. Like, when we were planning our wedding, we made a Squarespace website and used one of their wedding templates. And it helped us make sure that we had all of the information that people would expect. Like, because it had, like, a page structure and stuff. We could just go in and edit it. This is so easy, so helpful for us. You can customize the look and feel, the products you have on sale if you want to store, the settings and everything with just a few clicks. Everything's optimized for mobile as well, so it's going to look great everywhere. You also get free unlimited hosting, top-of-the-line security, and dependable resources to help you succeed. There's nothing to patch, nothing to upgrade. They have award-winning 24-7 customer support. You can grab a domain name, take advantage of SEO and email marketing tools. It's so awesome. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict for a free trial today with no credit card required. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code penaddict to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict. And then when you sign up, use the offer code penaddict, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase to show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for the continued support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' Real quick on Squarespace. They're making a change that impacts me. Not so much you, but it's a good change. It's an improvement by taking things away. They're removing their commerce app and rolling it up into the Squarespace platform app.

'''Myke:''' The Squarespace app, like the standalone Squarespace app is so good now.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Like I use both of those all the time, and I'm happy now that I'm going to be able to use them in one place. So I understand why they did that way in the beginning, but it's the right move to consolidate those. And I use the commerce app a lot just to move, because both Noc and Penaddict have Squarespace shops. So I'm in there pretty frequently. So yeah, that makes me happy. All right, Myke. Big topic today. I want to talk about Plotter. You may have seen this on Instagram. I don't even know if we've talked about it much behind the scenes. This is a product out of Japan. You can go to the existing website, plotter-japan.com. We'll have these links in the show notes. But I have had one for the past month plus from Plotter USA. So what's going on here is this is a product that's existed in Japan. I want to say over the last five years. Don't quote me on that, but it's just that ballpark. It's not like a 30-year-old product. It's not like a brand-new product. It's been around for several years in Japan. And they're bringing it to the USA. So what is Plotter? It's a notebook system is kind of the best way I can describe it. It's made to be a little bit modular, a little bit build-your-own, a little bit custom.

'''Myke:''' It's a bit William Hanna-y.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah. We're going to talk about that a lot. I'm getting asked a lot for that comparison. Hey, what's the comparison between the Plotter and the William Hanna that you love so much? So this is like a planner slash organizer. It kind of leans towards the creative side, I guess. You know, that's what I get from their marketing, their website designs. The ideas that they are putting out for it and building this notebook for you. So I've been under an embargo. Let's get the disclaimer out from the beginning. I've been part of a pilot program in the US for Plotter USA. They provided me with a plotter, a bunch of inserts and accessories, all for free in return for my feedback. And this, I've never been in such an extensive pilot program before that was run so well. Like, they did just an exquisite job. They've done things that I've never had any stationary company do. Like, I've had these quizzes, like, not quizzes, but basically these forms to fill out. Like, I've had check-in points at certain dates. Okay. You know, after one week, what do you think about this, this, and that? Okay. Now, after three weeks, what do you think about this, this, and that? How do you see, you know, tell me your thoughts. Tell me how you feel about it. I've had one phone interview. I'm going to have a second phone interview after this. Like, they've done... And I appreciate every single part of that. Like, they've done a good job. So, that's the disclaimer. I also know one of the people on the Plotter team, personally.

'''Brad:''' And so, like, yeah, I want you to have these disclaimers that I got this product for free. I also know someone on the team. And I have the product in my hand. I've been using it for the last month. So, now that I'm able to talk about it, they launched at the San Francisco Pen Show this past weekend. So, it's free for me to talk about it now. So, that was the cutoff date for the embargo. So, people want to know my thoughts on the notebook, on the system, on everything about it. So, we're going to go through that today. You think we have time to cover this, Myke?

'''Myke:''' I don't know because I haven't used this stuff.

'''Brad:''' So, right? So, I spent my morning before the show. So, I put in the show notes, Plotter, and just, like, the general things we're going to talk about. Then I went to my Plotter and I wrote over two A5 pages worth of notes to discuss. But, basically, I'm going to break it down. Plotter has not asked me to do this, by the way. I'm doing this on my own. I don't have to do this. I can choose to do whatever I want with this product. So, I don't have to talk about it today. But I'm choosing to because I think it's cool. So, the base of the Plotter, Myke, is the exterior cover, right? So, that's what they're leaning on this. They're basically calling it the leather binder. It's the exterior leather that has a six-ring internal system. So, it's like the little clasps, you know, that you just pop open and close shut. And they're backed on this brass bar that's the exterior of the Plotter. Like, that's the signature visual for the Plotter, right? Like, a lot of these brands have the signature external visual that you know the product on site. Like, a lot of people know what a traveler's notebook looks like on site.

'''Brad:''' That's this binder system. So, the internals, you know, there's a bunch of leather types you can get for the exterior. We're going to talk about – I'm going to elaborate on all this stuff later. The biggest size right now, Myke, is A5. That's what I have. And then there's several smaller sizes on with different leather materials as well. There's like five different leather types and five different sizes, but not everything. Every size is available in every leather cover yet. The inserts is the meat and potatoes of the system. There's a ton of different ones. They all come pre-punched. There's the memo pad, which is just your blank pages, your grid pages, or your lined pages. You know, you just – you basically buy a pack of leather – a pack of leather inserts. A pack of paper inserts. That would be – that's a different podcast, Myke. Oh, bro. A pack of paper inserts, and you can insert them into the system as you wish. There's also a to-do list. There's like a heavy-duty drawing paper. There are dot grid pages that are A4 sized that fold into the correct, say, A5 size in my notebook.

'''Myke:''' Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. You stop there for a second. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' I want to make sure I get that. It's like a – It's like a fold-out page? Yeah, like say like an accordion page, but just like three folds, right, to get it into the right size. Wow. Okay. And you can get that in dot or isometric.

'''Myke:''' How many of those do you get, though?

'''Brad:''' So they vary. So the standard memo pads, so like your basic page, 80 pages in the pack. The drawing paper, since it's a thicker paper, it's 30 sheets in the pack. And the pull-out A4 pages, the folded pages, I think are 40 in a pack.

'''Myke:''' I don't think I see those on the Japanese website.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, so there is a – it took me a while, Myke, to find the shop link to this. So I will put that in the show notes. Actually, I'm going to go ahead and tell it to you so I don't have to put it in there. If you go to plotter-japan.net, that is the shop. That's actually the best link to kind of look at all this stuff. Yeah. It took me a while. It's not even linked on the .com site.

'''Myke:''' I don't know, man.

'''Brad:''' I don't know. I'll explain. I won't totally explain why, but there is some commentary I have about provenance as we go. So then they also have diary refills, right? They have calendar refills, week-per-page planner refills. You know the planner style, the planner format that I used to use where you would have the seven days on a single page, right? And just a horizontal block. So that's all the inserts that they have for paper. Then you have your accessories.

'''Myke:''' This is wild, the way they deal with this – the way the A4 folds. Yes. So now you can see it on that page. What is the thinking of this, though? I would not like it.