The Pen Addict 80/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	80
Title:	It's A Scandal
Release Date:	November 12th, 2013
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	Ana Reinert
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 80
Audio File:	Audio Episode 80
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 80
Length:	5757 min <br />0.95 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode 80 of The Pen Addict on 5x5, a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by the crown prince of the sewing machine, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: That's right, I've got a new venture ahead of me. I'm going to be a master seamster, like my partner Jeffrey at NOC. So yes, I'm getting some work done behind the machine this weekend. It was pretty cool. We had a good time working on the cases this weekend, so it's going well.

Myke Hurley: So excited.

Brad Dowdy: I know, I know. They're looking good too. They're looking real good. And I still didn't even come home with a sample for myself. We're just trying to get it done.

Myke Hurley: I can't believe that. Were you just not doing anything all day?

Brad Dowdy: No, no, no. We made lots of cases. I don't need one yet.

Myke Hurley: Customers come first, don't they, Brad? The customer comes first.

Brad Dowdy: That's right, that's right. So I'm still using my phase one prototype.

Brad Dowdy: So yeah, it's going real good.

Myke Hurley: We've got a crazy show coming up today. Loads of little stuff.

Counterfeiting

Brad Dowdy: Loads of little stuff. And it's actually a bunch of stuff that right after our episode ended last week, I feel like I've been hanging on to a lot of these topics towards the end of last week. But they're still pertinent today, of course. It was just lots of things I wanted to talk about. And I don't know, it may not even be like a normal episode for us, but I guess it kind of is. We just talk about anything that comes across our screens. And unfortunately, we'll start it out with the, I won't say bad news, but a little questionable topic that we've covered here before, the Visionaire pin on Kickstarter. Myke, just for, I didn't check with you beforehand. Were you still a backer of this project?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, yeah, I'm all in on it. Just simply because of, as I mentioned before, for people that have, I'll throw into the show notes maybe some of the episodes where we gave a little backstory on this.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. So definitely check those out. And I was going to mention that in the, I don't have the episodes in front of me, but they're actually in the, we talk about it like a couple weeks in a row and just talk about, I had a lot of concerns about the origins of the pen design, feeling that it was, you know, probably a very inexpensively made Chinese pen that you could get for just a few dollars. And it blew up on Kickstarter. I think he's selling them for $37 each. There would, I felt that there wasn't anything original in the design that it was just pulled pretty much off the shelf of a Chinese manufacturer. And absolutely nothing inherently wrong with that, except that you're overpaying by about $30 for this pen. That was my, that's pretty much the complaint in a nutshell.

Brad Dowdy: So, you know, we address those things. We talked about a lot of those things and, you know, we discussed how the pen you're going to get is probably going to be just fine. It's just that the, it's kind of, I felt that it went against, you know, the spirit of Kickstarter and that it's really not any type of new design. And it's basically just a reseller of an existing, you know, mass market Chinese fountain pen.

Brad Dowdy: So we left it at that, you know, a couple months ago. Well, now it's come out that on Alibaba.com, which is, it's a huge website. You can find anything on there that the Visionaire, I mean, it's not called the Visionaire, but the exact Visionaire pen is showing up on there for purchase from different Chinese manufacturers. And you can get them for as cheap as a dollar. So that was brought up to Morgan, who is the founder of the Visionaire Kickstarter project, the creator. And as Morgan is wanting to do in my dealings with him in the past and his public answers, he talks a lot without answering any questions. And I thought it was pretty telling this time that there were a couple points, you know, I wanted to point out that he, in his response, number one, he didn't deny that that was the Visionaire pen at all. I thought that was very telling, that he never said, that's not this pen, here's why. You know, he said, his answer was, and which was the obvious answer, and the answer that I knew was going to come was, well, they knocked me off. They took my design, and now they're selling it, you know. This Chinese manufacturer is selling it, and they stole my design.

Myke Hurley: And is he saying this in the comments? Is that where?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah, he's got a comment. I think I'll link to that specific comment.

Brad Dowdy: So basically, he was saying how he can't, you know, prevent other people from counterfeiting his design, blah, blah, blah, and he can't afford to, you know, to go after him and things like that, which, that's the obvious answer, right? I mean, that's the answer that I expected. Of course, that's what happened, Morgan. They stole your design, and now they're selling it as a $1 pen.

Brad Dowdy: What, $1? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Well, actually, $0.85 if you get, you know, the right quantity.

Myke Hurley: Oh, what's going on? So. How, like, convinced are you, though?

Brad Dowdy: That it's the same pen? Yeah. 99%.

Myke Hurley: Hmm.

Brad Dowdy: I want you to look. I put in a new link. So, okay, so what happened was this came out, and everyone was linking to this page on Alibaba showing this pen, and this manufacturer offering up this pen, the exact pen, you know, in black and the chrome and everything like that. Well, yesterday, that link went down, which is interesting.

Brad Dowdy: What does that say? Huh?

Myke Hurley: What does that say?

Brad Dowdy: What does what say?

Myke Hurley: The fact that the link went down. Like, on what side is that?

Brad Dowdy: It was the link that everyone was passing around that was involved in the project saying, hey, this is the, this is the Visionaire, this is the Visionaire. Well, now that link's gone. So, yeah, I think it's, I don't think it was a fluke, put it that way.

Myke Hurley: But if, if he, if it is the same pen, and Morgan doesn't have the rights to own it, then how, like, how could he have it taken down? Like, what I'm trying to say is.

Brad Dowdy: Dealing with the manufacturer, he's like, look, you guys are looking bad. You guys are making me look bad. He could pay them, he could pay them so much more money to take that down. Like, one of the things that bothers me about his Kickstarter project is he keeps finding all this extra money to do these other special things like packaging and a different converter and new ink cartridges.

Myke Hurley: Have you, I mean, this sounds so bad. Maybe I shouldn't say this, but I'm going to anyway. Have you seen what they look like, these extra things that he's doing? Yeah, no, yeah. You look, I mean, none of the, all the design is, is terrible.

Brad Dowdy: Well, no, I mean, well, part of it is, number one, he's saying, look, I'm putting all this money back in to the project. Well, that's because he has about a dollar per pen in there and he's made, you know, like, that leaves him lots of extra money. And the extra add-ons, like, someone made a comment in the comment saying, oh, he's upgraded the packaging and he's given us extra ink cartridges. And he redid the converter. Like, if you added up the cost for all three things, all three of those things, it's probably less than a dollar to get those and mass produced total.

Myke Hurley: Okay, so, but the Alibaba page has been pulled down, so I can't see it. So, that was pulled down.

Brad Dowdy: So, now people have found it. You know, I took screenshots of it the other day because I anticipated that would happen. So, I linked to the screenshots of it I took. But you don't even have to anymore because there's a – I couldn't find the cash copy of it. Someone's found that. And now someone says if you just go over to Alibaba and search LY120, it just – it's everywhere.

Brad Dowdy: So, that link I put in, I want you to look at that link.

Myke Hurley: Okay, it's in Italian, which is interesting.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Well, not even that link. Skip that one.

Myke Hurley: Oh, skip the cash one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, because it's a lot huger page and shows lots of extra things. Go to the one I put in as LY120, and you tell me what you think of that pen and compare it to the Visionaire.

Brad Dowdy: So.

Visionaire Pen

Myke Hurley: Okay, let me open up the Visionaire page for comparison.

Brad Dowdy: So, I'll continue to talk while you look. You know, there's – Morgan, we talked about it. I did text and email Morgan because I have talked to him before. He's never responded. It's not surprising. And he has been – the entire time of this Kickstarter project, I don't know that he's answered a direct question with a direct answer.

Myke Hurley: Oh, dear.

Myke Hurley: Oh.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Should I be higher than 99%?

Myke Hurley: It's extremely similar, isn't it? Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Oh, for God's sake. This is really bad. Like, if this is true –

Myke Hurley: Okay, so he's got pictures of people in a factory making them. Mm-hmm. Which kind of makes sense, wouldn't it?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Well, just like – he's got pictures of him in the factory. He flew over to the factory.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I mean, it's – This looks – So, how much are they selling for? Because they've not got – oh, yeah, 85 cents.

Myke Hurley: Wait. If there's 85 cents four-piece, I assume it means 85 cents each if you buy four. I think so. I hope – I really hope so. Because if it's 85 cents for four of them – because they've got – they're showing like a bunch of pens on the page. Right. And one of them is a fountain pen, which looks exceedingly similar. Like, really, really, really similar.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think it's beyond similar. I mean, I think it's dead on. Like, we found – when we were looking at it before, we found some that we thought were close. But we never – I knew we never found the exact one. This is the exact one. I'm fairly confident in saying that.

Myke Hurley: I mean, do you remember when we were talking before about we were using and trying to avoid the word scam? Yeah. Because you're still getting the money.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Kickstarter Scam

Myke Hurley: This seems like a scam.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I hate that word. Because, yes, you are getting – you are buying a product and receiving a product. But the markup is incredible.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. I mean, no wonder he's been able to fly over there to the factory. And, you know, it's – he's put on a hell of a show. And we said it from the beginning. This guy is a marketing master.

Myke Hurley: So, the thing – have people, like, compared the nib and stuff? Because I can't – I'm struggling to see that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. They don't have a dead-on shot of the nib that I can tell.

Myke Hurley: From the Alibaba page.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Let me see. I don't know if I can get a bigger picture. Or I haven't looked enough to see if I can get a bigger picture of the shape of the – you know, the design on the nib.

Myke Hurley: Well, I mean, all it says is just a radium point. Like, it's not, you know –

Brad Dowdy: Right. Yeah. It's a totally generic nib. I mean, and Morgan's admitted that. But I don't know that I have seen a big enough blown-up picture to see if it's, like, the exact same nib. I'm wagering it is. I mean, it looks like it's got the same, like, 45-degree angle notch line.

Brad Dowdy: You know, it's just got, like, a single line, like, kind of like a V-shape going towards the opening in the middle of the nib kind of thing.

Myke Hurley: In fairness, the PDF that you provide, which is in the show notes that people can download, does have a lot more detail in the images. Yeah. Which are definitely – these images are definitely more damning, even more so. Yeah. Oh, Brad, what have I done? I mean, in all fairness, I would have canceled this. If me and you had just had this conversation, I would have just canceled this. But I simply need to receive this now. Yeah. For the reason of the fact that we have discussed it.

Brad Dowdy: Well, and yeah, yeah. And that's cool. And what we said the first couple times we talked about it is you're probably going to get just the perfectly fine functional pen. You know? You may not have a problem with the pen. You may love the pen. It may write amazingly. It may be one of your favorite pens. You know? You just overpaid by $30, right? Or more.

Myke Hurley: This company – I mean, you've probably seen this – can make a million of these a month.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So he should have them all done pretty soon.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. No doubt.

Myke Hurley: I can't believe this. I mean, until now, people that have – you know, I've basically put in the show notes, which you can find at 5by5.tv slash penaddict slash 80. I've put in the three episodes where we spoke about it. And I think people that have listened to these or will go back and listen will see that I had tried to, like, just, you know, say, oh, you're being – you know, you're overreacting, basically, was my feeling on this. Was like, you know, this could be anything. But this – I mean, this can't look any more similar.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And the thing I worry about is the backers who have bought this for their – this is their first Kickstarter pen experience and things like that. And there's a lot of – I don't know. There's two clear sides reading the comments in the Visionaire Kickstarter page. There's ones that are blindly following everything Morgan says and believe him 100%. And then there's the other side that says this is clearly questionable and it doesn't – nothing about this adds up whatsoever. So –

Myke Hurley: Well, how can I get one of those?

Brad Dowdy: I'm sure we can just order from Alibaba, I guess. I think – I don't know if there was a couple people might have mentioned that they might be ordering them.

Myke Hurley: Can you buy – can you buy –

Brad Dowdy: Delivery, 20, 25 days. I don't know what the minimum order is.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. See what I mean? That's –

Brad Dowdy: Oh, minimum order on this one page we're looking at is 1,000.

Myke Hurley: Okay. So that's not going to work. Yeah. I don't want 1,000 of them. I mean, I could quite clearly easily afford it if they're 85 cents a piece. Right. But I don't want 1,000 of them.

Brad Dowdy: Well, it looks like you just need to start a Kickstarter project.

Brad Dowdy: And, you know, when you get the pen, just sketch out some designs with this great pen that you designed.

Myke Hurley: Well, I think I could probably start like an Indiegogo to raise $850 to disprove this thing.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. But Myke, they knocked him off.

Myke Hurley: Oh, I see what you're saying. I thought you were giving another revelation. Yeah. I mean, the factory that he seems to have gone to.

Visionaire Pens

Brad Dowdy: Right. Yeah. They tooled up to make these thousands of pens to knock off the Visionaire. Right.

Myke Hurley: It certainly seemed that way.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: What is this, man?

Brad Dowdy: When they can make 10,000 of these pens a week. Yeah. They knocked him off. Right.

Myke Hurley: I'm now looking through the backup pages to see if I can find any images of the factory.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's on there. He's got a... It's in the updates.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That's where I'm looking. But...

Brad Dowdy: It's update... Damn.

Brad Dowdy: It's in here because I just saw it earlier today.

Myke Hurley: I mean, I can see it now. But, I mean, it doesn't give anything away except for the fact that he's in a Chinese factory making some pens himself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which... Those images were a little strange to me anyway because it made it look like it was just a...

Brad Dowdy: Oh, I thought it was a huge mistake.

Myke Hurley: It just looked like an assembly line. Yep. Which is totally not what I want. Like, one of the images, there's like just a bucket of clips. Yep. Just a bucket of them. And I'm like, um... Clearly more than 5,000 there. Yeah. Why?

Brad Dowdy: I thought it was a huge mistake to post all these pictures from the factory.

Myke Hurley: You say he's a master of marketing. I don't think he is. I don't know why you think that.

Brad Dowdy: Well, the origination when he was doing his video and everything and got everyone drinking Kool-Aid. Well, because I could read the responses. I didn't... It wasn't believable to me, but reading the responses of people just going, Oh my God, this is the best thing ever.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't make... It really doesn't make sense how he raised this much money. I know.

Myke Hurley: Well... I have not. I don't know. I don't know how he did it.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Yeah. So, anyway. It doesn't look like this is over, unfortunately. I was hoping we wouldn't have to talk about it again, but...

Myke Hurley: It's a scandal.

Brad Dowdy: It's a scandal. Yeah. This is funny. In the big picture, if you think about it, we're like having conniptions over Kickstarter fountain pen projects. Who would ever thought, Myke? Who would ever thought we'd be in episode 80 of the Pen Addict podcast?

Myke Hurley: I know. Well, it's like a chilling effect, though.

Brad Dowdy: I just think it just gives lots of things a bad... Yeah. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. And hopefully, you know, people that are getting into this for the first time buying... There's so many people listed that they're buying... This is the first fountain pen they've ever bought, and yada, yada, yada. I'm just hoping...

Myke Hurley: Because pens and paper are a staple of Kickstarter. Like, they are now. You know, it's a great place for that type of stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Myke Hurley: I really don't want that... I really don't want this to catch fire in the mainstream. Right. Which it very easily could. Right. Because, you know, sites like, you know, like the Next Web, TechCrunch, would cover this if it turned out that... This was true. Right. Like, this is a story for them. Guy raises $380,000 on Kickstarter for a product that costs him $2,000 to make. Like, to make enough shipped. Right. Because he only has to fulfill 5,000 of these. And we've just found out you can get 1,000 of them for $850. So, that is an incredible amount of money. Hang on. Yep. So, 850 times by 5. It's $4,250.

Myke Hurley: So, he's made, what, $300 and something thousand dollars of this?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, was it 326? 324.

Myke Hurley: So, before taxes, $320,000.

Brad Dowdy: Well, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. He's putting a lot back into the packaging. Oh, yeah. No, you're right. And extra ink cartridges and the converter.

Myke Hurley: What is going on?

Brad Dowdy: And he flew over to the factory. So, these are expenses, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I can see where the 320 went. Yeah. I mean, he probably needs to buy some more drawing and dipping ink for his pen anyway. Right. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That was so funny. Someone mentioned that. That was funny.

Myke Hurley: Oh, dear.

Business Success

Brad Dowdy: All right. Should we talk about something that's going to make us a little bit more happy? Please do. Please do.

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Brad Dowdy: Excellent, sir. An excellent job by Squarespace. Indeedy. All right. So on a changing the topic completely, but still a little bit of a, I don't want to say a downer topic, but I think there's some positivity to come out of it. There was an article I got sent a bunch of times last week on NPR. There was a radio spot, and then they have the article online. The title of the article is No Room for Erasers as Technology Deletes Pen Businesses. That's such a Debbie Downer title.

Myke Hurley: I mean, I instantly don't believe it.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I know. And it was a little bit of a really dramatic title. And you listen to the story. The audio is 3 minutes and 49 seconds. But they actually cover, it's pretty much the transcript in the written part of the audio. So if you don't want to listen to the audio, just read the written part. But basically they're pointing out that the old school brick and mortar pen shops are going away. And I don't think that's news to anyone who's a regular fountain pen purchaser. There was news a few months ago where Art Brown in New York, which is one of the oldest stores around, it shut down, and this article is about Daly's pen shop in Milwaukee. And they point out how business has dropped 50% because of all this new technology and smartphones and everything like that. I mean, it's nothing new or novel to anyone who's done this. But it was interesting to hear. They talked to the owner of Daly's pen shop. And my biggest question when they talked about it or talked to him was, well, how does the online business make up for any of this? And they just kind of glossed over it. And they said that it – because I've ordered from Daly's online. And they have a really good stock. I think I ordered my Retro 51.

Brad Dowdy: What was the one with the knock? I always forget the name of that one.

Myke Hurley: Oh, I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, whatever. You all know which one I'm talking about if you listen to the show. We had this conversation on Twitter a few weeks ago.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I remember a few weeks ago we were trying to have this conversation on Twitter between a bunch of us and came to the conclusion that Retro 51 have terrible naming.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, maybe so. Anyway, Daly's has kind of a really good online business. And that wasn't – they weren't talking to this at all. They're just talking about how his brick-and-mortar business is down 50% and he's had to move locations into a smaller location.

Brad Dowdy: But it – I mean there's validity to the overall point. But I think this is just like lots of businesses that – this is never going to become an obsolete business. It's just the business model is going to have to change.

Myke Hurley: Well, yeah, that's just like all business these days.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. So I didn't think this was like a super dramatic thing. I mean I think Daly's is going to continue to be in business in some way, shape, or form. Hopefully. Gosh, I hope so because, I mean it's a well-known name in the fountain pen industry, in the fountain pen business. But, yeah, it was just bemoaning the fact of the traditional brick-and-mortar is going in that you can't walk in and speak to someone and maybe necessarily handle the goods or have that conversation with someone about pens and things like that. So anyway, I thought it was a good article. If anyone hasn't seen it, it's definitely worth checking out, worth listening to. I don't – I disagree with the premise behind the title of the article because I think pen business is doing pretty well. Is it as high as it was in its peak when there was no online and there was no smartphones? Well, of course not. But there's companies that are handling that in different ways now. And I think a lot of them would agree that business has been as strong as ever if you talk to a lot of our favorite vendors online like JetPens, Goulet Pens, Cult Pens, all of these people. I think they're probably – and I certainly don't know, but I would wager that they're doing pretty good. You can just kind of tell from anecdotal information. You can just pick up on it that things are going pretty good in the pen industry. I think it's just a different business model.

Myke Hurley: It's totally because of us.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, it's absolutely. We're going to lay claim to all that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, to all the – yeah, I better not say that. I'm going to get some nasty grams.

Brad Dowdy: I've become that guy now. I'm like the bitter old man guy. You said this and you shouldn't say that. Do you get those sort of emails? Sure. Yeah, I do. Most of them are – none of them are mean or anything, but it's just like – I have lots of conversations. I just – I tell people like it is, and that's it.

Myke Hurley: But flying in the face of this.

Anderson Pens

Brad Dowdy: Yes. This has me excited beyond belief, and it's the complete antithesis of what we just talked about. Our friends Brian and Lisa Anderson from Anderson Pens are opening a brick-and-mortar store.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, they are.

Brad Dowdy: So what does that tell you about what they believe this business – what you can do in this business? They're moving from online to brick-and-mortar. I mean, obviously, the online component stays. Brian and Lisa are the busiest people in show business. I do not know how they do it. They travel the entire fountain pen show circuit all across the country from their home in Wisconsin, drive to all of these shows. I mean, drive from Wisconsin to Miami, which is just – I don't want to ever make that drive in my life. And this is what they do. Like every month, sometimes twice a month, they're traveling somewhere across the country to go to a pen show. Brian still keeps his full-time job somehow. They're opening a brick-and-mortar pen store in Appleton, Wisconsin, and they're just killing it. I mean, they are – we'll link to the show notes of their progress of their working on the space, and they've been doing some more updates. It looks like a cool space, and I could not be happier for two of the nicest people you will ever meet in your life. And I'm so excited. Like I would give anything to like fly up there for their opening day. Just that's how much I believe in them. That's how much I support them, and that's how much I want this to succeed for them. And I think it will, knowing them, the way those two work, and the way they treat people, and the way they act with customers and the whole – the fountain pen community as a whole. I can't say enough nice things about them. And I'm jealous. I'm excited. And I'm thrilled, and I wish them all the best luck. So I don't know how this topic superimposed with our last topic, what are you to believe, right?

Myke Hurley: And they also have a podcast, which I'll put in the show notes. Yeah. The Anderson guys. Another thing that they do.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: They have a podcast too.

Brad Dowdy: They have a podcast, and hopefully I will get Brian and or Lisa on here one day. I think that would be –

Myke Hurley: Yes.

Brad Dowdy: That would be excellent. I would love that. They are good people. They are just – they're the best, and I wish them all the luck with this retail store. And I think it's just going to be cool. I mean, they know this business. They have an understanding of what needs to be done to take care of their customers, and I think this will be just nothing but a success. So hopefully NPR, if you're paying attention, maybe you can go up there and see why this is not the end of the writing industry as we know it. What?

Myke Hurley: There's a title in there, but it's maybe too long. Not the end of the writing industry as we know it. So I have a request to the listeners of the show. All right. So I bought a new iPad today.

Myke Hurley: Nice. A new iPad mini with the retina display. And I want a case for a pen addict.

Myke Hurley: So basically, I want one of those – I think they're called folio cases, like where it opens up.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think that's a good term for it.

Myke Hurley: So it's like a book, and it opens up. And then I have my iPad mini on one side, preferably the right side actually for me, but whatever. It doesn't matter. I could probably turn it upside down. Oh, that's true. I could probably turn it upside down though. Actually, no. I would probably need it to be on the right-hand side. And then ideally, I would like to be able to insert or like tuck in a field notes book in there.

Myke Hurley: Really, I would like to be able to put my field notes in there in some way. Even if it's just one, right? Because it probably only fit one in there, to be honest.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, probably just one. So maybe it slides in, you know, like you could tuck in the side, like how I was talking about with the One Star Leather item from last week. Oh, bit of follow-up on that. Keegan from One Star Leather said that, I mean, this was, I should have asked him, he will make the pen loops larger if you need them. Oh, good. So if you were holding off last week because of what I was saying about, you know, I couldn't get some of my favorite pens in there. If you just tell him you need the pen loop to be larger, maybe give him some dimensions if possible, he can do that.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, that's great.

Myke Hurley: So he emailed me to let me know. Well, he apologized, which I thought was ridiculous, but he did that anyway because he's a nice guy. But I just thought that just popped in my head then. But yeah, so basically I would like that, you know, so to be able to tuck a field notes in and maybe have like a pen loop as well. So basically, I mean, if you've seen something that isn't exactly like what I described, that has, you know, some sort of cool notebook integration with a case, that's kind of what I'm looking for.

Brad Dowdy: It sounds like you need a custom NotCo pen case.

Myke Hurley: I did think of you actually, but I was thinking instead, I was like, maybe I could just get Brad to do it. But then I thought that it might take a lot more work because you have to have some sort of mechanism for keeping the iPad in place.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we totally plan on doing things like this. We just, you know, not in the timely fashion that you would need it.

Myke Hurley: No, I mean, if you can, that'd be great.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, these types of products are on our radar, and we've had some, you know, initial discussions like about what we need and things like that. So anyone who says, I wish I had a case for this, shoot us an email. And these are the type of things that we want to work on and the type of things that we're actually set up to do.

Myke Hurley: Because there's just little things about that, like securing the iPad into the case. That has to be flawless. Yep. Because if you don't do that and then I open it and my iPad falls onto the ground and smashes, I'm going to be very upset at Brad Dowdy. Yep. So, you know. So, yeah. If you've seen anything, guys, if you've come across anything, send me on Twitter. I'm at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. I would love to hear about it. And then I'll probably end up buying 40 of them and talking about them.

Brad Dowdy: Have you ever looked at the Dodo cases? I have. I don't know if they're set up this way. That's my only guess off the top of my head to look at.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I don't really like that this is a book thing.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's a different style. I'll give you that.

Myke Hurley: I'm not really a... I mean...

Brad Dowdy: You don't really need that. You just need something with the iPad and then have a little bit of additional storage for your field notes.

Myke Hurley: In all honesty, this is, like, pretty much exactly what I need. But it's not a field notes. It's, like, their own notebook.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: So, I mean, that is something, right? So there's one. Yeah. But ideally... Because then you end up playing the refills, right? And it's just...

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Oh, yeah. No. I don't like... I don't... Yeah.

Field Notes

Myke Hurley: Ideally, like, what I'm looking for is to be able to use my field notes. Like, that is number one, in all honesty. Because then I can just... Then they're independent. I want the two things to be independent of each other. Okay. So the field notes in the iPad are still independent. So if I want to take the field notes out and put it in my pocket, because then it becomes my notebook.

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Myke Hurley: But, I mean, sure, that is an option. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: They actually do a quite nice-looking one. I think our listeners will come up with something.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I was going to talk about this on another show that I do called The Prompt, which is more Apple-focused. But it hit me that our listeners on this show might actually come up with better options for me, simply because this is our realm, because I want these very specific things. But I'm going to start a document in our Google Drive, so I'll start putting those in there. Cool. So we can keep track, and then we can... Hopefully that can be a segment on a later episode.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that would be good. I think that would be useful.

Myke Hurley: So talking about segments, we have another sponsor, but it's a little bit different. So what I'm going to do first is I'm going to give our listeners what our sponsor has provided us. But then we're going to talk about it, and I'm going to set that up in a moment. So also sponsoring this episode, we are very pleased to have Doxy. Now, this is just released. The Doxy Flip is a new kind of scanner, not for going paperless, but for capturing your creativity in history anywhere. So Doxy, with the Doxy Flip, is a retake on the traditional flatbed scanners of the past with two twists. It's tiny. It's really small. It's about the size of a book, and it's battery-powered, so you can take it anywhere. And also, the Doxy Flip flips over to allow you to capture old photo albums, books, and pocket notebooks. So the transparent scanning window underneath the scanner, so you can see right through. So you can open up the flatbed, and you can see right through to see what you're scanning, so you can easily line it up and capture your photos or your notes. The Doxy Flip is perfect for field notes and Moleskine notebooks, index cards, and everything you thought you couldn't scan with a traditional sheet-fed scanner. Because Doxy, traditionally, they do like the sheet-fed stuff, so you put paper through, and it goes through, it scans it. The Doxy Flip is now available for $149 from getdoxy.com. And while supplies last, you can buy from Doxy directly at getdoxy.com. You're going to get a free, limited-edition Doxy Field Notes notebook with a textured French £80 cream quart-tone cover. So that's what Doxy have given us. So go to getdoxy.com. It's $149, but they also ship all over the world, and they have different partners. You can buy from Amazon in the UK, for example. So if you're interested, like I'm sure you will be, go to getdoxy.com, but obviously you get that. Doxy Field Notes that we spoke about last week on the show.

Myke Hurley: Now, the reason I say this is very different is, first off, thank you so much to Doxy for sponsoring. You should definitely go and check this out. And now I want to tell you a little bit about why. So we don't typically do this, but this product is the type of thing that me and Brad would talk about. And we were absolutely thrilled when Doxy sponsored, and they were also kind enough to send both me and Brad a Doxy Flip. So we both have one. Brad actually wrote a review about his on the Pan Addict. So I'm going to put that in the show notes too, so you can go and read Brad's thoughts about the Flip. But I want to give some of my own personal experiences some of the things that I like about the product too. But, you know, I just wanted to make sure that people knew that. I mean, that was what the sponsor had given us to talk about, which is all excellent stuff. And it really sort of sums up the product. But we do both have them, and now I've used them personally. So I wanted to talk about it on the show.

Brad Dowdy: Awesome. So, yeah, I want to hear. You read my thoughts about it, and I did some test scans and, you know, kind of ran it through the gamut. But went through most of the features and things like that. So, you know, some people have probably read my review, and I'll talk about it some more. But I kind of want to get your opinion, because you and I have not talked about it one-on-one since you've received yours.

Myke Hurley: So one of my favorite things about it, like I was really surprised that it was actually independent of a computer, like I was expecting the idea to plug it in. Mm-hmm. Because I received the flip without really knowing anything about it.

Myke Hurley: So that was really cool, the fact that it was just independent. I think my favorite thing about it is there's a little screen on the device that you use to, like, do settings and stuff. That's what I thought it was for. I just thought, like, you would... So you can change the DPI, for example. Like, I think it's, like, is it 300 and 600? That's right. So I changed mine to 600 DPI, because why not? Yeah. But when it's scanning, it updates with a little preview image on the screen. It's like a tiny little screen. It's maybe, like, a 3-inch screen. Oh, no. No, 1.5-inch. Sorry, 1.5-inch screen.

Myke Hurley: So it's like a tiny little 1.5-inch screen, and it, like, just updates with the image. So as it's scanning my field notes, because obviously that's what I'm using it for. I'm now scanning all my field notes notebooks in. And it's scanning them, and so I know I'm getting it right. I just thought it was just cool. And it just gives you this preview. I'd like that. That was one of my other things. It's really, really light. Like, super light. Like, I can't believe how light it is. Because the way I was doing it, like, I was sort of, like, just holding it in one hand, like, holding it closed, so the notebook didn't slide out or whatever. So I was just holding it. That was cool. The image quality on the 600 DPI is just insane. Like, it scans it, like, to the images, and you can create PDFs out of it.

Myke Hurley: I love that you can, so you scan all of the images in. It took me about 10 minutes to do an entire field notes. Yeah, that sounds about right. Each side.

Myke Hurley: Then you plug it into your computer. I'll talk about that in a second. And you open the Doxy software, and it shows all the scans, and you can highlight them all, and then make them, they've got a button that says staple, and it puts them together into a stack. So it puts it into one document, so it's like stapling the one book together. And then you can upload it to Dropbox and Evernote, and, like, loads of other services. But that's where I'm putting it. So I'm putting it into Evernote. I'm putting it into Dropbox. Which is just, that's exactly what I want. So, like, I've done it now with one notebook that I have, which is for, like, important ideas. And I'm going to start now, every time I finish a field notes, I'm just, it's going to be part of my process. We'll be scanning it in, and then filing it. And then it's, like, it's just available. And I can use stuff like Evernote, and, like, maybe some other, like, OCR reading apps or whatever, to make it searchable, which is, I mean, if I can get that, like, I was thinking about maybe, like, coupling it with a more advanced application, because everybody knows how terrible my handwriting is. So I'm looking at other stuff to, like, maybe to do a better job than Evernote has been doing for me. Because if I can get that searchable, that will blow it out of the water. I mean, I know you would have no problem with it, but the way that I write, it is actually bad, and it's not very clear. So Evernote's not doing a great job of finding it. So that's just awesome that you can do that. And you can save them as PDFs to those services. The way that you get... So basically, everything gets saved onto an SD card on the device. And then I can just pop the SD card out and put it right into my MacBook. But something that I really liked is that they ship with a USB adapter in the box. So you can get this little USB adapter, and you can plug an SD card into it. So you don't need to have an SD card reader. That's why that was really cool, because... And then there's no cables. So you emphasize just like crazy, like cable trailing all over the place.

Myke Hurley: They were my experiences. I mean, I'm really, really happy. Like, it's filled a part of my paper workflow, notebook life, that was missing. So I think we've spoken about this a bit in the past.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think it kind of completes that circle, right? To where, you know, we've got to ask for practically this whole run of podcasts. What do you do with your notebooks when you're done? Well, now we doxy flip them. Mm-hmm. So, I mean, you know, I'll echo pretty much everything what you said. You know, all those features are great. The things that impressed me the most were the size of the Doxy Flip. I mean, it is... It's so small and lightweight and easy to use. I mean, I was just sitting at my desk and just, you know, goofing off. I had the best time just... Every time I'd scan a page of my notebook, I'd be like, oh, this is great. And, you know, and then by the time you get it, you know, pop the SD card in my laptop and use the staple feature to just put my notebook together. I was like, oh, this is great. It just... There's other ways to do these things that in the end game gets you to the same place. But this is so much easier and so much straightforward than, you know, taking pictures and, you know, with a camera or an iPhone and editing in different ways and moving everything around. This really streamlines the entire process. Like you said, you did a whole book in about 10 minutes, you know, give you a few more minutes to, you know, just to maybe edit them if you need to and then staple it and ship it off to Evernote or Dropbox and your notebook's there. I mean, in, you know, 15 minutes process, you know, you have this notebook saved digitally and searchably depending on the services that you use. And it just really rounded out, you know, my entire workflow for notebooks. So I've gone back and started scanning some of my other books now that I've had in the past. I used to, Myke, back when I started The Pen Addict and all these other... We're going through all these pen reviews and things like that. I used to throw my field notes away. I would fill one up. I would rip it up and throw it in the trash. And now I just regret that. And, you know, so I don't have as many saved as I should with old information. And, you know, this is something that just really fulfills a need for me. And it is so cool and easy to use. And just the size of it, it just works. And it gets it all done very simply and very easily. I'm ecstatic with mine.

Myke Hurley: I just, you know, it's just I now have a way to digitize my notebooks without either getting a huge scanner or, like, taking my notebooks apart. Because that was the other way, right? It was to get, like, a traditional Doxy, pulling the staples out and then feeding them through page by page. And I wouldn't want to do that. Plus, as well, like, it would be all out of order. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I wouldn't, like, I wouldn't, I would have never done that. I don't like tearing, you know, my books apart to capture them. I wouldn't have done that.

Myke Hurley: This is probably a very narrow, like, a very niche thing here. But if you are a person like me and haven't thought of this. So I had, I have, I tend to keep two notebooks with me at a time. As I mentioned before, I have my sort of, my daily field notes and my projects field notes. Sometimes I forget to take them both with me. And I've had to make notes in the daily field notes. And I've ripped the pages out and slid them into the project notebook. I was able to scan those individual pages together and add them to the stack and staple them all together. So it makes one consistent book. So if you took notes across different books and you needed to relate those projects together, you could scan each individual page and turn it into one document.

Brad Dowdy: That's exactly what I did. Oh, really? Yeah, I have a group of sketches for product sketches for Nock. Well, those end up in different notebooks over time. So I ended up gathering all those up, scanning them, and then stapled them together as their one, you know, and collected them all together into one, you know, stapled file in the Doxy Flip. That's exactly what I did.

Myke Hurley: So, yeah, perfect. Thank you. Look, thank you to them for sponsoring and for being very kind to send us the scanners. Very, very happy with it. And it's something that I would definitely buy. Yeah, totally. And if you are interested in this, you should do it. So go to getdoxy.com. That's the website, right? I've just said that. Getdoxy.com. And you can either buy one directly or find out about them. And if you like the product, why don't you let them know you heard about it here. Tweet at them. They're at Doxy, which is D-O-X-I-E.

Brad Dowdy: And they're very responsive, too. They're pretty active on their social media, and they always have a good time.

Myke Hurley: And if you want one of these special edition field notes, well, that's where you've got to go.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And they're 48 pages, by the way. I butchered that last week.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, you did, didn't you?

Brad Dowdy: You did. I'm a Moran.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. So talking about that. Mm-hmm.

Pitch Black Notebooks

Myke Hurley: That. What's that? Is the Pitch Black. Oh, nice. So I had my two packs come in. It's just like the perfect book, really. I mean, it's exactly what we wanted. It's a really nice black cover.

Myke Hurley: Very dark and mysterious. Dotted grid, black staples.

Brad Dowdy: Yes.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I need a whole box of just black staples. It feels like for a... This feels almost too good for a standard edition.

Brad Dowdy: Hmm.

Myke Hurley: Interesting. You know, like... Well, definitely. I mean... It just feels like this could have been a, like, Colors edition maybe like a year ago or something. You know, before they started being, like, really adventurous with them. Yeah. And it would have sold out in no one's business.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. It would have, for sure.

Myke Hurley: And I agree. If you let a press... I reckon the only reason they have not let a press this cover... Well, probably two reasons. One is the cost, but also because then this and Raven's Wing would be indistinguishable.

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: For sure. For sure. For sure. For sure. Well, good. I will get mine soon, hopefully, and we'll test them out. Stuff. I want to end this show on a very positive note. There's a couple of things that Myke and I want to point out that deserve your eyeballs and your clicks and your love. And the first of them is Cult Pens is doing a Pens for Kids promotion. And in the past, I've worked with Pens for Kids, and I've kind of stopped for reasons unknown even to me. And I want to get back into it. So Cult Pens reached out to us, said they're doing this Pens for Kids promotion. And it's an awesome thing that they're doing where they're allowing you to order a pack of pens for 1 pound 50 cents.

Myke Hurley: Pens.

Brad Dowdy: Pens. Yes. 1 pound 50 is what I should say, right? Yep. Yeah. 1 pound 50 where you can order... What is this? Is this a 10 pack of pens? Yeah. It's a 10 pack of pens. You just order it through Cult Pens. You can order it individually. Just order the pens. You can order it. You can add it into your cart as just an add-on if you're buying other pens. And for every box of 10 pens that you order, Cult Pens will match another 10 pens. And then they ship this all to the Pens for Kids group, who is basically what they do is they package up and then they ship or sometimes even bring these pens to children in need in Africa. It's been a very good experience the times that I've worked with them. And I'm glad Cult Pens is getting involved in this. And, you know, I've already ordered just some pens on my own. I didn't order, like, any stuff for myself. I just went to the Pens for Kids page, put in the quantity that I want, added it to the basket and bought them. So they'll be, you know, I've donated to this cause. And, you know, if y'all get a chance and if you order from Cult Pens, think about adding one to your order. And, you know, Cult Pens will match that. And, you know, they'll ship a big, big batch of pens off to Pens for Kids and help these kids that need these writing utensils.

Myke Hurley: Seems like a no-brainer to me. Look, the amount of money that we spend on this stuff, if you're at Cult Pens, just add a box to your car. It's £1.50. I'm going to buy a couple now, I think.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah, I bought some on Monday and they sent me a nice note. And it's easy. Like, if you're in the U.S., there's a, you know, it goes through the process. Just for anyone who had questions about it, it goes through the process and it puts a shipping charge, like you're ordering the pens. But the charge doesn't go through. They back it out and they send you an email saying, hey, you know, we appreciate your order. We backed out the shipping charge. Here's the final cost just for the cost of the pens. And we really appreciate your support. So that's how it works when I ordered mine yesterday. So it's a very, very cool idea. And good luck to Cult Pens. And hopefully this will be a recurring thing. So this will be good.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: The second thing is with the huge, huge catastrophic storm that hit the Philippines. I know I've got a lot of readers from that area. I follow a lot of people in that area of the world that got devastated in this storm. And one of the best people online in the pen community is a woman by the name of Lee Reyes. Y'all probably heard me talk about her because I rave about her pen collection and her artwork and her drawing and everything all the time. She's got an awesome pen collection. And she is in the Philippines. She's in Manila. Luckily for her, she was, you know, spared the brunt of the storm. But being in the Philippines, she wanted to do something to help support all the people who were displaced and all the devastation that took place because of the hurricane. So what she's doing is she is starting on her blog. She's doing Pins for Aid, a charity auction to raise money for Typhoon Haiyan victims. So she started putting out some of her collection on her site where she's going to sell some of these pens, sell some pens. And I think 100% of the selling price goes to the Philippine Red Cross. Wow. So y'all need to check this out. I've already put in some bids. I've got an outbid. I'll have to see if I need to need to up it. But she's got two out there that are live now. And I think there's going to be more coming. So one pens, let's see, what's this one? An early, more safety with a flexible fine nibs already at $200. And the one I bid on was a Platinum Shoji, which is already at $325. So, you know, this is something that, you know, affects us all when this type of devastation happens. So if you're looking for a good way to help with the cause, check out Lee's site. And we'll have all the links in the show notes. And she's doing an awesome thing, basically putting her collection up, some parts of her collection and donating all the funds to the Philippine Red Cross relief effort. So that is wonderful. And I told her I would, she didn't ask me to put this on here, but it was a no-brainer that I was going to do it.

Myke Hurley: It's like a perfect twofer.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So check those things out. It's things, as our friend Patrick Rohn says, things we believe in. And we want to support those things. So I think that's it for us, mate.

Myke Hurley: Sounds good to me, sir. All right. So if you'd like to get in touch with us, there's a few ways that you can do that. You can go and you can go to penaddict.com. That's where you're going to find Brad. And he is at Dowdy, D-O-W-D-Y on Twitter. And I am iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. And other than that, Brad, I think that we will be back next week.

Brad Dowdy: We certainly will.

Myke Hurley: Brilliant. Thanks so much for listening to episode 80 of the Pen Addict. Or if you need the show notes, that's 5x5.tv slash penaddict slash 8-0. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad.