In addition to finalizing the illustrations for our next Bobbledy Book (Robbi has a great post up that walks step-by-step through process of putting one of her illustrations together), we got the next Idiots’Books mailing ready to send out.

The book in question is a wire-bound mix-and-match book, which makes it one of our more complex binding challenges. Once the pages are printed, three pieces of equipment come into play: two trimmers and a hole puncher/wire-squeezer combo we call the Offi-Wire.

Each book has to be collated, punched, and trimmed into three horizontal strips. Then I hand the strips to Robbi, who feeds them into a wire comb, places a cover on top, and clamps the wire shut to create a finished book.

This process repeats hundreds of times, of course, a proposition made even longer when Robbi stops to photograph the action.

But eventually, as in all cases of putting one foot endlessly in front of the other, at some ungodly hour of the night, we get there.

But not without some casualties.

The book is called Sex to the Third Power: 1,000 Ways to Get it On. A send-up of The Joy of Sex and other home guides to the sexual experience, it is an interactive manual of sexual possibility, offering ten basic positions that recombine (through the wonders of the mix-and-match format) into 1,000.

We’ll show you some pictures of how it works soon. For now, rest assured that Sex is on its way.

In unassuming manilla envelopes.

Those of you who are new to the subscribership will see Robbi’s cheerful notes of welcome on the envelope.

One of the benefits of mailing a whole lot of something is that, instead of waiting in line at the post office, we get to take our bins full of books around back. I ring a bell, a postal worker appears, and the bins are carted off into the eye of the postal maelstrom.

I bid a tearful farewell and send them on their way.

Please let us know when Sex arrives and what you think of it. If you get it, that is. Not everyone does. Though anyone can, of course. If you’ve been meaning to subscribe (or resubscribe, for that matter), there’s no better time than the present.