[alanross]

As long as there are drunk people, there will be problems with the karaoke books. This is a universal rule. There are no easy answers and as we continue to grow our businesses, we have to deal with ever expanding songbooks.

When I research other Karaoke shows, I, too, hate having to seek out separate binders for the artist list and the song title lists. We have kept both lists in one book for the 12 years I've been running Karaoke shows, but this year was the most difficult.

About seven years ago, I switched to the two column per page format and people love it. We have been able to use 1.5" ring binders every year, but probably should have bought 2" binders this year.

Automated or computer generated songbooks are so frightening a concept I shudder to think of it. Drunks with drinks in their hands accessing a computer to find their song? They can't even keep from spilling their drinks on themselves, what will protect the computer?

Keeping your songbooks clean is the healthiest thing you can do. I wipe off the books after every single show. Each page is in a sheet protector, so even the pages can be wiped down when they use the book as a coaster (argh!). Pages stuck together at the end of the night usually indicate where there is wetness. After each show, fan the pages to find where there is stickiness. Wipe those pages with a wet napkin and dry with a dry paper napkin. Don't use a bar rag. Bar rags often leave residue and do not remove as much moisture as a dry paper towel or napkin. Once the pages and exterior of the book have been wiped down, shake the pages down so that none of them are bunched up around the rings of the binder. This prevents the covers from tearing as quickly and the books will last longer.

We have a set of books we use at one of our locations 7 nights a week. By talking good care of them, we can make them last all year without having to replace the binders. We occasionally find that a page or two has fallen out of either the top ring or the bottom ring, but when you shake the pages down and fan them out, you can easily see which page has fallen off a ring and quickly hook it back in.

We put out a completely new set of books every year and throughout the year, we make additions to the song books in a separate "Additional Song List" section. Every year, we integrate those songs into the main body of the book and start fresh again. We do this every May because just after Memorial Day, our summer season begins and we like to have fresh books for the tourists.

About six years ago, I got the deal of a lifetime from Staples. I called them asking for 1.5" binders with the clear plastic insert covers so I could slip our company logo on the front and contact information in the back. The telephone sales rep told me they had a large quantity for a penny a piece.

I was a little taken aback and asked her to repeat that. She again said she had the binders I wanted for a penny each. Dumbfounded, I asked her how many she had available at this price. She said they had about 1500 of them in a warehouse. She surmised that they were some sort of overstock they were trying to get rid of.

Still in shock, I again asked for confirmation, "You mean to say that if I wanted to order all 1500 of those binders, it would cost me $15.00!?!

"That's right." she replied.

Quickly doing the math on my calculator, I discovered that 1500 binders, which normally sell for about $7.00 each minimum, would be worth $10,500!

I told her to ship them to me immediately.

She then told me that since I was ordering the entire inventory in bulk, she would give me free shipping on the order! I paid $15 and change (for tax) and in a few days, the UPS truck rolled into my yard with a hundred and twenty someodd boxes of 1.5" binders! The UPS driver was not exactly happy about it. Three of us spent the next twenty minutes unloading her truck.

Once UPS left, I opened a box to check out the binders and they were exactly what I had ordered. What I discovered was that they were all factory rejects that had a slight flaw in their plastic covers. The skin into which you can slide your covers did not meet factory specifications. These skins are supposed to cover the entire heighth of the binders, but ours came to about 3/8" from the top of the binder. The laminated cover sheets I made for them stick out about an 1/8" from the top, but it's so minor a problem no one has ever mentioned it. Nonetheless, these binders have served us well for a fraction of their actual value.

Although I had to rent a storage unit to house this huge inventory, I have been using these binders for the past several years and really don't want to have to buy any others. When a binder gets ripped, torn, broken, fails to close, whatever, I simply discard it and pull out another to replace it. It's nice because I always have really clean, professional looking books to offer.

Even after all these years of casually discarding used binders and giving boxes of them away to friends and family, I still have over twenty boxes left, each with a dozen binders in them. You can see why I'm reluctant to graduate up to 2" binders.

But this year our books are really at their limit. I will not be able to use them again next year.

Next year I will face having to purchase 50 new binders, run 50 copies of our 300 page book, purchase enough sheet protectors for every double-sided page in the book, host a "book stuffing party" (as we do every year) to get the pages into the sheet protectors and hire a psychiatrist to handle my nervous breakdown. However, all of this is simply the cost of doing business.

After twelve years in Karaoke, I've seen many many people try to get into the business only to close up shop in a couple of years because they couldn't keep up with the cost of doing business. Too many people think that if they buy the equipment, buy a bunch of disks and get a few gigs, the money they make after paying off their initial investment will just be profit. HA!

Anyone who's done this for any time will tell you that Karaoke is not a path to financial freedom. To remain in this business you either have to have a great love for it or several bricks missing from your load. I think I have both.

Songbooks will always be an irritant, but then again, so are the drunks and the inconsiderate "when am I up next?" people. All of these are what we pay for the ability to host our own Karaoke shows. It's the cost of doing business.

- Alan