Round: Music Slam Book Swap

This swap idea was inspired by the Mixtape Journal Swap that was hosted by @krstawrdtravels .

I'm betting that everyone under the age of thirty-five is familiar with "slam books", but I will try to describe what they are just in case.

Passed around by middle school kids, slam books are plain notebooks that contain questions on the fronts of the pages and numbered answers from various people on the backs, with a page at the end to list your name next to your number (for daredevils that want to run the risk of their principal finding the book and reading what they think about him or her). In other words, they look a bit like this:

Front of Page: What is your favorite color?

Back of Page: 1) Green 2) Purple 3) Orange

Wash, Rinse, Repeat

Signature Page: 1) Anne 2) Stephen 3) Betty

If you're still not sure about what I'm trying to describe, grab a teenage girl (since the boys are likely busy with other things, I dare say) and ask her to show you how one is made. ::grins::

For this swap, you will:

• make a "slam book" using a standard college ruled, spiral bound notebook (or a composition notebook, large journal, etc.... as long as it is ruled, has enough pages for all of the questions, and is a standard size, it’s fine to use) that contains exactly fifty questions and answers relating to music (ex., "What song do you listen to when you're mad?" "Blah Blah Blah by Blah Blah Blah"). Your answers must include at least the title and artist of the song, but comments are more than welcome. Just remember to leave enough room for other people to fill in their answers, too! You may want to pre-number each answer page once partners are assigned and you know how many people will be contributing to your notebook so that nobody accidentally writes so much that there isn't room for additional answers.
• burn your selected songs to disc as .mp3 files. It is important that you burn an .mp3 CD since there won’t be enough room in the binder for so many audio CDs by the end of the swap! Remember to number the songs so that they are burned in the order of your answers and to include your swap-bot handle and your number in the notebook on the front of the CD for easy reference.
• burn a second copy of the disk as a back-up copy and put it into the binder with the other CD that you burnt. I suspect that some of the CD’s will end up being worn out or broken at some point and need to be replaced, and this is the best idea I can come up with to prevent everyone from having to replace CD’s mid-swap. Everyone should try to use this copy (so please label it as the back-up) during the swap so that all of the journal owners will end up with fresh CDs in the end. Since they won’t need two copies, the person who is sending the original journal back to its owner doesn’t need to do this and is free to keep the back-up copies, if they’ve lasted that long.
• place your .mp3 CDs into a CD binder. You can find small ones that would be perfect for this swap at Wal-Mart for $3.

After you've received your partners notebook, you will fill in your answers to their questions, burn your .mp3’s to disc, put your discs into the binder, and then send the package on to the person you sent your notebook to. The swap will be run in a “ring” or “round” – in other words, you will always receive from and send to the person you originally drew, and will continue to do so until your notebook comes back to you. You will have a month to create your notebook, and then two weeks from the date that you receive another one to fill in your answers and burn your CDs. I've created a group for this swap so that everyone can check in when they have sent or received a package and can receive reminders when it’s nearing the deadline to move their current notebook along (which will be every three weeks, since that gives you two weeks to finish the swap and a week for the swap to be in the mail). Please be sure to join the group and to modify your notification settings so that you will get an email when an announcement is left on the group page.

As the swap progresses, you will be able to read others answers to questions that you didn’t think to ask, and in the end, you should receive your own notebook back, completely filled out, with a lot of (hopefully) new music!

A few reminders and suggestions:

• please don't ask more than fifty questions. It would be fun to ask more, of course, but that would require everyone to answer all of them and that could be hard for some people to do in a two week time period.
• you will most likely encounter a lot of similar questions, so it would be a good idea to keep a list of the songs you’ve used in the past so that you can try to answer with something different. This isn’t mandatory, but it would help to make everything more interesting. Everyone is going to see all of your answers by the end of the swap, and nobody wants to be monotonous!
• if someone has already answered a question with a song that you were planning to use, you have to choose a different one. Sorry! This keeps it from getting boring and makes it a challenge as the swap progresses.
• it’s perfectly fine to give your notebook a theme if that is what you’d like!
• since you can’t ask and answer additional questions, you can go “above and beyond” by burning an extra disc of your favorite music or including a small profile surprise for your partner if you would like…
• … but since you’ll be sending to the same person repeatedly, that could end up becoming extremely repetitive! I encourage you to “make your mark” on the notebooks instead so that they’re different and fun for everyone to read.
• just like in middle school, it’s completely acceptable to doodle on the pages, add inclusions, make small comments on other peoples answers, and add a decoration to the notebook or question pages. ;-) Feel free to be as creative as you want, and don’t worry about it looking childish… we’re reliving an experience that got a lot of us detention back in the day. Ragged, well-filled out notebooks rock!
• unlike in middle school, you have to leave your swap-bot handle on the signature page so that we know who to thank for a particularly funny or good answer. Sorry for the detention risk. ;-)

Now, for the requirements…

• you must be an established swapper with at least 10 mailed swaps and no 1’s the past six months or 3’s in the past three.
• sorry, newbies… maybe next time!
• there’s no way to angel this swap if anyone flakes, so I will be examining profiles and ratings in detail. If you’ve consistently been late in sending swaps over the past three months - even if you were rated a 5 for them – I will have to ban you. :-( I apologize for such a harsh requirement, but this will be an intensive swap in that it will go on for awhile and we can’t have people continually sending late and backing up the line.
• please don’t sign up unless you intend to see this swap through to the end. However, I do understand that life happens, so if you need to drop, please contact me immediately so that you can be removed from the loop.
• this swap is US / Canada / Mexico only because I don’t want anyone to have to post a package overseas every two weeks. That can get pretty expensive. :-\
• as always, feel free to PM me if you wish to join but don’t meet the requirements. Exceptions can be made for newbies who can show evidence of a good “swapping” history (some examples would be ebay, etsy and bookmooch accounts); newbies who will soon reach the requirements for this swap; people who have been rated unfairly; people who have a few 1’s and 3’s but have completed hundreds of swaps (I doubt that they’re going to suddenly turn into flakers at this point!); people who have 1’s from email swaps that were likely caught in spam folders; and so on. If you truly want to join, contact me and I will think about it.

I hope to see some interest in this idea! Please contact me with any questions, concerns, or suggestions!