Tedorigawa Bookmakers

Episode 107: Lined Wordy Journals

My most recent event was the making of two A6-sized lined journals with a slight difference. The difference is that each page had a translation in Japanese and English of a bunch of random words. The words came in two or three categories. First, such words as most learners of English will come across in their studies such as 'food' and 'study'. Second, confusing words the learner of English will probably see sooner or later such as 'book' which means both 'something people used to read in the 21st century' and 'make a reservation.' Third, fun words such as 'bamboozle' and 'booze.'

There are eleven signatures of four sheets each which translates into about 176 pages (both sides, of course. I've decided to count pages like normal people do.) They are A6 in size (41/4" by about 6" for my American friends). The procedure was as follows:

First, think of the words, write them down, and get them translated. As much as possible, I tried to pair words together that reflected something that both words shared: pronunciation in either Japanese or English, meaning, or rhymes. For example, "I" in English is a homophone for "eye". And 愛 (pronounced 'I') means 'love' in Japanese. So 'I,' ' 愛,' 'eye,' and 目 (pronounced 'may') are clustered together. 目 means 'eye' in Japanese

Second, put everything: lines, words, logo on a new file in InDesign and spend a few seemingly hundred hours tweaking it. Third, hope your printer can print out all the pages without eating a few in the process. Fortunately for me, this time, my happy Epson printer was mostly up to the job.

After printing out two copies of the book, I folded, sewed, and glued the spine, mull, and spine reinforcing paper. I then put the two naked, lined, wordy journals on the ever-growing pile on my desk of unfinished books. This gives me five books I must case in in the next week or so.

Most of the time was spent on getting the words and translations. However, the second most time-consuming process was printing. Being careful to print the right pages in the right order; being sure the printer didn't skip a page; making sure it had ink. Fortunately for me, I use a program called Cheap Impostor that does the imposition but between the preferences for Cheap Impostor and the Epson, sometimes I manage to print things out of order. Sometimes? Often. I'm practicing, though, so someday I hope to be as smart as my machines.

Episode 103: Frank & Dracula

Yes, I know. Two episodes ago I said I'd talk about measuring covers for the book. But, but, something exciting came along! Again. This time it is two classic horror stories - well, three if you count them all. The first one is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Not so much a horror story as a philosophical novel about what it means to be human. The movie is a bit different from the novel, as you might expect.

The second is the TwitterBlog-entry-like epistle novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Lots of letters flung back and forth, some of which sound like Twitter entries. Like the opening sentence  - which is too long for Twitter (and with proper vocabulary - should have, not should of) , but you might get the point.

Left Munich at 8:35 PM on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late.

The third novelette - literally written simultaneously with Frankenstein - is The Vampyre by John Polidori. This is considered the first vampire story and is only about 25 pages long. (Polidori, Shelley, Mr. Shelley, and Lord Byron were shacked up in Geneva one dark and stormy night and decided to write horror stories; Mary's has lasted the longest while Polidori's generated a new genre which, unfortunately, has culminated in the current vampire-that-twinkles genre.)

I slapped all three on InDesign, manipulated the text, added a few pictures, imposed them on CheapImposter, printed out the pages, and will now cheerfully sew them together. There are 27 signatures: Frank printed out an even eleven; Dracula snaked out 16, probably because of the added Vampyre novelette. This is going to take a couple of hours of sewing*, at least. The paper is from etranger di costarica, brown, and made in Japan.

Soon I will attempt to round their backs. This will be my third and fourth attempts at roundback books. Frankenstein in one book; Dracula and The Vampyre in another volume.

*I was right. The thicker book took 75 minutes and Frankenstein took an hour. Cords can be fussy little characters, can't they?

Episode 101: What I do?

This episode will be about what I think I do when I make books. A few years ago I started hauling around a bunch of junk that I need to make a book. This included only the essentials like: thread, two curved needles, a triangle, and a beeswax candle. (If the power goes out, I'm good.) I usually always have my keys with me – or they're lost somewhere in plain sight – and my key chain is a small surfboard which works perfectly as a bone folder. I also have a plastic red bone folder just in case I lose my keys. But before sewing the signatures, I need to print them out.

The printing process uses two or three computer programs. First, I slap the text into InDesign. This is where I manipulate the text, add photos, and create superfluous decorations. I export the document as a PDF and open CheapImpostor, which imposes the pages. CheapImpostor makes two files: Odd and Even pages which open in Preview. (All of these programs are on my Mac. If you use Windows, your mileage may vary.)

After Preview opens the odd and even pages, I print them out and, if I put the paper in the printer correctly, they come out in order. I fold the resulting imposed pages into signatures. Then I use my triangle to align the signatures and determine where I want to punch in the holes. I draw a line, and then, using one of the needles, punch the holes in. I used to use an awl and a block of wood to make the holes in the signatures but sitting in a coffee shop pounding holes with an awl is a tad disturbing to the other customers and baristas so I switched to a silent needle.

Then I measure out the thread, wax it with the candle, thread it through the needle and I'm all set to sew the signatures. An eight-signature textblock takes me about 45 minutes. Bigger textblocks take longer, of course. Usually I try to sew it in one sitting but if I can do 20 minutes here and there, it works out, too. After sewing the signatures, I'm reading to glue, add mull, add endpapers, and other finishing touches on the textblock. This I do at home so I end up sometimes with four or five books to be glued at the same time. Once I had seven or eight books waiting to be glued. Good times.

Next week: The Cover

Episode 100: This Is Life ~ Harwood

Many many moons ago I received an e-book of Seth Harwood's This Is Life (a Jack Palms novel). Also many moons ago I printed it out and sewed it together. I also lined the spine. Then I set it on my pile of To Bind Naked books and went about my life. For a long time. Last week I managed to print out a cover and bind the whole shebang together.

The book is about 165 pages, A5 in size, hardback, and with a blue book cloth running down the spine. The cover paper is thick. It is from Strathmore and stiff. The photo was pulled off the internet and dropped into InDesign where the whole cover was arranged, rearranged, and finally printed out. The endpapers are plain brown which, if I were to do this over again, I would make metallic grey or have a red car door with bullet holes in it (you have to read the book).

What did we learn from this excursion? This is a series of bindings I've been working on to improve my binding experience. The others were the half-bound notebooks (Seen below in Episode 99) and a smaller blank notebook, also half-bound. I'm teaching myself how to put on a spine separate from the cover and to add the corners. What I learned from This Is Life is to make the paper cover slightly larger (about 2~5 mm) than needed so that it fits nicely under the book cloth.  Again, measuring accuracy is important.

Episode 99: Half-bound/Half-baked

This weekend I spent way too many hours making books. Not that I made a lot of books but I learned to do things I haven't done before. For example, half binding is the book cover that has the corners and spine the same material but the main part of the book cover is of another material. I made three of those.

The picture above shows the third one. It is a 200-pages, lined journal, A5 in size. (Or, for my American friends 6.25 x 8.5 inches) Half bound, as you can see. Measuring is important. I keep saying that but it really is true: the corner pieces have to be the same size, the middle spine cover has to balance on either side of the spine and, of course, the middle bit has to reach under the corner and spine pieces. All very left brain.

Before the third book, I made one from a recycled Ritz cracker box and this book. The front is simpler but the corner bits look better, I think, because the measuring was better. It is about 100 pages, lined, and the same size as the other. The lines of both books are both light red and light blue (they change color mid-page).

I have on my work table two more books I need to bind. One is a novel and the other is a lined journal with about 400 pages. The journal will be half bound (as the binder is half-baked), while the novel will be quarter bound (just the spine cover). Both will push my personal envelope by having print on the cover. Should be interesting.

Episode 97: Prints of Errors

This last weekend I experimented with printing on book cloth, something I have never done before. The printer is old and managed to print most of the cover I wanted to use. As you can see, it smudged on the left side and didn't complete printing the Tedorigawa logo - just the top part.

The book itself is one of many experiments and attempts at improving my bookbinding skills. It has about seven signatures of five sheets each which makes it a 140-page book. However, the pages are made up of misprints from another A5 size book I made - a schedule book. The point of this book is the printing and the Measuring of the Spine Cover.

The spine cover is pretty well aligned and equal on both sides of the spine. The red book cloth is glued on fairly well, too. In fact, except for the printing part and the misprints on the inside, this is a fairly good book.

The good part is I am happy to try printing on book cloth again; this time with a newer, cleaner printer.

Episode 96: Tedorigawa Notebook

This is a 128-page, A6 (41/4" x 6"),  lined business card. I plan to pass these out to bricks-and-mortar stores that allow me to place my other books on their shelves. Similar to the "T" book in Episode 93, down below a few flicks of your mouse. It has my contact info on each page plus my photo at the end. What store could refuse them?

The book has left over handmade book cloth on the back cover. The original bookcloth can be seen in Episode 84, a few more mouse clicks down the pike. The front cover is made up of three items:

1. Blue craft paper.

2. A label from a local sake (酒) named Tedorigawa - in fact this Japanese says "Tedorigawa". First, of course, I had to empty the bottle, then soak it in the sink for a few hours to get the label off.

3. A loop of very flexible metal that I found in my "To use later" pile of cr... supplies. I thought with the silver of Tedorigawa, it fit nicely. Also, it makes it harder to pile other books on top of it so that store owners will keep it on top and accessible. And visible. Mainly, though, I just thought it looked nice.

It is also one of the few books that I cut the fore edge to make it straight when the book is closed. Usually, I don't cut it but lately I've been thinking I should. Or it depends on the book. Some people think a book with an uncut fore edge looks 'incomplete' or 'unfinished'. I think they look rough and natural but, well, you know some people, eh?

Meanwhile, the ongoing saga of re-writing and editing of Calvado: A Deadly Love Store continues. I was hoping to get it up on Smashwords (links to my Venetian Slime Woman: a Biological Love Story) by the end of January (2013) but this is looking doubtful as I found a few major plot holes. It is still a good book but I want to make it the best I can and one that you can enjoy. I work on it everyday so hopefully, you'll be able to get a copy before the end of the year (2013).

And, why are the pictures all upside down?

Episode 94: Three Firsts with Five Needles

My bookbinding teacher allowed me to try my hand at a round-backed book and this is my first attempt. It has 400 pages, all blank except for one which has a drop of my blood on it from where I stabbed myself with a needle. Fortunately, I only stabbed myself once as I was using five needles at the time. My first five-needle sewing and my first round backed book. Wow, two firsts in one book. It is also B6 in size, I think. And no, that is not a full-sized sake (酒) bottle, it's a smaller one, luckily.

More people feel as if the following six requirements make a 'real' book:

1. Hard cover 2. headbands 3. rounded back 4. content 5. Writing/design/picture on the cover 6. Writing on the spine forcing a right-handed head tilt.

Some people even insist on leather covers but when I ask them when was the last time they bought a leather covered book the answer is somewhere between never and never.

Blank books, coptic binding, book covers made of paper... these don't, to some people, convey the idea of a real book. So, I'm working on including all six of the 'requirements' in my books as possible. And the more requirements I add, the more people compliment my work. Is this because I'm meeting their expectations or I'm actually getting better at bookmaking?

This book also has my first use of marbled endpapers. Not a cheap option, let me tell you, but it fit really nicely with the cover. So it has three firsts in one book. My, what an exciting time it has been.

The second re-write of Calvado: A Deadly Love Story is in progress. I hope to have it up on smashwords.com by the end of January. Calvado is the story of a model/medical student who gets involved with a singer with a mysterious disease. There is love, death, violence, mystery, humor, and medical mnemonics. It is also the first in the Calvado Pentalogy. In each book of the Calvado Pentalogy, Calvado makes an appearance, though she might not always be the center of attraction (which is something she doesn't really want to be anyway.)

Enjoy your winter vacation! See you next time.

Episode 93: More Years

Two books today, both related to living in the material world. First, a B6-sized (41/4" by 6+") schedule book, suitable for pockets and colorful enough not to get lost in a dim theater. This one has two yearly calendars (one for 2013 and the following year), a fifteen-month calendar (from January 2013 to March 2014), and about 100 lined pages for notes and memos of your choice.

Plus it has photos taken around the Kanazawa area, complete with temples, rivers, back alleys, and traffic jams. Localized and unique, if you will.

The second book with the T on the front is really a business card. The T, of course, stands for Tedorigawa. I plan to hand this out to the first real store (bricks and mortar? Probably reinforced concrete and steel) that deigns to accept my wares for sale.  It has 100 lined pages for memos and to-do lists plus it has my Facebook , podbean, and email address on each and every page for handy viewing by the store staff.

Plus it also has photos taken around Kanazawa including a photo of me at the back. For easy reference should I stop by the store. And identification should the police need one. Making these were part of my self-induced self-directed apprenticeship in making more books well more often. I've got the more books more often part down but I'm having trouble with the 'well' part. I hope that comes with more practice. As can be seen on my Facebook, I'm making a book by sewing on cords for the first time. New experience, new learning curve, more frustration, eh? We live, we learn, we evolve.

Episode 92: Dos Dos-a-Dos

After having made my first (primero) double book, I decided to give it another shot; try again, so to speak. The first one came out good so why not, eh? This second (segundo, or in Arabic: ثان) double book is made up of misprints and mistakes from making the previous 2013 schedule books which can be seen below in Episode 90.

The Red Side is made up of ten signatures of five sheets each for 200 pages. It comes with Chinese lettering on the cover and a reddish orange bookmark. And a picture of Cai Lun - inventor of paper circa 105 AD.

The Yellow Side is made up of ten signatures as well for about 200 pages making the combined book a total of 400 pages. It also has a yellow bookmark and random pictures of Kanazawa.

What do we take away from this exploration into bookmaking? First, making dos-a-dos was not as difficult as I first thought. Intimidation was my main stumbling block which, upon reflection, causes many a person to stumble.

Second, these types of books were often used for double novels, especially science fiction, in the past. I think they'd make for easier reading than as a blank journal. They're a bit cumbersome to write in.

All-in-all a good experience that I enjoyed having but I doubt I'll make more unless I have a novel or two to print and sell. (Hint, hint: Tristram'sPrinter and The Venetian Slime Woman - both available at Smashwords.com for reasonable prices: $2.99 and $1.99, respectively.)

See  you next week with two more 2013 Schedule Books!

Coming Soon to Smashwords -  Calvado: A Deadly Love Story