手取川製本 ~ Tedorigawa Bookmakers

Ep. 202: Six Notebooks for You

I had ten days off from ‘real’ work so I spent a lot of time at home doing home things. But once I rambled back to the studio here I started making books. I have six paperback-sized books (A6) that soon will be available to everyone! I hope to make editions of 12 of each book and sell them rapidly, as we all do. The covers will probably include kimono and indentations.

 

They are:

1. Yes! Moat Boat
2. Yes! Moat Banana
3. The Seriously Humorous One
4. The Seriously Humorous Notebook and, of course,
5. Hunting Kanazawa, which has been renamed to Speaking Kanazawa.

The first four will probably cost around $8.00 (or ¥800) each. Three & Four  are graph paper notebooks of 100 pages each with no pictures. One & Two have small pictures on one page of inspiring people.

Yes! Moat Boat has pictures of people related to books such as the inventor of paper (Cai Lun), the inventor of movable type (Bi Sheng), the popularizer of movable type (Gutenberg), and folks like Peter Shoffer, Nicolas Jensen, Aldus Manitius, John Baskerville, and Claude Garamond, who invented the typeface you’re seeing here.

Speaking Kanazawa is a language guide and tourism guide to selected restaurants, coffee shops, and bars in Kanazawa. Very useful if you don’t speak Japanese.

Ep. 201 Writing & Editing. Slowly.

Following my inspiration from Europe, I have experimented with better (?) more creative covers. Things are not going exactly to plan, but that’s the point of experimenting. I’m working on adding designs to the backcloth covers that I currently make. This first picture is of bookcloth on bookcloth in geometric design. 

Following that cover, I made several more smaller covers. Not actually covers but experiments in construction. First, I made the design slightly bigger than the whole I cut in the bookcloth. Then I realized I didn’t have to do that, I could just make the design cloth bigger than the hole. 

Here we have the back of another pair of covers. I’m using leftover bits plus a postcard to a Jun Tada exhibition from last year as endpapers. 

However, once I made the design paper slightly bigger than the hole, but bigger, I realized when I ran a bone folder over the cover, the design paper formed an edge around the hole which wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted the edge to be in the same shape as the hole. If I make the hole square, no problem. If I wanted a letter or number, it is a problem.

I must continue the experiment and continue improving my art ability (if I actually have any art ability, that is.)

Check out my YouTube channel for two new — and mercifully short (about one to three minutes) — videos about these covers and my two jobs at Tedorigawa Bookmakers.

 

Ep. 200 European Inspiration

I jetted off economy to Europe for three weeks and thoroughly enjoyed myself in Vienna and Budapest. I learned a lot about both places, visited museums, attended a concert, ate great food (of course), and talked with people — in English, I might add as I am among the unfortunate who speak neither Hungarian nor German. 

Here is a photo of me standing beside a Gustav Klimt painting titled Blind Man which is found in the Leopold Museum in Vienna. I thought the red of my shirt, the red of the wall, the whiteness of the portrait’s subject’s hair and my beard made for a nice photo and memory of my trip.

Also on plans for soon is a lined & graphic paper paperback-sized (A6) blank notebook with photos of people who are either inspiring and/or have something to do with bookbinding such as the creator of the Garamond typeface (this article is written using Garamond), Claude Garamond; the creator of the Baskerville typeface, John Baskerville, as well as the inventor of paper (Cai Lun) and movable type (Bi Sheng). Hopefully, their faces on your notebook will inspire you.

Another project includes finishing Giapan, my Don Quixote-related novel about two guards, a Japanese artist, and a defrocked nun in 1600s Spain and placing it for sale as an ebook and as a Real Book with interior design by me.

A one-minute video about my European Inspiration can be found on YouTube with the inspiring title of:

European Inspiration

Speaking of which, here is my

YouTube Channel

and my

Facebook page.

 

Ep. 199: Don Quixote and Me!

I have completed two more schedule books. They start in April 2019 and continue until April 2020. They are both Coptic-bound with seven signatures. They include 2019 and 2020 calendars plus 13 monthly calendars/

They are personalized in that the clients sent me photos they wanted included. I have duly included them and now, for a very small fee, they have unique schedule books unavailable to the common person on the street.

However, you, too, can have a personalized schedule book - for a small fee. Just email me at tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com and include the following:

• size: A5 or A6 (pocketbook) The red and black book with the red pen is A5.

• binding: Codex (looks like a real book, like the book with the red pen) or Coptic. The blue book is coptic bound. The advantage of a coptic-bound book is that it can be opened completely. They can be opened 180˚ which makes them very useful for artist’s books or diaries.

For details (in Japanese at the moment), go to For Sale on my website.

You can send up to 10 photos (jpg) and I will include them somewhere in the schedule book for free. Over ten and we need to discuss pricing. 

The second book I finished uses a recycled box. It is also coptic and A5. It has photos but is primarily a blank notebook with graph paper. It is also light weight as the client wanted something they could carry around on long trips without getting tired.

 

Finally, I am writing a novel that takes place in 1600 Spain. A nun is escorted to her home town by two violent bodyguards and accompanied by a young Japanese artist. The novel is loosely based around (not on) Cervantes’ Don Quixote in that some characters in Cervantes’ book show up in my book. Plus, both books are episodic. Now, a poet Cervantes’ knew was Barahona. Barahona wrote romance-style novels and Cervantes called him on of the best writers in Spain (they actually met, I believe.) Naturally, one of the characters in my novel is called Barahona as well. For two reasons: One, Cervantes knew the real Barahona. Two, bara in Japanese means Rose (the flower) and hona is very close to hana, which means Flower in Japanese.

Caraculiambro is a giant in Don Quixote, although he never appears; Don Quixote just tells Sancho Panza about him. He appears in my book which, by the way, is called Giapan. 

 

Ep. 198: One Mistake, Three Schedules.

My one mistake from last week: My short story In A Quiet Little Bar on the Coast is not free on Amazon et al but free on YouTube as an audio short story. You can find it here: Quiet Little Bar. Please enjoy.

Last week I also finished an A6 (pocketbook size) blank notebook that includes Spanish-English-Japanese vocabulary for a Japanese client who is studying Spanish while being fluent in both of the other two languages. The title of the blank notebook is español.

It is one hundred pages. The recto is completely blank while the verso is lined. Or vice versa. Each blank side has a Spanish word and that word is then used in a sentence in Spanish but not in English or Japanese. The client has been instructed that she must translate them or understand them on her own as she learns more and more Spanish. 

Sample Sentence. In Japanese there is a phrase Even a Monkey can Do it. (猿でも出来る). Meaning, of course, not that monkeys are intelligent enough but that the task is simple. Even a monkey can do my job, for example, shows that the person speaking doesn’t think much of his or her job. According to Dr Google, this is translated into Español as: Incluso un mono puede hacerlo. I hope that is close to being correct. 

 

I have also finished one of three schedules for 2019. Fortunately, the two I haven't finished start in April. I want to finish them soon as I won’t have much time in March to work on them. One wants a coptic binding, which I always enjoy making. The other wants a codex, which is sometimes frustrating. However, they both want pictures that they have taken in the interior. A personalized, not-available-in-stores schedule! What could make a finer gift?

 

The Merchant of Venus & Other Stories is available on

Apple Books,

Amazon,

Barnes & Noble,

Scribd, 

Kobo.

Ep. 197: Progress, Schedules, and Don Quixote

I have distributed all of my Hunting Kanazawa language & guide books including giving five to a souvenir shop to give to customers. I hope the souvenir shop likes what they see and the customers enjoy the book, which includes a 2019 & 2020 calendar.

I have also finished and shipped a 2019 schedule book to a client who liked it so much she ordered another one for 2020. Nice. At the same time, another person emailed me and requested an April-to-April 2019 schedule book. Also nice.

That is what I have accomplished in the last week. What I have not accomplished includes not editing my City of Cocks murder-mystery novel which I wanted to upload and sell online. I need/want/desire to get it up as soon as I can. Not accomplishing things also includes not finishing two more April-to-April 2019 schedules and my edition of Don Quixote. This I hope to finish and give away (I don’t own the translation rights and don’t want to rip the translator off; it’s a lot of work translating.

And for you?! Free short stories that I hope you can enjoy. On AppleBooks:

  The Merchant of Venus

and

Monkey, Dick, and I.

The Merchant of Venus & Other Stories on AppleBooks Amazon

 

Ep. 196: Two 2019 Schedule Books

First, a little self-promotion. Check out my two collections of short stories on Apple Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Nook. They are The Merchant of Venus and Other Stories and This Giant Frothy Thing: Love & Terror in Tokyo. Two stories from The Merchant of Venus and Other Stories are available for free. 

Speaking of online sales promotions: I hope this month to have a murder mystery novel up on the usual places. The City of Cocks (think Biblical roosters) takes place in a small coastal Oregon town where everyone knows everyone else. A local citizen is accused of and arrested for a murder. It is up to his wife and her best friend (a drunken poet) to save him. This will, with luck and perseverance, be followed by Feeding Vicki's Corpse, a murder mystery novel of the same people thirty years later. 

What have I “done” this month so far? I have completed a 2019 schedule book with perfect binding. I have received an order for a coptic-bound 2019 schedule book that runs from March to March. I am working on two other 2019 schedule books that also run from March to March. I am InDesigning Don Quixote, a one-off singular novel that I will probably give away. Finally, I am writing, rewriting, editing, procrastinating my first science fiction novel: The Sinking of the Saavedra Maru (which, obviously, has a bit to do with Don Quixote's author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.) Another novel that takes place in the 17th century (Giapan) has Señor Cervantes as a character. And a Quixote character as a character.

 

 

Ep. 195: New Year in Preview

First, let me remind you that I have two collections of Short Stories on Apple Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Nook.

This Giant Frothy Thing: Love & Terror in Tokyo

and

The Merchant of Venus and Other Stories.

Next, I have finished binding all 15 copies of my Hunting Kanazawa A Language & Guide Book. I have given the stores mentioned in the book a free copy with the hint that I’m willing to sell copies to their customers. So far, praise (which I’m happy to get), but no sales as of yet.

Next on my agenda is to design, print out, and bind two 2019 Schedules with the year starting in March. I hope to finish both of them by the end of February. One requires a special cover; one that is both special and especially difficult to make. 

Speaking of covers, I’m looking for a cover designer for my science fiction novel (The Sinking of the Saavedra Maru). Unlike literary fiction, I realize that covers for SciFi novels need to have the required images & tropes. If you have any suggestions or recommendations, please let me know.

 

Ep. 194: New Book of Short Stories

Just too late for your Christmas shopping, I have uploaded a new book of short stories titled: This Giant Frothy Thing Love and Terror in Tokyo. There are two ghosts and a whole lotta love. Minor characters in one story meet their true love in another story, for example. A coincidental meeting during an altercation in a coffee shop land a hairdressing student and a paramedic in love, for another example. And in another story, a kyudo (弓道) bow and arrow apprentice meets a man trapped in an office job whose passion is making and selling  jewelry.

This book is available at all the usual places meaning, of course, Apple Books, Amazon, Nook, and Kobo. For the price of a frappuccino (a giant frothy thing, see what I did there? In each story someone orders or is drinking a giant frothy thing.) you can enjoy love, ghosts, and getting lost in the back streets of Tokyo.

 

In any case, check out the free sample, purchase a copy for your winter holiday reading pleasure, and Have a merry Next Year and a Festive Holiday!

Ep. 193: Hunting Kanazawa - Food & Language

I distributed copies of my Hunting Kanazawa: a guide book and language text to several (okay, six) of the restaurants and coffee shops in the book. First, of course, I measured and cut the endpapers, the book boards and the book cloth. Second, I glued the endpapers to the text block, and glued the book cloth the the book boards. Next, I glued the text block to the covered book boards. Sounds simple enough but it’s amazing how long it can take. I did ten in one day and have six more to finish. Only, so far, one mistake (the day a restaurant is closed.)

The Covers! Five of the covers are regular light blue (looks white in the photo, but it’s not) and dark blue. Both have the opposite colored marker on the front of the book. The marker mimics the title piece on a Japanese-style book: rectangular and vertical. Each Hunting Kanazawa is A6 in size. (148 mm x 105 mm. About 6" x 4" for you USA-centric readers; i.e. about the size of a paperback.) They are approximately 100 pages so suitable for carrying around in your pocket. Also, there are 38 pages available for doodling and scribbling notes to yourself or others.

The Other five covers are ripped from two different kimono. One is a darker and thicker cloth which is fun to hold. A very tactile cloth. The other four kimono covers are silky and thin. I gave all the shops a choice of kimono-clad book or regular book cloth-clad book. I was surprised that most chose the kimono-clad one, because I was told re-using kimono cloth was not something done. Maybe they were talking about expensive kimono, not the ones I can afford to buy.

A mostly positive response from those who have seen and read bits of it (except for the one error. I hope there’s only one.) The language section was praised in that the waiter can point at the Japanese and the non-Japanese customer can read the English equivalent, assuming they can read English and vice versa.

 email: tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com

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