手取川製本 ~ Tedorigawa Bookmakers

Episode 174: Education?

I have set up three books on the computer using InDesign and have printed out two. One more to print and then I have to finish writing another novel titled Feeding Vicki's Corpse. What are the three books I set-up and why do it again?

I set them up again because I have been reading about interior book design: leading, font sizes, margin widths, and content for the headers and footers (mostly the book title, the author's name, and pages). In each article I read I see something that could improve my own books, so I edit what I have to, I hope, improve them.

At the same time, I edit the content. I fix spelling & grammar mistakes, correct mis-used words (their there they're) and improve (again, I hope) plot points, characterizations, banish lazy writing, and try to eliminate clichés. 

 

 

 

The first book is the second book in the Calvado Pentalogy — Calvado: A Deadly Love Story about a man with a deadly disease. It's deadly for the people he likes, not for himself. And he likes Calvado, once he meets and gets to know her. So, of course, he must leave her alone. He is a low-level scam artist and a struggling jazz singer. She, Calvado, the star of the Calvado Pentalogy, is a medical school student and a fashion model. Drug dealers and crazy people are involved.

 

 

 

The second book is the third book in the Calvado Pentalogy — The Priests of Hiroshima: An Historical Love Story. In this story, Calvado is in Istanbul and discovers a unique antiquarian bookstore that deals only in books more than four or five hundred years old. She also discovers a cat with a mysterious power and portals to another time; a time when the modern book was being born and a forbidden love between a priest and a nun.

 

 

 

The third book I set-up is the fifth book in the Calvado Pentalogy — The Venetian Slime Woman: A Biological Love Story. An EPA water quality specialist falls in love with a biological freak, so to speak. The woman is from a small island off the coast of Venice but she is born from slime mold. The CIA — or is it the FBI or Homeland Security or just a rogue agent? — wants to capture her and experiment on her body.

 

 

My next assignment from myself is to produce e-books of the Calvado Pentalogy and sell them on either Smashwords and/or Amazon and/or iBooks. Or all three. Any suggestions?

 

 

Ep. 173: Mistakes

First, I made the cover too small, then I made it too big. Finally, I measured it more carefully and managed to put it together. However, when it was too small, I spent a few days editing it: adding words, spelling other words correctly, erasing whole sentences, and adding scenes and depth. 

Then I decided to case it in anyway. I got some endpapers, glued them up and put them in nicely. Even the square was good; something I often don’t get right. And then... Yes! And then... I discover I put the cover on upside down. Practice practice practice, eh?

YouTube videos up at YouTube at Tedorigawa Bookmakers including, soon, one of this novel The City of Cocks.

Ep. 172: Video? Yes!

I have joined the video online bandwagon and have three or four or five videos up at YouTube. If you cruise on over to YouTube you can see, so far, four videos of me making books - or attempting to make books. If you enjoy them, let me know.

Here is a photo of a blank notebook made from used parts. It is slightly smaller than B6 and has 140 pages, about. It also has graph paper and coptic binding. With a handy strap on the outside to keep important documents safe as you cross international borders. Or keep a pencil in it.

This is apparently the back. I’ve already started to use it and it is indeed, handy. I’m using it to make one of my novels a bit better. I’m taking notes and making corrections plus making a list of main characters and minor characters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a small book the size of a pack of cigarettes. It contains two short stories that I hope to sell to an art company that is using old cigarette vending machines to sell art. Do they accept short stories? I will find out.

 

Ep. 171: Schedules Behind Schedule

Finishing a project is exciting and wonderful. It sways you with a wave of accomplishment and power. Or at least it does me. However, this euphoria is somewhat tempered by the fact that the projects are a tad late. Late. Not extremely late, but, yeah, well, late. In fact, they are so late that I am beginning work on a 2019 Schedule this week; one I hope to finish well before January 2019. I hope.

Both schedule books I finished were delivered to their owners well before March 1st. One was delivered about February 26th and one was delivered February 28th. Well after noon, however. Fortunately, the monthly calendars start not on January 1st but on March 1st. They both go from March 1, 2018 to March 1, 2019. Both also have plenty of space to scribble notes and draw doodles.

The first one, seen in Episode 170, is yellow and made from an old t-shirt.

The latest one – as you can see at left – is blue-on-blue, coptic binding, 160 pages, and is, despite a glaring error, a success. The glaring error is missing a hole in the front cover with the thread. I had to go back and start again. However, with this particular book, I started about four times. Each time the text block was a little off-center so I backed up and tried again.

 

The music is by Maya Filipic from her Stories from Emona. She has some music on Jamendo here: https://www.jamendo.com/artist/340652/maya-filipic

And here is some from YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJSoIxqezOQ

 

Ep. 170: The Good, The Bad, and the Mis-titled.

I wrote a pentaology - five books in a series that aren't actually in a series. They are companions. They share characters and glide nicely between time and place. One is called The Year Without Days. I have called it the Year Without Days for a long time – while thinking of it, while writing it, while editing it, while setting it up on the computer, while casing it in. The Year Without Days. Why, then, did I print The World Without Days on the cover? And a not-so-good cover it is, too.

At least in today's accomplishments I can list a 2018-19 Schedule that came out fairly okay. Rounded corners and lots of weekly pages, monthly calendars, and three yearly calendars (2018, 2019, 2020). I used an old t-shirt for the cover material and backed it with thin shodo (calligraphy) paper. I didn't attach the paper so well and some of it came off, but generally, this was a good book. I give it to the proper owner by mail tomorrow! Only just in time – the schedule starts in March 2018, not January. Lucky me.

Ep. 169: City of (Roosters)

Not my latest novel but one of my latest. The latest is called Feeding Vicki’s Corpse while this one is called City of Cocks. This is why the title is (Roosters) on the download instead of the actual title. Don’t want parents of little ones to get all frantic; however, please think British English and Biblical English as in the cock crowed three times (Mark 14:71). But let’s skip the religious tangent for a moment and rush back to the novel itself.

I’ve read chapter one on this podcast and I should warn you, the last chapter is a variation on the first chapter except with, of course, a happier ending.

City of Cocks is a poetic murder. Which means one character is charged with murder while two others (his wife and his wife’s friend, Max) try to prove his innocence. Max is a well-known, poor, alcoholic poet who has traveled on his poetry to England and India (at least). The novel is about the people in a small town on the Oregon coast who Max meets. He meets drunks, policemen, a legless bartender, and a ghost. It is the ghost that helps Max the most; not with solving the murder — spoiler alert: the murder is never solved! — but with his drinking.

This is the first novel in my Small Oregon Coast Town Trilogy. The other ones are Feeding Vicki's Corpse and Fighting Für Frëibetjer. They are companions, these books. As many of the characters overlap and their backstories in one novel become more prevalent in another. However, they all stand alone, too. Neither Vicki nor Für are completed but almost.

Another three books to finish sewing, casing in, and enjoying!

Ep. 168: Thumbless Hosting Fees

I have sacrificed cash to the gods of hosting and have the ability to return to you fine folks via a podcast. Thanks for standing by whilst I do what I do. Besides which I toasted my thumb while cutting a potato and subsequently had both a nice dinner and four stitches.

I do, however, have many books to bind. I am writing two novels, one of which I hope to finish in November. Novel One is The City of Cocks about roosters & chickens, a murder in a small town, false accusations, an alcoholic witness, and the growth from immaturity to maturity in a 40ish-year-old poet.

The second is Giapan, the fourth book of my Japan pentalogy, which stars a nun, two guards for a tax collector, and a Japanese art appreciator. They travel from South Central Spain to Guadalajara during the time of the Spanish Armada, the author of Don Quixote (Cervantes, who is the tax collector and really was in real life) and their adventures plus development. I don’t think anyone is falling in love with anyone.

More to come! 

Ep. 167: Slip Case Making (Verbal only)

In this episode I attempt to teach you how to make a slip case for your books. There are no pictures to study, only my words. I hope it is successful. If not, please ask a question in the comments and hopefully I will get back to you with an answer. Of sorts.

Or you can slip over to Sage Reynolds’ YouTube channel. Specifically his Slip Case tutorial . He even puts on the inside cover and outside cover.

 

Ep. 166: Scribes & Synopsis

For a book cover artist to make a sufficiently good cover for your book, she has to know what the book is about. For example, many decades ago on another continent, a poet wrote a book of poems about knitting and other household activities. In the poem about knitting she used the words hooks and eyes, meaning the hooks and eyes of a knitting needle. The book cover artist designed a cover with eyes pierced by hooks (as in fishing hooks). Not a good match.

Many book cover artists want to know the genre of the book so they have a general idea about what the cover should look like. A mystery novel will probably have a man in the shadows; a romance will have a well-built barechested man on the cover. Swords and dragons appear on a different genre. In the 50s, a busty woman with a Martian adorned many a science fiction novel.

What kind of cover does a literary book require? Orwell’s 1984. Horror? Mystery? I believe the original cover had merely the author’s name and title. Occasionally an eye would appear. Speaking of eyes.

Here are two covers (with a church setting and minimalist) that I made for my novel The Year Without Days, an as-of-yet unfinished fifth novel in a pentology in Japan about:

• A religious group sets out to cause panic and fear in Tokyo in order to reap the benefits of people seeking assurance from a church,
• Two youngish people who meet and maybe or maybe not fall in love,
• The relationships between the leader of the church, her rich lover, and her followers.

It is not written in chronological order as in a Tom Clancy techno-adventure novel. It skips around between places, time, and people but they all lead to the climax which will be the result of the fake-terrorism plot by the church and whether or not the two youngish people get together.

Also, the youngish woman shows up in another as-of-now unfinished novel in the pentology ~ Botchan’s Bartender ~ as Botchan’s bartender.

Which do you prefer? Let me know in the comments and we can all be happy.

Ep. 165: Genre & Minimalist Covers

Here are two covers of two of my novels which may or may not be good. However, your project here is to determine if you like both, one, or neither and why. The first thing I noticed was the dimensions are not exact. Books need to be taller than they are wide and both appear to be too wide.

Here is something to consider. The purple V on The Year Without Days refers to the book being the fifth book in a pentology. The horizontal purple Roman 1 (one) on Botchan’s Bartender implies that it is the first book in the same pentology.

The little red dot is a reference to the fact that both books are part of my Japan Pentology: five books all some how related to Japan. Either the characters are Japanese (as in Botchan’s Bartender where all the characters are Japanese) or the location is in Japan (such as book two: The Nuns of Nañao. The characters in that book are Russians, mostly, but it takes place in the Soviet Union, the US, and Japan (Yokohama, mostly.)

Then there’s the added Japanese in Botchan’s Bartender which, translated, means The Murder of Botchan, or Botchan’s Murder. There are at least two murders in the novel and perhaps Botchan - a Japanese term now meaning a little spoiled rich kid or a kid who is trying to look grown up - a junior high school kid in a suit, for example. Originally it was from Natsume Soseki’s novel Botchan. 

The point of the red dot from the Japanese flag and the Japanese on some of the novels including Giapan - ジパン is to show that the books are part of that Japan Pentology. Hopefully they might be easier to market. If I could figure out the genre. Later, I’ll give you all a synopsis and you can clue me into to the synposis. Although Botchan’s Bartender is part mystery/detective.

I also see that I need a black border to separate the whiteness of the book cover from the whiteness of the page. Or maybe a darker cover - off-white paper? But the point is to keep it as minimal as possible.

We shall see.