手取川製本 ~ Tedorigawa Bookmakers

Episode 144: The Request!

Here are two covers for the same novel and I hope you can help me choose which one - or neither - you like. 

The story is about a young woman with a past who falls in love with an much older man with a past. The man is a letterpress printer and artist. The woman is a bartender, wife, free-spirit who falls in with an Artist and his agent to learn about Bookbinding, Papermaking, Letterpress Printing. She must learn these things to be knowledgeable about the older man's books. It doesn't help that the young woman looks like the older man's long-dead daughter.

143: The Diary of a Dead Cat Quarterly

The Diary of a Dead Cat Quarterly is sub-titled with Too Much Curiosity for Just Nine Lives so don't get too bothered about the dead cat reference. It is merely to show we should all have Curiosity in our lives. The purpose of the quarterly is to release our inner cat. In other words, be curious about the world like Curious George and explore, learn, wonder at the universe.

As such, each quarterly issue has lots of things connected to other things but with a major theme running through the whole thing. For Example! Take the first issue: Terra Non Est Centra Mundi (The earth is no the center of the universe) which is about heliocentrism vs geocentrism, time, calendars, and includes references to all the scientific greats such as Nicholas of Kura, Copernicus, Galileo and his daughter Virginia.

It also has a section on the Mary Celeste, the ship found mysteriously floundering about off the coast of Portugal back in 186o-something. And Julian Lennon, but that connection is obvious. (?)

It also includes a short story called Giapan. Which takes place in Spain during the Spanish Armada. What's the connection? I don't know but it’s fun to write.

Other issues in The Diary of a Dead Cat Quarterly include:

• Soup

• Sandwich

• Waltz

• Canals

• White Sticks & Blind Dogs

Episode 142: Three Books Online

I uploaded a new cover for an older but fun adventure sci-fi book called The Venetian Slime Woman about a human-like being that comes from slime found only in Venice; the island of Povelgia by name. 

The US government, of course, wants to find out how she evolved, how she never dies, and how she infects others with a hideous wasting disease. Naturally, an EPA water specialist falls in love with her and Adventure Ensues! 

You can find it at smashwords.com. 

Another book I uploaded, this time to iBooks, is Terra Non Est Centra Mundi (Latin for Earth is not the center of the universe). It’s a fun little frolic with digressions into Heliocentric, Geocentric theories and the Calendar. Plus! It has a short story called Giapan interspersed in the science-y stuff. 

Terra Non Est Centra Mundi is part of my Zine called The Diary of A Dead Cat Quarterly (Too Much Curiosity for Just Nine Lives). Small ebooks that cover a topic I’m interested in and the digressions, tangents, side roads, and connections it takes me on. Other topics (already written but not yet online) are Soup, Sandwiches, Waltz, White Sticks & Blind Dogs, The Art of Kanazawa, and Canals.

All are also available from me at tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com as Real Books!^TM Mostly using the Yotsume Toji style of bookbinding.

You can find it at iBooks or by searching for Terra non est centra mundi.

The third book I put together and uploaded to our friends at iBooks was written over 250 years ago: yes, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne. Volume One is up and ready to be read. This will, I hope, be followed by Volumes Two through Nine in short order. I just need to make an epub or iBooks Author version of them. And edit for errors, of course.

Also available as a Real Book!^(TM) from me as well.

You can find it at iBooks, too.

All of these are my efforts at learning more about ebooks, iBooks, online books, and creating neat stuff. Just for you to Enjoy! So please, enjoy.

Episode 141: Shandy! Sterne!

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne was first published in 1760 and the ninth and final volume was published a few months before Sterne’s death in 1767. This, you probably already knew.

For me, it is my attempt to put the novel out in both soft cover and online via iBooks, Smashwords, and maybe the Amazon thing. It is mostly my working through making a long document. And to have it for my novel: Tristram’s Printer — about a woman who falls in love with a printer and he falls in love with her however, is she his dead daughter reincarnated? 

Tristram Shandy is most famous for:

1. The black page
2. Digressions galore. I mean Lots of tangents and ‘side notes’ which can last Chapter after Chapter.
3. Typographical quirkiness. The black page, the noses, the squiggles, the marbled pages in the middle rather than as endpapers, the ten blank pages the printer refused to insert so the page numbers just jump ahead ten pages.
4. Amazingly colorful characters - Toby, Trim, Yorick (of course)

And a long discussion about flies.

Episode 140: Working!

I have been working relatively....Consistently. I have been working mostly — too much — on computer stuff including:

• Putting Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne on computer, in InDesign & iBooks Author readying them (Nine Volumes) for release in iBooks and other epub related venues
• Putting my Calvado Pentology on the same computer programs for the same venues
• Putting Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman on the same for the same.

This is a photoshopped version of Young Walt wearing a shirt with Old Walt on it.

At the Same Time, I made a workbench plus organized my studio for more efficient working time. Although today I did take a 20-minute nap after lunch. Like in Kindergarten. I mean, to refresh and gather my thoughts for the attack on the afternoon work. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

If you have the time and inclination, check out my FaceBook at Facebook.com/tedorigawa. Thanks much. See you soon.

Episode 139: Sales Step #1

What I have been up to these last few months. First, I rented a space that I hope will encourage more production of books. I could call it a studio. And it has encourage more production of books, actually. I have limited time here (before and after other responsibilities) so rather than lounge around thinking, I do. Good fun.

Second, I thought about, designed, computerized, made, and showed a touristy book for tourists to places that might have some tourists. They didn’t think it was terrible and my pricing was spot on, according to them. This was good. 

Third, I have been putting Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy on InDesign so I can print it out and make books. My original intent was to computerize it, make ebooks, sell them on Amazon and iBooks, & etc. And simultaneously make books, too. But then I realized that iBooks has some Very nice editions on sale. As does Amazon, of course. I might put my version up as well, to see if anything comes of all my work. If I do and if anyone purchases my version over, say, Penguin’s version, I’ll probably invest my income in Kiva.

Lastly, I started out to make a book about Canals. Like the ones that used to be on Mars according to Percival Lowell and Edgar Rice Burroughs. But I ended up writing and making a book (Yotsume toji binding, about B6 in size.) about… I’m not sure. Science. Time. The shift from Geocentric thought to Heliocentric thought. Peopled by Kepler, Brahe, Copernicus, Nicholas of Cusa (who?), and Virginia Galilei.

Episode 138: Doko?Kanazawa or どこ金沢

Good afternoon everyone. I have created a tourist book or two for tourists to this fine town and it is titled Doko?Kanazawa which is a shirt-pocket sized lined notebook with 100 pages and... And it has pictures of places most tourists might not see although they are next to the famous places tourists go to see. A bakery, for example, next to a famous shrine. The bakery is good, it is tasty, the food is plentiful but it is small. And to get to it you have to veer left rather than go straight to the famous shrine.
If tourists have my little book, they can find these places, photograph them themselves, and enjoy a little bit more than the usual touristy spots. Maybe someday I'll put a picture or two up. 

Episode 137: More Japanese Stab Bindings. Or Chinese.

Recently I've made a few Japanese stab bindings especially Yotsume Toji (four-hole binding). I made a book about the art of Kanazawa called, appropriately, Kanazawa Arts which includes short short extremely short essays on 

• Kutani-yaki (a colorful style of pottery), 
• Wajima-nuri (a black & white style of lacquerware), 
• Kaga-Yuzen (fabric dyeing), 
• Washi (paper), 
• Wagashi (Japanese-style sweets), 
• Kinpaku (gold-leaf painting), and 
• Matsudaira Sadanobu a politician who may have named Kanazawa's famous garden, Kenrokuen, Kenrokuen. 

The book cried out for Yotsume-toji and got it.

The main difference between Japanese stab bindings and Chinese stab bindings, which are the origins of Japanese stab bindings is the distance between the threads. In Japanese bindings they must be equidistant. In Chinese bindings, not so much. And the language inside the book, of course. 

While at the same time I've been working on coptic bindings for a small line notebook. Coptic binding only needs glue for the cover, if you glue the cover together. Stab bindings only require glue on the corner pieces (if you want them) and the title on the cover. This new job seems to bring out the work in me. I like it.

Episode 136: Handy Yotsume Toji

My hardy computer crashed and I was forced... Forced, mind you... to case in some books. Which I didn't do. However, I did make two yotsume tori (四つ目綴じ) aka Japanese stab binding books of about 20 pages each. Actually, they were the same book slightly different. Both were photos of hands. Hands of artists, engineers, students, and company employees with a bit about each person. The first one was in black and white while the second one had some color added. The first one was also printed on nice, thick paper so the image didn't bleed through to the other side. Just as it should be. The second one, the color-enhanced one, was printed on less than quality paper but it was more for practice than producing a real book. Real?

This is a bit of the book ~ a bookbinder's hand with, of course, a bookbinder's hand holding the book open. It has about 18 other photos of 18 other peoples' hands. Some good shots, some not so good but sufficient. All taken with my handy iPad mini in, usually, the artist's studio. Very interesting artists, too. And engineers. 

The only problem was getting the photos on the page so that the binding didn't overlap on the photos. Successfully arranged. And putting in the corner pieces which were too big but we learn as we go, eh? And getting the photos in the first place. Actually, that wasn't so hard. I just had to meet the artists and ask if I could take their hands. Hmm. They were all happy to oblige.

Episode 135: New Day Job

I left my old day job and started a new day job. The new day job is making books. But before I can make them I had to set up my studio which included making a desk from a door and two sturdy shelves. So far my New day job doesn't make enough cash for me so I have a few part-time jobs to support myself with.

The new day job —the bookbinding job— has begun with putting Tristram Shandy in InDesign for future publication—making a lined notebook for sale to tourists—writing a novel about an Art Lover in Spain. Great times. Busier than before but feel more........ in control. 

Next adventure would be to get into more craft fairs and approach shops that sell things my customers might be interested in. Could be tough. Cold calls and all.