手取川製本 ~ Tedorigawa Bookmakers

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.

Episode 134: San Francisco Bound...

I will be at the San Francisco Center for the Book this August taking a one-week class in making four different kinds of books: coptic, flat-back case, limp paper, and rounded back cloth bindings. I'm looking forward to both the workshop and being in San Francisco. A great excursion for this year.

Here is How to Make this Book, an 18-page B6-sized pamphlet using the Hemp Leaf Binding. If you go to Episode 133 you can read a tutorial on this binding. The book is a combination history lesson about the empresses of Japan; there have been only eight. However, two of the empresses (Suiko and Koken/Shotoku) were instrumental in developing printing, book making, and writing in Japan.

Suiko sent the people to China who brought back the writing system Japan still uses. Koken/Shotoku (the same woman was empress twice so she had two names) encouraged the arts including printing. She imported woodblock printing from Korea so that she could make 1,000,000 copies of a Buddhist mantra. It was the first use of woodblock printing in Japan.


Between the two, printing and writing flourished and with that flourishment (?) came the need to bind the pages together. From that need came what is known as Japanese binding or watoji (和綴じ). Among the more popular watoji are the hemp leaf, the turtle shell, the noble, and the four-hole bindings. Here you can see the pictures that go with the tutorial. Or go down to Episode 133 and see them there, too. Fun, eh?

Episode 133: Hemp Leaf Binding Tutorial



As I learn about the Hemp Leaf Binding I decided to write up a quick tutorial. Here it is.

First, you’ll need some paper for the pages. The size is your choice but it should be thin. Hemp leaf binding ~ most Japanese bindings, in fact ~ favor thin pages and thin covers. Craft paper makes for a good cover as it is thick enough to be a cover yet thin enough to work properly. Then, get a scrap piece of paper the same height as your cover. On this scrap piece of paper we are going to mark the holes for stabbing.

There will be seven holes. There will be two rows: one row will have four holes labelled 1A ~ 4A.; The other row will have three holes with clever names like 1B, 2B, and 3B. The row with four holes should be about 10 mm (a bit less than half an inch) from the edge. The row with three holes should be about 5 mm (half the distance from the edge to the row with four holes) from the edge. The distance between the holes should be the same.





Let's start at the very beginning, which I'm told is a very nice place to start. The beginning is the hard part.

Here’s the short version:

Start at 2A. Wrap the thread around the edge at 2A
Go to 2B, wrap the thread around the edge (wrap)
Go back to 2A. From 2A front, go to 3A.
From the back of 3A, go to 2B.
From 2B go to 3A again and wrap the thread around the edge.
Go to 3B and wrap the thread.
Go to 3A. From the back, go to 4A.
From 4A go to 3B.
From the back of 3B go to 4A and wrap the thread around both edges.
Go to 3A. From the back of 3A, go to 2A.
From 2A go to 1B and wrap it.
Go to 2A. From 2A go to 1A and wrap it around the edge.
Go to 1B, then back to 1A, wrap it around the other edge. Go to 2A.
Tie it off at 2A.

Here’s the slightly more intimate version:

Start in the middle of your pages at 2A.

Go to the front of 2A, then wrap the thread around the edge, ending up back at the front at 2A.

Go to 2B and wrap the thread around the edge, ending up at the back of 2B.


From the back of 2B, go to 2A. From the front of 2A, go to 3A. From the back of 3A, go to 2B.


From 2B, go to 3A and wrap the thread around the edge.

Go to 3B and wrap the thread around the edge.

Go to 3A and from the back of 3A, go to 4A.

From 4A go to 3B. From the back of 3B, go to 4A


At 4A, wrap the thread around both edges.

From the front of 4A go to 3A.

From the back of 3A go to 2A.

From the front of 2A go to 1B. Wrap the thread around the edge.

From the back of 1B go to 2A.

From the front of 2A go to 1A and wrap the thread around one edge.


Go to 1B. From the front of 1B, go to 1A and wrap the thread round the other edge.

From 1A, go to 2A. Somehow find the end of the thread that’s in the middle and tie it off.


This should end up looking something like this. Hopefully, you'll be able to follow my instructions. If not, well, tell me about it.

But most of all, enjoy trying your hand at this binding, if you don't already know it.

Thanks for dropping by.