In numbers
I live in a fairly small house, no garden or yard… and I quite like it – it’s reasonably cheap to heat, I don’t have to do any gardening, and in the case of a missile attack I feel we present a fairly small target.
The only problem I have is that we have too much stuff. We ran out of shelf space over a year ago and yet Em’s book habit has continued to thrive. We now have a semi-sculptural solution of stacks of books growing from every surface.
They’ve even taken on added functionality as insulation – our walls are covered in at least six inches deep of paper. But that hasn’t deterred me from turning the only available floor space into a factory of sorts… for producing more books.
After several months of looking at distribution options and printers, I’ve decided to change my mind about The Flowfield Unity book.
For some time I’ve felt that there is something wrong with what I’ve been doing and recently I’ve figured out how to put it right… Most of you know that I started drawing in a resolution to spend more time away from the computer screen, but modern printing means that virtually all of it is done there, on screen, and that’s not how I want to make my comic.
So, for aesthetic reasons I am now hand-making every single book… and don’t expect some shoddy stapled-together affair either, it will be available in hardback and softback, beautifully bound. Or at least that’s the plan… what do you think? Would that make people more inclined to buy a copy, would it mean more to those that did?
The theory is, just as the comic itself is made by hand, so the finished object should be. Each one will be individual, right down to the point where you can request the inclusion (or exclusion) of certain strips.
It has always felt odd sending off pdf files to a printer for them to send the books back to me, like I’m missing a whole step. This way I don’t.
The new book will be for sale only on my site and quality bookstores and so I get to interact with my print customers like I interact with my online readers… That way I can keep all of the great things about the website whilst still creating in print.
…and that’s how I’m going to turn a webcomic that was once a book back into being a book once more.
Philip J Schadenfreude on 
Ahh, book habits. One of the better habits to have, I feel.
Also, that sounds…wonderful. Makes me even more eager to order one, actually. Can’t wait for the shop to go up.
Out of all the possessions we have, the books are the most valuable… I can live without pretty much anything else, but the books have to stay.
Stay tuned, for more books
Holy crap. Making every book by hand? Won’t that be a huge amount of work, or am I completely ignorant to the ways of book making?
I’m torn between wanting one really badly, and not wanting you to die.
Yeah, it will be… I’m not one for doing things the easy way…
But don’t worry, hard work is rarely lethal as far as book making is concerned. Unless you use some toxic glues… and the paper cuts can be pretty vicious, and I suppose one of those stacks could tip and crush me…
i also have a huge and fast-growing book collection. i have the kind of wall shelves that rest in brackets, and my bed is underneath them, and i am terrified that i will be crushed in my sleep by beautiful literature. its a rational fear!
I think that’s how I want to die, sometime in the very distant future.
Thanks.
That’s very ambitious of you - and it sounds like a helluvalot of fun.
It should be fun… after all, what’s the point in doing this if it isn’t?
… nearly forgot… the point of doing this isn’t fun, it’s world domination, but we can have a break for a bit of fun once in a while.
Adam, I will try to say this as gently as possible, but you are completely insane. The hand-binding of books is- dare I say it- a gorey proposition. That said, if you really want to do it then by all means go ahead. I’m sure the finished books will be wonderful.
I just remember back when AT was a print comic, and all the hateful Saturdays spent copying, folding and stapling.
Here’s a question- how will hand binding drive up the price of the finished book? You asked whether or not hand binding would make us more likely to want one- I expect that there’s a trade off between “hand made objet d’art/high price” and “mass produced/low price” in terms of how many people will buy it. There must be a minimax point in there, somewhere- maybe at the point where the interior pages are machine-produced but you stitch on a cover yourself.
“but you are completely insane”
I know… but in a good way, right?.. right?
The truth is, I’ve spent the last 5 years of my life dealing with printers, publishers and outlets and distributors, and whilst it is a good way to get a professionally finished product out there, it has also lost some of its appeal for me…
…firstly, the distributors have really put the squeeze on (oddly in retaliation to what they see as free content provided by webcomics), negating much of the gains made by reduced printing costs.
And speaking to a few store owners, the majority of their self-published comics are now coming through POD channels. There was a time that my book stood out due to that same fact, and now it would be just adequately camouflaged.
So, by my calculations, the hand-made version shouldn’t be too much more expensive. The shipping costs I pay (both ways - from the printer and to the distributor) will be reduced greatly… and the bulk discount offered by many printers will be replaced with a bulk discount on materials.
I haven’t in real terms reduced my costs however, just swapped them from monetary to temporal… I’m not just spending time doing this, I’m cashing it in.
If you want to talk actual numbers though, the price of the soft back should be minimally more expensive than it was, by a few dollars, the hardback maybe another $5 more… (I’m having to convert sterling to dollars for the sake of universal numbers) though as the product can vary greatly at request, I should be able to make books for all prices.
I think the interior pages will be printed via some sort of device, as opposed to any form of block or screen printing… I think there’s a limit to the variability I can tolerate and that will be in the reproduction of my comics. However, the folding stitching and gluing will have to be done by hand.
And I know it’s going to be hard work, but it’s another skill I get to master (strong word, ‘attempt’ would be better for now) whilst creating a form of art rather than a product – I mean my comics aren’t like yours… you draw proper comic art that really suits the format, I can see AT looking mint in a perfect, bound volume, whereas I always felt that my comic looked a little like a tramp in an expensive suit.
Of course insane in a good way. Sometimes it takes a bit of insanity to make good comics.
Last night Eunsuk and I were watching The Muppet Show on DVD. A skit came on featuring Koozebanian creatures playing each other as musical instruments. I said “Jim Henson was crazy”, to which Eunsuk replied “You say that with such reverence”.
Sign me up to the list of people who will be ordering a book when they’re ready. Thanks for the compliment; hopefully we’ll see how mint AT looks soon.
Yay! Sign me up for one!
To Mrs. Em: I have the same trouble. It’s been partially solved by the addition of a Sony PRS-505 to my bookshelf, but not quite. I still by used pBooks if they’re cheaper than buying the eBook (though, to be fair, I actually haven’t bought any eBooks yet — I’ve been able to find enough free content to keep be happily reading till kingdom come!).
Joseph (and Adam) - I’ve recently gotten into book binding as a hobby; I’ve only made two so far, the second a great improvement over the first. I think with the proper equipment, it could go fairly quickly, making several in parallel. So long as Adam doesn’t decide to hand draw every comic in the book, again. I do wonder about the printing: screen-printed, perhaps? Wood-blocks carved of each strip? Lithographs!
Incoming barage of questions…
…
You’ve bound your own books?
How did it go?
Do you have any pictures?
What type are they?
What method did you use?
Can the letter ‘y’ really be considered as a vowel?
…
I’m planning on a small production ‘line’, that is, I should be able to make a few in each batch. I won’t be hand-drawing them though, or at least if I did most people wouldn’t be able to afford it. No, I’ll be going for a more mechanical printing method, but assembly and design will be by hand. I might draw or write in each one a little bit though.
I would love to use some sort of litho-process, but that’s some way off… for now…
Ack! I’m short on time, so I’ll be brief:
I have, but just two, with blank paper, as sketch books. They were hard covers, but with a softer board in the cover. I think in the future I might go for a thin piece of actual wood in the covers, and leather/pleather binding — I used a heavy upholstery fabric I had on hand, and it didn’t take the glue very well. Unfortunately, I’ve not got any pictures, and I gave away the second one, which was by far the better attempt. I’ve been meaning to make a third one, and just haven’t gotten to it yet. When I do, I’ll take pictures and send them your way.
As for method, I stitched each sheaf loosely, with a ribbon of linen running perpendicular to the spine, then clamped all the sheafs together (using big binder clips actually… it was a bit of an improvised process) and tightened the stitching. Next PVA along the spine and ribbons and a piece of thin linen applied to that. that sits upright overnight to dry, and the cover is assembled, just gluing the three pieced of cardboard to the cloth. In the morning I PVAed the leaves with thier ‘wings of fabric to the cover, just gluing the winds, leaving the spine of the cover and the spine of the books free, of course. Last came gluing the front and back inside covers, made of heavy paper, to cover up the wings, and make it pretty. Once it was dry, it was great.
Problems I had were that the cardboard I was using absorbed a lot of the water from the PVA and warped a bit, the cloth I was covering with changed colour where it was glued (!), and I ought to have cut my ribbons shorter, in hind sight. they bunged a bit under the front and back cover-papers, but I don’t think that’d be a trouble, if they weren’t the whole length of the cover. Say a centimeter would be a better stick-out distance.
As for ‘Y’, I point you to the word ‘GYPSY’ and ask that you make your own conclusions.
Wood block is on my list of things to get into one of these days. When we’re both older, we ought to open up an old-fashion book-shop, printing comics by litho and wood-block, and hand binding on parchment. We can keep a small herd of sheep for that.
I wish you Godspeed and good luck with your books! And I hope the process is enjoyable. Do you think that this sort of effort will make it so that you can live off your comic? Because that’d be bitchin’ cool!
Dear Roo
I wish I could read books in a non-paper format, but it just isn’t me. I love the physical object itself, they look so beautiful lined up as far as the eye can see. Also, as you may know, I’m not really one for the olde interweb thing and I only really log on to see how Adam is doing.
As for Adam being mad, I agree to some extent, but from the practice books I’ve seen, they are going to look amazing. It is also quite amusing for me to see him in the evenings with his needle and thread in hand, a far cry from the days he played rugby.
And since when is ‘y’ a vowel?
I realize that my reply to Adam was less than brief… I found more time.
I know exactly what you mean… that’s the reason that I’ll never be rid of my habit either, despite the Reader.
On the bright side, the eInk thing saves my poor eyes from reading books on the computer screen that you can only get on the web. Line Accelerando by Stross: Great book, only ever e-published.
It must be an amusing sight. I did mine mostly sitting in the local coffee shop. I’d imagine that’d not fly for larger scale production.
I refer you, also, to GYPSY.
What a fabulous idea. I will definitely buy one when they are ready.
And thanks for informing me that I live in a Mersenne-numbered house. I never knew. Now I can bore my friends with my bragging.
Geek!
You can only be beaten by someone that can express their number as part of a Fibbonacci series.
I had a friend that lived in number 1123, apartment 5, a while back. I was always a little jealous.
We are all searching for identity.
I think I’ll change my house number
to M5 (is that legal?), otherwise
people might associate me with
being an odd number. which is
probably more acceptable than
being binomial. O’ Wicked world.
I am all the deforestation of the planet so that I can own a hand bound hard cover copy of your book:)
What are the prices you are expecting to retail for?
Can I have my copy/ies with each comic followed by the blog on the opposite page, with a few choice quotes from the comments (assuming space)
Can there be glossy pages that have stills from your animation on them?
Put me down for the entire TFFU collection in print.
Can my copy be signed, hand delivered?
As a suggestion to lower your production costs, can I suggest child labour?
They are cheap to buy, free to make your own and if you don’t teach them to speak, they won’t whinge. /tic
I’m not entirely sure what the prices are going to be until I’ve figured out what paper etc. I’m going to use, plus, I’ll be able to offer a variety of prices depending on what people want…
…that said, I’m aiming for about $6 for a softback, a little bit more for the hardback version.
We can have glossy stills, no problem.
I will be using some of the blog stuff…
I’ll sign if asked, and as for hand delivered… a friend of mine just moved out your way, and he’ll be doing a bit of travelling back and forth later in the year. I think he could hand deliver one. Me however, not likely. I’m not a big fan of long haul flights.
I also find children to be generally lacking in the production area. They’re always going on about their rights and somesuch.
They seem very cheap.
I am guessing that is in US$, not HK$?
When you say out my way, where roughly?
Sounds like you have a plan, I keenly await further news!
Well, they’ll be subject to costs, but I’m looking at the materials and I think I can do pretty well with the price… we’ll see.
Yeah, US$… I’d like to list prices in sterling, but that often gets complained at… I might start converting everything to HK$ for fun though.
…Originally in Sydney, but heading north in a month or so.
I always have a plan… just rarely a good one.
Sydney is a good 2000km south of here.
How far north is he coming? Tho, saying that, weekend before last, I drove about 1350km just meet a person I had never met before.
It was worth it in the end 0_^.
I think you should use a more turbelant /sic currency.
A plan is a plan, unless ofcourse it is a badger.
I bought a biochemistry article in yen the other day. There’s something about thousands of yen for something you can just photocopy at a library…. it’s about the equivalent feeling of seeing prices in thousands of cents, or pence. FFU book, on sale for 6000¢!
The point of all that being, I’m all for the listing in unusual currency.
Besides, in a couple more decades we’ll all be using Euros anyway. Once the US joins the EU, it’ll all be over. (I’m only partly sarcastic here: I went into a shop here Saturday that accepted Euros.)
It’s a bit like the child-adult exchange rate.
In the UK, you can say, ‘I’ll swap you that £2 coin for 100 pennies’, children see the value in number, not worth and so it’s an easy way to make money.
I wonder what the most obscure and amusing currency is? If I can find out, I’ll list the prices in that also.
Sadly it is difficult to insulate when you have no shelves or hangers or anything. So everything I own is on the floor somewhere.
I’m pissed off at myself on alternate days for my own book and film habit. It makes moving 3,000 miles a lot more difficult, since books are quite heavy and expensive to post. Not to mention the three antiques I have, all of them rather heavy and only one of them at all useful for moving.
I want to live at an address that is divisible by 3, 9 and 27. 27, I think would be my very favourite address at which to live. Barring that, 33 (which has little to do with my obsession with the number 3, actually).
You know what, Id buy a handmade book. I hope it doesnt become something extremely hard to do… it sounds like it could be tough making possibly hundreds of those books.