I have no idea what I want to do with my life, but until I figure that out at least I have a book titled Creative Bookbinding, by Pauline Johnson. I stumbled across this in a Barnes and Noble two summers ago, and the little wheels in my brain went "snick snick snick...whirrr?". Yes, mechanical analogies of my cranial matter can absolutely express a dizzying but wonderful uncertainty.
This is a leatherbound edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and someday, I want to do THAT.
Between my involvement in the GV Writers' Club publication and my bent for crafts, bookbinding just seemed like the perfect idea, so I started my first project. I don't exactly recall what prompted my choice of poetry compiled from The Lord of the Rings, except that I was re-reading the trilogy at the time, so, duh.
There is a lot of poetry in The Lord of the Rings; I wound up with about 70 pages of text, which I formatted using the inestimable Adobe InDesign. Finally, after a trip to the school copy center, I had a lovely set of pages printed and trimmed to size. I folded them into five signatures, where each signature is a set of four sheets folded down the center and nested together.
I won't get into the mechanical details of binding the signatures and adding the covers, at least not just now. Assume it was magic. Poof! Two years later, my little book is complete! Why the hangup? The spine needs a special glue, and I couldn't find it online and/or was leery of buying hide glue. For two years. Yeah. The actual book took me maybe a week of work. But here it is! (Click for higher resolution.)
Placing it on top of Houghton Mifflin's 50th anniversary edition makes my little book look better by association.
This book was a prototype, a see-if-I-can project expecting more to follow if it works out. It did work out. So, what next? Here are my thoughts:
- A journal for Brian. We saw a giant, black, leatherbound tome of a journal at a shop in Rome (yep, Rome). He wanted it; I said I could make him one. I will, and in time for his birthday on May 28.
- Re-bindings of old trade paperbacks. Who wants a custom binding for their favorite childhood sci-fi/fantasy story? This girl, for one. I've been cautioned that the pages on such a book are typically fragile; however, I think I know how to do this in such a way as not to disturb them too badly.
- A special run of past Running Out of Ink editions. Last winter, the Writers' Club hand-bound a portion of the copies of our publication using a fairly elementary paperback technique. I still have some of the unused page stacks, and I have a lot of the old pdf files. This would be a good practice project.
- Journals in general. I know, it's kinda lame, but why not. I could sell them. This gives me room to have fun with quirky ideas like a duct-tape cover.
- Personalized editions of classics. Yes, of course I want my own unique copy of the Iliad. Duh. Inspiration drawn from the Folio Society, who do this on a mind-bogglingly gorgeous professional level; I have copies of their editions of Jason and the Argonauts, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Theirs is the standard to which I aspire.
Incidentally, I got a gold-leafing kit for the monogram detail on the cover, so now I may go off on a crazed gold-leafing tangent.
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