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In-between the three dozen other things I’ve been trying to do this week, I’ve been doodling with an ink pen then painting over it with a water-brush, something I’d seen online somewhere and wondered about trying.

To me, painting is to doodling what poetry is to writing — a refined skill I’ve never mastered — but I actually found this quite fun and expressive.

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Two weekends ago, I went down to Edinburgh to attend the Scottish Poetry Library‘s annual small press fair, By Leaves We Live.

For years I went to this event as an observer, looking around at the tables of poetry chapbooks, small press publications, and one-of-a-kind hand-crafted books, and I’d think, “I should be in this!”

Of course, as with so many things, it’s not that I wasn’t welcome, it’s that I wasn’t invited — a subtle and important distinction. The organisers simply didn’t know about me. So in advance of last year’s event I let them know, and was welcomed to participate.

I had a blast, and I gave a talk about DIY publishing to an overflowing roomful of people who seemed to get something out of it.

When an invitation for the event came around this year, I made sure I would be part of it. I bound all sorts of new books — better than last year’s, because I’d had another year of learning, experimentation, and refinement under my belt. And I decided to make my talk much more focused: rather than try again to cover everything to do with indie publishing, I chose one aspect: “How to Make a Paperback Book”.

The challenge this year was that I’ve moved so far from Edinburgh. So I packed my books into an old suitcase and I took the train south.

Happily, despite the weight of my case, the journey was straightforward and easy. Unlike airports, the train station didn’t require me to take off clothes, empty my pockets, or wait in long queues; I just sat in my seat on one train then the other, read, worked, and enjoyed the scenery. So civilised! And it proved that getting back Edinburgh is not a big deal.

The book fair was a thrill. The staff at the Poetry Library are a passionate, committed, helpful, and fun group of people, and I was in heaven getting to talk to so many people who understood and were excited about what I’m doing, many of whom wanted to do something like it themselves. (More on this in a moment.)

I also sold nearly three times what I did last year, so I figured I should consider what might have contributed to this result.

Vivisecting my shop.
Here’s what the whole table looked like (click to see a larger version).

It starts with a wooden display — a friend’s unwanted Ikea dresser drawer insert — and spreads out from there.

1. Little books. I made one of these last year and people went mad for it, so this year I made a handful. Unfortunately, someone early in the day wanted to buy them all! I asked to keep one to show.
2. Novels to flip through. I figured that if one copy of each novel was loose on the table, people would be more inclined to pick them up and browse through them. I was right.
3. Impulse items. I had lots of neat, little, inexpensive things on the table that people could buy without a second thought — like magnetic bookmarks and wallets made from a single sheet of waterproof paper printed with a map. Those little sales add up over the span of a day, and are a great way to engage with lots of people and leave them with a little morsel of what you do.
4. Business cards. Sometimes people liked the idea of what I was doing but were non-committal about buying anything. Nae bother: they could take a business card. Who knows?
5. Changeable price-tags. I made tiny clothes-peg-and-chalkboard price tags to clip to the different sections of my display. I’d read that it’s better to let people see the price clearly rather than making them ask, and this did seem to work well. Plus I could change them throughout the day as I felt out what the crowd was willing to pay.
6. Blank books. I love making these, and figure they’re less subjective than deciding to buy a novel or not. “Fill this with you” is sometimes easier to take than “This is full of me“. The little books sold well, as did some fun softcover notebooks made with cardboard packaging covers, which were a last-minute addition and very easy to make. The larger books, however, didn’t sell. (More on that below.)
7. DIY Book Press: My talk was about making a paperback book, and — whaddya know? — I happened to be selling perfect-binding presses. I’d also provided instructions, which I think helped make people feel like they stood a better chance of using it successfully when they got home. Talking about the projects people wanted to finish with these led to some of my most exciting conversations of the day.
8. DIY guides. Some time ago, I’d made a Quick-n-Dirty Bookbinding Guide (downloadable from my Links page). I’d printed a number of them for a course I didn’t end up teaching, so it occurred to me to sell them here. I displayed them with a little hardcover book — exactly the sort of thing one could make using this guide — and they sold out.
9. Float & receipts. For weeks, I saved all my coins and £5 notes, so come the day I was ready to make change. Good thing, too, because everyone came armed with £20 bills! I also had a book of home-made receipts, which let me keep track of what I sold, and in one case allowed me to sell an order for a book rather than my last copy. Now I just have to add all these to my tax database! “But couldn’t you just take the money without claiming it?” Yeah, I could, but this justifies the endless amount of paper and bookbinding tools I claim! (Oh yeah, and I had a coffee to kick-start my day, but, of course, travel-coffee always ends up being more of a mess than it’s worth.)
10. Price/description cards. In addition to giving people examples of things to play with, I also printed up little display cards with a description and price on them. That helped when I was already engaged in a conversation with someone else, and again lowered the “approach pressure” of the display. (There’s a forcefield bubble of social pressure around a table manned by the person who created the stuff, isn’t there?)
11. Free podcast information. The DIY Book podcast is the best resource I have on offer for people who want to learn how to do what I’m doing. I was going to make up little cards with the podcast’s information, but then it occurred to me that, no, I should give out my business card, since the original point of the thing was to raise my public profile and sell more books by being helpful.

What worked:

• Standing up. People wanted to talk about the things on my table, and when I stood it became a conversation rather than a transaction. I could explain how things worked or what a book was about, and that seem to make people feel more engaged with what I was offering, and inclined to buy it.
• Doing a tie-in. My talk was about making a paperback book, and I happened to be selling perfect-binding presses. But I also had instructions for making them and talked about other ways to do the same thing, so I felt like it was genuine information, not just a sales pitch.
• Conversations. I had lots of great chats throughout the day with browsers and with the other vendors, too. It’s pretty neat to hear yourself described as “The MacGyver of book publishing” or your process as “the future of publishing”.
• Leave-behinds. At my talk, I gave handouts that listed the free and commercial imposition software that’s available, since this is a vital part of being able to make a paperback book. So rather than making the attendees take notes, I gave them the name, price, and URL for these products… on a little slip of paper with my logo and URL on them, of course, so people could ask questions or look into my work after the talk.

What didn’t work (or was difficult):

1. Running out. Oops! I didn’t have many copies of my second and third novels, which sold more copies than last year. I also ran out of the guidebooks, which were new, so I didn’t know how many to have. “More”, apparently.
2. Pricing one-off items. I didn’t have prices for everything on the table. Some of the things were just experiments, or I really didn’t know what to charge. But I should have done that work if I was going to show them.
3. Pricing handmade goods like commodities. I also didn’t know what to charge for my blank hardcover journals. Each of them involves more work than I could justify charging for, and there are equivalent things widely available for a low price. Of course, those aren’t hand-made, and several people told me I should charge a lot more, since they’re unique “artist’s books” rather than just store-bought notebooks. The thing is, even at the lower price they didn’t sell. I don’t understand why, because they’re what I sold the most of last year, and this year’s books are tidier and of better quality. People oohed and ahhed, and the little journals sold, but not the full-size ones, and I erred on the side of pricing them cheap, which wasn’t really fair to me, but my decision on the day was to try to sell everything so I could make more! Perhaps it’s because they were in the middle of the box and harder to get to. I know I’m disinclined to riffle through people’s displays. Also, for much of the day the expensive ones were at the front; I switched that around, though the more expensive ones are more of a draw because they’re nicer to look at. I’m not sure about how this should be done better.

The upshot?

I declare that the day was a success — not because of the money, but because I had a chance to connect with my ‘tribe’, people who are into this thing I’m passionate about.

I loved having specific conversations about the books they could make or the groups they could do this with — like the education officer who works with teachers who lead poetry classes for children. She was all lit up about the possibility of the kids finishing their poetry class with a bound book of their work, which would be too prohibitively expensive to produce commercially, but would be easy to put out in a DIY Book form. And this would add another dimension to what they’ve learned, letting them know they can not only write poetry, they can publish it, too.

If there was a single thing that distinguished my display from the other tables — if I’m allowed to say this — it would be that they were selling a finished product, but I was selling a possibility (“You can make books”), along with products that are an expression of that possibility. It’s much more open-ended, less of an ask than an offering.

Of course, not everyone will be interested in doing that, which is fine. But it worked for me, and I like being the guy who says, “You can do it. Nothing is stopping you.”

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Introducing the third part of the DIY Book Process: The Book-to-Reader Process.

Yesterday I was doing a brainstorming session about how to revolutionise my marketing approach (like, to get one), and a big cartoon star of inspiration fell on my head:

“Don’t become a good marketer. Be a good author. Instead of learning to be good at the Internet, write your books and stories. Make those as good as they can be, and trust that this will be enough, even if it takes time.”

(Now if my 900 Twitter followers would just buy a bloody book”¦)

Meanwhile, I have a real-life event to attend this weekend: I’m packing up a suitcase full of books I’ve made and going to The Scottish Poetry Library’s annual artists’ books and small press fair, By Leaves We Live. I’ll have a table there all day, and at 2:30PM will be giving a talk called “How to Make a Paperback”.

It’ll be weird being in Edinburgh as a visitor!

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Before I even brushed my teeth this morning, I made this book. It was difficult (thick waxed linen thread, little holes, frail cardboard), it’s a bit of a mess, and it doesn’t really work as a book, but I still think it’s neat, and it taught me how to do a new kind of binding.

(Even though it’s a lot simpler than the kind of binding I normally do, and is the sort most people start out with, I’d never done it before.)

I’m in high-gear ’cause Craig’s away this week (I can work in my studio constantly without feeling guilty), and I’ve got a book fair at the end of the month. I want all sorts of new and cool things to show there.

And I’m about to start writing another novel, so last night I made a project book for it:

I also find that my brain, which has been hungering for input and ideas the last several months, like a locomotive trying to OD on coal, is starting to turn inward and be less inclined to start anything new that will take away my time.

There’s a book on my night-shelf, though, that I’m wavering over: Its descriptions are beautifully evocative, but each story seems to end up being about a couple who have slowly grown to loathe each other. I get very, very bored of this as a literary theme. This is only “realism” if you have a really crappy worldview.

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There are so many social media outlets for self-expression these days that it’s difficult to know whether one needs to keep each of them updated with all the same news at the same time. I’m forever flip-flopping about whether my personal life belongs on this blog, but I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention here that I’ve proposed to my beloved!

The details are all falling together, and the gist is that it’s going to be a small wedding in Prince Edward Island at Christmas, then we’re going to do something in Scotland with his family.

We’ve booked a space, I’ve ordered a kilt, and we’ve booked the flights, so it’s happening, and I couldn’t be happier.

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I’m in Toronto and having a great, relaxed time. I’m eating in great local restaurants, seeing big dumb summer movies with friends (cinemas! we don’t have those in Wick), and being totally, utterly, absolutely in love with the people I work with.

It’s great to work directly with the team members at my client’s office, and to quickly turn around jobs by collaborating right there and then in the moment. I like and respect these people so much, and am grateful for the blessing of having this work and these relationships.

I will not be sliding down any inflatable escape-chutes any time soon.

The only thing missing is my darling. It’s an ache being apart from him, but I know that space and time apart are healthy.

Last night I wrote this to him, which sums up how I’m feeling:

Even though I’m far away from you, my heart is light because of you, brimming with joy. I feel enormous, easy love for the friends I see, and instead of wary urban suspicion, I regard the people on the street with affection for their humanity.

I see handsome people on bikes or walking past and simply smile like I would at a funny advert. I remember all the hot chases, conquests, and losses, and I simply feel free from the strivingness of all that. And from the sadness; joyfully free from the heavy-hearted, sooty-veined sadness. I am not saved, but I am delivered.

Thank you. I miss you. I love you.

Location:Markham St,Toronto,Canada

When I was little, my father was a parole officer; he taught me how to live in the freedom of adult life.

When I was little, my mother was a secretary; she taught me how to get the details right.

When my folks were here, Dad bought me a hacksaw.

It’s a corollary of that rule that you never mention liking something when you’re visiting your parents, or they’ll end up giving it to you; when they visit, they buy you things they think you need.

At the time I thought, “What the heck would I need a hacksaw for?” Now I know, and I’m grateful I had it, because over the past two days I’ve been able to make my own perfect-binding press.

I’ve owned two other presses, both of which were good in their own right, but each had little quirks that made me have to work differently to the way I wanted to.

The other morning, while the fella and I were at a youth hostel in Tongue (yeah, it’s a place called “Tongue” — Tonga in Gaelic, if that’s less silly), I woke up with the plans for a press in my mind. It hadn’t ever occurred to me before to make my own, but in that moment it made absolute sense that everything about my process should be DIY.

The other thought was that I could offer these to “DIY Book” listeners, and it would be considerably cheaper than the other two presses in both price and shipping charges. Figuring out this one and cutting all the bits with the hacksaw and a Dremel tool was a lot of work, so I’m not sure if that’s a viable plan. Maybe I can get better and faster at doing it, or maybe I should outsource it to someone who’s a good woodworker.

At any rate, I’m really pleased with the end result. It’s a little bit cute, it’s a little bit ugly, and it’s exactly what I want!

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My fan and internet friend Danny Bloom sent me a link to an interview he did about his latest passion: the difference between on-screen reading and reading from books.

Someone who works in technology wrote him and said he was fighting a losing battle, that paper is dead (though Danny isn’t saying we shouldn’t read on-screen, he’s just calling for someone, somewhere to give a proper scientific look and see if this affects our brains differently and whether we’re okay with this shift in cognition). Here’s what I wrote to Danny:

My partner watched An Inconvenient Truth last night. In it, Gore quotes someone as saying something along the lines of “It’s difficult to get a man to see sense when his income depends on him not seeing it.”

I’ve got a stack of e-books in my valise, printed out as real books, because I read real books differently — as more valuable, notable, lasting, and memorable than electronic information. Not to mention all those other factors like being able to feel your progress through the work and know how much is remaining, and it being so much easier on the eyes, and doing different things in the brain as you said in the article.

Sometimes I do feel a pang of guilt when I realise that the paper I’m using — even the recycled paper — had to come from somewhere, and putting the trimmings in the recycling doesn’t mean they magically turn into new paper with zero energy cost… But still… Books are nice. As that other article sent me said so beautifully, books are a perfect technology. Computer devices are still far from perfect.

I finished making these two books last night. What piece of electronic gear — even the iPad — will ever feel the same as opening a fresh new book? The iPad is a space already filled with demands, tentacles pulling you away to other people’s ideas and commercial intentions for you, whereas a blank book is your own, private, infinite imaginal space.

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The last few days, I’ve been finding that the constant twitch-muscle-type effect of constant information flow is making my brain feel restless, worried, and unable to focus on all the things I’m excited about working on.

This morning, the fella’s alarm went off, making its loveable sound like someone pressing a Dremel tool to my ear, and my brain was off to the races. Rather than rolling over and checking who said what on Twitter or whether I had any e-mails, I started thinking about a last-minute webinar invitation I had to write for my client today. All kinds of ideas tumbled out like a box of Slinkies down the stairs, and I had to get up.

So here it is, 9:23AM, and I’ve already done my work for the day. There’s more — there’s always more — but that was the piece I had to write. And there’s a boatload of other things I want to work on, learn, or read, so I’m tempted to keep ‘net access off today.

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Oh, the baby gulls who live on the chimney across the street can fly! I was wondering if they could yet, because they’re not little grey fluffballs anymore; they’re full-sized gulls, just mottled and mud-puddle coloured.

I also wondered if once they’d flown the nest if they would go back there — if birds retain a “home” — or if they’d go off somewhere else. For now, it looks like the neighbour’s chimney-pot is still home.

The gulls in Wick are a gang that rules the rooftops. When they see things happening down below, they all get excited at once, and that excitement is translated into screeches. I bet if I live here for a while those sounds will start to make sense. They don’t have a lot of ’em, and they’re all pretty noticeable!

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