One of my goals for 2022 is to be “more digital and more physical.”
Even as I explore the future of creativity through AI-generated art, writing with GPT-3, and special edition NFTs, I also expand my physical print products by selling special edition print books through my Shopify store, speaking at in-person events, and writing a memoir about my solo pilgrimage walks.
One of my projects this year was to go even more ‘physical' and try my hand at bookbinding. I had one-on-one lessons with Stephen at Bound Books in Frome, UK, and he helped me through the process.
Here are the steps we went through over several sessions. I will absolutely use the wrong words for things, as I am not an expert, just an enthusiastic student!
Formatted and printed one copy of A Thousand Fiendish Angels from Amazon KDP Print
I wanted to make something really original, so I formatted a new edition at 4.12 inches x 6.75 inches for my trilogy of short stories, A Thousand Fiendish Angels, which is a trilogy of short stories linked by a book of human skin. Yes, it is occult/dark fantasy/horror! I liked the idea of doing something small that fits nicely in my hand.
I used Vellum for formatting and then printed an Author's Copy from Amazon KDP Print. It's free to publish on Amazon and I haven't published this edition for sale. I just printed an author's copy and saved as a draft.
The first thing to do is rip off the cover!
Preparing the spine
We hack sawed into the spine to make grooves for the strings that would be used to attach the boards later.
We then attached material for the blocks
We wrapped the book in clingfilm to protect it during the process, then frayed the ends of the string so they will attach more easily and with fewer lumps.
We stuck the strings to the material.
Aging paper to add to the book
A Thousand Fiendish Angels is a trilogy of short stories linked by a book of human skin. Anthropodermic bibliopegy if you're into that kind of thing!
I wanted the book to look like the tome it relates to, and I wanted to have some aged aspects to the interior as well.
I printed the opening quote from Dante's Inferno that inspired the book title, and we aged it with tea leaves in a tray of water.
We pressed the sheet with a piece of textured card to give the ‘aged' paper more form, then burnished the surface with oil paint to bring out the texture and soften the edges of the tea marks.
We did the same aging process on a piece with my JFP author's mark, which I use on my special edition NFTs as well.
We inserted this extra page into the back of the book with a black piece of paper to offset the image.
Add the boards to the spine
We pared the edges of the board. (Stephen showed me all these things on a small area and I did the rest, honest!)
We stuck the boards to the material on the spine.
Add end papers
I bought endpapers from Etsy — there are so many beautiful options to choose from. I went quite gothic with my color scheme in black and red.
Binding the book
It took a while to choose the materials for the cover itself. I wanted an ‘old' look, and also to use leather.
The book in the stories is bound in human skin, but this one is Moroccan goat skin (dark brown), and the textured red is embossed wallpaper treated with oil paint and burnished.
There was lots of measuring, cutting, and gluing.
We stuck in the end papers.
Discovering in the process that this particular type of paper soaked up a lot of glue!
We let the book dry standing on its end and I bent the boards back into shape every so often while the end papers dried.
The final book. A Thousand Fiendish Angels, hand-bound by the author, J.F. Penn
Here's the finished product. I'm really happy with it!
This particular book is not for sale, but you can buy it in other formats from my store, CreativePennBooks.com, or from your favorite retailer, or borrow it from the library.
Will I do more book-binding?
I really enjoyed learning something new, and I love holding this (very) special edition in my hands and saying, ‘I made this!'
But it's pretty time intensive.
So for now, I will be getting back to writing stories and will leave binding for another phase of life. Preferably when I have a space where I can create in ‘analog' mode as my desk and computer dominate my home office and my audiobook booth takes up a lot of room as well.
If you'd like to read the stories, A Thousand Fiendish Angels is available in ebook, paperback, and audiobook editions from my store here, and also available on your favorite online store, links here.
That is amazing. And beautiful. Well done, and thanks for sharing!
That looks fantastic, Joanna, and thanks for sharing.
It’s so rewarding making something with your own hands, isn’t it?
Yes, I loved doing it — but it’s not sustainable at scale, that’s for sure! Just for a fun hobby. I definitely want to do more though!
We are offering leather (calling it zombie flesh) bound books in our next Kickstarter. It’s only going to be 5 or so copies available and they will certainly be at a much higher cost. We’ll also be taking advantage of a laser engraver we bought, to engrave some interesting (and definitely gross) images on the leather. Should be fun. 🙂
Awesome! I was originally looking to offer hand-bound copies in the Kickstarter I had planned to do — but (a) I decided not to do a Kickstarter and (b) Bookbinding took a heck of a lot longer than I expected! So I hope you have some help 🙂
What a beautiful project Joanna. I’m sure it’s destined to be a family heirloom.
Not sure about that, but I’m proud of it!
Looks amazing but can totally see how one is plenty. It makes it that much more special! What section of the Camino are you planning on? I hoping to do this in 2024. I have a friend whose done it multiple times now and I love hearing her stories and journey as well as the pictures.
I’m doing the Portuguese Coastal route, I’m looking forward to it!
This is absolutely amazing. I would love to have this experience, with someone guiding me! I have a publishing adventure coming up, and a big part of it will be a beautiful, timeless, expensive hardcover.
Joanna have you spoken on a video about your decision to not do a Kickstarter?
Thank you for your inspiration as always,
Adi
Thanks — and I definitely needed a guide for the book!
I’ve talked about not doing a Kickstarter in the intro to various podcast episodes, but will also go into it more in my solo show on Shopify coming out later this week.
That is an excellent and inspiring episode. Thank you!
I love this! It turned out beautifully!
This edition would make a great NFT. And no human skins used! Congratulations.
You are definitely a trail blazer and trend setter for all authors who dream.
I do have two NFT editions of A Thousand Fiendish Angels, both bought already but I still love the special images I created for them — https://opensea.io/account?tab=created
Looks amazing. 😊
That’s impressive. You’ve inspired me!
Very nice, Joanne. It was worth the effort. Thank you for sharing.
One of my first jobs was with a small craftsman bindery. We did everything from folding the large sheets of printed pages to sewing them together to building the covers and binding–usually in leather. It was an awesome job and I got to see and help refurbish many rare and beautiful books as well as special edition new ones. Perfect binding put them out of business (and I suspect some poor business choices) but I learned to appreciate the hands-on artistry involved.
Your book is beautiful, and now a rare edition as it is the only one in existence. 🙂
Thanks for sharing, your experience sounds wonderful. I am very happy with my super-rare edition 🙂
That was a labour of love for sure, and what a beautiful thing. It looks some hundreds of years old lol. Thanks for sharing Joanne.
Thanks, I definitely wanted it to look old. The story is about a book made of human skin 🙂