New Method

This binding method is already mentioned in the new user’s manual for the SimpleBind, but I thought I would show this to those with earlier versions of the device.

Some sorts of paper are very stubborn about wrinkling once printed, especially if you are using a laser printer. I happen to use just such a paper. After much tinkering, I have developed this method. Score your cover and jog your pages as usual. After you have pressed the downward clamp into place, unscrew the wing nuts on the top clamp as far as you can without them falling off. (The new SimpleBind has acorn nuts on this clamp, so you can skip this step).

Take a 1″ diameter dowel or rod (included in the SimpleBind kit) and slide it behind the cover, then press it down until the pages rest against the top clamp (see photos below). I also put a piece of wax paper over the clamp so I can be a bit messier with the glue. This fanning action pushes the pages together, yet allows the glue to penetrate deeper between the pages. After you have finished applying the glue, remove the rod and the wax paper, push the upper clamp back against the pages and bind as usual.

This is an extra step, but I’ve found it to be very helpful with troublesome papers. I actually use this method for all of my binding now. I’ve been very pleased with the results.

A New Series of Books

Soon, Atomic Publishing will be home to a series of horror/science fiction novellas and novelettes with a heavy emphasis on monsters, creatures and invasion stories. These will be available only online at www.atomicpublishing.net (and at an occasional horror or sci-fi geekfest). I have decided to go this route rather than offer these through Amazon who require a ridiculous discount and force cover prices up. I want these to be fun, yet affordable.

The SimpleBind will still be available on the website, but I will gradually move the assorted binding devices over to their own dedicated site: www.simplebind.com.

I am still in the process of acquiring manuscripts, but I hope to have the first book available in April (cross your fingers). The plan is to release one title a month. These will be truly pocket-sized books, measuring 3.5″ by 5″. I hope the series will be popular.

Here is the new logo I’ve been working on. Let me know what you think.

(Update: The second logo is a revised version)

Paper Reconsidered

I’ve been working on a series of Novelettes that will soon be available for purchase on the website (and probably Etsy too). They are small books that truly will fit in your pocket. They measure 3.5″ x 5″. I absolutely love the size and the format. Most of these books will be in the 14,000-20,000-word range. They are inspired by Dime Novels. Only the Novelettes are a bit longer and aren’t a scam like the Dime Novels were.

That brings me to paper. I’ve been cutting down writing pads for the books. I still love the paper, but it tends to jam in the printer, wrinkle slightly from the heat of fuser in my laser printer and compress too much when cutting, resulting in unsatisfactory spines. Other than that, it’s great. I have to jump through all sorts of hoops just to get a single good cut. Not good if I have to bind a big lot of books. So I have gone to some nice 24-lb. laser paper that still looks good, is thick enough that it doesn’t bleed through when duplexing, and—most importantly—cuts very nicely.

After all this time, maybe the answer to my paper search has been right under my nose. It seems as if I should be able to draw some Zen Buddhist conclusion from this, but I got nothin’.

Just Something Cool

Nothing really to report this week. Just building book binders and shipping them off (and I’m working on a cigar box guitar). I will be doing some rebinding of a class set of shredded paperbacks for a local school. (And I may break the fingers of a few careless junior high readers just to set an example). I just stumbled across this cover from a book by Shuichi Yoshida and I thought it was the coolest thing I’d seen in a long time. Check it out.

Introducing The SimpleBind

This has been in the works for a while. The Atomic Binding Machine is now the called The SimpleBind. It even has its own website www.simplebind.com. It works the same was as the old Atomic Binder, but with some improvements. The handle is shorter and allows you to stand closer to the unit, and now includes a fanning bar that makes binding a bit easier with some finicky papers. The new glue leveler is adjustable, allowing you to determine the bind’s glue thickness. And the front platform is now narrower so you can bind smaller booklets, yet the maximum size capacity remains the same.

The SimpleBind ships fully assembled (the Atomic Binder required minor assembly of the handle). It also includes two glue guns (the regular gun with the modified tip, plus a small one for touching up glue-starved spines), standard glue gun tip, glue sticks, clamps, fanning rod, screwdriver, Allen wrench, scoring tool, adjustable glue leveler, and detailed user’s manual.

And best of all—it’s still just $99.

I will still be selling the SimpleBind at the Atomic Publishing site for the foreseeable future as well at SimpleBind.com.

I wanted to have this ready to roll by the first of the year and I beat my goal by a few days. Take that, you stupid New Year’s resolutions!

 

The New Glue Leveler

About six weeks ago, I posted a potential candidate for a new glue leveler. While it worked well enough, it had a few drawbacks that made me scrap the idea. It was constructed of modified rod clamps, bolts, nuts and washers. Unfortunately, the quality of the rod clamps was very inconsistent. Oftentimes, the threaded holes were crooked or stripped. And sometimes a clamp would be an entirely different type and size, despite the fact that it was the same part number. Admittedly, these were cheap castings made for a very cheap purpose. They just wouldn’t work for me.

Here is a new style that is a bit more work to create, but is just as flexible as the earlier version (and it won’t discolor the wood of the binding machine like the metal version did). It allows you to adjust the thickness of your spine glue and has and additional spacer to remove more glue over spill. I’m 87.3% sure that this is the one I will eventually go with. It still needs a bit of fine tuning, but it’s close. Please let me know what you think.

The Paper Thickness Dilemma

Anyone who has used different papers to bind their books knows this frustration. You get your cover set up just right after a dozen near misses and failed attempts. Everything is just the way you want it. Then you discover a paper you like better, or you can’t find any more of that perfect paper that took you months to find in the first place (I’m speaking from personal experience here). So what do you do? Rework your cover again? If you haven’t considered this eventuality, then this is exactly what you do. Or you can create a cover with a bit more flexibility.

Don’t make the spine of your book a solid color. When possible, make the cover and back page one continuous image. Like this:

I have the folding lines on this example, but I bought a load of paper so I was sure not to run out. If you leave these out, you have a cover that’s ready to go. You may have to tweak a few elements here and there if your spine thickness is substantially different, but this will save you some time and frustration.

And one more thing—save a different version for each type of paper and label it accordingly. You never know when you might stumble across that perfect paper again. Below are some examples of how different papers can be.

 

Potential Modification

I’m always working to make The Atomic Binding Machine the best it can be. Since I use it myself (perhaps more than anyone else on the planet) I can spot shortcomings and fix them before they become an issue for my paying customers. While this fix isn’t an issue that most people would even notice, it has bugged me for a while. And I’ve wasted a bunch of time and money on this little fix. I’ve always wanted to be able to adjust the thickness of the glue left by the leveling tool. There are times I would like a stiffer spine which uses a bit more glue and other times when I would like a more flexible spine. Previously, I have just kept around several versions of the wooden leveler, each a slightly different length. But I know this isn’t an option for most.

So here is what I’ve come up with. I need to use it in some real world applications before I unleash it on the public. And if it doesn’t work to my satisfaction, it will never see the light of day outside of this post. The height of the leveler, and therefore the thickness of the glue, can be adjusted by adding or removing thin washers or shims. Each user can determine the glue thickness that is right for him/her.

I will keep you apprised of my progress.

Anatomy of a Page

This is a companion piece to ‘Anatomy of a Cover’. Now that you’ve created your cover, maybe you would like to put some printed pages inside. I probably should have posted this entry first, but I was in a Photoshop frame of mind when I wrote about the cover.

Laying out your interior pages is actually a bit trickier than you might think, especially when you are duplexing them (printing on both sides). Getting everything to line up just right can be maddening. And every home printer is a bit different. No two of them are exactly alike, not even two units of the same model. Each draws in the paper differently and can throw off your meticulous planning by shifting text on the back side of the page. There is no good rule of thumb here. I simply create a right (odd-numbered) and left (even-numbered) page and print out a two-sided sheet. Hold it up to the light and see how everything lines up. You will most likely have to move one side around a bit to get it to print just right. The digital file might look a bit odd, but it’s the printed version that counts. And despite your best efforts, the pages may still shift a bit.

Below are a pair of pages from ‘On a Darker Mission’. Obviously, the dotted lines aren’t in the original file. They are merely the cut lines. The gutter and outer edge measurements are the minimums I recommend. If you are using a stiffer paper I would suggest a gutter wide than .5″. And may want to change these gaps if you are going for a particular look. I oftentimes see nice trade paperbacks with large gaps on the top and bottom, especially short novels that the publisher would like to stretch the page count to justify the high price. Or maybe I’m just being cynical.

In any case, I hope this will give you a good starting point. Mostly, though, it’s about trial and error. So be prepared to waste some paper.

Click to enlarge the images below.

A Man After My Own Heart

Manly Banister. If ever there was a name that sounded like a pseudonym, this is it. But the unlikely moniker was his real name. In fact, he actually wrote under several pseudonyms for his early fanzine NEKROMANTIKON in the early 50s. I can’t imagine any of his alter egos had names with the coolness factor of his given name, though. He was a minor science fiction writer who wrote mainly for the pulps. He penned a novel called Conquest of Earth sometime between 1955 and 1957 (the copyright notices are confusing) that was not exactly a critical success. But hey, he got it published. That’s something, right?

But it was not his fiction that first captured my attention. He was also a bookbinder who wrote several titles on the subject, at least one of which is still in print today (see the images below). A writer who built his own bookbinding equipment? He and I, we’re kindred spirits. I’m in the process of collecting all of his works. They’re not all that valuable or anything; I just want to have them. I may even offer a Manly Banister collection of bookbinding devices in his honor.

He has intrigued me the same way Ed Wood did some years back, not to say that Banister was the same sort of lovable incompetent. I believe Banister was a talented man with varied interests, many of which coincide with my own. Manly Banister died in 1986.

Mr. Banister, I wish I had met you.