Surreal Everbind Redux

I have always had an image of book production from a 1930’s black and white movie – like a newspaper that comes hot off the presses. I pictured a huge machine many geared machine taking up a whole section of a building that inserted paper on one side and sent out a finished book on the other without human hands touching it. I watch way too many old movies. The reality is very different and somewhat surreal. At least it was for my wife, my son, and me when I went to see Open Wounds get bound on Tuesday. My son was thrilled to get a day off rom school but we all figured it was worth it – and it was. What surprised me the most was that a lot of the process is still done by … and that’s as far as I can go. I’m serious. The pr0cess is secret.

I can’t show you all the pictures I took nor can I describe the process because if another binding company saw these they might be tempted to copy or take ideas from what they see and book-binding is an old process whose secret’s are highly guarded. I didn’t see any laser trip wires or guard dogs but I have a good imagination so I added them in. In any case the whole process seemed like magic to us. Pages, covers, dust jackets, and a stack of books at the end of the line ready to be shipped to distributors and bookstores. I love this stuff!

So when will the book be available in bookstores? They still have to be mailed to distributors and from there to stores so… 2-3 weeks more, depending on how fast the connections are made from place to place. But soon, yes, it’s soon.