This is the 29th book I’ve done in 44 years of publishing, and something different has happened here.

   Our output is slow because we put books together 2 pages at a time. Grown-up publishers get a book totally prepared — text and graphics — before starting production.

   I collected materials, for about a year, stored both on the computer and in old-school 5th-cut file folders. Once it got to a tipping point, we started production. I’d pull out the best stuff, do layout with a cheap color copy machine and scotch tape. Our artist-sometimes-in-residence, David Wills, would tune up the designs, whenceforth they went to Rick Gordon for InDesign/Photoshop preparation for printers. Lew Lewandowski unearthed a lot of this material, and designed a bunch of pages. Evan Kahn contributed in various ways. The book assumed its form, with categories, 2/3 of the way through its production.

   Bob Easton and I developed this seat-of-pants method of production out of necessity with Shelter in 1973: we only had maybe half of the materials ready, so we just started. I continued to shoot photos, write, and edit the book while it was in production. Photos kept coming in from contributors. Still our M.O.

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While Deek and I were hanging out at the Southern Home & Garden Show last week in North Carolina, he whipped out his camera and shot footage of some proofs I had of the new book:

A few years ago, a bike messenger in San Francisco (also a musician) was talking about having a newborn baby. “It’s a whole new octave, man,” he said.

   This is how it feels just having finished this book. I can now see the horizon, where until now, I couldn’t see farther than the layout table and the steady stress of bringing the ship into port (book to printers)…I’m in a United 747 right now (airborne wi-fi is finally a reality), heading for Hong Kong and we’ll be printing on Thursday, March 6th and I am EXCITED. The moment when something we’ve worked on for years becomes hold-in-yr-hands reality…Rather than jump back into a new book right away, we’re going to do 2 things, both digital: (1) Start theshelterblog, which will focus on building, carpentry, gardening, homesteading and the home arts and (2) make a series of YouTube videos on diverse subjects, such as The Half Acre Homestead, office workout equipment, photos of my trips, selected material from our books, such as Bob Easton’s drawings of 5 tiny homes in our book Shelter…we’ve got a ton of “content,” and this is a way to supplement our books with communication in the digital world.

  This book has turned out to be exciting, like it’s the sassy young cousin of Tiny Homes…the fact that all these homes are mobile gives the book an exuberance, which I didn’t realize until it was done.

I did an an interview last night with Kevin Kelly on the Google+ “hang out” feature. I used my MacAir laptop with the camera and was a little nervous, but it went OK. Kevin, whose latest book is the sensational Cool Tools, guided the conversation. We talked about tiny homes, owner building, gardening, chickens, the myth of self-sufficiency, what you can do in cities, the Whole Earth Catalog, what I would do if I were building a new house now, the fact that I don’t like shipping containers or Earth Ships or domes or A-frames as homes, and the virtues of self-publishing. The video of it is here…Next week I’m flying to Charlotte, NC, to talk about tiny homes at the Southern Spring Home & Garden Show. Deek Diedrickson from Relaxshacks will be there as well, and we’ll talk to people about the subject out in front of a tiny home he designed; if you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and say hello. I’ll be handing out mini Tiny Homes books (2″ by 2″, 64 pages) and have proofs of our latest book, Tiny Homes on the Move…In praise of real books and bookstores: I’ve read a few books on my IPad, and it’s fine for reading on airplanes or trips, but in my reading for an hour or so every night before going to sleep, I don’t want the electrons; I spend enough time at a computer screen as it is. The publishing business is obviously in turmoil, but books like our building books, although we’ve done digital editions, work best as hold-in-your-hands physical objects. And there’s nothing like a physical bookstore. Sure, Amazon is cheaper, but money ain’t everything. One of my very favorites is Bookshop Santa Cruz; it makes me happy to be there…Tiny Homes On The Move: Just about there. Yesterday Rick, Lew and I sewed up a lot of loose ends. About 3 knotty problems in design worked out. Often we’ll start working on something with no idea how to fix it, and as we go along, things fall into place. Like I told this guy in the interview yesterday about building house: just START. You’ll never get anywhere if you wait for everything to be perfect. Get going, and things will work out as momentum carries you along. When I was about to start building my first house in 1961, I asked my friend Bob what to do, and he said “This,” and picked up a shovel and started digging the foundation trench…Spectacular sunsets of late, this shot with iPhone last night; tonight’s the full moon, ow-wooo!