The weather is beautiful here in the fall. Our best time of year. A lot of the nights are clear and dry, not too cold. Good for sleeping out under the stars. I was in San Francisco yesterday; Golden Gate Park was spectacular. They’re getting ready for the (free) Not Strictly Bluegrass Festival this weekend. I looked at the lineup in SFWeekly, got excited by all the great groups, then realized that it’s gotten too big for me. I used to park my truck out at Ocean Beach, and ride my bike over to the park, then ride around between the 5 stages. But the last time I did this, the whole thing was over-regulated. Can’t ride your bike here, must cross street here, lots of people telling you what to do, where to go. Just too big (500,000 + people.) Like Burning Man. The downside of success. I’m skipping it.
Anyway, coming up to Golden Gate Bridge on the way back home from the Presidio, past the parking lot, a 20-something-year-old guy on a rented bike with a kid in a seat behind him yelled out something to me as I turned left. I pulled over and he rode up and said. “Aren’t you the guy who does the books on homes?” Turns out he was from British Columbia and he said they all loved the books. Small world.
Over the years we’ve had many translations done of our fitness books. For example, Stretching is in 23 languages.
Less so for our building books. In the mid-’70s, Shelter was translated into Spanish, French and German.
In recent years, we’ve had a bunch of our building books translated. Shown here, left-to-right:
–Tiny Homes in Korean
–Builders of the Pacific Coast in Korean
–Homework in Japanese
–Homework in French
–Homework in Korean
–Shelter in Korean
–Shelter in French
–Shelter in German
–Shelter in Japanese
–Shelter in Spanish
Almost all of our books have been translated into Korean, for some reason.
Each of our contracts with foreign publishers has a clause that says they can make no changes in the general layout or the cover. When we got the Korean version of Builders of the Pacific Coast, they had completely redesigned the book and its cover. It was totally different! And guess what — I loved it! — and emailed them to tell them so. Like the French did with Shelter in the ’70s, they understood the spirit of the book and interpreted it for their readers. Wonderful.
We’ll have a booth at this event for the first time this year. Sunday Sept. 8, 10 AM-6 PM. Solano is on the edge of Berkeley and Albany, perpendicular to San Pablo and Shattuck. They say 200,000 people attend this affair. Music, food, crafts, eco-type booths, etc. We’ll be selling our building books at a DISCOUNT! (Our booth is pretty close to top of block, outside 5 Star Video, 1882 Solano. Across street from Noah’s Bagels.)
Info:
https://www.solanoavenueassn.org/strol.htm
https://www.yelp.com/biz/solano-stroll-berkeley
BTW, when I was a kid, my brother and I used to take a streetcar from the Laguna Honda Station in San Francisco down to the Key System terminal at the base of the Bay Bridge, then catch the F train that crossed the bridge (on the lower deck) and went all the way through Berkeley on Shattuck, then through the tunnel to Solano Avenue, where we’d get off and walk a block or so to our cousins’ house on Marin Avenue. My aunt Dorothy was married to ex Berkeley All-American Berkeley High School football player Chili Bertoli, and we spent many weekends with the Bertolis. 10-12 years old, traveling all that distance on 1940s rapid transit, no chaperones. (The rail lines were torn out in 1958, and the lower deck converted to pavement for cars.) Ah me, I do digress.
“Will It Ever Change,” by Luther Allison from a great album, “Live in Chicago”:
Will It Ever Change? by Luther Allison on Grooveshark
I just did this latest GIMME SHELTER email newsletter.
I started sending these out maybe 10 years ago, originally for sales reps, to about 750 people. Mainly on the state of Shelter’s publishing projects. With blogging, I send these out less frequently, but they still do reach people who don’t read the blog.
Click here.
From Sunday’s New York Times, “Open Book” by John Williams:
Delightful or Disastrous?
The Economist’s Prospero blog has suggested that some of the world’s worst sentences appear in Philip Mirowski’s new book, “Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste.” One offender: “The nostrum of ‘regulation’ drags with it a raft of unexamined impediments concerning the nature of markets, a dichotomy between markets and governmentality, and a muddle over intentionality, voluntarism and spontaneity that promulgates the neoliberal creed at a subconscious level.” On the flip side, the London-based Times Higher Education deemed the book a “delightful bramble,” though the author’s “own precise vantage point is deliberately impossible to discern.”
Quotable
“I don’t think I’m mainstream. I think what I am is lots and lots of different cults. And when you get lots and lots of small groups who like you a lot, they add up to a big group without ever actually becoming mainstream.” — Neil Gaiman, describing his fan base to The Guardian
A few pics from yesterday. Photogenic redwood by roadside. A little farther up the road, I saw a bunch of what looked like green leaves under a pine tree. Getting closer, they were wings (believe that’s the right word) of a pine cone, and lo, they were sailing down from the tree. Aha! Stopped under the tree, looked up and here was a bushy grey squirrel at work, getting pine nuts and jettisoning the wings.
I’ve been admiring this beautiful field of artichokes for a while. Creek bottom soil.
Feels so good to be mobile again.
Our new book Tiny Homes On the Move is popping right now. It’s about 80% together. Lots of great last-minute material. I love watching it come together. Like sailing in unknown waters. We never know what form it will take until the parts are all assembled. Exciting to see a book getting born.
Lloyd…I made a piece of furniture that was largely inspired by the books you have authored and published.
As a constant source of inspiration, your books have provided to this home builder, furniture builder and overall dreamer. Your books have given me shelter from the storm that is everyday life.
I call this latest simple bookcase I carved my Shelter from the storm bookcase.
Here’s the link.
Thanks,
Tohner (Jackson)
From top: Barefoot & Flying, excellent cajun band in subway; great doo wop group outside Metropolitan museum; an ain’t-it-the-truth book title from Chronicle Books, more turn-of-century subway station tile work
The Maker Faire was just great. I’d never think that something so nerd-oriented would appeal to me, but there was soul in addition to all the robots and tech wizardry. We had a booth in the “Homegrown Village” section and sold more books than we have at any event ever. The booth, designed by Lew Lewandowski and manned by Lew and my son Evan, was mobbed the entire 2 days, most of the interest being in our Tiny Homes book.
My talks on “The Half-Acre Homestead” went well; maybe 125 kindred spirits in the audience each day.
Read More …
Tags: bikes, books, children, cooking, design, food, homesteading, tiny homes, tiny houses, tools, vehicles
I first heard the phrase from a friend who went to work for a hot new company during the tech boom. Well, uh, OK. But in spite of its dorky sound, it has real meaning for someone like me.
I’m all over the place. Can’t help it. Always have been. Everything in this world is just so daggone interesting. Especially now. I think I appreciate the computer more than younger people because of where I come from. It’s such a breath-taking span from hot lead type to InDesign, from bulky dictionaries to Google, from rotary phones to the iPhone 5. (Part of my excuse for being so eclectic.)
Back to leveraging: I’d like to sell more books, I’d like to get us more income so we can get out of the 40-year-old scrambling for $$ to pay the printers. I had an idea: to take targeted sections of this blog and turn them into eBooks. Say homesteading. For people interested in homesteading, but not necessarily in Muddy Waters or skateboarding.
You homesteaders and gardeners out there: would you pay $2.99 or $3.99 for an ebook based on a selection from my homesteading posts? Go down on the far right column and under “Topics,” click on “homesteading.”
I don’t know about a print book. It could be done but might cost too much.
I’ve put up over 3500 posts now. Does it make sense to separate this mass into subjects and reach “targeted” audiences?
