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Here is a breakdown of what sort of items are in the Mokuhankan catalogue at present:

Not much to show for nearly three years ... 18 prints (more than half of them just reprints from existing blocks), a few eBooks, and Dave's little essay 'hobby'! But from this very sparse little catalogue, there has been just shy of three million yen in sales generated since we started! (At today's exchange rate, that's just about $30,000)

Here's a little spreadsheet showing the income and expenses:

Points to note are:
1) Most of the income is from overseas - internet sales of course. I have done next to no promotion here in Japan, and have done nothing yet about getting these prints into shops here, something that is a major part of the overall plan for Mokuhankan.
2) I hired printers to do the printing in the first year, but through 2007~08 have not been able to afford to do that. What little printing has been done, I have done myself.

There is a 'paper profit' of around 1,500,000 yen. Where did this go? Why wasn't it re-invested in the business to issue more prints?

The answer is that I 'ate it'. It went towards paying my mortgage, the groceries, etc. etc. Mokuhankan is being treated very unfairly; it is being asked to contribute to my living, while it is still at this 'new-born' stage. Of course that money should never have been taken out of the business - it should have gone towards hiring people to get more prints into the catalogue. That would have resulted in more sales, and more income ... and etc. etc.

But anyway, not to complain. The important point - for me - is that yes, people are interested in these prints, and willing to buy them. I'll just have to press forward as well as I can, trying whenever possible to put more resources into this project, both yen and time. That's going to be difficult for at least the next year, until I can get the final four prints in the My Solitudes project done, but hopefully, when I am then considering what direction to move, Mokuhankan can play an important part in the choice.

But this week, there is a chance to move forward a little bit. I have just sent out the 'Seacoast in Winter' print, and before I get started on the next one, I am going to steal a bit of time for Mokuhankan. A number of the items in the catalogue are getting very low in stock, and need to be reprinted. These are prints that were previously part of my Surimono Album #1. That became 'sold out' last year, so I put some of the designs into the Mokuhankan catalogue, starting with a few extra copies that I had in my files. Those are now gone, and it's time to get the blocks out ...

So here is my work for the next week or so - reprinting each of the following six designs:

The sample images are seen there, stacked up with 20 sheets of blank washi each. Printing only 20 copies of a print is insanely stupid. To do just one more copy ... make it 21 ... takes just a couple more minutes. ... 22 ... 23 ... But of course, that argument is infinite. And I simply have no choice; if I don't get started on the next Solitudes print soon, I will be in deep trouble very quickly, so I just have to shrug my shoulders, ignore this 'inefficiency', and just get this done.

Five of these six are simply to restore inventory, but one of them - the attractive Sukenobu design of the young girl under cherry blossoms (from that Surimono Album #1) - is new to Mokuhankan, and will be appearing in the catalogue in a few days, as soon as it comes off the blocks. I hope it will be of interest!

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Now this is not much of a 'financial statement', as it omits all kind of information - it doesn't show the assets I have accumulated (the prints in inventory), nor does it show liabilities (the designer royalties I have yet to pay, etc.). There is also a lot of 'cheating' going on - the printing paper was 'stolen' from my own personal stock, as was the wood for many of the blocks, but at this point, the flow of cash is the only score-card I need to pay much attention to ...

With next to no marketing done - nothing much beyond the web site - and only a half-dozen prints in the catalogue, I've brought in just about US$5000. Of course, it cost me around US$8000. to do that, so Mokuhankan is certainly not contributing to my income yet!

But it's early days ... and this is certainly within the range of an acceptable loss. If I had spent that much and got nothing back, I think the venture would need a re-think, but this seems reasonable to me.

Let's see how it will change for next year!

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Samples of printed-out eBooks ...

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The Mokuhankan eBooks have been available for a few months now, and have quickly become some of the 'best sellers' in the catalogue.

I received an email the other day from a customer in England, Mr. Mark Mason, who wrote to express his appreciation for this material being available. He also mentioned "... purchased your 2 eBooks (Yoshida and Morley-Fletcher) printed them out and bound them, (I hope you don't mind; I've credited you on the inside cover) Yoshida is bound using a Japanese binding."

I wrote back saying that of course I didn't mind; this is the kind of thing I would hope would happen. I asked for bit more information on the printed books, and received in return a few photos that I'd like to share here. They look great!

If you want more information on how these books were made, add a comment to the discussion section of this post, and I'll refer it to Mark for his attention. I don't think he intends to get into business producing these, but he may be willing to share information on how he did it ...

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... with only 200 copies pulled so far, it would be a crime to let them sleep indefinetely.

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Mokuhankan started up in the spring of last year, and has grown only so slowly since then. Only six prints were added to the catalogue in the first year, and at that rate, it's going to be a long haul to build things up!

But an opportunity has arisen to broaden the range of prints available - the first of my Surimono Albums has now become 'out-of-print'. All 200+ of the print sets I made in 1999 have now flown away to new homes.

There is just no way that I myself will ever find time to reprint those albums in their entirety, as I - of course - will always be busy with new work. But not to use the blocks would be an incredible waste. That hard cherrywood is capable of producing many thousands of prints, and with only 200 copies pulled so far, it would be a crime to let them sleep indefinitely ...

So, after consulting with a number of the collectors who own those albums, and hearing from them that they wouldn't have any problem with this, I have decided to use those blocks for Mokuhankan - it seems a common-sense thing to do. Years from now, after I'm gone, they will certainly get used for reprinting, so it only seems sensible to do it now, while I am able to maintain tight control over what kind of prints will be made from them ...

I've been talking to Ueda-san the young printer, and he's ready and willing to make some editions for me, but I can't afford to let him get started just yet. So in the meantime, I can get things kick-started by putting my own overstock prints into the Mokuhankan file cabinet.

In order to get 200 clean copies of each print when I made the original batches, I of course started with more sheets than that. Once each batch was done, defects were culled, and the rest put into drawers to await orders from customers. But as the number of good ones varied from print to print within the series, I had to stop selling sets when the ones with the lowest quantities ran out.

So it is these 'extra' prints that are now being made available from Mokuhankan. Here's a small image of each one, clickable to jump over to the catalogue page.

Hokusai:

Hiroshige:

Bun'Ichi:

Zeshin:

Toyohiro:

Koryusai:

I hope you find some of these to your liking!

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I think we're ready to go!

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Continued from Hokkei Dragon (5)

Finally! We have a print to inspect!

I got a couple of dozen scroll prints sent off to the mounting workshop two days ago, so that meant a bit of time available for this job ... I finished up the final colour block, got some paper wet, and started some test printing. Here's the scene on the bench - this is the fourth sheet off the blocks, and I think we're ready to go!

Here's a close-up of the print. The overall balance isn't quite right yet - the dragon himself needs to be more 'dirty', his outlines need to be darker, some of the edge gradations need to be cut back and softened a bit, and the gold-coloured spots on his skin need to be brought out more, but we're within striking distance ...

So, with now only two days left before the exhibition, I don't have a chance to make too many copies of this one just yet (9 people have sent in pre-release orders, and they've been waiting so patiently!), but I'll get a small pile of paper wet tonight, and see if I can get a small batch done before the weekend ...

Then, it'll be time to get them put into the Mokuhankan catalogue!

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Resources (and customers!) are both scarce at present, so the prints are being printed in quite small batches.

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Mokuhankan prints are all issued in 'open editions' - that is, there is no intention to limit the number of prints produced, and no customers are being encouraged to believe that their print is (or will become) 'rare'.

In actual practice of course, the number of prints produced is a finite number. Resources (and customers!) are both scarce at present, so the prints are being printed in quite small batches. If it should happen that we never really get enough air under the wings for a full take-off, then those batches will end up being the full 'editions'. If, on the other hand, we do get this thing up and running in a big way, further batches of all the prints will be run off as necessary.

This brings up the question of how collectors can identify the prints they have purchased from Mokuhankan. Here is a quote (reproduced here with his permission) from a recent email I received from one of the earliest Mokuhankan customers:

Your sales and inventory page prompted me to order this print. If sales do not take off I am assured of owning a fine rare print. If they do pick up I will own an early copy of a popular print. ...

I tell you this half in jest. I am not really shopping for resale value, but many people do. Some justify buying a print by pretending to know what it's worth and how valuable it might become. I have read your thoughts on editions and I agree with you. ... But, I guess you also know that adding pencil stuff (even on the verso) will definitely increase sales. I suppose you might have considered a compromise position that would allow you to keep your print run open, but also feed the collectors and retailers with a notion of scarcity. Simply dating the print will give them satisfaction, if you were to indicate the month of printing and the size of the print run, they would be even happier. I do not think it is the sequential numbering of prints that attracts buyers, but the certain knowledge of the size of the pool of copies. People, and some dealers, imagine a print without pencil to be a worthless investment, because they assume there are thousands of copies in the cupboard or in circulation. Of course this is rarely the case, but they think it's easy to knock out a few thousand to have on standby. And let's face it we are competing with machines that do make thousands of copies.

So, going by this suggestion, I should put some kind of marks, numbers, what-have-you, on each print, to show that it came from a particular batch at a particular time.

I have no strong feeling either way on this, except that I am extremely allergic to putting any kind of numbers on the prints that could possibly be taken as an attempt to increase the monetary value of the print. "You like it? You buy it!" is the way I want to run things here ... nothing more, nothing less.

But I do have to admit that it would be kind of interesting for future print owners to be able to tell just what kind of Mokuhankan print they have in their hands. Collectors in our own day get great pleasure out of knowing such details on the - just for one example - Hasui prints they own.

So let's put the question out there for discussion/comment. Please let me know your thoughts on the issue of Mokuhankan including more information on each print ...

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the carving of the poem on this print is now complete!

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Continued from Hokkei Dragon (4)

Not quite sure just how I've managed it, but the carving of the poem on this print is now complete! (No mystery actually ... there are just so many hours one can spend over at the printing bench before the bod starts asking for some kind of a 'switch'!)

Here's the poem ...

And here's a zoom-in on one of the poet's names (scale lines are millimeters):

Not long to go on this print now ... just a couple of colour blocks ...

This thread continues in Hokkei Dragon (6) ...

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Numabe-san returned the stack of prints to me the late last week ...

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Continued from Aspen Grove (10) | Starting point of the thread is here

OK, we've got some results here ... Numabe-san returned the stack of prints to me the late last week, and the other day I got a chance to get them embossed with the title information ...

Here's how I do it - a quick photo taken looking down onto the bench:

The stack of prints is on the right, and on the left is a base plate of stiff card, with a registration mark and the two metal 'slugs' taped down in the appropriate places:

I just pretend that this is a karazuri impression - put each sheet in place, and give it a firm rub with the baren.

Here's a closeup of the right-hand corner of the resulting print:

Over on the left I'll emboss the Mokuhankan seal, although I'm still not sure whether I should put it inside the image area, or out in the margin. If it's inside the image, it will just totally disappear, but if out in the margin, it'll be a bit intrusive I think. It worked very well on the Hilo Bay image, with a smooth colour area for it, but this one is more difficult ...

Anyway, when I get a minute I'll try and get a proper photo of this for the web page, but right now, I've got to concentrate on getting these things out the door to the people who ordered in advance ... and who have been waiting very patiently for nearly half a year!

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Here's a shot of his most recent proof, on the table beside Mike's original print:

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Continued from Aspen Grove (9) | Starting point of the thread is here

Sorry for the lack of updates recently ... just so much going on here these days! :-(

I snatched a chance to get away from my own workbench the other day, to drop in on Numabe-san to see how his proofing had come along. I found him working on an edition for a contemporary 'printmaker' (you know why I put that word in quotation marks!), but he had some stuff to show me. Given all the problems we have had with these block sets, I tried to simplify our work a bit and told him to focus on just getting a good clean print from these new blocks - using Mike's print as a target. We'll worry about alternate versions, etc. later ...

Here's a shot of his most recent proof, on the table beside Mike's original print:

He has come very close - he said the blocks gave him no problems at all ... stable, flat, and easy to work with.

He has prepared a set of pigment specimens to match the eight blocks; these are in the jars at the top left of the photo. Seems to be mostly prussian blue, with sumi added for the later stages.

If you look closely at his proof (the top picture), you can see a light blue strip along the top of the image. This is printed by block #0, the blank block in the set. For this new block set, Mike prepared blocks #1 through #8, and didn't bother to send a replacement for the blank one, knowing that we could use the one from the previous block set. But look at the difference in size! Numabe-san wanted me to see this before he cut it down to fit the new blocks.

Mike says that all the block sets have been cut to the exact same dimensions, and I guess that's so, but they sure didn't stay the same dimensions! Look at this next photo. The three prints are (from the top)

• one of my own first proofs taken from the first block set we received, made soon after the blocks arrived in Japan.
• the proof Mike pulled from those blocks in Kansas City
• a proof Numabe pulled from those same blocks, after they had been in Japan a few weeks ...

No wonder we were having so much trouble with them ... But anyway, this new set is working just fine. They are plywood core, which of course reduces expansion/contraction, and we have moved into the dryest part of the year, when blocks generally stay much more stable ...

I've given him the go-ahead to pull an edition, so finally, we're almost at the point where we can publish!

This thread continues in Aspen Grove (11) ...

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The package with the new set of blocks arrived from Mike today!

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Continued from Aspen Grove (8) | Starting point of the thread is here

The package with the new set of blocks arrived from Mike today!

They look very good ... still completely flat, not the tiniest warp or unevenness of any kind.

Here's a focus on one of them ... click it for a monster enlargement ...

I'll call Numabe-san this evening, so see what his schedule is like. He had mentioned earlier having time available in the second week of October, but I suspect that I've missed that 'window'; we'll just have to see what he says ...

This thread continues in Aspen Grove (10) ...

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