Hello Dave,

I fully subscribe to your "vision" and find it wonderful of looking long term, by the time you may not be able to carve by yourself and beyond to the legacy. 5% is very reasonnable and I will gladly contribute upon my next purchases...

All the best.....Serge

I will also be happy to support this training.

The only way to continue is to train and it puts the cost where it means the most-the consumer. We chose to enjoy this art form and 5% is a small contribution for the quality work that becomes available.

Will the option to add the trainee fee be available only on Mokuhankan prints? I rarely buy Mokuhankan prints, but as a subscriber, I'd love the option to help support the trainees with my subscription purchases. After all, these same trainees are the ones who are helping make the cases and packaging the prints that are sent my way, even though the prints themselves are solely your work.

I'd love the option to help support the trainees with my subscription purchases ...

When I was doing the programming on the Mokuhankan shopping cart to set this up, I myself was wondering the same thing - should I make this same option available on the page where people see their subscription invoices?

After giving it some thought, I decided to leave it off. I really want to avoid giving the impression that I am 'strong-arming' people into this sort of thing. Many (most?) of the collectors are indeed ready to support my project(s), and would certainly click the button if it were there. But the next invoice will be for print + case + extra shipping, and will come to $80. To ask people to pay still more on top of this would - I think - be kind of asking too much.

... these same trainees are the ones who are helping make the cases and packaging the prints that are sent my way, even though the prints themselves are solely your work.

Yes it's all one pocket in the end; I'm calling it a 'fund', but in actuality it's simply a bookkeeping entry. From the tax agency's point of view, all these ventures are David's own personal income - these Trainee Premiums included - until such time as we incorporate Mokuhankan as a legal entity in its own right.

I've now got the 'Trainee Accounting' page up ... here. I've worked backwards to include the amounts I paid to Tsushima-san since the day she started last summer. The 'Trainee Premiums' received so far are, of course, nil ...

But the next invoice will be for print + case + extra shipping, and will come to $80. To ask people to pay still more on top of this would - I think - be kind of asking too much.

I thought about that, and I understand why you chose not to add it.

Though the idea is moot at this point, I hope you won't mind my sharing a possibility I thought of after posting my comment above:

One way to make it possible for collectors like myself to contribute at invoice time that wouldn't seem burdensome or like strongarming might be this: a pay what you want option, with a maximum possible contribution of 5% of the invoice. (I have no idea how such a thing would be programmed; I only assume it is possible.) It could even be placed in a box to the side of the invoice page, such that a collector would not even see a line item placeholder for the premium unless they had already indicated an amount they'd like to give.

This would achieve the following things:

• It would make it possible for collectors like myself who rarely buy Mokuhankan prints but would like to support the Mokuhankan venture to do so
• It would prevent premiums that are problematically large (as this is a business venture, not a charity, and problems could arise if an unlimited amount were allowed)
• It would be more complicated than just ticking a box (as with the Mokuhankan checkout premium) and that hurdle, and the attendant need for a collector to evaluate exactly how much they'd like to contribute would mean that it couldn't feel like strongarming, since it's not just yes or no, but an assessment of several possible values
• It could be displayed in such a way that collectors could complete the usual invoice process without paying it any mind unless they wanted to

As I said before, I understand why you've chosen not to do it—if I'm so dead set on supporting the project I suppose I'll just have to go buy some Mokuhankan prints! :)

Margaret, thanks for the extended thoughts on this! It's encouraging to hear that there are people who are so willing to get behind this idea.

Perhaps it's time to share some of the thoughts we have about how we are going to 'handle' these donation/payments. The idea is that at the end of every month (or other sensible time period), the trainees will each assemble some 'thank you packs', and send one off to each person who has clicked this 5% button. Just what will be inside each of these packs isn't really set yet, but it will presumably include some of the sample prints they have made, along with other items from their practice sessions. (Perhaps items such as the ones Tsushima-san used for practice on this page.) And who knows, in the case of more substantial donations, perhaps even a little something from the workshop master ...

Why don't I mention this on the page where people click the 5% button? It sounds silly, but it's because of tax reasons. Here in Japan we have a Consumption tax (a kind of VAT) on all sales. When I checked with my tax accountant on how to handle these 5% donations, he told me to make it clear that I wasn't selling anything, as if that were the case, I would have to pay VAT on these amounts.

So we're trying to make it clear they are not 'purchases'. You give us a small donation - a couple of weeks later, our trainees (might) send you 'a little something'.

I said 'might' because we won't be able to send something to everybody who adds the 5%. Somebody yesterday browsed the shopping cart, selected one of my eBooks, and click the 5% button, adding 38 yen to their invoice. That's appreciated, as 'every little bit helps', but I don't think we could reasonably be expected to send a little gift pack for that kind of amount.

We're going to play it by ear for a while, and see how things go ...

Ah, that's all very interesting!

Perhaps it might be a good idea to have the packaging for "thank you packs" prepared, and then, rather than stopping work to put all the packs together at once, they can be filled as things that could be fodder for the packs are produced. A test print has served its purpose and is dry and otherwise ready to go? Just pick up an envelope that's waiting with its thank you note already installed, pop the prints (or whatever) in, and seal it up to put in the "packs ready to go" pile. Then the only monthly (or bimonthly, or quarterly) task is labeling and sending the things, rather than scrounging around for test prints, etc.