From Zine World #26 -

quitter #4: Every once in awhile you read a zine written in beautiful prose. It’s great, you don’t have to commit to read beautiful and complex descriptions for a whole book; instead you get a brain massage for just a few moments while waiting for the bus. My favorite story was on the author’s experience living out in nature for three months studying birds: “Early on in the study I passed the time chewing on birch twigs and inventing commentaries, developing arguments against the domestication of humans, and settling philosophical disputes between pebbles and sticks, using a slow flowing creek as the adjudicator.” Other stories discuss an unnamed health condition and a treatise on fish sticks; “plastic wrapped… fully reduced from sentient parts of an underwater ecosystem into full color anthropomorphic cartoon representations of happy fish enjoying a full plate of their own ‘fingers.’” Trace [$1.50 everywhere, or trade 20XS :15] –ailecia

Gianni Simone, a mail artist residing in Japan, writes zine reviews for Xerography Debt as well as their own blog Gloomy Sundays.  Gianni recently reviewed my Quitter: Good Luck Not Dying book.

He (Trace) has been putting out his zine Quitter since 2005. After publishing five issues, he has decided to collect the whole lot into a 40-page hand-made book and he was kind enough to send me copy #35 (I know because each copy is numbered). The object itself is a little jewel, with a great color cover and color and b/w illustrations throughout. And then there’s the writing, of course. Put it simply, I believe that the best writing is the kind that 1) manages to be engaging regardless of the subject; 2) makes me think; and most of all 3) makes me feel like I want to take highlighter and pen and cover the pages with comments and orange marks. Quitter managed to do all these things.

Trace writes what he calls creative non fiction, and through the years has developed the ability to put common words together in original combinations. He manages to be sophisticated in a natural, unassuming way. At the same time, he anchors his rants with stories taken from his memories. Sometimes he will write something like ‘I was born with an extra pair of ribs’ and the reader (or at least a dumb reader, such as myself) will search for hidden meanings until he realizes that is the plain truth. Apart from the autobiographical notes, the common theme that returns in all the five issues is Trace’s decision to ‘quit’ the kind of world that humankind has turned into a huge pile of garbage. Quitting a job he hates and translates into ’someone else’s hopes and mortgage and car payments;’ quitting unconscious consumption; temporarily quitting the civilized world in order to live for three months in ’solitary confinement’ in a forest and study the breeding habits of a small songbird… What he will not quit is fighting to ‘preserve the history of (…) an idea that would often be considered irrelevant by the dominant culture,’ and writing ‘for an audience that is resilient in its opposition of being taken for granted.’ What can you ask more from a zine?

I am happy to finally announce that - after seven months of writing and rewriting, working with Josh on the illustrations, Nathaniel on the cover, and going back and forth on using a formal publisher - Quitter: Good Luck Not Dying by Trace Ramsey (that’s me) is now available for purchase. The book is 78 pages with over a dozen color illustrations. It is hand stitched, hardcover, numbered and made by hand by the author.

Considering the time, materials and general effort it takes to make one of these books, I decided on a price of $14.

That might sound expensive for such a small book, but in a quick search of Amazon I could not find a 78 page hardcover for less than $20. Plus it is made by hand. That has to count for something.

I will pretty much make the books as I receive orders. PayPal seems to work well for most folks, but if you live near me or see me all the time and want to pay cash just let me know. Each book will get some goodies with it including buttons and/or stickers, maybe a book mark.

Thanks for keeping up with this project! I hope you support it if you can…

The first two attempts at making a hardcover book were miserable and complete failures. For the first attempt, I used some really simple looking instructions from DadCanDo.com. The instructions were so simple that when I followed the steps and completed the book I ended up with a sticky, bent, unattractive pile of cardboard and paper. Even after having dried for a day and half, the cloth that I used for the cover had dark stains from the glue that I used. Unattractive and shoddy looking -

The corners didn’t stick together the way they should and were coming apart a day later -

And the front pages were wrinkled and generally gross -

The second attempt didn’t yield any better results. After sleeping on it, getting some more supplies and watching some YouTube videos on bookbinding, I finally made a decent hardcover book.

I printed the book in four sections of eight pages. In the lingo of bookbinding these are called the signatures. It took me awhile to figure out that the software I am using (Adobe InDesign CS3) does not make this process easy unless you are a commercial printer. In order for me to print a book on my home printer I have to use a series of programs each requiring some of the same steps. Just figuring out those steps took several hours of searching the Internet, posting on forums and sending emails.

For this hardcover I used construction paper instead of the first few attempts using cloth. Much better results -

I have a few more minor problems to fix, but this stands as the prototype for making the Quitter hardcover book.