Printed once.
Then never again.
One maker reads the whole book before a single page prints — then every file is destroyed. What you hold is the only copy that will ever exist. I could not make another if you asked me to.
It prints once.
There is no second copy and no reprint. A dropped photo, or a page break in the wrong place, would be permanent. So this edition, alone of everything we make, is read end to end before a single page is printed.
So one person reads it.
Me. My name is Shaun and I make these in Durban. I read for mistakes the way a printer reads proofs — what belongs on which page, which voice note needs its moment explained. I do not save it, copy it, print a spare, or discuss it with anyone. If taking that on trust from a stranger is too much to ask, buy the printed edition instead: no human being ever opens that one.
Then it is destroyed.
The chat, the photographs, the print masters — all of it, within days of sealing. After that there is nothing left to hand over, to us or to anybody else.
The specification
- How it works
- Commissioned — we agree it, then I make it
- Binding
- Sewn by hand, section by section
- Paper
- Chosen together, from what can be got
- Cover
- Book cloth, or leather
- Page edges
- Gilded, if the commission calls for it
- Your initials
- Foil-stamped, or blind-pressed
- Inside the cover
- A pattern drawn for your book alone
- One line of yours
- Set in type on its own page, facing the first
- Certificate
- Numbered, wax-sealed, checkable here
- Made
- No more than twelve a month
The inside of the cover
When you open the book, the first thing you see is not a page of messages — it is a pattern printed across the inside of the front cover and the page facing it. On most books it is a plain colour. On yours it is drawn for your book alone, and no other copy of anything has it.
You do not pick it from a list. You tell me what it should be about, and I draw it. Some starting points people have used:
- The map. The places in your chat, drawn as a repeating chart.
- The constellation. One point for every day you spoke — the busy months burn brighter.
- The garden. A botanical repeat, drawn from a flower in one of your own photographs.
- From nothing. A blank sheet and a conversation. Tell me what it should say.
You will see a proof of it before anything is printed. Two revisions, then it is set — because after that it is being sewn, and it cannot be unsewn.
The certificate
Wax-sealed inside the cover, numbered by hand. Years from now somebody will find this book on a shelf and wonder whether it is what it claims to be. They can type the number into our register and it will tell them: this copy is genuine, this is the edition, this is the day it was sealed.
It will not tell them what you paid, and it will not name you or the person you made it for — not unless you tick the box asking us to. A price does not belong inside a present, and the person you are giving it to never agreed to be listed anywhere.
What arrives
The book, boxed, with the sealed certificate and one blank page at the back for your own handwriting. How it is boxed is part of what we agree — some people want the thing that survives a house move, some want it to look like a present on the day.
And nothing you are meant to be careful with. It is your book. Hold it.
If something goes wrong
If it arrives damaged, or I have made a mistake — a name misspelled, a photograph in the wrong place, a page out of order — I remake it at my cost, even though remaking it is the hardest thing this edition can be asked to do.
If you simply change your mind: before I begin drawing, your deposit comes back in full. Once the proof has been approved and the paper is cut, it cannot — it is a book with your names in it and it is no use to anybody else. That is the one thing I need you to be sure about before you start, and it is why nothing is charged in full up front.