How Books Are Made - How Book Dash makes beautiful books in a single day – with Julia Norrish

How Book Dash makes beautiful books in a single day – with Julia Norrish

10/25/24 • 57 min

Children's publisher Book Dash makes beautiful books in a single day, then gives them away. And their method is catching on around the world.

Book Dash believes every child should own a hundred books by the age of five. They gather creative professionals who volunteer to create new storybooks that anyone can freely translate, print and distribute. Then they work with partners to get those books to preschool children and their families to own.

In this episode, Arthur wears his Book Dash co-founder hat, and speaks to its outgoing Executive Director Julia Norrish about how and why their ambitious approach to book-making actually works.

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Children's publisher Book Dash makes beautiful books in a single day, then gives them away. And their method is catching on around the world.

In this episode, Arthur wears his Book Dash co-founder hat, and speaks to its outgoing Executive Director Julia Norrish about how and why their ambitious approach to book-making actually works.

Links from the show:

Previous Episode

The fine-press printer’s art of not forgetting – with Graham Moss

At the heart of everything book-like is a printer, standing at a hand-powered press, turning paper into pages.

When you hold a book that’s been typeset in metal, printed by hand on fine paper, bound and sewn with board and cloth, you realise with a visceral whoosh just how much a book can be a work of art.

In this episode, Arthur speaks with Graham Moss, the founder of Incline Press in Oldham, near Manchester in England. Incline Press works with poets and artists to make limited-edition books with hand-set, metal type on vintage machines. This year, Graham was awarded the prestigious Cobden Sanderson Award from the Society of Bookbinders for his work in hand printing and publishing.

Graham’s deep knowledge and rich story-telling is a joy to learn from, and reminds us that, no matter the technology we use, book-making has always been about people, love, and dedication.

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Next Episode

What does it take to crowdfund a book? – with Aaron A. Reed

The allure of crowdfunding is that you can sell your book before it costs you any money. But that’s harder than it looks!

To find out what it takes to run a crowdfunding campaign properly, Arthur speaks to Aaron A. Reed, who has successfully crowdfunded several books, including one of the most well-funded non-fiction books on Kickstarter. Aaron is a writer and a game developer, and the author of 50 Years of Text Games. Right now, he’s in the middle of another crowdfunding campaign, for his role-playing-game kit Downcrawl 2e.

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