Custom bookplates

Bookplates for authors 101

May 4, 2016

Although bookplates have traditionally been used to identify one’s books in a personal library, many authors order bookplates from Bookplate Ink to use for book signings and as a promotional tool and thank you gift to their readers, so I thought it might be helpful to new authors (and seasoned authors!) to show some possibilities.

One popular option is to have bookplates printed with custom artwork from your book(s). Some authors have bookplates with the artwork from the jacket cover of the book at the top of the bookplate or as the background for the entire bookplate. Sometimes artwork related to one element or character of the book is used, along with the author’s name and/or website.

New York Times bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater has used more than one design for her young adult Raven Cycle series. Maggie posts photos and offers signed bookplates through her website, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Fountain Bookstore. We have seen more than one tweet with a photo from an excited reader who just bought one of her books and received a signed bookplate. Shown here is one of the bookplates Stiefvater created for her Raven Cycle series.

Brenna Yovanoff is another young adult fiction writer Screen Shot 2016-05-03 at 1.06.59 PM
who recently ordered bookplates for her new book, Places No One Knows, and posted a photo on Instagram. The book will be released later this month, but those who pre-order through the Tattered Cover Book Store will receive a free signed bookplate. Many authors use a signed bookplate as an incentive for pre-orders.

Bookplate Ink has also printed bookplates for
New York Times bestseller Garth Stein. His latest bookplate is a good example of a design useful for an author who wants a bookplate that encompasses all of his or her published books. As you can see, the jacket covers of his books are shown at the top along with his photo, while his website address is at the bottom of the bookplate.

If you’re looking for a simpler and more affordable option, another possibility is one of our non-personalized border designs. These bookplates are printed on a non-glossy, cream colored paper and look very classy. At 3×4 inches, they have plenty of room for your signature and a short message. As they’re pre-printed and we keep them in stock, they ship quickly and are less expensive than custom bookplates. Shown here is one of our most popular border designs, N100. It is available as both a non-personalized bookplate or a custom printed bookplate with the text of your choice.

For a more personalized look, many authors order one of our many border designs and have the bookplates custom printed with their name, website address and/or book title. We can also add artwork or a logo to any of our border designs.

There are many possibilities regarding styles and sizes of bookplates. If you have any questions, feel free to call 866-483-3830 or e-mail info@bookplateink.com.

How to host a baby book shower

September 16, 2014

The invitation mimicked a library checkout card

My son and his wife are expecting a baby girl next month and one of my daughter-in-law’s closest friends, Katie, hosted a baby shower for her. I was pleased when the invitation arrived and I saw that it was a “book shower.” Every guest was asked to bring a children’s book in lieu of a card. Of course, I thought a natural Babyinvite addition would be bookplates! When I contacted Katie, it turned out she had just looked at Bookplate Ink’s bookplates on Etsy! Since the shower was for my future granddaughter, I created a new bookplate for the shower.

GreenEggsandHam Bookplate Ink has printed bookplates for customers’ baby showers, but I had never been to a book shower. I was very impressed with the way Katie put the shower together and thought it would be fun and helpful to share her ideas.

Everything about the shower was related to books. Classic children’s books were displayed around Katie’s dining room, all related to one of the food dishes she had prepared. For example, Dr. Seuss’ famous Green Eggs and Ham was paired with muffin-size egg soufflés. Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales sat by a tray of cheeses, and If You Give a Moose a Muffin was displayed next to a tray of almond muffins.

In the kitchen, there were a variety drinks of beverages, including Pinkalicious spa water and Bear’s sangria, both based on children’s books. For coffee, Katie had white mugs on which fun literary messages had been printed with a Sharpie marker.

In another room, K Mugs atie had a desk set up with a wonderful, creative guest book. The pages were removable to allow guests to write a message to the parents, decorate with a variety of stickers, and slip the paper into a plastic sleeve in the book. I put the bookplates here to allow the guests to fill them out before putting them with the books they brought. It would be easier to send baby shower bookplates to your guests along with the invitations, but we didn’t have a chance to coordinate this.

Katie also had a cute game for guests to play, called Children’s Book Scramble. The idea was to figure out which children’s book title was described in the obscure description. For example, the answer for “Locale of the Untamed Creatures” was the book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

Overall, the shower was a huge success. The guests all seemed to enjoy the book theme and the books were a wonderful conversation piece. The best part is that my future granddaughter already has a wonderful library of books, complete with bookplates that have a loving message from her friends and family.

The small world of bookplates

March 5, 2013

Bookplates, like family photos, often become part of a treasure of family memories and history. I saw this demonstrated recently when my husband and I were visiting a friend. Our friend is a musician and comes from a family of musicians. While we were visiting, he shared with us several bookplates that had belonged to his father and grandfather, both of whom are now deceased.

E31-There-is-no-frigate-ship-library-bookplatetif One of his father’s bookplates, shown here, was fun to see because it is a variation of a design that we are still printing at Bookplate Ink, E31. As you can see, this nautical design was altered to add the cat and fiddle picture that was the logo for The Catgut Acoustical Society, to which our friend’s father belonged, and printed in green. Most likely, this bookplate was printed by Antioch Bookplate Company in the 1960s.

I was excited to see another bookplate that belonged to my friend’s grandfather. This is one that has been out of print for many years but was also printed by Antioch Bookplate Company. It was a Christmas gift from our friend’s brother to his grandfather in 1962. Not only was this design used by our friend’s grandfather, but it was also the design used by another mutual friend’s grandmother, who happens to have been the mother of the man who started Bookplate Ink.

It’s a small world in the bookplate world!

Donating books

February 19, 2013

Gabor Korvin has been a wonderful and supportive customer of Bookplate Ink’s for many years, during which time he has ordered several thousand bookplates. Like many bookplate customers, he is devoted to one design; in his case, design B208, or “The Bookworm.” This is an adaptation of German Romanticist painter/poet Carl Spitzweg’s famous satirical painting, which was originally published as a bookplate by the Etchcraft Company, then introduced by the Antioch Bookplate Company in the 1950s. Many people refer to it simply as “the man on the ladder.”

Korvin is a professor at King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals in Saudi Arabia. I wasn’t aware until last year that he is an avid collector of Oriental books and has been donating his collection to The Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, where he was presented with their Teleki Medal in 2010. Korvin has donated more than 2000 volumes to the library and continues to send them rare and important books every week.

I was thrilled to hear that librarians at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences have told Korvin that readers frequently ask “Has any new book arrived with the old man on the ladder”?

I asked how he goes about obtaining these rare books. He wrote, “There are so many steps of getting a new Oriental book: it starts from months or years of search, then finding it in auction lists, bidding, winning, waiting for weeks for its arrival, picking up the parcel at the Post Office, carefully opening it, reading some pages at random, but it only becomes really mine when I put in my bookplate. It has become such an important habit with me that I never travel without taking a few dozen of them.”

Bookplates, schools and peacocks

December 4, 2012

One of the joys of having an online business is having the chance to work with people from all over the world. And when there is some connection between us, it is the icing on the cake.

A few weeks ago, a customer called about having a bookplate printed for a book fair at her son’s school. Marceline explained that at the book fair, there would be a “wish list” table of books needed for the school library and teachers’ classrooms. While purchasing books for their children, parents could also purchase one of the “wish list” books to donate to the school. She further explained that she was looking for bookplates to put in the books to permanently acknowledge the parents and students for their gift to the school. While discussing possible designs, Marceline mentioned that there are peacocks on the school grounds. I suddenly realized that I had visited this school.

Last spring, my husband and I flew to New York City to visit our son. We had a wonderful time riding the subway and being tourists. One of the places we most enjoyed visiting was The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine on Amsterdam Avenue, which it turns out, is the location of the school Marceline was calling about.

composite As we approached the cathedral, I was taken by the garden and Peace Fountain at the side. The Peace Fountain, a magnificent work itself, is surrounded by sculptures created by students at the school. I was astonished by the skill and effort put into these creations and spent quite a while looking at them.

peacock My husband strolled down the lane at the side of the cathedral and came back to report seeing two peacocks wandering about. These peacocks, one of which was white, were friendly and fearless. They seemed quite used to being around people and, at least while we were there, seemed to enjoy showing off. According to an article in the NY Times, the cathedral grounds has been home to peacocks since the 1980s, when the Bronx Zoo donated some chicks. And the peacocks are named after various deans at the school and cathedral. peacockwhite

Marceline, who is the Co-President of the Parents Association at The Cathedral School, ultimately chose Bookplate Ink’s design B211 because of the animals in the elaborate border, citing the animals in the many sculptures on the church and school grounds. B211 is one of two troll designs drawn by John Huchthausen, an artist trained in architecture and religious art who created many designs for Antioch Bookplate Company in the early 1940s.

As you can see, I removed the troll from the middle of the design, added the logo for the school and the necessary text, and enlarged the design just a little. The students’ names will be handwritten on the bookplate, along with their graduating class year. The printed bookplates are now at the school and the book fair is starting. Marceline reported that everyone is pleased with the bookplates, and I am pleased to be a part of this wonderful event supporting reading and education.

Creative author bookplates

August 8, 2012

We have had the privilege of printing many wonderful designs with custom artwork over the years, many for well-known authors. We always protect the privacy of our customers and don’t publicize bookplates without permission. Lately, though, we’ve printed several beautiful designs to use for booksignings whose owners have been happy to share. In fact, they are all available on the authors’ websites as a giveaway. We have posted all of these on our Facebook page, but wanted our blog readers who don’t use Facebook to have access. If you do use Facebook, please consider “liking” our page so that you get updates. We will also be offering specials through the Facebook page.

Emily Giffin’s general bookplate

One of our well-known and loyal customers is Emily Giffin, author of Something Borrowed, Something Blue, Baby Proof, Love the One You’re With, Heart of the Matter, and her latest book, Where We Belong. We have printed bookplates for Giffin that are for her books in general, and ones that are specific to each book.

Where We Belong bookplate

According to her site, Giffin has been dubbed a “modern day Jane Austen” and a “dependably down-to-earth storyteller….Her five novels, all filled with her endearingly flawed characters and emotional complexity, have been translated into twenty-nine languages, with five million copies in print worldwide. In addition, three of her novels have been optioned for the big screen, and Something Borrowed has been fast-tracked for an early 2010 shoot by the production companies of Hilary Swank and Edward Burns.”

J&P Voelkel write a really interesting adventure series called Jaguar Stones, based on historical facts about Mayan culture, appropriate for young readers. Books in this series include Book One: Middleworld, Book Two: The End of the World Club, and Book Three: The River of No Return. They recently ordered their second bookplate design from us, with the Mayan theme evident in their artwork.
I found the biographical information on their website to be really interesting:

J&P Voelkel bookplate

Jon Voelkel grew up in Peru, Costa Rica and Colombia. He was not a natural-born adventurer and found life in the jungle difficult, to say the least. Having survived monkey stew, an attack by giant rats, and a plane crash in the middle of the rainforest, he escaped to college in Minneapolis and went on to business school in Barcelona. After working in advertising agencies in Spain, Holland and England, he started his own agency in London with four other partners – one of whom would be his future wife. In 2001, the London Financial Times named him one of the top fifty creative minds in Britain.

While Jon was battling the daily perils of the jungle, Pamela was growing up in a sedate seaside town in northwest England and dreaming of adventure. As soon as she graduated, she escaped to London to take any job with “writer” in the title. After stints reviewing books, writing catalogs and penning speech bubbles for photo-romances, she became an advertising copywriter and award-winning Creative Director.

In 2001, J&P moved from London to rural Vermont, and began work on ‘Middleworld’. In an interesting male/female collaboration, Jon focuses on the action scenes (much of it based on his own childhood memories and the bedtime stories he tells their three children), while Pamela enjoys thinking about the characters and deciding how they feel about things.

When they’re not writing and illustrating their books or visiting schools, the Voelkels are usually traveling in Central America, attending Maya conferences, and studying Maya glyphs.

Maryanne O’Hara’s bookplate

Writer Maryanne O’Hara’s debut novel, Cascade, has just been published, to very positive reviews, including this one by Kim Edwards, author of The Memory Keeper’s Daughter and Lake of Dreams:

“I stayed up very late into the night to finish Cascade, captivated by Dez Hart, a woman torn between competing loyalties: her marriage and her freedom, her sense of responsibility and her desire to live an artist’s fiercely disciplined and passionate life. Past and place come alive in this book; these characters are richly drawn and complexly human. Compelling and fascinating, the story unfolds in such unexpected ways, and with such gathering tension, that I couldn’t stop until I’d read the final, beautifully written, line.”

According to O’Hara, her brother, Michael Bavaro, designed her bookplate to look like a postcard since this is an important element in Cascade. These were printed on a slightly heavier white paper stock, which gives it a nice feel and texture. More information is available on her website.

Meagan Spooner’s bookplate

Author Meagan Spooner’s young adult fantasy novel, Skylark, the first in a trilogy, has also just been published. Skylark has already been selected to be featured as a Young Adult Buzz Book at BEA 2012. According to New York Times bestselling author Carrie Jones, “Skylark‘s rich narrative and plucky heroine will transport you into a mesmerizing and horrifying world.” Spooner also co-authored with Amie Kaufman the young adult science fiction romance These Broken Stars. Read more about her bookplates and work on her site.