Busy Days at Workshop and a Bit of Self-Analysis
These past weeks I was quite busy crafting bookbinding tools at my workshop. Spending two days working with power tools may not sound as a heavy agenda, but I still have a day job, and iBookBinding needs constant updates.
Etsy orders in February and March 2017 brought me as much income as I had in the whole 2016. This really gives me a hope that in the near future it would be possible for me to focus on bookbinding-related work (meaning: teaching bookbinding, making books, making bookbinding tools, and publishing at iBookBinding.com).
I’ve been making books for more than ten years now. However, after launching bookbinding classes, I understood that teaching gives me more joy than binding books on order. I felt almost the same when I started to buy power tools for my woodworking workshop. Making bookbinding tools is a wonderful process, which always gives me a chance for experiment (not that there is no experimentation in bookbinding).
Being a restless person, I cannot really stand tedious and repetitive work. That doesn’t mean I cannot work hard. There are plenty weeks when I work 7 days in a row, sometimes having a first day off after fifteen or twenty working days. However, I always have to make my current task to be interesting for me. That’s why everything I’ve built around iBookBinding in these past 20 months seems to fill my schedule just perfectly:
- A day for bookbinding classes;
- Two days — making bookbinding tools;
- A day or two making and repairing books;
- Everything that’s left (evenings and other days) spent on work with iBookBinding.
Oh, I also need some time to finally start making videos for the iBookBinding YouTube channel regularly…
If the current trend would continue, pretty soon the scheme mentioned above could become real. I just need to quit my current day job. And that’s not the easiest transition a person may come through. I’ve been thinking about that for several years now, and it always wasn’t the right moment. Maybe this spring would be a season of change for me?
What about you? Are you a freelancer? Full-time bookbinder? Are you thinking about quitting your day job to give your creativity more time? I’d be glad if you share your opinion.
PS If you need some presses, sewing frames or other wooden bookbinding tools — just send me a message, I’d be glad to help. Or visit my Etsy store here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/BonefolderClub
🙂
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