The idea of writing a book based on my website www.bonsai4me.com was one that I have had for a number of years. With the popularity of the website growing year on year, at the beginning of 2009 I decided to focus my work in the direction of writing and publishing my first bonsai book.

Selecting 15 of my favourite bonsai, each tree was meticulously pruned, wired and refined before being photographed during the Spring and Summer of 2009. By September 2009 I had collected together plenty of material to write about. So, armed with 100's of images taken over the previous 15 years and dozens of good quality 'final' images of my favourite bonsai, I started writing the book.

My original plan had been to write a book of around 150 pages, each chapter revolving around the progression over several years of a tree turning into a bonsai. Initially I thought the book would take around 3 months to write and would be finished by November/December of 2009......however, it was February 2010, 6 months later, that I finished writing the final chapter. By this time the book had grown to around 270 pages.

Each page was put together roughly using Desktop Publishing Software (Adobe Indesign) on my laptop and then each chapter was sent to Croatia, where Ninoslav Pirš began the process of designing and laying-out the book in preparation for printing.

 

9th January 2011: Harry Harrington signing Inserts for the book

After much demand from buyers of the book, I decided to include a personally signed Insert/Certificate with each copy sold until the end of February

The Printers Building just outside Zagreb, Croatia

On Monday 31st January 2011, the computer files for the book were taken to the Printers in Zagreb, ready for printing.

Metal (Aluminium) Plates used for printing

To print the book, the Printing Company made metal plates to print 16 pages at a time onto large sheets of paper. In the case of Bonsai Inspirations, there are a total of 272 pages requiring 17 of these large sheets of paper per book. To print on both sides of each piece of paper and in 4 different colours, over 136 plates in total were needed!

First 'Try-Out' Print

Each printed paper contains 8 pages (16 altogether including both sides) and are folded (in a particular way) and then sewn together

Printer checking the printing-quality and colour

Latest generation Printing Machine

The machine being loaded with paper

The first pages being printed

The very first copy of Bonsai Inspirations

Friday 4th February; just 4 days after the book went to print and well ahead of schedule, we received the very first copy of Bonsai Inspirations from the publishers.

18 months (and hundreds of man-hours) after I wrote the first page of the book, Bonsai Inspirations is finished and at the time of writing is being packaged ready to be sent out across the world!

Sample Pages from Bonsai Inspirations

For more information and to order your copy of Bonsai Inspirations please visit here.