Publishing Particulars

Book Production

I do all of my own book design, writing, photography, and layout. When I'm done, I simply give a pdf file to the printer, who produces the book. This was basically not possible for a single person to do until recently. Years ago, with my last McGraw-Hill book, I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get the pdf just like they wanted it, and it was only a black & white book. Now, I just export a Press Quality pdf from InDesign and do nothing special to it. I don't know if the pdf format has gotten better, or whether my current printer is simply better than the one McGraw-Hill used. But in any case, it's much easier with my current setup.

Book Layout

I write the text of my book in InDesign. The "proper" way is to write in Word or Pages, then flow the text into InDesign, but that assumes that the author is writing the book and someone else is laying it out. If you're doing both, then it's much more efficient to be designing the page layout and writing at the same time because composing the fusion of text and graphics as you write produces a much better result, IMO.

Cover Design

Cover images technically are supposed to be of higher quality, but I do all my images at 600 dpi anyway, so it's all the same to me. Getting a good cover when you're with a major publisher can be a battle. I had to reject the first several cover designs McGraw-Hill did for my early books, finally telling them "I'm going to design it myself." This highlights a point that permeates the conventional publishing system: a publisher typically has a somewhat different vision of the book than the author, and it can end up creating a huge head-butting experience along the way. Part of the problem is the financial pressure the publisher is under, so they're always looking to do things that downgrade the quality of the book, in addition to diluting the author's vision.

Paper & Printing

One place they're notorious for "cheaping out" is on paper and printing quality. My McGraw-Hill books had high-quality paperback covers, but the paper inside wasn't much better than newsprint, and the ink rendered the images muddy at best... I've always been very disappointed with the print quality, and color has always been out of the question. But when I started publishing my own books, I was able to use a much higher quality of paper that feels like silk rather than sandpaper. And every book I've published has been full color. And the quality is excellent, matching the original digital image essentially dead-on.

Photography

Getting rights to a single image shot by someone else can be such a headache that I simply shoot everything I'm going to use myself. Not only do you not have to worry about the rights, but you won't waste a lot of time looking for just the right image that someone else has shot. Instead, if you're a good photographer, you can simply go out and shoot precisely what you're looking for.

Amazon

Amazon is our primary retail storefront. They have a well-respected storefront engine that's very familiar to most people. How many people do you know that have never ordered from Amazon? Trust is a big thing when you're asking someone for their credit card number. And chances are, you've already given your credit card number to Amazon, so that's one threshold your customers don't have to get over. There are a number of ways of dealing with Amazon. For years, we've been been at the lowest level, which is a regular Seller Account. It's relatively inexpensive (they take a much smaller slice than a typical bookstore discount (40%) or wholesaler discount (50-55%.) Amazon has other programs that give you some advantages, but then they want a wholesaler discount in exchange, so we've always stayed at the lowest level. There are issues, of course. As you can see in my recent post on Winning the Buy Box, you're definitely a second-class citizen if you're a lowly seller.

Fulfillment by Amazon

We've recently upgraded to Fulfillment by Amazon. Now, instead of us getting a fixed stipend to ship each book, we just ship cases to Amazon and they ship them to the customers. It's a bit of an advantage when a customer sees the Fulfillment by Amazon label, because they have a level of trust for them that they don't for a bookseller they haven't dealt with before. Also, it takes the risk out for us because when we fulfill, our shipping cost is often more than what Amazon allows us, whereas when they ship, we're out of that loop. Also, it dramatically reduces our time because we do big shipments occasionally rather than small shipments every day. One more thing... we spent a fair amount of money on packaging, a cost that is eliminated when we do Fulfillment by Amazon since they provide their own shipping material. So it definitely saves us money, even once you count what they charge to ship, and also to store the books. One more thing... we can leave the office for several days without worrying about getting book orders out since we're not shipping to the customers anymore.

ISBN

Amazon requires you to have an ISBN number for every publication, but you need one for many other reasons, too. Just do it. Problem is, they can be expensive. There are big discounts for buying in bulk. I spent over two thousand dollars several years ago to buy 100 ISBN numbers because I knew I would be using a lot of them over time. I think mine worked out to about $25 apiece. But if you buy them one at a time, they're closer to $100, if memory serves me correctly. There are third-party ISBN merchants out there, but you're far better off for a number of reasons to go directly to the source: Bowker is the authorized source for ISBNs... here's their FAQ on getting an ISBN. When you get ready to publish a book, you'll need to go to BowkerLINK to set up your publisher account and then register your book.

Bar Codes

ISBN numbers get communicated via a bar code located somewhere on your book. I always put it on the back cover at the bottom. You'll need software to create the bar codes. You can pay websites to create each one. That's OK if you're only doing one book, but if you'll eventually do more than one, you're better off getting the software. I use Easy Barcode Creator. It's simple, intuitive, and does everything you need. It outputs the barcode as either EPS, TIFF, Illustrator, or Photoshop. And it's relatively cheap ($128, as I'm writing this.) Mac or Windows.

Amazon Listing Process

Once you've set up your seller account and have your ISBN number, you'll need to list your product. It's not so difficult... go to Seller Central. Under Manage Your Inventory, there's a Create a Product Detail Page button. Once you get there, most of the info is pretty self-explanatory. Make sure you fill out all the BISAC Subject Codes. Here are the major categories of BISAC codes. Click on categories for the actual codes within them. Also, make sure you use all the keywords... it'll make your listing more searchable. Once you've created the Product Detail Page, you're halfway there. Next, go back to Seller Central and click List Single Items. This is where you'll select the Product you've just created and list it for sale in your store. You can set the price at whatever you like.

Wholesalers

I've looked into wholesalers in the past, and am about to do it again. The big boys like Ingram don't talk to publishers with fewer than 10 books, but now, if you count the Guild Foundation Press imprint on McGraw-Hill's Traditional Construction Patterns, that makes 10 for me now. They've said to go ahead and submit an application, so I'm about to do that. There are other smaller distributors, however... it's just that most bookstores have connections with the big ones. I'll report back later on what happens with Ingram.

Bookstores

I'm refining our pitch to individual bookstores. We pitched about 30 indies with A Living Tradition [Architecture of the Bahamas] and had a few of them pick it up. We've had far more sales with Books & Books, Miami's best indie, than any other store. They took 50 of the Original Green, for example... so definitely talk to your hometown indie bookstores first. If I figure out some silver bullets with bookstores in general, I'll post them as I learn them.

Zenfolio

I've done a very strange thing with the images in the Original Green: I've posted every single one of them, in full resolution exactly like they're in the book, on my Zenfolio site. For $0.99 or $3.99, depending on the image, you can download any of them that are useful. Why? I'm trying to make the book part of a network of resources, where each node of the network feeds the others.

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General Thoughts on Publishing

It's been said for years that if you're an author, you're always your book's biggest promoter. That's never been more true than today, with the conventional publishing industry in shambles. I've written over a dozen books over the last decade or so. The first three were published by McGraw-Hill; I've published the rest myself. This post deals with general publishing issues; the one that will follow deals with particulars.

Publisher Promotion

If you're already a very famous author, an established publisher may spend some time and money helping promote your book. Andrés Duany told me that McGraw-Hill is doing some good promotion work on his new Smart Growth Manual. I've never been able to determine that they did any kind of promotion whatsoever on any of my three books with them. Nothing. They just put it up on Amazon and took orders. And in fairness, they have a big corporation to support, so it's essential that they spend their marketing dollars creating a few best-sellers. Major publishers are big-head creatures, not long-tail. That's simply the way their industry operates.

Financial Issues

My last book with McGraw-Hill was Traditional Construction Patterns, published in 2004. Their royalty statements are vague, but as well as I can tell from the information provided, I make about $0.75 from each book sold. It's a $40 book. Put another way, if you divide all the money I've ever made in royalties by the amount of time I spent to write and produce the book, I'm not yet making minimum wage after all these years, and the book has spent almost the entire time in the top 10% of Amazon sellers. Much of that time, it's been in the top 2%, so it's sold well. It's just that McGraw-Hill got the lion's share.

My first major self-publishing venture was A Living Tradition [Architecture of the Bahamas], published at the end 2007. It's a $50 book. After paying Amazon their cut and paying the printing cost on the book, each book sold through Amazon nets a profit of just over $30. The last couple years have been tough on the architecture profession. Realistically, profits from A Living Tradition is what has kept our doors open these past two years. Is McGraw-Hill evil or something? Not at all. Those are the realities of their industry: cut the best possible deal you can with authors and hope for a few blockbusters. They have no choice... if they paid authors a substantially larger cut, they'd be out of business.

The flip side is the fact that you have to ante up a serious amount of cash to print the book. I had to cough up over $40,000 to do the first press run of the Original Green recently. In today's economic climate, that's a really scary proposition. I'm optimistic enough about the book that we swallowed hard and drained our credit line. That's the real test of whether you believe strongly enough in your book. We looked at Lulu and other print-on-demand services, but all of them would have charged $50 or more per copy because the book has color images on nearly every page. The Original Green retails for $29.95, so that obviously wouldn't work.

Blook

I wrote the Original Green over about 18 months. Much of the book was serialized as I was writing it on the Original Green Blog. I got tons of great feedback from many people over the course of writing the book, which was substantially improved by that feedback. I'd highly recommend this method to anyone thinking of writing a book. A blog dedicated to a book is known as a "blook." By building up interest and readership long before the book is published, you're building pent-up demand. This one went a bit further than typical blooks in that it wasn't just promoting the Original Green book; it essentially crowdsourced its authorship.

Social Networking

I began the Original Green cause on Facebook late in 2008, and the LinkedIn Original Green group and the Original Green Twitter stream shortly thereafter. Between the three, there are now over 12,000 people that have given me permission to speak to them about the Original Green. Last November, I was working on a design charrette in Hawaii. We'd had several days of hard work, and my back was in knots, so I scheduled a massage at the end of the last day in the resort where we were working. When I arrived, the masseuse looked at me funny and asked "are you like an eco architect or something?" I said "yes," and she said "I'm a member of the Original Green cause." 10,000 miles away, here was someone who had given me permission to speak to her. Today, there are Original Green cause members on every continent except Antarctica. For anything not specifically about the Original Green, I have the Useful Stuff blog (where this post was originally posted)... while much of my work is about the Original Green, there are other things about me, too. If you clog an issue-oriented blog with too many things not about that issue, you'll likely lose readership.

Editor

"You absolutely must hire an outside editor." Those were Andrés Duany's exact words when I was writing Traditional Construction Patterns. So I hired the one he recommended: Nancy Bruning. A "New Yorker to the core" by her own description, and an author of over 25 books herself, she's highly embedded with several aspects of publishing. She's edited numerous books for others, including some for Andrés. He was right. The book would have been an embarrassment without her. I'll never write a book again without Nancy.

I worked with her first on Traditional Construction Patterns. McGraw-Hill's editors had done little more than checking spelling and grammar. Again, that's par for the course with the tiny amount they can budget to the production of a book by a non-famous author. Nancy, on the other hand, spent several weeks looking at everything from the entire structure of the book to the nuance of the word.

With the Original Green book, I brought her to an Original Green Workshop in Chicago several years ago, as I was developing the idea. I discussed the overall structure of the book with her on a number of occasions. And as I began to write, I'd send her each chapter. Then, once the book was done, I brought her to Miami Beach for several weeks of intense editing. When you think you're ready to go to press, it might seem hard to delay for the editing, but it's essential. Andrés was right.

Facebook Page

I created an Original Green Facebook Page leading up to the Launch Party described below. It's really kinda cool, because conversations start there that I would not have anticipate. It's an actual multi-thread conversation, rather than just me talking and other people (maybe) listening. I did some Facebook ads in the beginning, but am not certain they really did any good, so we've just let the page stand on its own merits. It has nearly 900 people who "Like" it as I write this.

Launch Party

We did a Launch Party at Books & Books on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach. It worked out great... they have a cafe there, and catered the hors d'oeuvres and sold the books. We created a Facebook event, which was our primary online promotion spot for the party.

Post-Publication Promotion

I wish I could hire someone like Irina Woelfle as my publicist, but as noted above, we drained our credit line to print the book, so there's no money left for hiring established publicists at the rates they deserve. But we've had a long and largely successful history of developing talent in-house. We began working with Ty Reid two years ago on other things, and quickly found that he was an exceptional connector, and can repeatedly do things others would consider impossible. So Ty has become our publicist. His site is PR-Ty.com. Currently, I'm his only client, but by the time you read this, there may be others in the People section. Having someone else promote you is always better than trying to promote yourself, IMO, because your publicist can speak glowingly about you in ways you could never do yourself. He lists Publications around which he may build events. Here's his Original Green book page, for example. Just as I crowdsourced the book, Ty is crowdsourcing the book tours by listing a number of tours he wants to produce, and then inviting everyone to help. He's found that a few key people in each region committed to the ideals of the Original Green can accomplish far more because they have connections there than he could ever do on his own.

Audiobooks

I'm definitely going to produce an audiobook of the Original Green book. I've become a big fan of audiobooks since the iPhone came out, and hardly ever walk (or drive) anywhere without listening to a book. One thing I've noticed is that authors who happen to be great speakers get totally stifled and wooden when reading their own books. Having a professional reader do it isn't much better. So I'm going to try something different... I'm going to use the book as a general script, and a reminder of sorts, but I'm going to do it as a presentation so that it comes off like I'm speaking, rather than like I'm reading. Speaking is much more interesting and can carry far more passion, IMO. I've been talking to audible.com, and they indicate that they occasionally consider self-produced audiobooks. They want a sample, of course. I'll report back later how that goes.

eBooks

I'm also going to produce an eBook. All my books are written in InDesign, which will export ePubs. I'm still researching the best ways of submitting them to Apple's iBookstore. Amazon's Kindle system is well-established and clear-cut, from what I can tell. There's one hurdle to get over, and that's the graphic appearance of the book. You have to give up your beautiful layout, and think of the book as a "digital soup of content" that's poured out differently into each eBook reader according to the user's preferences. For example, if you have an image at the beginning of each chapter, it'll put it there, but then put the rest of the images at the end of the chapter all together. To be meaningful, what I'm going to have to do is to completely reassemble the book content in InDesign so that each sub-chapter is broken out as a separate document in order that there's some semblance of connection with the images. A lot of work? Yes. But selling eBooks (bits) is much less expensive than selling paper books (atoms) once you get past that initial layout. Stay tuned on this...

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Amazon Hides How to Win the Buy Box

I've been selling on Amazon for years, have had a 100% positive feedback rating from the very beginning... no negative EVER. I've switched to Fulfillment by Amazon recently. I'm the publisher of the book in question (the Original Green) and have the low price. Yet a company that only lists them used, and at a higher price, and a lower positive rating, wins the Buy Box. Because they're listed as Used, customers have been complaining to me that Amazon isn't selling any new books, and they don't want used ones. So we're losing sales.

After I got off the phone with the completely unhelpful agent, I've been Googling, and it turns out that there are known factors in winning the Buy Box. For example, it appears that you have to be a Gold Level merchant to qualify, according to one site. He could have told me that, and could have told me how to become a Gold Level merchant. And it appears that while the exact algorithm is a closely guarded secret, there are enough factors that Amazon has revealed that a seller can, if properly instructed by Amazon, increase their chances of winning the Buy Box. The agent's approach of saying that "there's nothing you can possibly know about winning the Buy Box" is counter-productive for everyone involved. Give people a target, and they may shoot for it (and help Amazon in the process.) Hide the target in the dark, and nobody wins.

One other thing I've learned, which is a big help, assuming people get to the book using my link: If you go to the master listing for the Original Green book, you'll see the Used seller in the Buy Box. But then, I tried an experiment: I went first to my Amazon storefront, then clicked on the Original Green book there. It took me to a different Original Green listing page, showing only me as the seller. And it had a perfectly normal (large) Add to Cart button where you'd expect it. I guess I'll have to rebuild all my links to my stuff to these detail pages.

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Losing the Second Battle of New Orleans

The VA and LSU are about to bulldoze 27 blocks of historic New Orleans neighborhoods in the name of economic development. But only a fraction of the dollars budgeted will ever reach New Orleans, and the design will thereafter have corrosive effects on the city for many reasons, several of which are detailed here: http://bit.ly/bsrGuc

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my new email signature

Here's my new email signature:

Steve Mouzon AIA ~ CNU ~ LEED AP Mouzon Design 1253 Washington Avenue Suite 222 Miami Beach, FL 33139 USA 786-276-6000 steve@mouzon.com

Figuring it out was one of the toughest things I've done in awhile. I started the task several times over the last couple years, giving up each time in frustration. But for several reasons, I decided to give it one more try. Here's what I learned:

A.

At one point, I had built bigger icons, but these would have been too big. Recently, while revamping the Original Green site, it occurred to me that it would be really cool to build icons using the graphic paradigm of iPhone apps. I found a site that creates iPhone app buttons for free.

B.

Begin by composing the signature in your favorite HTML editor. I know almost nothing about HTML, so I need a WYSIWYG HTML editor so I can see what the finished product looks like. I looked around on Google for free editors, thinking they might be simple to use, but didn't find one that was. So I went back to Dreamweaver, which came with my CS4 package from Adobe. I've only tried it a couple times before, and it's daunting because it's made for creating industrial-strength HTML. For some reason, it seems more of a challenge than PhotoShop, Illustrator, and InDesign, all of which I work with regularly and love.

C.

But in any case, I plowed through, composing everything in the WYSIWYG window, but with the split screen so I could also see the HTML code on the top half of the screen and hopefully learn something about it.

D.

Numerous times during the process, I did "Preview in Safari" so I could tell what it'll look like in use. I occasionally previewed in Firefox, IE, and Netscape, too, just to make sure it wasn't coming out too crazy in those browsers.

E.

You've gotta get rid of all the header HTML in the HTML window for it to work properly. This is the stuff that DreamWeaver puts in by default... but if it's there, the signature won't work. Just select it and hit the Delete key.

F. You've gotta have all your images hosted somewhere for this to work... but not just anywhere. I really wish Zenfolio would work, but for some reason, it doesn't. Nor does MobileMe. After hours of Googling, I finally found a site that works: www.imageshack.us. I have no clue why their hosting works and the others don't, but that's the way it is. And it's free.

G. Once you get them into the document, make sure NOT to do shortened URLs. That would be nice, so you could see how many hits you got on the links, but some email services consider link shorteners a sure sign of spam, and won't deliver your mail. Some places, like a hotel I was in recently, won't even send your email out. So use the straight-up link.

H. Build the structure of your signature using tables, so that stuff goes where you were expecting. Tables make the content far more predictable than just putting it into text, which seems to be one of the more unreliable things in the world of HTML, because everyone's computer can read it differently from everyone else's. But if you put a graphic in a center-justified table cell that's 216 pixels wide, that's where it stays.

I. Here's a crazy part that I wasted a couple hours on... DreamWeaver CS5 is set up to Insert Images that are on your hard drive, so you navigate to them, click on them, and in they go. But this system only works, as noted above, when the images are hosted online somewhere since you're not building a website (DreamWeaver's normal task) but rather, an email signature. So how to get it to find those hosted images? I tried everything I could think of, and then spent a couple hours Googling, but came up empty. The problem is that you can key in the URL no problem, but that doesn't light up the "Choose" button, which remains grayed out. So finally, just before going to bed in the wee hours, I tried something completely irrational. I clicked on one of the files on my computer in the browser window at the top of the Insert Images dialog box, which lit up the Choose button. But before clicking it, I keyed in the URL. Now, click Choose. It works!!! Dreamweaver completely ignores whatever file you've clicked on in the browser window and instead uses your remotely hosted graphic. Completely counter-intuitive, but it works.

J. Once you build it the way you want it, you've gotta get it into Mail. That requires another step or two that are counter-intuitive... so we're not home free yet.

K. In Mail, open Preferences and click on the Signatures icon.

L. Create a new signature by clicking on the plus icon (you can just leave the signature blank for now).

M. Quit Mail.

N. Navigate to your Home Folder > Library > Mail > Signatures. Sort the files by date modified. The names will be complete gobbledygook, but there will be one that has just been created. That's your target... leave the finder window open so you can see its file name while you're doing the next steps.

O. In Safari, open the HTML file that you created.

P. In Safari, go to File > Save As. Then, navigate back to Your Home Folder > Library > Mail > Signatures. You want to overwrite the signature that you just created in Mail.

Q. Click on the new one that you just created, double-checking that it's the right one in the Finder window. Make sure that the format is set to “Web Archive,” and hit Save.

R. Re-open Mail. Here's the last counter-intuitive part: if you look at the signature in the Preferences > Signatures window, all the graphics will be missing... but it all should work fine when you actually use that signature in an email. Go figure. But it works!

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Leon Krier Becomes Honorary Member of New Urban Guild

Leon Krier, whose thinking has had a profound influence upon the New Urbanism since the very beginning, has accepted an honorary membership in the New Urban Guild! The honor, in reality, is all ours... http://bit.ly/dt9g7b

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#Unlovable #Rainwater Harvesting at #AIA2010

I should note from the beginning that BRAE knows their stuff is unlovable. Their Rainigator system looks like nothing so much as a utility box. The rep laughed about it with me. Knowing you have a problem and acknowledging it in good humor is half the battle. Historically, cisterns have, when they're visible, been interesting parts of the architecture they serve. Think of the really inventive stuccoed cisterns of Bermuda, or of Guatemala. Or how about the metal-strapped wood cisterns of the Texas Hill Country, or California, among other places? SmartDwelling I's Tower of Wind & Water has a cistern as its central element. Here's hoping BRAE and others act on the realization that their stuff doesn't have to be ugly.

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Everyone' Sustainable at #AIA2010

... or so they say. Here's the steel industry's booth. Other industry groups were making the same claims. They can't all be the most sustainable. How to decide?

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Signs of the Times at #AIA2010

Here's the only really massive line I saw at AIA... it was to get into a session explaining how to compete for federal work. Clearly, the public/private sector balance has tipped decisively.

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#NanaWall at #AIA2010

I've long had serious reservations about NanaWall because of the huge expanses of glass that is their trademark, and as discussed here recently, large expanses of glass aren't very smart. But now, another thought has occurred to me: If the primary purpose of NanaWall is to open the wall, then it's likely that it may serve to assist in Living In Season because it brings outdoor conditions indoors, acclimating us over time to the local environment.

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#Semco Chilled Beam at #AIA2010

Unless I'm missing something, the Semco Chilled Beam is a seriously clever idea. Basically, instead of ducting all of the air needed for conditioning to every room, they only duct the ventilation air instead. And that makeup air is conditioned with a heat exchanger. This results in much smaller ducts, much less power for blowers, etc. They claim, and it makes sense, that this should be a huge energy saver. Check them out (www.semcoinc.com)... this may be the next generation of active building conditioning.

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Kudos to #Isokern at #AIA2010

This is one of the better innovations at AIA this year. Isokern, which has for years been the last remaining option for a true masonry fireplace in most markets where the masons have forgotten how to build a firebox, has another improvement this year. It's a catalytic converter that sits at the top of the firebox (just behind the sign) and cleans the smoke as it rises to the chimney by catalyzing a second burn at that point. It's relatively low maintenance... just replace the catalytic material every few years; the stainless steel container lasts indefinitely.

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#Sticking Taken Literally at #AIA2010

I guess this belongs in the "what will they think of next" category. Window muntins are sometimes referred to as "sticking". Here's a door that takes that literally... the muntins appear to be trying to ape sticks on trees outside. I guess you might use this if you're in a very dreary place with not much to see beyond the glass.

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#Rainscreen at #AIA2010

I discovered several new terms (for me) at AIA this year. One is "rainscreen." Basically, it seems to be a word for "metal wall panels that leak." This is strategically brilliant: explicitly state that it's someone else's job (whoever makes the waterproof membrane behind the rainscreen) to keep the water out of the building. Your only job is to decorate the wall. Any actual performance failures are someone else's problem. What a concept!

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Super-Size #Umbrellas at #AIA2010

I'll do a few more posts from things observed at AIA 2010 last week. This one's funny... others will be useful, and a few more may be sad. This is the booth of an umbrella company, with names that mirror just how mammoth these things really are... their line is composed of the Jumbrella, the Largo, the Magnum, and the Casa. For anyone who doesn't know already, "Casa" means "house"... and it's an accurate name, as this thing is as big as a small house. But it makes me wonder... why not just put up a tent instead? The massive steel center posts of these outsized umbrellas probably consume more steel than the modest corner posts of three tents the same size, I suspect.

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Little Green Person at #AIA2010

Once upon a time, manufacturers would show up at building trade shows like AIA and IBS with scantily clad women hawking their wares to what was once the male-dominated disciplines of architecture and construction. Sometimes it was really extreme, like the bikini-clad women forever taking a shower at one of the big plumbing manufacturer's booths at the IBS in 2006. Maybe it's the increasing gender parity (at least in architecture) or maybe it's the austerity of the meltdown, but this little green person was 100% covered up... amazing how the pendulum can swing!

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#Sticking Taken Literally at #AIA2010

I guess this belongs in the "what will they think of next" category. Window muntins are sometimes referred to as "sticking". Here's a door that takes that literally... the muntins appear to be trying to ape sticks on trees outside. I guess you might use this if you're in a very dreary place with not much to see beyond the glass.

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BP or Us?

Everyone's talking tough about BP, but this post makes a forceful case that they're the symptom, not the cause. The real cause of the disaster is the sprawling way we've been building out cities since World War II, requiring us to drive everywhere. And now we're exporting this lifestyle to developing nations, exacerbating the massive problem: http://bit.ly/c8NOx4

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Shady Side of the Plane

I'm on the way to Dallas for an Original Green speaking engagement. Checking in this morning, I had the opportunity to change seats. I must have been half asleep, because I picked a seat on the right (Eastern) side of the plane, which of course is the sunny side on a morning flight. The sunny side is never good because of reflections off sunlit stuff in the cabin and glare on the window. But today, the window was scratched enough that shootin to the east was completely worthless. A real pity, too, because it's a beautiful morning. Memo to self: ALWAYS sit on the shady side of the plane, especially early or late in the day!

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#Serious Materials (@getserious) at #AIA2010

Gotta get to bed... let's end on a happy note that's a counterpoint to the previous post. Serious Materials is a company that you really need to know about. They're a big exception in the building industry: a company that actually does what their name implies. These guys have windows that are substantially better insulators than everybody else. And they go one better... they actually make a line of regular windows rather than just curtain wall, which allows you to put in the quantity of windows you actually need to get the light in, and to ventilate (yes, they make operable windows) and then build the rest of your wall with materials that are much better insulators. They sell other equally serious stuff, too. Check these guys out.

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Glass Walls = #Sustainable??? at #AIA2010

OK, maybe I'm getting ornery because it's late, but this is one that really frosts me... This company's booth (Viracon) is entitled Architectural Glass: Sustainable Design, as you can clearly see. I thought "this is great!" Sustainable glass! So I asked about the details. It turns out that much of their stuff is rated near R-4, and the best they can possibly do is R-8. That's very good for glass, but let's compare: The cheapest insulated stud wall you can build has R-11 insulation, plus whatever the insulation value of the sheathing and sheetrock are. You're probably sitting somewhere around R-13 or so when you're done. That means that the cheapest possible stud wall performs three times as well as their mainline "Sustainable Glass!" So what it really means is "slightly less wasteful glass," or more pointedly, "a slightly less wasteful brand of the stupidest material you can possibly sheathe an entire building in, if you're interested in sustainability." Is this Viracon's fault? Clearly, they should tell it like it is, but then they wouldn't sell much glass. But the real problem is the architects, because they're the ones insisting on continuing to do glass-clad buildings long after it's clear how poorly they perform. And don't even start talking about how building occupants need more light... most curtain wall glass is deeply shaded to cut out most of the light, otherwise the glare would be so bad nobody could work. No, it's purely about style... and it's time for that to change.

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#Natura Paint by Benjamin Moore at #AIA2010: Green Cover-Up?

Benjamin Moore has a new Natura line which has all sorts of green credentials. It really seems like good stuff... check it out on their website. I only have one issue with it: it's only a small part of Benjamin Moore. If a company says "we're committed to sustainability," that's what it should mean. Unfortunately, for far too many exhibitors at any building trade show, what that really means is "we have a green line that you can pay a lot more for and use when you're doing a project that's going for a LEED rating." But if the bulk of the stuff you sell is the same old stuff you've always sold, isn't this just a feel-good measure? Just asking.

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#Bluebeam at #AIA2010, and a disturbing trend

This year's convention highlights a disturbing trend: booths so cool that you can't figure out what they're about at a glance. Bluebeam takes the cake. I never did figure out what sort of product or service they were selling, even though the booth was exceptionally cool... OK, "exceptionally cool for a trade show." All I know for sure is that Bluebeam has their own comic book, a couple issues of which you can see posted to the column on the left side of this image. Guys, let's get serious here: if you don't let me know what you do or sell in under 10 seconds, I'm going to walk right past. There are too many booths and not nearly enough time to spend a lot of time figuring out Question 1: What Do You Do? That's an insult to the attendees, no matter how cool the booth looks.

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#Somfy Bioclimatic Facades at #AIA2010

Somfy (rhymes with "comfy," I suppose; www.somfy.com) is one of a large number of companies inventing new terms. What's a "bioclimatic facade?" Don't know, but it sounds like whoever does that must be pretty smart. And to be fair, I'm a phrase freak myself, inventing more than my fair share of terms such as Original Green, Gizmo Green, etc. But at some point, we need to ask ourselves if we're helping our cause by creating loads of proprietary jargon. When I create a term and give it a proper name by capitalizing it, I'm hoping to help it spread freely. But when companies invent terms for their own private use in the interest of mystique, how helpful is that? I'm not completely against it, but we really need to think twice.

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#Westpac LED at #AIA2010

One of the most fast-changing portions of the construction industry over the last couple years has been LED lighting. Westpac (www.westpacled.com) is but one of several companies exhibiting at AIA 2010. Given these recent strides, I'm wondering if LED doesn't overtake compact fluorescents as the light source of choice in the near future. Stay tuned to this one...

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#Invelope at #AIA2010

Here's a super sheathing... Invelope is an extremely thick foam coated with an aluminum skin. It comes in 32" wide panels. It's hard to imagine a better sheathing if you're doing masonry veneer walls. But is this a good thing? Veneers are getting better and better, but are we just postponing the inevitable failures until after we're retired or dead? Will this transform brick veneer construction from a 40-60-year maintenance-free system to a 1,000-year maintenance free system, or will it just add a decade or two? Either way, you have to repoint the mortar every few decades... I'm talking about major maintenance like replacing rusted shelf angles and lintels, or cracking caused by veneer movement. This sheathing has no bearing on shelf angles, which are the big achilles heel of veneer. At best, by making for a sturdier substrate, it just puts off the maintenance a bit. But that doesn't make the building seriously sustainable. At some point, we really need to start thinking seriously long-term again about our buildings. In other words, if you build a masonry building, use real masonry, not "brick wallpaper."

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Unlovable #Hurricane #Shutters at #AIA2010

Hurricane shutters of recent years have been notoriously hideous. Doesn't look like the fabric versions are any better than their corrugated metal cousins:

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#Creatherm at #AIA2010 and the Problem of Comfort Range

I've always loved the idea of radiant floors because radiant heat makes you feel warm even when the air is cool, and it heats you from your feet up. Normally, your feet are the coldest part of your body in winter. Problem is, every time I've tried to do radiant floor heating, I run across the same old question: "What about the air conditioning? If I've gotta have the air conditioning system and all its ductwork anyway, it's not much more expensive to make it a heat pump." And so the radiant floor always gets ditched. But here's a question: what if we could expand our comfort range so that we could "live in season," and maybe (gasp) not need air conditioning in significant parts of the country? If so, then there are a number of really cool things like radiant floors that would suddenly become significant green measures that we could use.

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#Feeney Wire Trellis at #AIA2010

This is one of several systems I saw for training plants up walls. Every system was illustrated using ornamentals, but as we get more serious about creating Green Walls that are harvestable, we need to be thinking of ways of making it work. Is stainless steel the best material? I'm not sure. What about using branches or other organic structures instead? We need to think through this.

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#Otis #ReGen and the Frog at #AIA2010

I completely lost track of the number of frogs I saw in AIA 2010 exhibits. Even Otis Elevator got in on the act! See the cute little one in the lower right square? But seriously, ReGen is a good idea. Rather than waste all the energy of elevator operation that's normally dissipated as heat, ReGen charges itself using the downward movement of elevators so it can use that energy for the haul back up the shaft.

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#Historic #Sustainability at #AIA2010

Here's one company (didn't get their name) who gets one thing right about sustainability... it's about keeping things going long into an uncertain future. So it's as much about maintaining buildings as building new ones. More, actually. So if we're serious about sustainability, we need to not only build buildings that will endure, but also cherish the durable ones we already have.

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#AIA2010 humor

Can't help but chuckle at these guys...

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#IronFoam at #AIA2010

Gonna do a few more posts of cool or cockeyed stuff I saw at AIA 2010 before packing it in for the night. This one's a cool one. IronFoam is the latest version of a system I've seen several versions of since Katrina. There are lots of foam block wall systems where you pour concrete in the middle, but that means that the stucco finish is installed on foam, and therefore subject to damage because the backing is soft. This system turns it inside out, putting the foam in the middle. You then spray Gunite (Shotcrete) on the wire mesh on either side This is an inherently stronger solution because it makes two shells of concrete that are tied together, rather than one slug of concrete in the middle. It also allows the interior shell of concrete to serve as good thermal mass, insulated from the exterior temperature extremes. The foam block systems, by contrast, insulate the concrete as much from the exterior as from the interior, so it can't trade heat with the interior nearly so well, it would seem. The previous two companies I've seen doing this foam-in-the-middle system each were undercapitalized and failed. Let's hope IronFoam does better!

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French Quarter images

I've finally posted a bunch of images from the French Quarter shot beginning in 2007.

This gallery is much larger than normal... over 250 images, so make sure to click "Show All" at the bottom in order to see all of them. Here are a few selected images:

lush gallery gardens

street lamp against the fading last light of day

frontage garden at nightfall

just before sunrise on Decatur Street

gardens on the galleries

courtyard garden

late-night street corner on Ursulines

skull & flag at Halloween in the French Quarter

cook at the Clover Grill saying Hi (look closely)

quiet residential street in the French Quarter

high moon at dawn over the bars of Decatur Street

around the corner from Jackson Square at sunrise

bike in front of Decatur Street bar late in the evening

the gates of Jackson Square before the cathedral at dawn

Quartermaster Deli in French Quarter twilight

If any of these (or anything else on my Zenfolio site) are useful for something you're working on, you can download the full-resolution image... just click on the image to bring up the large preview, then mouse over the top left corner of the image to get the shopping cart icon. Nearly all of the images are 10 megapixels or higher. One other thing... I've started tagging them with keywords, so if you click in the Search box, you can hunt for various characteristics. Try "terminated vista," for example. Or "T4," because I'm starting to tag images according to the locally calibrated Transect zone. Here's a list of keywords I'm using (I haven't used all of them yet, but probably will eventually.)

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Image Keywords

Posterous isn't liking my image keyword list... maybe it's too big or something. So let's try a pdf file instead:

Download now or preview on posterous

Mouzon image keywords.pdf (88 KB)

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Photo Keywords - Building

building
edifice
edifices
arrangement
close
court
bungalow court
corner court
cottage court
court of flats
garden court
triplets
exterior
attachments & sitework
activity
bathing
cooking
playing
animal
attachment
bird
chicken
cow
dog
goat
horse
pig
rabbit
home
bird
birdhouse
chicken
cow
dog
goat
horse
pig
rabbit
sheep
arbor
awning
bell
chimney
cistern
civic art
sculpture
statue
clock
color
fence
metal
wood
fire escape
flag
fountain
garden
balcony
frontage
private
window
gate
front
garden
gift to the street
green shed
hedge
laundry
lighting
ceiling
gate
path
pendant
sign
wall
window neon
moat
outdoor cabinets
pavilion
corner
garden
well
paving
drive
sidewalk
walk
plant
edible
annual
perennial
tree
pool
power generation
seating
garden
street
sidewalk fixtures
sidewalk planting
sign
attached
band
board
wall
attached letters
incised
painted
window
awning
banner
body
fringe
ground
pylon
special
projecting
blade
corner
hybrid
rooftop
text-free symbol
street workshop
terrace
utility
wall
windmill
doors & windows
building gate
door
location
building
loft entry
main
front door
main entry
front door surround
utility
garage
garage door
style
flush
metal
wood
glazed
louver
panel
board
flat
raised
type
coiling
Dutch
Dutch door
overhead
rolling
swinging
double
single
opening
arrangement
head
arch
frame
masonry
sill
shutter
shutters
bar
shutter bar
shutters bar
storefront
retail display
transom
transom window
fixed
ventilating
window
configuration
bay
ganged
style
type
awning
casement
double-hung
double hung
fixed
hopper
sliding
eaves & roofs
cupola, lantern, belvedere
dome
dormer
eave
bell-cast
bracket
bracket
brackets
corbel
corbels
modillion
modillions
brick
enclosure
enrichment
laundry
laundry eave
overhang
dimension
sacrificial
gable
ornament
gable ornament
garage connector
parapet
rainwater collection storage & use
cistern
downspout
gutter
spout
water spout
waterspout
ridge
cresting
eagle's beak
eagle beak
roof
shape
dome
slope
translucent
skylight
steeple
massing & walls
brick range
ceiling height
corbels
first floor elevation
garden room
green envelope
light on two sides
light wing
louvers & vents
massing
block corner chamfer
T2 & T3
T4
T5 & T6
T5 end cap on T4 block
more light
open wall
parking
party wall
positive outdoor space
side wall
sleeping
south facing outdoors
street garage
towers
wall
articulation
base
frame-foundation transition
heavy
north face
western wall
porches & balconies
arcade
balcony
balcony & awning support
colonnade
column
metal
base
capital
stone
base
capital
wood
base
capital
fretwork
gallery
pier
infill
pier infill
pilaster
porch
part
beam
bench
ceiling
fabric
floor
furnishings
gate
type
back
entry
front
portico
reclaimed
side
sleeping
porch balcony & gallery principles
railing
metal
wood
stair
foundation
upper
interior
cabinets & appliances
bath
bath cabinet
vanity
kitchen
cabinet
shelving
open shelves
library
bookshelves
office
utility
ceilings & vaults
floors & bases
furnishings & fixtures
(file under "object")
lighting & electrical
auxiliary fixture
communications
control
phone
TV
electrical outlet
light fixture
cable
cable light
ceiling
recessed
recessed light
surface
surface light
track
track light
desk
desk lamp
floor
floor lamp
floor light
torchiere
pendant
hanging
pendant light
wall
sconce
wall sconce
plumbing & mechanical
stairs & railings
walls & crowns
massing
court yard
courtyard
Alys Beach
full
three quarters
C-court
front court
rear court
side court
U-court
edge yard
corner court
cottage
house
large house
mansion
rear yard
row house
side yard
Charleston Single House
side court
thin house
special
flatiron
liner building
thin
end cap eave
end cap gable
end cap parapet
end cap shed
freestanding eave
freestanding gable
freestanding parapet
infill eave
infill parapet
recessed
tall
tower
type
agriculture
aviary
barn
chicken coop
hen house
chickenhouse
grain bin
grain elevator
greenhouse
hog house
shed
silo
attachment
carport
car port
garage
business
entertainment
casino
speedway
financial
bank
food service
bakery
bar
pub
cafe
coffee house
coffee shop
caterer
confectionary
diner
pizza
pizza parlor
restaurant
room
dining
kitchen
waiting
walk-up
tea room
hospitality
hostel
hotel
inn
bed & breakfast
motel
resort
metal building
mini-storage
office
office building
retail
Main Street shop
shop
store
product
antique
antiques
art
art gallery
gallery
automobile
auto dealership
car dealer
beauty products
books
bookstore
clothing
drug
pharmacy
food
bakery
butcher shop
confectionary
delicatessen
deli
grocery
market
specialty
supermarket
gasoline
filling station
gas station
petrol station
service station
gas backwards
general merchandise
general store
department
department store
hardware
plants
florist
nursery
sporting goods
toy
type
convenience
corner
country
department
specialty
temporary retail
farmer's market
food shed
large shed
non-building
open-air market
open-air retail
portable building
retail shed
wholesale
service
hair
barber
barber shop
barbershop
salon
hairstyle salon
stylist
insurance
laboratory
laundry
self-service laundry
launderette
laundrette
Laundromat
marina
real estate
realtor
rental
equipment
tattoo parlor
sprawl commercial
interchange commercial
mall
shopping mall
strip center
strip mall
civic
monumental
amphitheatre
castle
palace
clubhouse
bath house
country club
yacht club
county
courthouse
court
federal
capitol
U.S. Capitol
US Capitol
courthouse
palace
Pentagon
post office
Supreme Court
White House
library
meeting hall
monument
municipal
borough building
city hall
court
fire station
library
town hall
museum
exhibit
opera hall
pavilion
public safety
fire station
police station
state
capitol
courthouse
office
Supreme Court
theater
theatre
amphitheatre
drive-in
drive-in movie theater
movie theater
cinema theater
cineplex
movie theatre
zoo
menagerie
zoological garden
curious
education
school
elementary
primary school
high
secondary school
kindergarten
middle
nursery
preschool
university
college
post-secondary school
community college
graduate school
vocational
tech school
vo-tech
industry
aerospace lab
factory
brick
chemical
concrete
concrete block
fuel farm
grain elevator
gristmill
mill
junkyard
laboratory
lumbermill
lumber mill
manufacturing
plant
paper mill
refinery
shipping containers
storage
containers
vehicle
warehouse
workshop
clothing
studio
woodworking
infrastructure
city gate
city wall
fort
fortifications
fortress
gateway
guardhouse
jail
penitentiary
prison
landfill
lighthouse
mine
mine site
parking garage
power
plant
power station
powerplant
coal
nuclear
nuclear plant
substation
power substation
tower
air traffic control tower
control tower
bell
belfry
campanile
carillon
cell tower
clock
communication
forest ranger
guard
guard tower
watchtower
lighthouse
beacon
light house
pharos
fog horn
keepers house
lantern room
lighthouse bell
radio house
water
transportation
airport
runway
terminal
bus station
bus depot
bus terminal
bus stop
construction sign
crosswalk
zebra crossing
depot
dock
boat dock
railroad depot
harbor
harbour
locks
canal
river
marina
pier
port
railway terminal
railroad depot
railroad station
railroad terminal
train depot
train station
subway station
transit stop
utility
aqueduct
nuclear power plant
pumping station
sewage treatment
water treatment
live-work
living function
apartment
edge yard house
row house
living location
above
behind
beside
nearby
work function
eat
office
service
shop
workshop
work location
above
below
frontage
inside
rear
medical
clinic
doctor office
hospital
emergency room
hospital room
laboratory
mental institution
asylum
insane asylum
office
operating room
recovery room
mixed-use
recreation
arena
basketball
jai-alai
athletic field
baseball
field
stadium
entertainment park
football
field
stadium
gymnasium
gym
pool
skating rink
soccer field
stadium
religious
place of worship
cathedral
chapel
church
abbey
altar
basilica
cathedral
duomo
steeple
church spire
mosque
office
sacred place
sanctum
sanctum sanctorum
sanctuary
sanctuaries
shrine
synagogue
temple
residential
residence
apartment
block of flats
flat
garden
high-rise
loft
low-rise
condominium
block of flats
condo
flat
garden
high-rise
loft
low-rise
duplex
estate
Katrina Cottage
manufactured
mobile home
trailer
mews
outbuilding
barn
carport
carriage house
garage
garden structure
gazebo
guest house
shed
well house
room
basement
bath
bath
lavatory
restroom
toilet
washroom
water closet
bedroom
master
closet
den
dining
family
hallway
hall
home office
kitchen
laundry
living
sitting
lounge
mud
storage
study
utility
row house
brownstone
town house
townhouse
single family
single-family
cottage
house
large house
mansion
special
earth-sheltered
FEMA trailer
homestead
log cabin
cabin
portable
ruins
shanties
shanty
tent
trailer
water-back

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Photo Keywords - General Notes & Architecture

Here's my current list of photo keywords used to tag new uploads to my Zenfolio site. I'm breaking this up into smaller lists for simplicity. Some of the sections bought from outside sources have been omitted since they might have a problem with me posting it. Here are the omitted sections:

art (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
creature
human
action (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
adults (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
children (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
livestock (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
pet (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
wildlife (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
environment
event (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
natural resources (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
scenery (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
waste disposal (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
weather (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
issue
agriculture (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
disaster & accident (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
education (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
emotion (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
entertainment (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
health (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
social issues (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
virtue (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
location (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources, but it lists all continents, then nations; I fill in only the provinces or states and cities I've photographed)
object (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)
plant (not showing this section because it largely came from other sources)

This is an evolving list; I'm adding stuff as needed... but it's already pretty robust... see what you think:

architecture
historical
Adam
Art Deco
Art Moderne
Arts & Crafts
Beaux-Arts
Bungalow
Carpenter Gothic
Colonial Revival
Federal
Georgian
Gothic
Greek Revival
Italianate
Jeffersonian
Modernist
Brutalist
Corbusian
International Style
Miesian
Wrightian
Renaissance
Romanesque
Shingle Style
Spanish Colonial
Spanish Colonial Revival
Tudor Revival
Victorian
Eastlake
Queen Anne
regional
Cuban
USA
Atlantic Coast
Great Plains
Gulf Coast
Creole
Northeast
Pacific Coast
Rockies
South
Southwest

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Photo Keywords (partial list)

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Photo Keywords (partial list)

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Photo Keywords

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Ann Daigle on the Original Green and the Transect

As promised, here’s the first Original Green post by another voice... this one is by Ann Daigle, as she discusses the relationship between the Original Green and the Transect: http://bit.ly/dyOpCa

If you have noteworthy insights on issues either surrounding or central to the Original Green, please write them up and send them in. This blog should be our voices, not just my voice.

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#Vinyl for Life??? at #AIA 2010

OK, I've been serious so far... Now it's time for a laugh. Vinyl... The Material for Life??? Hmmm... Wonder what that means? What possible connection could there be between life and vinyl? Maybe this is a takeoff on the idea of vinyl as a no-maintenance material? As in "for the life of the product?" That's all OK, I guess, so long as the product is only meant to last 10 or 15 years. The vinyl people may shriek, but do this test for yourself: for anyone over 35, think about how many vinyl things you have that you've been using for 30 years or more. Think of any? Me, neither.

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#CoolRoofs at #AIA 2010

Cooling our roofs is one of the most common-sense good ideas out there, at least for most of the world where cooling is a significant issue. Few retrofits can save more energy at lower cost in most settings, and doing a cool roof on new construction should be a no-brainer. Nonetheless, dark asphalt roofs are still installed all over the South and elsewhere... what are we thinking? The Cool Roof Rating Council (www.coolroofs.org) fulfills at least two important roles: promoting the idea, and serving as a resource node for material ratings, etc. Great work, guys!

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Half-Round #Gutters at #AIA2010

I've promoted half-round gutters and round downspouts for years primarily on an aesthetic basis. Ogee gutters were designed in the early 20th century as the upper (cymatium) part of a classical entablature, and they look ridiculous in most cases when the rest of the entablature is missing. And the crinkled-up rectangular downspouts that almost always go with them have been thoroughly discredited by their use on millions of the most cheaply-built, forgettable tract houses. Half-round gutters, on the other hand, are visually simpler and style-neutral, not requiring the classical entablature. They also have the benefit of sitting slightly off the fascia, so an overflow runs harmlessly between fascia and gutter, rather than trapping water like the ogee gutter does, rotting the fascia predictably every decade or two.

But there's more, as the Rheinzinc folks were good enough to explain to me. Instead of scattering roof trash all across the flat ogee gutter bottom, the same debris settles to the center of a half-round gutter, only to be scoured out quickly with the next small shower. And Rheinzinc has a flashing system that keeps the faacia drier than any detail I've seen before, although it's so simple that anybody could fabricate it. Water also creates a vortex going down a round pipe, as anyone knows who has let the water out of a bathtub. Not so in those crinkly rectangular downspouts. And because they are smooth and round, you can more easily attach round downspouts to boots and other fittings like the orange irrigation water diverter you can see low on the downspout. Isn't it great to find more great reasons for using stuff you already knew was good?

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making 3-D book icons

Jeff Speck's email signature has a great-looking image of the new book he co-authored with Andrés Duany and Mike Lydon: The Smart Growth Manual. It looks so good that I felt compelled to do something similar with the Original Green. Because it's a fairly complicated process, if I don't write it down, I'll never remember it. Here's how it goes:

* Copy the front cover art file to make a new file at 300 dpi.
* Cut and paste the front cover art so it makes a new layer. Name that layer "front."
* Delete the background layer.
* If you haven't already, make a PhotoShop file of the spine art at 300 dpi.
* Use Image Size to reduce the spine art width to 2/3. So if the spine is 3/4" (225 pixels) wide, reduce it to 150 pixels wide.
* Use Image Size to reduce the width of the front cover art by the new width of the spine art (150 pixels.)
* Use Canvas Size to increase the width of the cover art by the same amount, so it's now back to the original size, making sure to add all the extra space on the left.
* Copy and paste the spine art onto the cover art file, sliding it into the 150 pixel wide empty space to the left. Name this layer "spine."
* Duplicate the "front" layer (Command-J) and rename it "front reflection."
* Duplicate the "spine" layer and rename it "spine reflection."
* If your cover is primarily dark, you're going to want to lighten the spine, as if light is coming from the left. If your cover is primarily light, you're going to want to darken the spine, like light is coming from the right. Use Hue/Saturation to either lighten or darken 27 points.
* The bottom right corner of the book is going to appear to be bent back slightly, so use the Gradient tool set Foreground to Transparent from 25 points to zero. If you're making the spine lighter, set the foreground to white; if darker, set it to black. Pull up from the corner at a 45 degree angle roughly 1/3 of the way into the book.
* Use Canvas size to make the entire height of the image a little more than double its original height. If it's a 9" tall cover, make it double height plus 4 pixels; if an 11 cover, make it double height plus 5 pixels.
* Select the "front reflection" layer, Select All, and Edit>Transform>Flip Vertical. Repeat with the "spine reflection" layer.
* Select the "spine" layer. Use the Magic Wand (tolerance: 8, Anti-Alias, Contiguous) to select anything but the spine. Select Inverse to get the spine.
* Edit>Transform>Skew and pull the lower-left corner up 30 pixels.
* Select "spine reflection" in the same manner, and Skew, pulling the upper-left corner up 30 pixels and the lower-left corner up 60 pixels.
* Select "front" in the same manner.
* Edit>Transform>Warp and pull the lower-right corner in and up an equal amount... eyeball it to get it looking right. Raise both bottom handles to get a smooth, natural-looking transition.
* Warp "front reflection" an equal amount so there's always the 4 or 5 pixel difference between the image and the reflection.
* Make only the "front" and "spine" layers visible. Select Merged. Paste to create the merged image of front and spine. Rename "cover."
* Make only the "front reflection" and "spine reflection" layers visible. Repeat the process to get the merged reflection. Rename "reflection."
* Select a narrow band at the joint between spine and front.
* For each layer "cover" and "reflection," do a Gaussian Blur set to 3 pixels. This blends spine to front slightly, like in a real book where it's not a completely sharp edge.
* Set Canvas Size to reduce height, cutting off most of the reflection. Try making the canvas height about 4/7 of what it was before.
* Select "reflection" and Add Layer Mask (Layer window icon at bottom.)
* Set Gradient tool to Foreground to Transparent from 50 points to 15, using either white or black as noted above, and pulling from the bottom of the image to the top of the reflection.
* Save.
* Under Layers, Flatten Image. Immediately Save As a jpg file before you forget and save over top of the PhotoShop file.

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