Quakebook first edition sells out

Bitter sweet news here at Quakebook HQ. All 2,000 copies of the original bilingual Quakebook published by Goken have been sold. Thanks to Tamio Okumura and his team at Goken, the publisher has raised and handed over ¥1 million (¥1,036,460) to the Japan Red Cross.

I have the utmost respect for Goken. They are a small publisher, mainly of bilingual textbooks, based near the heart of the Japanese book trade in Kanda, Tokyo. Countless bigger publishers passed on the opportunity to publish Quakebook, perhaps thinking it was not worth their while, not core to their bottom line or was simply impossible. Goken too didn’t need to get involved but when Okumura-san heard about Quakebook, he offered to do whatever it took to get the book into print and into Japanese bookstores. And his team agreed. The staff worked for free on the project, promoted it to bookstores and even ran ads in the Nikkei Shimbun for Quakebook. Not only that, they donated their slice of the profits to the Red Cross.

It has been an honour and a privilege to work with Goken, a sentiment all of us Quakebookers share, so it’s a sad moment to see the end of the project, even though it has been enormously successful.

If you didn’t buy a copy, don’t despair, you still can buy a hardback print on demand version, here, but the first Goken edition is history. And, of course, the ebook remains free to download here.

The Quakebook publishing adventure is over, but Quakebook’s legacy lives on; that together we can make a difference. I haven’t forgotten that lesson, I hope we never forget the survivors of 3/11.

To all who worked on the project, contributed to the book, bought a copy or spread the word, I can’t thank you enough. You made a difference.