100% HANDMADE.
Tiny TOE Press (est. 2011) is a publisher of poetry, novellas, & novels. We publish 1 to 2 books per year. We're highly selective about what we publish because our perfect bound paperbacks are 100% handmade.
It started with a wooden jig sketched & built in a shed (seen in the embedded video). This jig allowed us to press one book at a time. To meet growing demand, we designed & built a new jig that presses multiple books simultaneously. Other than copying the interior pages, the production of our perfect bound paperbacks uses NO ELECTRICITY.
Everything happens on a self-healing cutting mat, where we use a utility knife (with segmented blade) & a metal ruler. We score spines into our covers with precision. We use our custom-designed jig to clamp squared books into place & apply archival quality glue (mixed with a special ingredient) then let the spines ossify. We use the same utility knife to shave the edges into clean right angles. We use stamps to give identities to our books. We use our custom-designed toe stamp to brand the back cover.
This process takes time, much more time than an offset printer. This process is all too human: each book is its own body with discrete birthmarks. This process keeps us happy. We hope our books will keep you happy.
While the business of publishing is often scaled to make economic sense, Tiny TOE Press specializes in small/limited runs that don’t make economic sense & don’t satisfy feasibility models. Our books exist because the world is irrational.
Booksellers that would like to buy books from us may email [email protected] for a 50% discount. Journalists interested in reviewing our books, interviewing Tiny TOE Press authors, or spreading the word about Tiny TOE Press are also encouraged to email said address. While questions & comments to said email address are always encouraged, Tiny TOE Press currently takes submissions by solicitation only. Thank you for your time.
100% HANDMADE. $14.95 EACH.
Austin Nights
The Mosquito Song
Miss Gone-overseas
Heart of Scorpio
The Persistence of Crows
Rarity of the CenturyWe're pro-social
We blog attheopenend
We call our handmade notebooks SlimNote
We tweet as @TinyToePress
We sometimes Facebook
We get intimate on Instagram
Bridget had a fierce desire for survival which made her a fighter. Michael had a hankering after immortality which made him a useless dreamer. And that was the great difference between these two Austin transplants who loved each other so well.
Hunted by amateur assassins, confounded by a mysterious notebook, and vexed by modern technology, a derelict vampire travels west to Chicago for answers. And maybe a little blood. (Also includes author intro and bonus short story)
In the sparse, lyrical style of a classic pillow book, Miss Gone-overseas chronicles a wartime life that doesn’t focus on guns, bombs or military depredations, but on the pedestrian life of a lower-class Japanese woman as she reflects on the turmoil around her. Set on a lush tropical island during the later part of World War II, the book begins and ends with separations that are also beginnings.
Originally published in Spanish as El corazón del escorpión, this winner of the IX annual National Novel Award from the Medellín Chamber of Commerce raises the bar for boxing literature. In bursts of fiction and nonfiction, Heart of Scorpio tells the tragic story of ex-champion boxer, Antonio Cervantes (“Kid Pambelé”), using four distinct voices that represent the personal, family, social, and public aspects of this athlete’s life.
Rarity of the Century is a modern apocalyptic thriller told through different perspectives that begins as a coming-of-age story about a lonely young man looking for love but eventually turns into a more complex narrative about solitude and the never ending search for connection.
The Persistence of Crows is a contemporary meditation on the coming-of-age themes of such novels as Less than Zero, or The Catcher in the Rye. More poignantly, it details the late teenage and early adulthood realizations of a young man named Henry Alfi. Henry, recently having quit drugs and alcohol, has become sickened and disenchanted by those institutions surrounding him: college, AA, relationships that go nowhere; and through a trip with his college newspaper away from his native Midwest he's able to realize a higher purpose within himself, that of becoming a writer, and pursuing what he believes in.