Lost Art Press

Category: Sharpen This

The 10 Best-selling Products of 2023

Posted on by Lost Art Press
People love the pocket books.

I’m always a bit surprised by what sells well each year. I look at our sales every morning, track inventory and try to figure out our next step. But rarely do I step back and look at the big sales picture. Except for today. Here are the 10 best selling Lost Art Press/Crucible products of 2023 by units sold.

  1. “Sharpen This” This pocket book came out in September 2022, yet we’ve already printed 14,000 of these little suckers. It is my fastest-selling book (whatever that’s worth). If you buy it from us, I sign each copy personally and we include a PG-13 Slightly Naughty sticker.
  2. “The Woodworker’s Pocket Book” Another surprise, really. This has to be the best woodworking book for the bathroom. You can flip to any page and learn something interesting about finishing formulas, wood species or 18th century mouldings listed by furniture style.
  3. “The Handcrafted Life of Dick Proenneke” This book continues to sell thanks to the fact that 1) It’s a simply amazing read and 2) The incredible popularity of the PBS series about Dick. The author took care of Dick’s cabin for years and was the perfect (and authorized) person to write this book.
  4. “The Essential Woodworker” We reissued this book in 2010 with the help of the author, Robert Wearing, and it is now in its 10th printing. This book continues to sell because you can read it in a short afternoon and it connects all the dots with handwork. It is simple (but not simplistic), perfectly illustrated and simply the right book for those who want to work with hand tools.
  5. “Make a Gibson Chair” Video. This one isn’t a surprise. The video came out this year and shows how to make one of the most comfortable (and simple) stick chairs ever.
  6. “Workshop Wound Care” Another great and much-needed pocket book. This book should be in every shop. Not because it will help LAP financially or make you a better woodworker, but because you will need its advice some day when things go wrong. Not if – when.
  7. “Crucible Engraving Tool” We’ve sold more than 1,000 of these suckers, and I can’t wait to see what woodworkers do with them. We are out of stock this minute, but we have another 500 on the way in the next week or two. So sign up to get notified when we restock.
  8. “Euclid’s Door” This book, released in 2021, had a slow start but picked up steam in 2023. “Euclid’s Door” teaches you practical geometry as you build some very useful and accurate wooden shop tools. It’s fun and eye-opening. And the next book in the series (coming in 2024) will bring even more fans into the “By Hand & Eye” fold.
  9. “Karvsnitt” Jogge Sundqvist’s second book with Lost Art Press dives into the world of chip-carving, spells and color. Like all of Jogge’s work, this book is engaging, fun and inspiring.
  10. “With the Grain” Again, what the heck? This book is in its seventh printing and continues to sell and sell. I think I know why: It’s a no-nonsense guide to what you need to know about wood technology at the bench. There are much more scientific books out there, but you won’t find a more practical one.

— Christopher Schwarz

Author-signed Books – Offer Extended Through 2024

Posted on by Lost Art Press
All my books sold through Lost Art Press will be signed by me.

All my books that you buy through Lost Art Press will be signed by me through 2024.

It takes a few hours of my time each week, but we are thrilled we can offer this small personal touch now that we have our fulfillment center up and running in Covington, Kentucky.

We also will offer the PG-13 “Sharpen This” sticker when you buy “Sharpen This.” (Our bestselling product of 2023.

This personal-touch stuff is what we have always wanted to offer our customers, but we were hobbled by our efficient but inflexible fulfillment center in Indianapolis.

More personal stuff on the way (no, you won’t be able to buy my underwear).

— Christopher Schwarz

All copies of “Sharpen This” come signed by the author and with this free sticker.

PG-13 ‘Sharpen This’ Stickers are Back!

Posted on by fitz

Starting now, when you buy the book “Sharpen This” from the Lost Art Press website, it will not only be signed by the author (that would be Christopher Schwarz), but we’ll include our reprint of the 2017 “Sharpen This” sticker that some (hi, Mom!) might find mildly offensive. (If you get a sticker and don’t want it, we will be in no way offended if you choose to bin it. And anyway, we won’t know!)

We’re able to add the sticker at no extra cost now that our fulfillment operations are here in Covington, Kentucky. Right now, we’re committing to the sticker (and signature) through the end of the year.

What if you just bought a book and are now disappointed that you didn’t get a sticker? I will mail you a sticker, no charge, if you send me a Self-addressed Stamped Envelope (SASE).

Simply write your address on an envelope and put a stamp on it. Put that envelope in a second envelope and mail it to:

Sharpen This
Lost Art Press
837 Willard St.
Covington, KY, 41011

If you are an international customer, you can still get the naughty sticker, but you’ll need to have a USPS Global Forever Stamp on your SASE. I know that’s a PITA, but it’s the best we can do.

– Fitz

p.s. Please keep any comments/responses to comments civil.

The sticker fits nicely on the book’s cover – but we’ll leave it up to you as to where/if you apply it.

Warning: Sharp Language

Posted on by Lost Art Press
French, German and English editions of “Sharpen This.”

With woodworking books, it can take years for publishers to decide if they want to translate a title into a foreign language. With technical information, publishers want to make sure that the information is worth translating and reprinting. Translations are shockingly expensive.

So it was gratifying that immediately after “Sharpen This” was released in September 2022, both French and German publishers approached us about translating the book. And now, one year later, both translated editions have been released.

“Einfach Scharf” (Simply Sharp) was translated to German and published by HolzWerken. The German publishers went to some extra trouble with their edition. They replaced the vintage English advertisements on the book’s endsheets with German advertisements. And they added a ribbon bookmark.

Nice additional touches to the German edition.

“Manuel d’affûtage” (Sharpening Manual) was translated to French and published by Editions Vieux Chene.

Both editions reproduced the “pocket size” of the original, are printed on offset presses and have sewn bindings. It’s nice when publishers don’t try to cheapen your work (like the foreign publishers did for my first book on workbenches, which looks like it was printed on a 1970s photocopier with a case of the runs).

I know that lots of people disagree with my sharpening methods, particularly the fact that I use a honing guide for chisels and plane irons. That’s OK. I’ve had far more people tell me that this book changed their woodworking for the better.

And the reach of the book might just get even longer. This week a Chinese publisher contacted us about translating “Sharpen This.”

— Christopher Schwarz

Review: ‘Sharpen This’

Posted on by fitz

Thank you to Eric Stockinger, director of the WoodenBoat School in Brooklin, Maine, for his kind review of “Sharpen This” in the May/June 2023 issue of WoodenBoat Magazine.

“If only there had been some simple guidebook to sharpening 30 years ago, I might have saved a whole lot of trouble and money,” wrote Stockinger.

“Sharpen This, by Christopher Schwarz (Lost Art Press), is exactly that: a guidebook to the confusing world of sharpening hand tools. In 114 informative pages, Sharpen This briskly manages to do what some books four times as long have not: explain in simple terms what a sharp edge is, and how to go about creating one.”

You can read Stockinger’s “Sharpen This” review in its entirety in Issue 292, available now at the WoodenBoat Store.