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7 Years Ago I Walked Off My Day Job As A Museum Guard To Make Hollow Books For A Living
I’m a natural introvert, and spending hours indoors with a book has been my favorite activity from the time I was a little girl growing up in suburban Minnesota. My dream was to become an artist or a novelist, and I ended up earning my BFA in painting and drawing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. (Plus I happened to take a book arts course while there which would later prove fortuitous). My paintings were mostly images of difficult relationships from the past.
I didn't feel good about exhibiting my paintings, which I felt were becoming more and more a form of personal art therapy rather than anything I'd want to show or sell. But I continued to love drawing in a sketchbook which could be open when I wanted and closed when I felt more vulnerable. As a struggling artist, I went through years of odd jobs, including horse-carriage driving for two years, selling luggage, stuffing envelopes, a three week stint at The Gap, and of course my last job outside the home, working as a gallery guard at an art museum.
Disillusioned with my own art, I still wanted to get my hands on a project of some kind after coming home from a day of "Please don't touch the art." So, I was surfing the web and came across a hollow book. It just clicked with me and my introverted, bookish nature. Soon I was spending hours making hollow books with just an x-acto blade. On a whim, I put a Nancy Drew one up for sale on Etsy.com. I clicked the refresh button not long after, and it had sold! Other sellers had made hollow books from ugly library discards with titles nobody had heard of. Instead, I started doing beautiful editions and popular titles; soon I found out that booklovers wanted books that meant something to them, to put their treasures inside a beloved book.
In 2010, my husband bought me an electric scroll saw, and after months of trial and error, I figured out how to effectively use it to craft books more smoothly and put all my effort into creating my shop which I named Secret Safe Books. Not long after, Etsy made me a featured seller on their blog which kick-started my business, and I quit my day job to make hollow books full time. As a natural introvert, I finally feel joy and comfort in my current occupation as a hollow-bookmaker running Secret Safe Books from home. (And I still get in plenty of reading time; my latest obsession is the magical realist novels of Haruki Murakami). When my husband got laid off from his job in 2011, he joined Secret Safe Books and now we make our living solely from crafting book safes. Here are some of our favorite ones.
More info: Etsy
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This is beautiful; you have so much creativity! These are obviously made with lots of love!
Want to mention, all of our books have magnetic closure so your secrets won't be leaked, even when your book is upright.
Would like to mention that all of our books have a magnetic closure, so your ring won't pop out before you're ready to pop the question.
btw all of our books have a magnetic closure, but our gun books have one that's stronger than our others, capable of keeping inside a fully loaded Glock with additional full magazine while book is held upside down.
I like how incredibly specific you are about exactly what it can hold, haha.
Load More Replies...Here in the UK handguns are banned. Shotguns are licenced and kept in solid metal cabinets. Weirdly there is a lot less gun related death. If guns looked like a dildo I don't think people would buy them. It would make them easier to hide and close at erm...hand, ready for that intruder inviting you to protect your property though...
You know, there are MANY, many people who are (1) responsible gun owners who (2) have no children around the house. For all you know, those people could be her primary target market. (Pun intended.)
I like your other books, but the gun books perpetuate a problem in our culture: irresponsible gun ownership. Please rethink this!
Hi Eva and Anet, I understand your concern. (Eva I made this reply to your comment on my other gun book, the Secret History of the CIA). There are gun owners who keep a loaded one in the nightstand and others who have lock boxes who forget or neglect to lock their gun cabinet. I'm trusting our customers to hide a gun in our book where it will be placed on a high shelf away from children, or behind the locked door to the bedroom or study, or in a home where children never come.
Load More Replies...I haven't read this book yet, but I have a feeling my younger sister (she's 10) will go NUTS about this!
Bookception! Hmm... I wonder if a mini-mini book is placed inside the mini book!
A bride-to-be sent me a pic from Pinterest of an "Unbreakable Vow" ring bearer book, so we made our own version.
This is my all time favorite love story, and I love the beautiful clothbound edition here. (Penguin Classics)
Hi Linda, We can't do some books with the movie tie-in cover art, particularly Lionsgate (The Hunger Games, etc). Plus we're not allowed to copy for resale purposes any illustrations or text from the book as that obviously is the very definition of violation of copyright laws. We purchase books, alter them by creating the cutout sealed with archival bookbinding adhesive and a neodymium magnetic closure, then sell our work. We also resell altered (dog-eared/creased/yellowed) books for either greater or lesser profit based upon how rare/mint/wrecked the volume is, like millions do on eBay as well. Many thanks for taking the time to look at my work and to comment, I really appreciate it. Please always feel free to let me know if you have any further questions, and I'll do my best to help make sense of things.
btw all of our books have magnetic closure, so for example here your "holy spirits" won't leak out of this imbible.
Hi Eva, I understand your concern. There are gun owners who keep a loaded one in the nightstand and others who forget to lock their gun cabinet. I'm trusting our customers to hide a gun in our book where it will be placed on a high shelf away from children, or behind the locked door to the bedroom or study.
I love the herringbone (I think that's what it's called?) pattern made with the books around the hollow one!
Hi Bored Panda community! I joined Bored Panda last month and have really enjoyed posting and commenting and being entertained by all the fantastic stuff here, it's an awesome community. I'm glad to talk about what I do, ask me anything, I'd love to hear from you all.
a book with a hole in it...how exciting.... (these are actually very beautiful!! just...seems like something that someone with too much money on hand would buy)
Well, then the moneyed person would have a place to stash their overabundance of cash!
Load More Replies...There's something romantic about it!
Load More Replies...i need the mockingbird one!! these are all so amazing and well crafted, i want to fill my shelves with all of them!!
I agree with other people on here... this is such a destructive thing to do, especially to expensive, limited edition, old, rare, beautiful books. They shouldn't be destroyed in this way - it's literally taking their hearts out. Old damaged ones or new mass produced ones, fine (still awful to me) but to do this to classics where there may not be so many copies is just awful to me!! Total sacrilege I agree!! I'm glad you found something you enjoy but maybe you could find a way to expand this idea by creating something rather than destroying existing things? Xx
Thank you for taking the time to look at my work and taking the time to post your comment, I really appreciate it!
Load More Replies...You can click on the link at the bottom of each photo to go straight to secretsafebooks.etsy.com. We're also at secretsafebooks.com.Thanks for looking!
Load More Replies...Do you do books on order, for example if I have a book, would I be able to send that one book to you for you to customise? They look amazing by the way. I cringe a bit when I see books being cut or "destroyed" but these aren't rare books. They are books you can find anywhere, it's not like the artist is destoying precious and rare artifacts.
Hi, Violaine! Yes absolutely we do custom orders. You can send us a book or a link for us to purchase it. To make a request and get a price quote /turnaround time, just message me on Etsy or email Kara at secretsafebooks dot com.
Load More Replies...Any kind of book is a good book in my book: hardcover, ebook, paperback, hollow too. I'm favoriting your shop in Etsy <3
Glad to meet a fellow bibliophile and thanks for faving my shop! Yes it's awesome in our modern world to have unlimited access to inexpensive or even no cost e-books, plus used books and new editions. I hope everybody continues to buy real books to keep the print industry alive.
Load More Replies...You've cut holes in a Tolkien book.... not cool ! Whether they reprint another because you bought it is besides the point. Books are meant to be read and appreciated not cut into. Not a good use of materials here
Thank you for taking the the time to look at my work and for taking the time to post your comment, I really appreciate it.
Load More Replies...I LOVE THOOOOSE 😍 the haters are so dumb omg you just make the books you dont TELL people how to use them the gun ones are just sarcastic examples ! Chill a little people
Wow. This is simply amazing. :D I wish good fortune for all your future endeavours.
Thank you, Ankan, I really appreciate it, same to you!
Load More Replies...i love these!!! ive made some from very thin wood before and bound them in leather these are very kool
Thank you, Patricia! I'd love to see your wood and leather ones, any photos?
Load More Replies...You wreck the book with a beautiful way, but im gonna cry for the books :(
Thanks for taking the time to look at my work and for taking the time to post your comment, I appreciate it so much!
Load More Replies...I just have a question. (I don't intend to be rude). Do make a living out of these books? I mean do you sell them? If yes, for how much? And lastly, I'm actually pretty impressed, these are beautiful, I have never seen something like this. Are they real books?
Thank you, Ankan! Yes, my husband and I are able to make a modest living from our business of making hollow books. We've done so since 2010.(btw I wrote a few paragraphs about our story at the top of this post with more details if you're interested). And yes, they are real books :) Thanks for taking the time to look and comment!
Load More Replies...I'll be a bad one here. Since those are for sale? What about copyright/infringement?
p.s. Monika, I looked at your last Bored Panda post and I love your bookmarks, especially your unicorn one!
Load More Replies...Hi Bored Panda community! I joined Bored Panda last month and have really enjoyed posting and commenting and being entertained by all the fantastic stuff here, it's an awesome community. I'm glad to talk about what I do, ask me anything, I'd love to hear from you all.
a book with a hole in it...how exciting.... (these are actually very beautiful!! just...seems like something that someone with too much money on hand would buy)
Well, then the moneyed person would have a place to stash their overabundance of cash!
Load More Replies...There's something romantic about it!
Load More Replies...i need the mockingbird one!! these are all so amazing and well crafted, i want to fill my shelves with all of them!!
I agree with other people on here... this is such a destructive thing to do, especially to expensive, limited edition, old, rare, beautiful books. They shouldn't be destroyed in this way - it's literally taking their hearts out. Old damaged ones or new mass produced ones, fine (still awful to me) but to do this to classics where there may not be so many copies is just awful to me!! Total sacrilege I agree!! I'm glad you found something you enjoy but maybe you could find a way to expand this idea by creating something rather than destroying existing things? Xx
Thank you for taking the time to look at my work and taking the time to post your comment, I really appreciate it!
Load More Replies...You can click on the link at the bottom of each photo to go straight to secretsafebooks.etsy.com. We're also at secretsafebooks.com.Thanks for looking!
Load More Replies...Do you do books on order, for example if I have a book, would I be able to send that one book to you for you to customise? They look amazing by the way. I cringe a bit when I see books being cut or "destroyed" but these aren't rare books. They are books you can find anywhere, it's not like the artist is destoying precious and rare artifacts.
Hi, Violaine! Yes absolutely we do custom orders. You can send us a book or a link for us to purchase it. To make a request and get a price quote /turnaround time, just message me on Etsy or email Kara at secretsafebooks dot com.
Load More Replies...Any kind of book is a good book in my book: hardcover, ebook, paperback, hollow too. I'm favoriting your shop in Etsy <3
Glad to meet a fellow bibliophile and thanks for faving my shop! Yes it's awesome in our modern world to have unlimited access to inexpensive or even no cost e-books, plus used books and new editions. I hope everybody continues to buy real books to keep the print industry alive.
Load More Replies...You've cut holes in a Tolkien book.... not cool ! Whether they reprint another because you bought it is besides the point. Books are meant to be read and appreciated not cut into. Not a good use of materials here
Thank you for taking the the time to look at my work and for taking the time to post your comment, I really appreciate it.
Load More Replies...I LOVE THOOOOSE 😍 the haters are so dumb omg you just make the books you dont TELL people how to use them the gun ones are just sarcastic examples ! Chill a little people
Wow. This is simply amazing. :D I wish good fortune for all your future endeavours.
Thank you, Ankan, I really appreciate it, same to you!
Load More Replies...i love these!!! ive made some from very thin wood before and bound them in leather these are very kool
Thank you, Patricia! I'd love to see your wood and leather ones, any photos?
Load More Replies...You wreck the book with a beautiful way, but im gonna cry for the books :(
Thanks for taking the time to look at my work and for taking the time to post your comment, I appreciate it so much!
Load More Replies...I just have a question. (I don't intend to be rude). Do make a living out of these books? I mean do you sell them? If yes, for how much? And lastly, I'm actually pretty impressed, these are beautiful, I have never seen something like this. Are they real books?
Thank you, Ankan! Yes, my husband and I are able to make a modest living from our business of making hollow books. We've done so since 2010.(btw I wrote a few paragraphs about our story at the top of this post with more details if you're interested). And yes, they are real books :) Thanks for taking the time to look and comment!
Load More Replies...I'll be a bad one here. Since those are for sale? What about copyright/infringement?
p.s. Monika, I looked at your last Bored Panda post and I love your bookmarks, especially your unicorn one!
Load More Replies...