The NoGood book is finally done. It took nearly two years, and I still can’t quite believe it. When my 400 copies arrived from the printer, I was nervous as hell. But when I opened one of the many boxes stacked in my studio, took out a book and flipped through its pages, the worries disappeared. This project turned out exactly the way I intended.

I planned to write more updates during production, but the work—on the book, and on other projects—took all my time and energy. Now that the book is out and pre-orders have landed on my backers’ doormats, here’s a look back at the last six months.

Home stretchHome stretch

With each round of changes, and every passing week spent chipping away at the design, the book’s shape became clearer. By the start of 2026 it was mostly locked in. The crowdfunding campaign had passed €5,000, which let me change the size of the book so I could display the illustrations in a larger format. All the articles were in, all my sketches collected. What was left was production.

The first quarter of 2026 was one long sprint. I drew the illustrations for the articles in the Context section, finalised the design, spine and cover, moved the illustrations around until they sat on the right pages, and finished the writing with Daniël—hiring him to write the book was handing off the one thing I couldn’t do myself.

Then the tedious bit: pre-processing every image and illustration. The printer sent a proof and, as I have a background in print design—I designed newspapers for a couple of years—I knew what I was looking at. But there’s always guesswork involved. No matter how often you go over technical specifications, ink limits, colour profiles and gamut warnings, or how many times you brighten or darken an illustration: you never know exactly how the book will turn out. I prepared as best I could.

I visited the printer a few weeks after submitting my files, taking my father along; he loves this kind of thing. The men operating the giant machinery explained how they worked and showed us the presses’ inner workings. The pages flew through them faster than the eye could register. A surreal, beautiful experience.

ShippingShipping

Three weeks later, 400 books arrived at my studio. Cut, bound, and glued. A real book, a real product.

In between, I’d made sticker packs and a small screen print to go with the pre-orders. I’d ordered hundreds of boxes, bubble wrap, envelopes, labels and tape.

I numbered and signed all 100+ pre-orders from the campaign, along with the 120 screen prints I’d promised. The studio was a mess: cardboard and plastic everywhere, though it smelled pleasantly of fresh ink and paper. It took me a month to ship everything, carrying ten books at a time to the post office.

They know me by name now. When I dropped off the copies for the book’s contributors, the employee noticed Cory Doctorow’s name.

“Cory Doctorow?”
— “Yes,” I said. “Have you heard of him?”
“I’m reading The Internet Con right now.”

Turns out I’m not alone in this open web-shaped rabbit hole.

All orders have arrived safely with their owners. The feedback has been positive, and I love the photos people have shared on Nostr and Instagram.

It feels like the project has concluded. Except…

Selling a bookSelling a book

…250 books are still available, out of a limited run of 400. I meant to print 300, but printing more is cheaper per copy, so I took a chance. A stack of boxes still lines the wall of my studio.

For now, the book is only available on my website. I may offer it to a bookshop or two in Amsterdam down the line. This choice makes selling harder, but buying directly from the artist fits the spirit of self-publishing. It aligns with the control I want to keep over my work, and with the importance of building reach of your own through a personal website.

Getting the word outGetting the word out

I asked my friend Lilia, who shot the promo video while I was in the midst of producing the book, to do a photo shoot. We did it on the hottest day of the year so far: at 36°C the batteries overheated, and so did we. Challenging, but the results are wonderful. We celebrated with ice cream.

I spoke to Eric and Sync on the Open Markets podcast (my first!) about the origins of NoGood and the making of the book. I appeared on Citadel Dispatch as well. As a long-time listener to Matt Odell, that was a great honour. Finally, I talked to Vincent from Geyser on their Bitcoin in Action weekly livestream.

If you have a podcast, I’d love to do more. I want to get better at talking about my work, and the reasoning behind it. Plus, I have this stack of books…

Daniël wrote a post about writing the book, and about writing for someone who’d rather not talk about their work. Together we’re assembling a press kit to send to websites and blogs covering independent publishing, graphic design and illustration, hoping it gets picked up here or there.

Up nextUp next

I’ll publish the articles from the book’s Context section on my website, along with the illustrations, under a CC BY-SA license. I hope to finish that soon, and may make them available as a downloadable ebook, too.

After that, a short break. Nothing is lined up in the immediate future, and orders are manageable. I’m still shipping, but also taking time to think about what’s next for NoGood.

I’ll keep you posted. Thank you for your support.

Full post: nogood.studio/blog/print-signed-shipped

Previous updatesPrevious updates

• The NoGood art book announcement
• Update 01 – Humble beginnings
• Update 02 – Throwback
• Update 03 – Loops
• Update 04 – Progress
• Update 05 – Closing in

The NoGood Book is only available on nogood.studio.