Sensual Massage Made Simple

“SEARCH INSIDE THE BOOK” activated on Amazon.com!

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 | Reviews | No Comments

Readers can now sample selected high quality scans from Sensual Massage Made Simple on the book’s Amazon.com page. Happily, the book’s extraordinary photo quality does come through. Here are two samples from the book:

SENSUAL MASSAGE MADE SIMPLE SHIPS TO 400 BARNES & NOBLE STORES!

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Look for SENSUAL MASSAGE MADE SIMPLE in the health section under “massage.” You should find the other popular Gordon Inkeles massage books there too.

Barnes & Noble will feature the book for Christmas and Valentines Day.

The real colors of massage

Thursday, September 4th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

There’s a glow you see during a good massage. I had seen it during my photo sessions on previous books but never in the books themselves. My publisher was always moving to a cheaper paper at the last minute or simply eliminating color as a cost cutting measure. Sensual Massage Made Simple had to be better than that. I wanted the reader to see what I saw so I sat down with my production team and we worked patiently on each photo until  we got it. I’d like to thank Taavi Taijala and Scott Harrison for their beautiful work on these photos. Kenny Yu and his team at Prolong Press held the line on the color quality on every page of the book. When I saw proofs like the one below from Prolong, I knew we had finally preserved the real colors of massage in a book. Viewing this art on a computer there may be some color shifting but I think you will get the idea.

The Massage-Industrial Complex

Friday, August 29th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

I wrote The Art of Sensual Massage (shown below in 1972, on the cover of Rolling Stone) to demystify massage and liberate it from the cold, impersonal clinical model. The practice of massage in those days, had been handed over to a small group of self-appointed experts who took pains to make it as complicated and unfriendly as possible.

Now massage is available everywhere, but very often at great cost. Schools sell complex licensing programs, professional therapists offer it on cruise ships and in hotels and spas bundle it with comprehensive treatment regimens. Fast-Massage booths have appeared in airports, train stations and stadiums. Massage has become a commodity available in low cost “fast” versions and complex expensive ones.

So the promise of this new book had to be to simplify the whole process. Massage is like cooking: you can always buy it from a commercial establishment, but if you want it done right, you may just want to do it yourself. This is not a diet book or a get rich quick scheme: the promise I make to the reader is quite real. And so is the massage.

Here’s the promise: take Sensual Massage Made Simple home and you will be doing a sensual massage tonight.

“SENSUAL MASSAGE MADE SIMPLE” IS ON SALE!

Thursday, August 28th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Amazon.com has reduced the price of the book by 17%! For now, the book can be had for $12.45 here. It’s also eligible for “Free Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25.”

Amazon.com is shipping SENSUAL MASSAGE MADE SIMPLE!

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

We’ve just sent two shipments of books to Amazon.com, so any “out of stock” notice you might see on their site for this book will last for a few days, at most. You can order the book from Amazon.com here. If you can’t wait for Amazon.com, we’ll ship your book right away. Just order directly from Arcata Arts.

The Lay-Flat Binding

Thursday, August 21st, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

My readers have always put my books to use. I know this because I’ve had a steady stream of complaints over the years about missing pages. It seems that eager massage students were placing weights on the pages to force the books open during a massage. This worked for a while; then the books started shedding pages.

When Arcata Arts reissued Massage for a Peaceful Pregnancy, we added a lay-flat binding to address this problem. When that book is opened, the cover does not crack in the direction of the spine, and pages do not fall out. Lay-Flat binding solves the problem of “automatically” turning pages as well. It was the first massage book with such a lining that I have seen.

The lay-flat binding on Sensual Massage Made Simple permitted us to move to a smaller format without sacrificing any portion of the art. Indeed, the book lays open during a massage, and all the art on every page is easily visible. No part of the binding is glued to the cover; instead the book is attached to the cover at the first and last pages.

A lay-flat binding makes Sensual Massage Made Simple an ergonomic tool which is meant to be used and reused during actual massage.

An analog book for the digital age

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

The photos you see in my books are unposed. This is the way massage actually looks. When you see these blissful expressions, you’ve got your massage technique right.

However, photos that appeared in my earlier books always left me wanting more. Where were those deep blacks I had seen as the light faded, what happened to the rich colors I had so painstakingly captured with my Nikon F3? Film still has the potential to capture far more detail than any digital format. Where was it?

We had been scanning slides and negatives at 300–600 dpi a sort of default standard in the publishing industry. However, when my assistant, Taavi Taijala, moved the resolution up to 4,000 dpi the photos and slides came to life before my eyes–and I was persuaded that we needed to scan the whole book at this resolution. To put it mildly, it was a time consuming process. Detail like this simply can’t be rushed.

For the sake of the scans we obtained from negatives and slides, I selected a 128 gsm paper, several grades above the previous books. When proofs came from our printer, Prolong Press, I saw something I’d never seen before: each page looked exactly like the original material.

Sensual Massage Made Simple Ships Ahead of Publication Date

Monday, August 18th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Sensual Massage Made Simple is now shipping–a couple of weeks ahead of its September 1st publication date.

Read about this sensational new book here. The book is on its way to Amazon.com and other retailers right now!

Want a copy today? Order it here! and we’ll ship it the same day.