We've decided to TEMPORARILY suspend the ordering of books.
This was never meant to be a "business"- the idea was to help a few people to get books for 'cheap' (essentially what WE pay for them plus shipping) but the response has been TOTALLY OVERWHELMING, to say the least! Unfortunately the number of book orders we've been receiving have been more than I've had time to deal with. This, coupled with shipping delays/snafus from our supplier, has created a chaotic mess that's resulted in many orders taking WAY longer than they did when I first started doing this. On top of this, we've had a BUNCH of people scam us with credit card & PayPal charges, and try to scam us- some were obvious but there have been some pretty slick ones too. This REALLY sux because we're practically a 'non-profit' - if we make $5 off a book we're LUCKY. Like I said, this was never intended to be a business- I just thought it'd be cool to help some people to get books cheap and to benefit from a chance connection I made with a Japanese book supplier. I'm really not even sure why, with all the hassles, I still keep doing this. But I guess I still think it's good karma to try and help people out without a financial reward and I LOVE being able to help spread Japanese art (that I love so much) around.
So, in order to get ALL of the orders we've received filled, to get the whole mess straightened out and to implement some new procedures to make sure that future orders go more quickly and smoothly, I've decided to shut down for a month or two.
Everyone that has placed an order WILL be receiving their books as soon as I can possibly get them out. Unfortunately it is going to take me some time to get all the orders straightened out, get all the books in that aren't already here and get them out to the right people. I'm REALLY sorry about the delays- especially some of you that have already been waiting for while- but there just isn't any way to get it all straightened out overnight. I'm doing the best I can, as fast as I can, but I ask for your patience and understanding. If you'd like to call me to inquire about your order, please feel free to call me at the studio during the week.
When we do re-open the book store, pretty much everything will look the same- even the wide selection of books will remain- but we'll have a whole new system for ordering and for tracking orders so that when you order a book it'll be a LOT easier for you to find out the status of the order and orders will not be taking as long as they have been since last winter. We'll also have some new systems in place to identify scammers and I'll have some extra help with orders so we won't get overwhelmed with orders again. We're, also, working to get our supplier to pick up the pace with shipping orders and to be more accurate with orders. One of our biggest problems has been mistakes because of language differences. I really want to apologize to people who want to order a book but , for the time being, aren't able to- I hope that you'll stop back by in a month or so, or wait until then, because the bookstore will be MUCH BETTER as a result of this brief respite.
Once again, I'd like to apologize for any inconvenience this temporary shutdown may cause to new and returning customers; and especially to customers that have an outstanding book order. Please be assuered that everything possible is being done to complete all orers just as fast as we can and to get the online store back up as soon as possible. Please bear with us and check back soon!
Sincerely,
Nick Anderson
Body Adorned
Welcome to the Body Adorned Japanese Tattoo & Art Reference Book Store!
Our goal is to provide quality Japanese Tattoo & Art reference books at reasonable prices. If you found this page, you probably are well aware that good Japanese reference books can be really expensive! Well, it came to our attention that many Japanese suppliers intentionally inflate their prices when selling to people outside of Japan. This didn't seem fair to us, and we certainly didn't want to pay extra just because we live in the US. So, we set out to find an 'honest' book supplier willing to sell us books (still in print) for their actual retail price, or below.
After a LOT of searching, emailing, begging and pleading, we were able to negotiate a deal with a very fair supplier. We reasoned with them that if they would allow us to sell books at a fair price, people would jump at the opportunity to expand their reference libraries- especially tattoo artists.
Feel free to email your order to us or to use the regularPayPal "Add To Cart" buttons! If you aren't a professional artist that has already registered with us, please do not use the "Verified Tattoo Artist" shopping cart button! If you are a "verified" professional, make sure that your order qualifies for the discount given by the button- if you're not sure, the best thing to do is to email us your order and let us calculate your discount. Incorrect orders processed through PayPal will only take longer as we will hjave to contact you to rectify the error and that's just wasted time!
Please scroll down to view the books we currently have available.
If you click on the cover images, you can go to a more thorough description of each book and,in some cases, sample images from inside the book!
We are, currently, in the process of listing all the books that we are aware of that are STILL IN PRINT- it may take some time to get them all listed and get pictures scanned and posted from inside the book. Please be patient, and keep checking back every few days for updates. If you have a suggestion (a book you know of that we should carry) please let us know!
One of the really cool things about our supplier is that they will do book searches for us and that they are really good at finding them . So, if you are looking for a particular book, please email us with as detailed a description as you can (ISBN number and/or clear picture of cover works best) and we'll try to find it for you and give you the actual retail price. If you find a book on Ebay, or some other book site, check the price against ours, or send us the info so we can check the price for you- you'll find that MOST of the time, our price will be significantly lower! The more you save , the more books you can afford to buy!
Check out the New Body Adorned Forums! Our new EzBoard-driven forums have sections for discussing Japanese Books, Japanese Art, Japanese Tattooing as well as Tattooing and Body Piercing in general! As an incentive to join (membership is FREE!) our forums, we're going to be offering discounted prices to everyone (including industry proffesionals!) who joins and participates in our new forums! Bribery? Sure, why not? Check out the forums!
Body Adorned Book News!
Important - PLEASE READ!
8/20/04 UNfortunately, because of the continuing weakness of the US Dollar against the Japanese Yen, we were informaed by our Japanese supplier that all books will experience a 10% price increase. We are not certain whether this is a temporary move that will be repealed if the US Dollar ever regains it's strength, but it's hard to imagine that they will institute an accross-the-board price rollback as easily as they initiated this increase; however, we can always hope.
This means that we are forced to pass this price increase along to you- the price increase has eliminated most (and on some books all) of our profit margin. We sell these books at a very small profit margin because we want to make these books available to as many people as we can; but we're not in this to loose money. We're sorry that we have to do this, but we don't have any choice!
On a positive note- Our prices, in spite of this price increase, are STILL the lowest prices you'll find anywhere, and we're about to EXPAND our selection! We're not going anywhere- we're going to ride this out and hope that things will go back to normal soon- we hope that you'll ride it out with us! You're still going to be saving a considerable amount of money by buying your books from Body Adorned- you're just not going to save quite as much! Thank you for your understanding and your support!
All of the prices are now changed to reflect the increase, so feel free to use the appropriate (to your status) shopping cart button(s)!
Tenmyouya Hisashi Art Book AMAZING NEW Addition -Check It Out!
Horiyoshi III's 100 Demons NEW Addition! New Images Added 6/10/04!
Horiyoshi III's 108 Heros Of The Suikoden (a.k.a. The Water Margin) NEW Addition!
Horiyoshi III's Wanzakure - The Road To Shisei NEW Addition!
Horiyoshi III's Namakubi NEW BOOK - Available NOW!
Hokusai's Sketch Books - Volumes 1 & 2
Hokusai's Book of Drawings - 5 different volumes available!
100 Japanese Ghost stories with Illustrations
Yoshitoshi's 100 Apparitions
Kyosai's 100 Apparitions
Kuniyoshi's 100 Apparitions
Kuniyoshi's Book of Drawings
Encyclopedia of famous Japanese People
Japanese Hell Scene Book
Japanese Demon Book - Compilation
Japanese Demon Book 2 - Compilation New Addition!
Japanese Monster Dictionary - YOUKAI ZUKAN ! New Images Added 5/14/04!
Drawing Japanese Gods & Dieties - Volume #1 New Book! 5/28/04
Drawing Japanese Gods & Dieties - Volume #2! New Book! 5/28/04
Sumi Ink Painting - Haken Suibokuga - A Compilation of images! NEW Addition!
Japanese Ghost Paintings
Introduction to Painting Japanese Tigers New Images Added 5/14/04!
How To Draw Japanese Tigers
Japanese Tiger Book #3 NEW Addition!
Japanese Dragon Designs for Tattoos - Volume 5 New Images Added 5/15/04!
How To Draw Japanese Dragon Designs For tattoos
This Book Has Gone Out Of Print!
Drawing Japanese Buddhist Art
How to Draw Japanese Buddhist Art
How To Draw Images of Bodhisattva Kannon New Images Added 5/15/04!
The Bonji Pocket Book New Images Added 5/15/04!
How To Write Bonji Characters New Images Added 5/15/04!
Kimono Pattern Design Book
Kimono Patterns & Designs from the Edo Period New Images Added 5/15/04!
Kimono Patterns Designs #2
Japanese Patterns and Designs #3
Japanese Tattooed Ladies - Photo Book NEW Addition!
1000 Japanese Tattoos - Photo Book
Nihon Dentou Shisei - Collection of photos of traditional Japanese Full-Body Tattoos! New Images Added 5/25/04!
Tattooed Beauties - The Art of Ozuma Kaname
The The Way of Irezumi: Introduction To Becoming A Tebori Tattoo Artist
Coming soon: More books by Hokusai, Horiyoshi, Horiyoshi II, Horiyoshi III, Kuniyoshi, Kyosai, Kunisada and MORE! Please keep checking back, and make sure to let us know if there is a book you think we SHOULD have listed, but don't!
