only read more if you're NOT my mom. this is about the gift, so seriously mom don't look

okay guys. so. my parents recently split up, and I'm living with my mom. My mom only knows how to cook like four things, and they're all "stick em in the oven for 45 minutes and they're done!" style cooking. I remembered seeing a post talking about the Sad Bastard Cookbook, for those with low spoons- aka, cookbook with a fantastic sense of humor, requires very little effort, and has pretty decent results. I think she'd love it if I gave it to her as a Christmas present.

Here's the conundrum- the PDF for this cookbook is free, zero dollars. The printed version is sixteen dollars new. Obviously I don't want to spend sixteen dollars on something I can get for free, but I know my mom would both appreciate it more and use it much more often if she didn't have to go to her computer for "every" (like three per) step.

So, physical's the way to go, right? Well, maybe not. My mom used to bind her fanfics herself, back when she had these hundred-page-long fics. She's got binders full of pure fic (which, turns out, actually just mostly smut). So the other option is, I take advantage of her paper and ink while she's at work and print it all- here's hoping she's got enough ink- and print it all, hole punch, and bind. I'm willing to do that, but I will not do it happily, and it'll be mediocre at best.

papercraftpanda (via How to Sew the Chain Stitch Bookbinding Pattern)

Random, but I would love to learn book binding. Anyone has any tips on where to start? Or maybe links to some good how to explanations? I would appreciate any tips, thank you.

im copying fics i like into word document so i can write it down on paper and bind them into books

Hello, to the person who clicked on this! If it's just myself, clicking on this to read it again- hi. Go through your inbox.

To be fully upfront: I don't know if this is going to be much of anything, but I'd like it to be. It's been a while since I've spent time on Tumblr, and I do miss it. So, I'm going to start a catalog of my new hobby: bookbinding! Specifically, binding copies of my favorite works of fanfiction.

I started because books and fics are two of my favorite things, and I started wondering if I could put them together. Turns out, I very much can. And it's quite fun, too!

I'm going to showcase my process, both for my own purposes and to see if anyone else possibly wanted to observe. Fanfiction being in a physical book, something you could hold??? omg. Something about that just soothes me in a fundamental way. I know there are others out there doing this same thing, which is just about the coolest thing. (I might make a reference post about them later, once I do some poking!) If I can spread this idea any further, I'll be happy.

As for the nuts and bolts of this blog: I intend to keep documentation of the books I bind. So- pictures of the final products, links to the fanworks on ao3, and maybe even a bit of a review from yours truly. (Keep in mind, I'm only really binding the ones I love. It'll be a lot of gushing, exclamation marks, and way too many adverbs!)

I'll be uploading my step-by-step process instructions at some point in the next few days. I will add pictures to it; that may take longer.

ALSOOO just a disclaimer! My process is very new, and quite cobbled together (but it works!). It's based entirely upon a couple of YouTube videos and my own judgment/experience as a lifelong reader, and as of right now, I've been doing this whole bookbinding thing for about... oh, eleven days. I'm still very much a beginner!

If you have any hints or suggestions, I'd be ecstatic to hear them.

I wanted to make this blog to get the word out about this new hobby I love; I've only been doing it for this long and it's already brought me so much peace. Even though I'm an amateur, I'd like to share that. (Plus, you get front-row seats to all of my experimentations and/or fuckups. I will be showing them- what I did, why I did it, why I shouldn't have done it, and what I did to fix it. I'll definitely learn something, and maybe you will too!)

Regardless if this is to some person on the planet whom I don't know but has stayed and read this far, or if it's to my future self possibly looking for inspiration.

Happy reading! I'm glad you're here. :)

Let's get binding!

-Athan

I'm like super normal and not unhinged in the slightest (I spent 3 days formatting, printing, and binding a niche internet story about sci fi football into a 280 page physical book)

Embroidered book covers

Want to fanbind? Need davy boards/book boards and low on funds? I have an excellent hack for you:

Repurpose shitty books

"But!!!" You may say, "no book is shitty! All human experiences are worth putting to paper!"

You're right! But, also, Counterpoint:

I went to my local thrift shop and got these for the low price of $5 for all 10. ("Getting into politics?" The lovely ladies behind the counter asked me. "In a manner of speaking," I replied.)

Once I got home, it was easy to turn them into this, their component parts:

("Please stop saying you're skinning them," my partner begged. Too late!)

[EDIT TO ADD: Here's a guide! Also on my tumblr. Also - when thrifting, bring a piece of paper folded or cut into the minimum size you need for boards: this way you can make sure you're getting big enough material!]

While these are just book boards, diligent deconstruction can even yield headbands, I'm pretty sure - I'll report back on my next trial run. [EDIT TO ADD: yup, you can!]

I cannot overstate the delight I have in giving these covers new life for binding fanfiction, particularly the queer kind.

Happy binding!

Hello bookbinding tumblr!!

I have a question for you

I would absolutely love to replace the pages inside this notebook with the tanakh because of how pretty it is.

Is there some fancy thing you can do where I hire a guy to figure out the exact layout needed to fit all the stuff in that size and amount of pages and they print and bind it for me?

Obviously that sounds incredibly expensive so I’ll use the pages it comes with until I can save up to do what I’m talking about here, but I wanted to ask if it was possible.

Thanks :)

(P.S. it was only 10.99 so I don’t know if it’s real leather or not)

This partial spine repair, done by our wonderful Preservation department, is so soothing to watch! The book is wrapped in a bandage at the end to further distribute the PVA glue and to apply gentle, even pressure as the glue dries.

Victorian gift book c. 1850s-1860s with inlaid mother of pearl.

polymer broadcast signal hijack

Book bindings for various editions of Charles Baudelaire’s “Les Fleurs du mal”

Earlier this week I reported on the very depressing for-profit fic pirating happening in certain corners of fandom—but (somewhat coincidentally, timing-wise) I also had the joy of reporting this story on fanbinding, and the work of the @renegadeguild! Featuring the words (and fanbinds) of the brilliant @celestial-sphere-press, @butterfingersbookbinding, and @fanboundbooks (who also talked about Renegade on the most recent Fansplaining episode).

Renegade's binders are strong proponents of the non-monetized gift economy—they truly embody the spirit of fanfiction, in my opinion, both in the communal way they share their work with fic writers and each other, and in the DIY way they approach making books:

There’s a strong parallel between the amateur, instinctive nature of fanfiction and the act of fanbinding. While plenty of fic is penned by formally trained writers, much of it is not. Tiffo, who binds as Fanboundbooks, likens the reverse-engineering involved in teaching oneself both activities. As writers, people try to figure out why stories work. Fanbinders collectively share the process of learning to turn that work into a physical object—tactile, clean, often beautiful. Fic is largely unencumbered by the forms and structures of traditional publishing, and fanbinders approach their work with the same spirit. “People will often say, ‘How do I do this?’ or ‘What’s the rule for this?’” Tiffo says. “The answer that we always try to throw in Renegade is, ‘This is what other people have done, but know that there is no rule to your book—you can make whatever you want.’”

It's a shame seeing people conflate the bad actors of the pirating situation—many of whom don't appear to be in fandom and seem motivated by pure profit—with the work of fanbinders at large, and seeing people scared to try out fanbinding because of the recent news. Not-for-profit fanbinding is just as legal as writing fanfiction, and I don't speak for all fic writers, but if someone ever bound one of my fics, I'd be so touched I would almost definitely weep. 😭

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“When I was five I learned to read. Books were a miracle to me - white pages, black ink, and new worlds and different friends in each one. To this day, I relish the feeling of cracking a binding for the first time, the anticipation of where I'll go and whom I'll meet inside.”

― Jennifer Weiner, Good in Bed.