Do It Yourself Book Binding Tutorial

A simple little origami paper trick started a new interest for me in bookbinding - and eventually this handmade bookbinding tutorial. I found a blog article with a link to a PDF file that, when printed out and folded, created a very useful little page e!pense tracking booklet that would slip in your pocket. I have found a number of other websites recently that offer various printable templates for customi"ed notebook and day planner pages that can be printed out on your desktop. #ow I want to bind a proper notebook with my own templated pages inside. $here are several ways to go about making a book. $he cheapest and easiest is to saddle-stitch the book. For this method you lay a small stack of pages together with a cover made of card stock, put two staples along the spine to hold it together %there are special &saddle stitch staplers& for this task', and then fold it in half. Alternately, you can sew the pages together with a heavy thread instead of stapling. (ur homeschool group shells out )*,+++ a ,-A. to a local printing company for e!pensive hardback color yearbooks %/01 pgs'. $hey look okay but the pages fall out every time. 2o I invested )*3 to download #athan De2tephano4s materials, which I discovered here on your site. 5e may start a printing 6 bookmaking shop along with scrapbooking, woodburning, digital 7 te!tile arts, etc. And, of course, printing & binding our own yearbooks! $he edges of the paper opposite the spine will not line up perfectly %a problem that becomes more pronounced as the number of pages increases.' ,ou can trim the edges with a paper trimmer to even them up. 8any large hardcover books are made by gluing together several small stacks of pages bound in this way. Another very common method of binding is the & perfect binding.4 $his is the binding method used for the paperback and trade paperback books that make up the ma9ority of what is sold at your local bookstore. $o create a perfect-bound book you stack together your pages and then glue them along the spine edge with a very strong and fle!ible glue. After the pages have dried, a heavier stock paper is glued to the spine as a cover. :ook on your bookshelf, you will find that all of your paperbacks are bound this way. 2ince there is no folding - e!cept the cover - the pages are easy to line up and the edges of the finished book are very clean. I would not have thought I could make a perfect-bound book myself until I read a tutorial over at ;rad Isaac4s blog showing how it could be done with a simple 9ig and some <orilla <lue %=e4s since turned this tutorial into an e!cellent ine!pensive report called $he Fun and -asy <uide to ;inding ,our (wn Paperback ;ooks at =ome> Fast?' ;ecause of its simplicity, I have chosen a perfect binding for my book. 2o, now it4s time to move on to the ne!t part of this tutorial and make the book? #ow it is time to take a detailed look at the steps I took to produce my first paperback book. $his techni@ue is ideal for making photo books, 9ournals, short story collections and more. If you have bought an ebook that you wish was in print form for reference - print it and bind it. Anything you can print on your desktop printer will work. 8ake gifts, create books to sell, reprint public domain books for your library, or 9ust collect your personal writings in a more substantial and powerful way.

Here is the step-by-step paperback bookbinding process:

My low cost bookbinding tools: <orilla <lue, * large binder clamps, 0 paint stirrers %free at the local home center4s paint counter', fine grade sandpaper, and a couple of A-$ips for spreading the glue

1 - tack your pages together in order! If you want to make a book with pages smaller than /60 ! // inches, you can fold the pages in half and then stack the folded pages together. I had previously printed out this ebook and placed it in a B-ring binder %hence, the punched holes.'

" - #la$p the pages together along the spine edge! ,ou can do this a number of ways and even buy a press device if you wish. $he clamps and paint stirrers work fine, but it would be much easier to line everything up if I had a press. It takes a few tries to get the paper edges lined up e!actly. Place the paint stirrers along the outside edges of the spine %leave a little space between the spine and the edge of the stirrers so you don4t end up gluing them together' and clamp it all together. $he stirrers will help spread out the effect of the clamps and keep them from marking up or denting the paper. % - and the pages! $ake a small piece of fine sand paper %0++ or B++ grit should work' and rough up the paper along the spine edge. $his will e!pose the fibers of the paper and allow the glue to bond firmly with the paper.

& - 'lue the edges of the paper together! Cse a small brush or a cotton swab to spread the glue around evenly. %<orilla <lue and Power Po!y Dontact Dement are good adhesive choices. <ood old white glue will even do the 9ob if that4s all you have available. I like the way the <orilla <lue soaks in a bit. It makes the spine feel more sturdy - but don4t apply it to thick. <orilla glue e!pands as it dries.' 5ait a few minutes and apply a second coat then let everything dry thoroughly.EEEDheck out the <lue (ptions for Perfect ;ound Paperback ;ooks article for more information on choosing the right glue for the 9ob. ( - 'lue the co)er! 5hen the spine has dried, it is time to glue on the cover. %#ote how the glue has soaked into the edges of the paper to create a solid binding.' .emove the clamps. Fold the cover using the edge of a ruler so that it will wrap neatly around the pages. $hen, apply more glue to the spine and place the cover. ,ou may wish to clamp everything together again while the glue dries. For this book I glued plastic report covers on the front and back and wrapped white cloth tape around the spine to finish it. %$hose were the materials I had around at the time.'

* - +inishing details! 5hen the glue is dry, remove all clamps and trim the edges of the cover with a knife or ra"or blade.

, - The finished book layed open! 5ith a perfect binding, this book takes up much less shelf space than it did before.

For many of the books I bind, I use half-sheets of standard letter-si"ed paper for each page. $his creates a 1.1F ! .1F book. 2ince it is nearly impossible to find paper cut to that si"e, the options for printing are to cut the pages in half before printing %you really need a good stack cutter to do this efficiently' or print four pages onto the front and back of each sheet and fold them in half after printing. I generally use the second approach to avoid all the cutting. (ne of the trickiest parts of this whole process is printing out a book with the pages in the right order for binding - a task called &imposing4 in the professional bookbinding world. $his used to be a black art, but there are some software tools that will help. (ne is called Dlickbook. Dlickbook intercepts a print 9ob between the word processor %or any other program' and the printer where it re-sorts the pages. Definitely worth a look. If you are working with PDF format e-books as your source, I came across DutePDF Pro that will let you impose the pages for book or booklet style printing. If you want to print on full sheets of paper, the print options in most software will allow you to print only odd or even pages. Print out the odd pages, flip them over, and print the even pages on the back. If your printer automatically prints on both sides %called duple! printing', 9ust tell it to do so. 8ost printers will re@uire you to do two passes and flip the pages. If you, like me, prefer those half-page si"ed books %1.1F ! .1F' and don4t have access to a stack cutter, there is another %sometimes e!pensive' option for cutting down the paper. ,ou can buy a fresh ream of paper from your local copy center and ask them to cut it in half with their stack cutter. $hen, print the front and back as before. 8icrosoft 5ord also has a booklet printing setting which will allow you to impose your pages. ,ou can select between *, , and /G page imposing orders or choose to print your whole document as one booklet. If, for e!ample, you choose to print a B+ page booklet with the * page setting, 5ord will impose the pages to print in a * page per sheet grouping and repeat the process every * pages. 5ord will also add 0 blank pages at the end to make the total page count even out %it must be a multiple of *.' $hese * page signatures, when folded in half, will be in proper reading order. 5hen all of the signatures are stacked in order, the pages will be in proper book order. (pen (ffice has a booklet printing function, but I have not had a chance to try it yet. (n first glance, it doesn4t appear to be as simple as the 5ord approach and also not as fle!ible.

How To #reate -aperback #o)ers +or Your elf--ublished Books

8y Do-It-,ourself ;ookbinding article has turned out to be one of the most popular articles on this site. It came from my desire to have printed copies of some of the many e-books I have collected over the years. Hery often I don4t worry about putting a cover on the book and 9ust bind the pages or I cover the book with plain heavy cardstock and hand-write the title. ;ut what if you really want to put together a polished book that looks store-boughtI $ake a look at the B books in the photo. I won4t make you guess which one I made - it4s the one in the middle? $his was my first attempt at creating a cover that would pass for bookstore @uality. An author I like gave electronic files of some of his books as bonuses for his newsletter subscribers %www.Fred<leek.com.' $his isn4t a tiny B+ page e-book, but rather the electronic version of a book he wrote for print. It is several hundred pages and I wanted to print it out to keep on the shelf ne!t to 0 other books of his that I purchased. I think it turned out pretty well and I will tell you the simple steps I used to create the cover. =ere are the supplies you will need to create a professional @uality book cover for your self published bookJ I. II. III. IH. H. 1I! 1II! #ard tock -aper that is larger that your bound book block %I print to /60 of a standard page so .1F !/*F legal is big enough for most pro9ects' Ink.et -rinter that can print on your Dover 2tock %for larger books you may need a large format printer' -hotoshop # or similar image processing software %I like creating graphics in Photoshop, but you could layout your cover in your wordprocessor' !% $il /dhesi)e -lastic 0a$inate %thick laminate will work, but I prefer thinner plastic' Bone +older - a handy tool that can be found at most craft stores or art supply stores %usually near the scrapbooking section' 23act-4 5nife Metal traight 2dge

5hen I studied the book covers in my library I noticed that the main feature that differentiated them from plain card stock was the laminated coating that covers on the outside. I don4t know e!actly how they coat the pages in professional print shops, but I figured that a simple thin coating of adhesive laminate would give a very similar result. 8y main goal was to protect the printing and make the cover water resistant and give it the glossy sheen of a trade paperback.

I laid out my cover in Photoshop, setting the page dimensions to match my paper. $his time around I didn4t try to print on the spine or back cover - 9ust the front. $his choice saved me a lot of measuring and tweaking. If you want to wrap all the way around, measure the thickness of your book block and make your page si"e e@ual to twice the page width plus the spine width. $hen, lay out your cover te!t and art. 5hen printing, make sure your printer is set to print the whole page edge to edge %most new photo @uality printers are capable of this.' If you can4t print edge to edge, make sure that Photoshop does not scale your image to fit the page this will throw off all of your measurements. If your cover has full-page artwork, set the page dimensions to have an e!tra KF on the outside edges of the cover. ,ou can trim off the e!tra when you are done and there will never be a white edge where your graphic stops. 5hen the cover is printed, cut a length of laminate off of the roll that is a little larger than the cover. Peel off the backing paper on one end. #e!t, stick that edge to your working surface and then peel back the rest. $his will help you to hold the laminate straight and tight as you press it onto the cover. Position the cover underneath and then slowly press the laminate onto the page and smooth out any air bubbles. 5ork from the center out. Press the laminate down firmly over the whole cover to ensure solid contact.

#e!t you will need to crease the cover where it will bend around the spine. :ine your straight edge up in the spine of the book and use your bone folder to score the spine. Fold the cover along the score and you are ready to glue it to the

book block. Apply a layer of glue to the inside spine of the cover and then set the bookblock in place. I tap the spine on the table a few times to force the book block firmly into the glue and then leave the book on on its spine until the glue dries. 5hen everything is dry, take your -!act-( knife and straight edge and trim the e!cess paper from the cover. ,ou should have a pretty professional looking book at this point. I went an e!tra step and had my local copy shop trim the B open edges with their heavy duty trimmer. $his was a little e!pensive, but I wanted to see how good it could look. $his techni@ue works e@ually well for saddlebound book covers. Lust buy cover stock that is e!actly the same si"e as your pages, ignore the spine in your design, and fold down the middle when you staple the booklets together. Another variation to try is using heat activated film rather than peel-and-stick. I4ve found that the press on film can de-laminate over time and needs to be pressed down again and again. $his is not a big deal for personal pro9ects but will look bad if people paid for the book. =eat-set laminates would adhere better.I don4t have a laminating machine %and they usually re@uire you to put film on both sides at the same time.' $his is why I chose the press on film. ;ut, I remembered that when I used to build model airplanes we used to use a little iron to apply a heat shrink plastic over the frame. If I get a roll of heat-set film, cut it to si"e, and apply it with an iron, I should end up with a sturdy cover that doesn4t re@uire me to fight with the peel-and-stick adhesive? ,ou can find the supplies at most office supply stores. I saw some at 2taples and here is a link to a product at their online storeJ =eat 2et :aminate .oll (ne final idea I had for covers %this goes back to my art school days' was to get a spray fi!ative from the art6craft store and spray the printed covers instead of laminating them. $his doesn4t provide the feel of a laminated coating, but it will offer better water resistance and give a sheen to the surface of the cover. If you have any tips or techni@ues that you use to make trade paperback style covers, leave a comment and share your wisdom. Also, let me know why you are interested in binding your own books. $he more I know about what you are trying to do the more helpful I can be with my tutorials and suggestions. 5 Comments on How To Create Paperback Covers For Your Sel !Publis"ed #ooks I do have a heat-activated laminating machine with laminating film pockets. If you put a slightly larger sheet of paper behind your cover stock in the packet, you can laminate it, then trim off the edges and the back laminate would adhere to the other sheet and the cover stock would be laminated on the front only. Thanks for the tip. That sounds like a good way to manage using a heat binder to laminate the covers. Another idea Ive learned since writing this tutorial is to laminate covers in pairs. You print out covers and place them back to back. Then you slip the pair into the laminate pouch and run it through the machine. !hen the machine is done, you trim the edges of the cover to remove the e"cess laminate and separate the covers. You are left with covers laminate on one side. I havent had the chance to try this yet, but it seems like a good approach if you print multiple copies of your books.