#armoredsuperheavy

[sits-bound]

One year of fanbinding!

I keep thinking "I'm really new at this still" but I guess after a year, it's like, you don't have a puppy anymore, you have a dog. So now I'm in the dog phase of this hobby.

(I didn't make all of these, some were acquired in exchanges.)

In the past year, I have made around 54 books. (For the purposes of my sanity, I am not counting journals or sketchbooks, nor am I counting author/artist copies if the design was the same.)

54 books! In 52 weeks! That's basically a book a week!

Which binds are my favorites?

Ooh, that's hard. I tried to limit myself here, but these all are very special to me.

And I can't choose just one of these:

Honorable mention goes to this one, but I didn't design the typeset, so I can't take all the credit. But I do love the cover.

What's my favorite part of making books?

It's not surprising to me that typesetting is my favorite part. I designed a book for a local museum in 2007, and loved the process. Before that, I wanted to work in editorial design (I had a few jobs doing that in and after college, but that was in the olden days.)

I enjoy the part of physically creating the book too, but I find it a bit more frustrating. I'm not detail-oriented enough to make sure everything is perfect, and then I get frustrated when an endpaper is glued on slightly crookedly, or my text block isn't perfectly square. (Not that I have anyone to blame but myself!) That said, holding a completed book in my hands is the most satisfying feeling, after actually reading said book. I feel so smug when I'm reading a book I created.

I have a lot of imposter syndrome when it comes to the actual designing of covers. I know my strengths lie in manipulating existing content instead of creating it from scratch. So I need to stop comparing myself to other creators, and just do my best. We all have different styles, I tell myself.

What's next?

I'd like to learn how to sew endbands for once and for all. I have tried and given up in disgust so many times. I have watched so many videos and read many tutorials, and I just need someone to come to my house and show me in person.

I also would like to try to learn how to draw, a bit. I know I'll never be great at it, but I've also never tried to learn. I will be off work for a few months later this summer/fall, and I'd like to use that time taking some classes. Even if I could just draw designs to use on my covers, I'd be happy. I don't expect to be able to draw things or people.

I wanted to take up this hobby for a long time before I actually did it. I read through @armoredsuperheavy's guide like eighteen times before I worked up the courage to actually use it. So my advice to all of the people who tag my posts with "i wish i could do this" and "i want to do this"…do it!

[hideyseek]

all my unformatted pages ... libreoffice bookmarks navigation feature i am in love with you

embarking on my first typesetting journey ... extremely fun !! but somehow three hours have passed omg

[renegadeguild]

Renegade Bookbinding Guild

Renegade Bookbinding Guild is a not-for-profit group of artists engaged in fanbinding—focusing on extremely limited edition fannish works, including fanfiction, meta, original fic, zines and other works. Most works are made in handmade editions of one or two copies. We are a transformative community connected by shared values, goals, work, and stories. We value fanfiction and fanwork in all its forms, and our fannish culture’s infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

Members work self-directed, selecting works to bind individually. We are building a physical archive book by book, zine by zine, pamphlet by pamphlet, collected on our shelves, gifted to the author, exchanged as gifts among each other or given to friends.

Members of Renegade Bookbinding Guild agree to our Code of Conduct, which upholds the values of our community and can be accessed here.

@armoredsuperheavy started fanbinding independently in 2018. After their guerrilla bookbinding manifestos went viral in 2020, they created the fanbinding Discord server. So began the Renegade Bindery, our digital workshop and community space.

Renegade Bindery is on Discord, if you would like to join please check out the invite on our Carrd. It is 18+ only, and it is not required to be a member of the Guild to participate in the discord.

Our site is maintained by volunteers of the Renegade Bookbinding Guild. The Guild was first established as Renegade Publishing August 17th, 2020, and we updated our name to the Renegade Bookbinding Guild on February 2, 2024.

For more ways to follow Renegade, visit our Carrd.

[logicbutton]

Hey guys what's up I learned bookbinding to make @cindthia a physical copy of Synchronized Cardioversion for our anniversary :3

Pics and process documentation below!

I used the following resources:

How to Make a Book by ArmoredSuperHeavy

Bookbinding Resources Master List by Renegade Bindery

r/Fanbinding

the fanbinding tag on AO3 - shoutout to r3zuri's fanbinding of a FFVII fic for their extremely informative cliff's notes version of the process

the Intro to Hand Bookbinding class at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, an incredible resource for anyone in or near Minneapolis interested in learning how to bind their own books.

First, I typeset the fanfic. I did this by downloading it from AO3, trying to figure it out myself, checking How to Make a Book for help with a problem I was having, and realizing that I should have just used it from the beginning in the first place. I used Microsoft Word 2013.

Fonts: Palatino Linotype, Helvetica (for the characters' text messages), Beatline (for titles) Margins: .88" top, 1" bottom, .75" inside, .75" outside, .25" gutter Front matter: - Title page with only the title - "Praise for Synchronized Cardioversion" with comments from the fic - Title page with title, author name, and a colophon I made - Copyright page with fic copyright, fic URL, TLT series copyright, disclaimer, AO3 fic summary, first chapter author's notes, copyright for in-text art, book design credit, font info Back matter: - Acknowledgments (from the fic) - "Also by CindFourth" with all their TLT fic separated into Synchronized Cardioversion Extended Universe (might make another book of this at some point); Other Camgideon, Campal, and Team 69; and Other Locked Tomb

I set the page layout to "book fold" with 16-page signatures. As for the art, one of Cind's requests in last year's TLT Holiday Exchange was for art of this fic and they got not only a fantastic one-page comic from their assigned creator, our friend @anaeolist (who also did a sketch of Cam and Gideon kissing - we'll come back to that later), but also a lovely piece as a treat from our friend @kat-hikari. I got permission from both artists to include their work in the book.

The finished file was 408 pages, so I added four blank pages (two sheets) to the beginning and the end to make 26 signatures even.

Next, I printed the pages. I used my Brother DCP-L2550DW and Hammermill 11x8.5 24/60 lb. cream bookbinding paper from Church Paper. I'd read that sometimes using short-grain paper in a regular printer could cause it to jam, but it went fine. The cream color made the pages look so professional.

I folded the pages into signatures and then pressed them overnight. Since I don't have a book press, I sandwiched them between two sheets of bookboard and put a heavy box on top, and that worked well.

The next step, punching holes and sewing, was my favorite. I'd made a punching cradle using instructions I got in my bookbinding class. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and it only used bookboard and PVA glue, so I didn't even need to buy anything I hadn't already bought for the project.

I used three pieces of tape and sewed them on using a kettle stitch.

Then I went to MCBA to use their guillotine on the text block and their board shear to cut boards for the cover.

I chose orange cardstock for the endpaper, and because I am a novice making novice mistakes I unfortunately forgot to get a size of cardstock that would let me fold it on the grain, but anyway. I trimmed it to the exact size of the pages and glued it to the text block. Next I glued the spine of the text block, rounded it a bit (not the way an expert would; you learn that in Intermediate Hand Bookbinding), added a strip of super mull and headbands at either end, and sat it under a weight to dry while I made the cover.

The Bristol board I cut for the spine was probably 1/8" too wide, which makes a bigger difference than you would think. Next time I'm going to err on the side of slightly too narrow when I'm already giving myself three board widths of a buffer on either side.

Aside from that, the cover turned out great! I could have done a better job lining up the endpaper when I glued it in, but that's the kind of thing you practice I guess.

I love the way the navy blue bookcloth looks with the cream paper, the orange endpaper, and the red and white headbands.

Now that I had the exact dimensions of the book, I could finally design the dust jacket. Remember that sketch of Cam and Gideon kissing that anaeolist did for the holiday exchange? I commissioned them to turn it into a finished piece for the cover, and boy did they ever deliver. I also asked some of our other friends who had read the fic to give me blurbs for the back cover, and they delivered too. Cind's and my relationship wouldn't have been possible without the wonderful community we met in and I wanted this gift to reflect that.

I created the jacket in GIMP at a print resolution of 300ppi and saved it as a pdf. The final step was to get it printed, which I was nervous about because it was the only part of the process that I had no control over at all. Long story short, I ended up with something I was very happy with done by a small chain print shop where I had to go in and talk to a human about what I needed.

I also posted this to AO3!

[missmists]

First bookbinding project a success. I think that my cat approves because he would not stay out of my photos. Five months in the making, but I couldn't be more pleased with the results.

I started with @armoredsuperheavy's amazing fanbinding tutorial to create a typeset of each work in @erisenyo's Burning Bright AU published on Ao3. Then had to reread the works in the new format and edit as I went to make sure everything was formatted correctly, (combined word count somewhere around 1.3 million) that took over a month all by itself.

I picked up a copy of Introduction to Bookbinding & Custom Cases by Tom and Cindy Hollander from my local library, to look at some detailed how to images and get multiple perspectives on construction methods. Excellent book, I do recommend.

My hunt for materials included a trip to Detroit with a side stop at Blick to look at decorative papers in person. Blick and the fine people at Hollander’s ended up having everything I needed to make covers. So between my brother kindly 3d printing me a punch cradle, making a DIY sewing frame of my own invention (courtesy of scrap lumber and a trip to the Lowe's hardware department), and three reams of late night printing, I managed to amass all my supplies.

Folding three reams of paper into signatures (the little bundles you sew together) takes about five days if you don't want to lose your mind or your place, and longer if you discover you need to fix things because that definitely happened. Then you get to unfold them to stab holes in them which is as terrifying at first and therapeutic by the end as it sounds.

Next came weeks of sewing books together, a magical process. I learned three new knots, repeatedly stabbed myself (because all forms of creation forcibly demand blood sacrifice) , and felt like I was roleplaying a monastic librarian from the time of Gutenburg. That's 600 years ago, 24ish generations, over 8million ancestors since then (by geometric progression, which excludes the possibility that any of my peasant ancestry is from small towns which is you know likely but I digress) and here I sat sewing pages together in a basement because story is the most sacred of human arts as it binds communities together and shapes perceptions of the self and our brethren, of outsiders allies and enemies, of the world as we know it and as it may come to be. Did I mention sewing books felt magical.

Then came the glue. So much glue. Multiple types of glue. All sticky. all stuck to me. I smeared glue with my fingers like a child.

At last it was time for the covers. Choosing combinations of the decorative papers and bookcloth and making sure I could get enough out of each material for what I needed. Precise cutting so many thanks to the architecture school professors who showed me how to properly cut chipboard. Then measuring and gluing, and more measuring, and more gluing. At last press a little groove by the spine and repeat eleven times.

Then I get to impress all my people with my latest and possibly coolest maker skill unlock, I am a book binder.

Bottom to top in the stack or left to right at the bottom are: These Things Written  These Things Unsaid with Without Consent These Things Known with A Third Chance (or a First) Oh, The Way Your Makeup Stains My Pillowcase That Love You've Been Looking For  All I Need Is To Be Struck (By Your Electric Love) To Open Every Door to Night, To Meet Each Rising Sun (my favorite) Love Is In the Hair (fanart of this one originally lead me to read the series, thanks @ash-and-starlight) Lessons in Proper Asset Management Tangled Up With You  To Be Named, To Be Known (To Be Loved)

[cardsnwords]

The first fanfiction I bound was the wonderful yesterday, tomorrow by sophiahelix on ao3.

This story took my breath away and made me want to start binding fanfictions into books so I could always have them on my shelves. Can't believe that was back in June of 2021. Almost exactly three whole years ago!

Anyway, I have learned a lot since then and of course I have amassed way too much material and stuff for this wonderful hobby. I may not bind fics every month or every week, but even after a longer break, I always come back to it. There are just so many different facets to bookbinding that I only found out about while doing it which makes it so varied and fun.

Thanks to the resources that @armoredsuperheavy made public and all the info from @renegadeguild, the editing of the fic and the eventual binding were really easy. Of course, I'm still learning more with every fic I bind and I don't think that will stop anytime soon.

Right. Enough about this.

@sophia-helix made me want to start binding fics and now I have more than 12 books made and more to come.

[firebound-press]

hello I heard you mention bookbinding resources in response to my tags and I wanted to ask if u know of any beginner ones for someone who has never tried it before? 👀

HIIIII YES I DO!!!!!

Here’s a fun infographic the renegade server made for cheap materials!! And here’s a fun infographic on what programs are available for typesetting!

Here is the doc that can get you started on bookbinding with step by step instructions,

And here is a link to the renegade hub! Come join the discord server for more tips and resources!

https://renegadepublishing.carrd.co

If you go to the tumblr page, @renegadeguild, you can see a collection of other peoples binds. Lately they’ve been reblogging peoples first binds to new binders not get overwhelmed or intimidated!

I really hope this helps, feel free to send another ask if you have more questions, I love helping new people get into bookbinding :D

[three--rings]

My second book of Binderary is complete. It's Some of You by tangerinechar, an MDZS social media fic. The typeset is awesome and made by @daemonluna for the Annual Renegade Exchange.

This was a bind I remade every part of twice. First because I messed up the textblock with my new guillotine and then I messed up the case trying HTV titling for the first time since I just got a cricut at long last. The foil did NOT want to stick to the paper cover so I left it only on the spine, which still got a little messed up. I'm planning to fill it in a little with a silver paint pen when it gets here.

The spine is purchased bookcloth, I think maybe linen cloth from Hollanders. The textured paper on the cover I got at Austin Book Arts Center during a Renegade meetup during Havencon. The awesome pride bookmark was a gift from @armoredsuperheavy during that same meetup.

Also the textblock is super crooked in the case cause I totally forgot how casing in works as I was doing it. All knowledge of how to put a book together just flew out of my head at that moment.

Oh well it's done.

[alki-studio]

Bookbinding Process (1/2): The Wolf Queen, from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I have a very exciting comission— I’m binding The Wolf Queen, an in-game novel from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I’ve never played the game, but my client told me they enjoy collecting and reading the books in the game. According to the Elder Scrolls wiki, there are apparently 820 of them! I’m binding the one of the longer stories, which is actually broken up into 8 volumes.

In researching, it seems that the volumes seem to take on completely different binding styles, but we agreed on the style shown here. We also decided to condense these volumes into 1 book— the entire story is only about 12k words, and while the handwritten large text works well for reading the story on a small in-game window on your monitor, it’s not really practical for a physical book. That, and even if I were to print these true to size for the game, each volume would still be about 40 pages, which only equates to 10 sheets of folded paper, so it wouldn’t make for a very robust collection on the shelf.

You can see that these books in this game are actually quite weathered, and it seems like all the paper is unevenly torn. If we were to equate Skyrim’s time period with our own based on technology, it’s likely these pages would have been parchment. The in-game textures definitely support this, even for the bindings that seem to be a few centuries ahead of their time.

We agreed that antiqued cotton paper would be a suitable alternative, as enough parchment for this project would run a couple thousand dollars as-is, and I don’t believe I have the equipment necessary to print on it. I needed something with a quick turnaround for this project, so I went with this paper in the ‘Vintage Deckle’ finish in the A4 size. According to one review, it’s also short-grained, so it’s actually ideal for bookbinding.

Typesetting

I’m using Adobe InDesign to typeset this, but it can also be done with Word and other alternatives.

Here’s a guide by ArmoredSuperHeavy on tumblr.

I think Bethesda owns the font used in the Elder Scrolls games, but there is a dupe of it on dafont.com called Cyrodiil. However, it definitely feels and reads more as a modern font; it was designed with readability after all. I’m definitely going for something that feels like a Celtic manuscript, based both on the decorative Celtic knot tooling, and the Gaelic look of the font. I eventually found Kelmscott, which carries the same Gaelic characteristics as Cyrodiil, and is still relatively easy to read, but feels more calligraphic.

I also downloaded Medieval Victoriana for the decorative first letters of each chapter.

To typeset the text, I followed a tutorial article by Grace Fussell and Adobe’s guide for creating book files.

I wanted the text to look dense and almost glyphic, as many old medieval manuscripts do, while still being easy enough to read. I played around with the paragraph tools and eventually settled on this layout. While certainly not all manuscripts have multiple columns, I want this typesetting to really break the boundaries seen in most modern prints of books, so I decided on this two-column format. Some manuscripts keep the text frame smaller and in the center of the page, much like you see in later centuries when the printing area was restricted by a press, but once again, I want to emphasize the look of ‘handwritten’ manuscript, so I made sure to use wide margins.

Some other fun details I added were glyphs at the beginning of each chapter, and surrounding the page numbers.

I exported the file for print with InDesign’s ‘Print Booklet’ feature, with the 2-up perfect bound with a signature size of 8 (2 pieces of paper/4 spreads/8 text pages).

Text Block

Here’s the printed and folded signatures! I’m really pleased with how these came out— it has the exact weathered look I was trying to emulate from in-game. As an added bonus, since the source material wasn’t particularly long, the thickness of the paper (150gsm) gave the text block a good amount of volume.

Out of lack of good online reference, my client ended up sending me photos of the book in-game. I was excited to realize this book seems to be bound on cords or leather straps— kind of difficult to tell from the model. We decided to go with a slit leather strap.

I couldn’t find a great reference image of the stitch for this, but I used the same technique of punching and sewing my signatures as this double cord instructional from The Thames and Hudson Manual of Book Binding.

Endpaper

I definitely wanted to go for a more traditional endpaper, so I looked at what I had in my stash of marbled paper. I was initially drawn to this Renato Crepaldi peackock marble I got from Hollander’s, which has a beautiful red that screams “medieval” to me, but Skyrim is a cold place, so I was also drawn to go for this blizzard-esque marble. Though, I ultimately decided on this dark blue/indigo paper I got from the Paper Source.

I went for the indigo because the protagonist of this novel I’m binding, Potema Septim, the Wolf Queen herself, is associated with the color purple. Since the goal of this binding was to recreate an in-game item as it would be in-game, a bookbinder in Skyrim would also most likely want to make design choices reflecting the contents of this specific book. Or maybe they’d be illiterate and just go for the red. Either way, my client also liked the dark indigo, so that’s what we went with.

This endpaper is the cover weight of De Milo Design’s line of paper called Sustain & Heal. It’s fair trade, handmade in Bangladesh, from jute fibers.

It also has deckled edges, so I made sure to align my cuts to use that, and I tore the rest by hand to keep the natural edges consistent. This is a bit of an unconventional aesthetic choice, but it stemmed from that it’d be odd if the fly leafs were straight cut with the rest of the text block so extremely deckled.

Headbands

Keeping with the purple/indigo/blue theme, I made two-colored headbands around jute cord with DCM embroidery floss in colors 31 and 796. I basically used the technique outlined here. In retrospect though I’d recommend doing a big double endband or something bulky with this paper, since the deckled edges tend to push the endband back towards the spine and hide it.

Please continue reading here!

Process: Part 1 | Part 2 | Final Result

[wolfsbanesparks]

Hello!

Recently finished reading Split and I absolutely love it! And decided to take a look at what else you had and saw you do bookbinding. I've been interested in trying my hand at it, but I don't know where to start. Any tips or videos you recommend?

Hi anon!

I'm so happy to hear you like my story! Split is one of my favorite things I've written 💜

So I'm still relatively new to bookbinding myself (I started a little over a year ago) but here are some resources that helped me get started!

So first of all I'd recommend checking out @renegadeguild here on tumblr as they have complied a ton of resources for bookbinders (particularly those of us binding fanfic!). Particularly helpful to me was How to Make a Book by Armoredsuperheavy which is a step by step guide from initial download of a fic to final construction. Renegade also has a discord you can join with a lot of experienced binders (and other beginners!) who will share their tips and tricks to help answer your questions as you go along. It's a very welcoming community so I'd highly recommend it!

For videos DAS Bookbinding on YouTube is a great resource with videos on different techniques you can use for different styles of binding. There's videos on all the basics to get started so it's great if you're more of a visual learner!

There's also Sea Lemon on YouTube. She does a lot of other crafty things besides bookbinding but her bookbinding videos are great for DIY and binding on a budget, so it's great for beginners!

Hope this helps!

[lady-guts]

My first fanbinding project!

The fic is Last Loves by @luckydragon10, thank you for writing this story 🧡🧡

I also need to thank @renegadepublishing and @armoredsuperheavy, for all the resources they've shared on their blogs. I love the values they put towards fanbinding, and the intrinsic value of fanfiction, so I wanted to give it a try too. I've loved the process, and I'm already thinking about what story I should bind next 🧡

(some progress pics under the cut)

The last one is titled "Who needs a press when you have some cutting boards and recipe books?" The answer is me, I need to build myself a press, but for now this works well!

[kirkenovak]

How To Make A Book From AO3 fanfic.

I have a couple of longer fics I’m planning on printing out and binding, so this guide was very helpful.

[nocturnus33]

Hi there 😊 I have been wanting to learn book binding, but am not sure where to start. Do you have a recommendation? Thank you ❤️

Hello, of course. If you're interested in binding fanfics, I recommend the Renegade community. It's a group of nice and suportive people, that will help you along the way.

A good start for ficbinding from AO3 is How to make a book by @armoredsuperheavy

There many on line tutorials DAS Bookbinding at youtube is an incredible source for all kind of binding. You might like to start with a notebook or a single pamphlet.

As for the supplies, after spending a lot in this, I learn it is not necessary. You can start simple and small. Just 2 mm cardboard, homemade book cloth [Made with craft paper & cotton fabric], waxed thread, binder's glue [you can use homemade wheat paste] . As for the special tools: a ruler, a cutter, a punch awl (a cork with a nail), bone folder (knife for spreading butter), a thick needle and press (old books). After your first steps, and only if you like it and want to, you can spend more on tools and materials.

Most of all: Have fun and be open to make a lots of mistakes, is part of the fun.

[renegadeguild]

Hello! Firstly I want to say thank you for opening my eyes to the world of ficbinding! The work of the renegade members has opened up new avenues of creativity for me I didn’t even think possible. I’m so grateful for what you do and for raising so much awareness of this wonderful craft.

My question: ever since I discovered ficbinding, I’ve been in love with the idea of binding my own fics, as a way to further the storytelling capabilities of my writing. But I just came across a post from one of my favorite authors that had me wondering - is it common for authors to bind their own writing? Is this kosher, or considered super tacky? I don’t think I agree with the last part either way, but I wanted to gauge if this is a common sentiment in the community.

Thanks for your time!

We have numerous authors in the Discord who are binding their own works. I've done it myself. Totally fine! While it's super flattering for another fan to want to gift you a copy of your own work, there are far more authors than binders right now and the odds are pretty slim. Please join us in the Discord and we'll be excited for your binds right alongside you.

ArmoredSuperHeavy (ASH) - Jul 2023

[heliotropepajamas-books]

Green Ice - First Fanbinding Project

After having ArmoredSuperHeavy’s How To Make A Book From An AO3 Page instructions open in a tab on my phone for nearly a full year, I decided it was finally time to give it a shot.  I started with one of my favorite, comfort-read fics, and while I still have a lot to learn I’m quite pleased with how it turned out for a first try.

 The Fic: Green Ice by Adina ( @figtreeandvine​ here on tumblr) https://archiveofourown.org/works/255163

This is a cross-over between Bertie Wooster and Lord Peter Wimsey - let’s hear it for tiny fandoms!  The story is told from Bertie’s point of view, which the author captures perfectly, and while I can’t give away the twist at the end without major spoilers it is so, so good.

The Binding: This is a quarto size (quarter US letter, so around 4.25 x 5.5 inches or  10.8 x 14 cm) typeset in LibreOffice using Garamond for the body and AR Bonnie for the titles.  I learned so much while putting the typeset together!  The book itself is made out of scraps scavenged from library discard bins and decorative papers that are probably old enough to get their learner’s permit in several states.  Flatback case binding made with a variation on the bradel binding method (the only real difference is heavy card for the spine piece instead of book board)  

Since the story is set in the 20s I was going for an older look, and given the title it had to be green.

Things to improve: the print quality could be upped a bit, I need to figure out trimming textblocks, and I had to do a bit of patchwork on the inside of the spine when I was too generous cutting relieving darts.  But all in all I am super pleased with how it turned out.  Now on to the next project!

[spockandawe]

Hi! I was wondering how you go about printing works for binding? I really enjoy book binding as a hobby, but I've only ever done blank journals/notebooks. If you have any tutorials or starting points for me to do my own research into binding printed works, that would be greatly appreciated! I love your work and I hope you have a great day!

Totally!!! So, I don't have too many specific tutorials for you. But the digital side of what you're Iooking to do is called typesetting, and I have this post by armoredsuperheavy, which is where I got started. My approach evolved organically from there (for example, i no longer do anything with coloring text), but it's a pretty good foundation for harvesting and formatting your work. It emphasizes microsoft word, but libreoffice is a free tool that will do almost anything word can. A lot of what i absorbed and ways i evolved came from hanging with the renegadepublishing crowd on discord,and they have more resources for other tools too, but I've been comfortably in my word groove from the start, so i don't know those well. I think das bookbinding on youtube may have some resources too? But I'm also not familiar.

Before i mention printing your own material, a sideways less-known option is to purchase a book "in sheets" and do your own binding work with the printed pages! It used to be a pretty standard way to buy a book, but is a lot less common now. I know this australian store recently went up offering books in sheets, and shipping rates out of the country are apparently decent, but i haven't purchased anything myself yet.

And then there's printing books yourself. I already had a good workhorse prinyer when i came to this hobby, so I've done my printing at home, but i know some people have also paid for printing at staples or at libraries, or some have used nearby universities. Again, it's an area I'm not super familiar with, but i know there sre options. And if you're in a place where you want to shop for a printer, NOT HP. Hp's ink/toner practices are downright predatory. Brother and Canon are both better brands. And laser or ink tank printing is more economical than toner cartridges. I have a color laser duplex printer, a canon mfc 644 cdw that i like a lot. But it would have been a hefty investment if I'd had to buy outright, so there are options before reaching that point!