#my fanbinding

[three--rings]

One of the largest projects I've been working on is this typeset and book version of 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, one of my very favorite video games. (Which later became the first game in the Zero Escape franchise.)

The game is a visual novel and escape room game combo with multiple routes and endings leading to a true ending. So this version is structured like a Choose-your-own-Adventure book where you flip to different pages depending on your choices.

I also made it possible to skip all the less linear escape/puzzle sequences because they don't read very cohesively. But they do contain a lot of funny or revealing lines so I didn't want to eliminate them entirely.

I should also mention one of the reasons for doing this is that I wanted to preserve the original text of the game from the Nintendo DS version from 2010. When it was remastered/ported to PC and Switch a lot of the dialogue was rewritten very much for the worse. As well as making the novel sections optional, which destroys a lot of the point and atmosphere of the game.

The book is a full leather casebind, with stenciled titles. The leather was honestly a little too thick and required a lot of paring, which is terrifying because any slip could ruin it. And the final satin finish I put on made a lot of the leather flaws look worse and more obvious, which is annoying. It was my first time doing faux raised bands on the spine, and they came out nice.

My printer decided to fuck with me while printing this one and the color alignment is off. This is my second attempt at printing it and it's better than the first but still not great. But I wasn't gonna waste so much paper again.

And no, I'm not planning on doing the sequels. I can't imagine trying to deal with VLR's 28 endings when doing 6 was this challenging and annoying. And the sequels are perfectly represented by their existing playable versions, unlike 999.

[epitomereally]

If You’ve A Ready Mind by maya

i have FINALLY finished the second copy for my shelf of this bind - the first was a gift for the lovely @finalfrontierpublishing - and I am absolutely ecstatic. I really try to prioritize binding fics for active authors when I’m binding an author gift, so binding a fic as a gift for a fellow fanbinder finally gave me the opportunity to bind this classic from the heady days of 2000s H/D fandom! Maya was my favorite author when I was first reading Drarry in like 2005, and so when she got a trad pub deal and pulled her fics (hence why there’s no link in the title!), I immediately downloaded the pdf she distributed and clung onto that baby like my life depended on it - across multiple computers and multiple timezones, I always return to that pdf whenever I needed a pick-me up. Every fic in there is absolute gold, but I have such a soft spot for If You've A Ready Mind.

If You’ve A Ready Mind is an AU with Draco sorted into Ravenclaw (hence the blue and bronze brocade), and it’s an absolute gorgeous mix of humor and heart-rending angst, as it’s slowly revealed which things change and which things stay the same. It’s populated by a stellar cast of seldom-seem characters (Anthony Goldstein has my whole heart in this fic) and is such a generous portrayal of how circumstances shape us.

I based (copied) the typeset choices of the first edition of Emma, because I wanted that classic Regency look & feel. This is also my first SPRINGBACK binding, which I am absolutely in love with. Some typeset details:

Next time, I will learn how not to have crinkly made endpapers, but I did get my best leather corners yet on this bind <3

AND A NEW BOOKSHELF!

[sunshine304]

FTH Fanbinding: "Concord" by Deastar

@youhideastar won my FTH auction and gave me a great gift: She wanted me to bind her CQL fic "Concord" including the thorough author's commentary she'd done. I was so happy when she chose this fic because I'd loved it so much and had pondered doing a fanbinding of it at some point anyway. 😄

Now that the book has finally arrived (spending two days in the air even, I guess, at least when one looks at the tracking info 😆), I can show it off here!

I tried some new stuff on this bind and also some things that I'd only done once before and that definitely need some, uh, perfecting. 😅 But overall, I'm very pleased with how this book turned out, as it's pretty close to what I'd imagined when I started it.

The fic is set in Cloud Recesses and Dea and I agreed that the colour blue should be prominent in the design, as it not only fits the setting, but also is of significance in the story itself. As the rules and traditions of the Lan sect also are quite important, I wanted a very clean, simple style for the case, a bit reminiscent of traditional Chinese bindings.

I did the title as a cut-out and used Japanese transparent paper for some extra flavour. The paper shows up inside the book as well early on and I liked the recurring motive of it. I'm also really pleased how well the hot foil came out on it! I was a bit scared that it might rip or something, but it's quite sturdy, after all.

I thought about doing a faux stab binding with red thread to get even more of a traditional feel, but then decided against it as I'd wanted to use two different blue book cloths and I felt that it might get too busy. Instead, I used the red ribbon as a nod to Wei Wuxian.

The little cloud illustration is used several times in the typeset and I like how it comes out in the title. I didn't even mess up this title, yay! (Mine's got a few tiny blotches but uh well, better mine than Dea's!)

I painted the edges with metallic watercolours - the second time I tried painting edges, but this time with several colours and trying to do a little illustration as well. Big thanks to @zhalfirin who quickly answered my question about how to get the paint to actually stick. 😆 I'd read several posts about how awesome water colours are for foreedge painting, but none mentioned that this kind of paint just rubs off again (I am no artist and have no knowledge of different kinds of paint). Zhalfirin told me to mix in glue and also wax the edges afterwards, which I both did and I think it's fine now. At least my fingers didn't turn blue. 😅

I really love how the shading came out on the head/tail; it could've been better on the foreedge and it looked great while the paint was still wet. Steep learning curve, this thing. I also died trying to sand the edges and I didn't get them completely smooth, but at least smooth enough to work with. That also needs some more work, I guess.

First time I sewed endbands with four different colours! I think they came out quite well! I also forgot the second row of dark blue on Dea's book and had to unravel half the endband again when I noticed at the very end... 🤦‍♀️

Nice marbled endpapers. For the title page spread, I used part a very famous Chinese painting, as it not only reminds me of the Gusu mountains but also, again, is very traditional. I played around with the colours to give the picture a bit of a bluer tinge.

The typeset itself was very straight-forward. There's the fic without commentary, and then the second part with it. I used a grey background for the comment parts to make it stand out from the actual story.

I had lots of printer issues with this fic (my copy actually had even more issues because the printer treated every page as an image for unknown reasons and therefore it not only took forever, it's also a tiny bit blurry. Hmpf.) and the greys tended to have a bit of a blue tinge, which was not my intention. But at least it works with the overall theme, I guess! 😅

I also did an extensive Appendix with all the meta links mentioned in the commentary as well as cut scenes and a little "praise for the author" section.

Last but not least, I decided to try making a slipcase for the first time! DAS_Bookbinding on youtube has good tutorials on that and I used one of them. It worked well on the first try. The second try, I used sturdier cardboard and should've added a few millimetres to the width, because the book didn't fit - the ribbon got stuck and I feared that it might get damaged. So I had to redo the case and then it was perfect.

I used wallpaper as cover material. 😄 The one you see on the outside? That's my living room wallpaper, a light blue with a lovely pattern and soft shimmer to it. My camera unfortunately is refusing to get the colour right.🤷‍♂️

The assembling process went well, for the most part. I'd forgotten to shorten the endpapers a bit which I only realised after I'd started casing in my copy. I carefully separated the textblock from the case again and then, in a moment of complete mental blackout, tried to cut the wet paper. 🤦‍♀️ That didn't go well. I managed to salvage it, mostly, and of course didn't repeat the mistake with Dea's copy, but ugh. 😆

This was a super fun project and I'm very happy with it! Thank you again, Dea, for your faith in me and your super generous donation! 💙

Materials used:

Printed on Clairefontaine DCP 100g

Case and endpapers:

booklinen Colibri cornflower

booklinen Paradise aqua

marbled paper 120g

transparent Japanese paper

Hot Foil (Memory Keepers)

Slipcase:

fleece wallpaper Newroom Nisa lightblue

fleece wallpaper grey glitter

[nocturnus33]

Kill your darlings by MesserMoon, a fantastic fic you could read at AO3 for free.

I love this story, and am happy to have it in my collection. That said, I can tell you that this binding was very eventful.

I think I will change my name to Not Perfct bindery. The two volumes of this book took me a long time, because I was buried in workload. It seems that every day I picked up this binding project, I made some mistake. The worst one was sewing the signatures too tightly so it was impossible to round the spine. Another mistake I made while cutting the fabric, as can be seen, the covers were in different proportions. This is my 60th binding; and I must learn that in excess of confidence lies the danger.

@sophsicle

[deepestbluesky]

my latest fanbinding project!! AirgiodSLV's wonderful SHL raksura au, in its entirety, in Smol Book form! i had lotttssss of fun with this and the thing about small books is that they don't take much material to make, so it feels manageable, even when you have to, say, reprint half the book, since that's only four pieces of paper

also featuring my brand new press name and logo!

[bluejayblueskies]

saw a post this morning that got me thinking about bookbinding and the inherently transformative and collaborative nature of fandom, so:

edit: i guess i should have clarified: hand-bound books for PERSONAL use, not for profit or resale! i think that's something obvious to me as a bookbinder but not to writers/artists so i thought i'd clarify

[bamsara]

I so desperately want to book bind again, my own fic specifically because (1) the only permission I would need is my own (2) I don't feel like i've ruined or done a disservice if I fuck it up and (3) holding a physical weighty book in your hands that you wrote is very good for the brain no matter what size and I highly recommend it for my fellow writers

That being said I would want a cool looking cover but idk if I would use something I've already drawn or draw something new. I have ideas but none of them are like, clicking

[three--rings]

You're very welcome!

@three–rings​ aaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! I AM IN RAPTURES! THANK YOU! :D :D :D

Everyone look at the gorgeousness that I now own! :D :D :D

Aren’t they beautiful? 🥰 Thank you so much!

[beanabina]

finished my fanbind of Interim by starkraving (@punishandenslavesuckers) and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out!

it was my first fanbind and it's nowhere near perfect (the gold foil fought me every step of the way, the spine is about as straight as I am, and I forgot a somewhat crucial piece of cardstock beneath the bookcloth...) but i'm so, so happy to have this amazing fic on my shelf now, and i'm stoked to take what i've learned in the binding process this time into my next attempt!

[runawaymarbles]

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (🏴‍☠️)

Did a leather bookbinding and tooling class last month (along with @mourningmountainsbindery and @zhalfirin!) - definitely have things to improve on as soon as I figure out how to run a propane burner in my workspace without accidentally asphyxiating myself.

[three--rings]

Book 4 of Binderary

It's a typeset of Aral Vorkosigan's Dog. The typeset is by @teleportbooks from our Renegade Typeset Exchange this year. I love anything Vorkosigan so much and this typeset looks so great I had to bind it.

The style is simple but it was my first time using regular htv and I'm super happy with how it came out.

[epitomereally]

LA, Who Am I To Love You? by me 💕

finally got around to binding my @hd-wireless fic from last year! Faced some technical difficulties but I’m happy with my design choices & how they reflect the vibe of the fic! Featuring art by the lovely @babooshkart and a praise page with comments from @stationintern, @tackytigerfic, @sitp-recs, and @skeptiquewrites among others (all the comments on that fic gave me life! tysm 💕)

Materials:

Dupioni silk which I made into bookcloth for the covers

Fonts: Brim Narrow, Rage Italics (California license plate font)

HTV: Siser Holographic Vinyl (would not recommend from this experience, but also my tools are suboptimal so could be a me problem!)

shelf update 💕

[sunshine304]

FTH Fanbinding: James Bond Short Story Collection by Anyawen

And here is my second book for this year's Fand Trumps Hate event! @anyawen won my book raffle and wanted a collection of most of her James Bond short stories and drabbles. There are 82 fics in this book! 😅

Now that Anyawen's copy has finally arrived (after sitting for about a week at Frankfurt airport *sigh*), I can post about the book!

I used the gun barrel sequence as inspiration/template for the case design. Originally, I'd planned to make the two different linens fit together like a puzzle, buuut my cutting skills aren't that great and there would've been too many obvious gaps. 🙈 So I did two layers instead, which also doesn't take away much from the desired effect because the linen is quite thin.

The two copies I made are sisters, as I reversed the colours to save a bit of linen. I like the black circle a bit more, but am pleased with both copies.

The typesetting took, uhhh, a long time. 😆 Just harvesting all those fics took several hours, and arranging them to my liking even more so. Anyawen had sent me a list with the fics she wanted to see in the book with different sections mentioned (series, stand-alone drabbles etc.). I used those sections for the book and arranged the fics in chronological order; there are perhaps a handful of exceptions where I had to switch around fics because it would have messed up the formatting (two dangling lines on the next page etc.).

I made an extensive Appendix for all the fic stats.

For the title page, I also used the gun barrel sequence as it's so iconic for the franchise. After I'd printed the book, I change the title page again because I didn't like how the first version came out in print. With this version, I'm very pleased though.

As Anyawen made several moodboards for her fics, I used that as inspiration for the section title pages. Making those was a lot of fun and I'm really pleased with how they came out.

Thank you again, Anyawen, for participating in my FTH offer and giving me your trust with your fics! <3

Materials used:

Printed on Clairefontaine DCP 100g

Case and endpapers:

booklinen Colibri graphite

booklinen Colibri cranberry

Japanese paper Katazome 70g

Hot Foil (Memory Keepers)

[nocturnus33]

I loved Here's looking at you kid when I read it, especially how the inner life of each character is developed. So when I finished reading it, I knew I had to bind it sooner or later. Seeing the fantastic job @chaoticbindery did encourage me even more. What I love: Not to mention the beautiful typesetting of @chaoticbindery I'm also happy with the monogram that includes Blaise and George's names.

What I learned: It's the first time I've done a larger, more complex design on HTV.

What I need to improve: I have to be careful not to overheat the cover: I noticed the letter H was crooked, that happened because when it was ready, I realized that not everything had transferred well, and I applied heat again, but I wasn't very careful.

Still, I like this one.

@sophsicle

[deepestbluesky]

i have made... a book! for the first time! renegade publishing’s binderary inspired me to actually give it a try instead of just thinking a lot about it.

i did go out and buy some tools for this, but i was trying to do as much as i could with materials i already had. (i’ve already been slowly working at learning how to use scribus for typesetting bc i have some work experience with indesign typesetting but there’s no goddamn way i will pay adobe for that. i could have done a nicer layout and job of typesetting, i’m a little bothered by some of the things i left in, but i was trying to get it done rather than be perfectionist.) so, printed all this on my very small and weak deskjet printer on regular printer paper, covers are covered in cool paper i bought but the substance of them is some cardboard i cut out of a box i had, thread is some embroidery floss i had that i waxed (? not. well. or maybe well? idk more practice needed). and that’s also why i decided to do a coptic stitch binding, because it seemed simple for my first try and because it didn’t require me to buy a whole bunch of stuff for the binding. i definitely messed up some of the stitching, especially on the covers and there’s some reeeeeal loose stitches when you look at the long running ones inside the signatures, but it all seems to work :D

the fic is a collection of some of my batfam genfics! my longest solo authored fic is 16k and i didn’t particularly want to bind it for a multitude of reasons, so i landed on making a collection instead, and it was kind of fun tbh. i got to decide which ones to use and put them into an order i liked and i thought made sense. ended up with 10 fics and 96 pages (in case anyone is curious: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

[elizabethminkel]

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. 😭