#renegades book

[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. 😭

[shyjusticewarrior]

[After Jason finds out Rose used to hit on Dick]

Jason: It's funny, her and I aren't even exclusive and yet I kinda wanna hit you.

Dick: First off, are you sure that isn't just your normal cain instinct?

Jason: Perchance.

Dick: Second of all, she's between your and Tim's age, so she's practically a toddler to me.

[nopefer-art-tu]

The Sky Above, by @mediumorange

I am SO excited to finally share this project with everyone!! Way back in the fall of 2023 I embarked on my first foray into bookbinding, and I thought, what better work to start this hobby off on than with one of the greatest works the Brokeback Mountain fansphere has to offer, written by my dear friend Emily?

And so began my year-long journey with this work, haha.

The book is a square back bradel style binding, covered in turquoise bookcloth. I used a kettle stitch to sew the textblock, and then Lineco-brand PVA glue as the adhesive for everything that needed to be adhered.

While I'm proud of the entire book, I have to admit the thing that I'm most proud of is the cover design.

To make a long story short, I wanted to find a way to make fully illustrated covers on bookcloth, and most of the popular methods of cover design that I had seen were all very limiting for me as an artist to do the things I wanted to do. Thus much of the time I spent making this book went into deep-diving into the world of textile design and ink transfer methods.

In my research, I discovered these types of toner sheets called Direct-to-Film (DTF, lol) transfers. Basically, you can print any design you want at most any size using the full range of the CYMK color spectrum + black + white, then you use a heat press to transfer the design onto your fabric et voila: your design is embedded into the textile.

Because neither the Renegade Bindery discord nor the bookbinder reddit groups really knew what I was talking about when I asked if anyone had ever tried this method out, I put my little rodent ears on and became the guineapig lol.

The first practice attempts I made at this came out tentatively successful, and when I tried it again for the real cover, it came out perfect. I'm still floored by the results tbh. This is such a game changer and I hope more binders can utilize direct-to-film transfers in the future!

Anyways, I really hope you love your belated birthday gift as much as I loved making it, Emily 🥰 Thank you for sharing your talents with such a small fandom sphere, and I can't wait to bind more of your works in the future!!

Editing by me

Typesetting by me

Binding by me

Art by me

[hooksbooks]

This is the first of two books I bound for @renegadeguild's Tiny Books Bang.

The story is (don't) take this the wrong way by @delimeful and was typeset by @little-cat-press for the Tiny Books Bang. It's a mermaid AU of Sanders Sides (Web Series), which I had never actually heard of before. But when I saw that it was a merperson AU, this idea popped into my head and I knew I had to try it, especially after I read the story and really enjoyed it.

The inspiration is medieval girdle books, which are books whose covering material (typically leather) extended past the book to a knot that was both used as a handle when reading the book and could be tucked into the girdle when the book was not in use, thus the name.

Where my book is much smaller (it's a sextodecimo, about 2.25" by 2.75") it isn't designed to tuck into a belt/girdle, but rather is attached to a bracelet and dangles from the wrist when not in use.

When I think of mermaids, some things that come to mind are fish, treasure, and tridents, and I wanted to incorporate all three in the design. The book is covered in blue bookcloth, and then covered again in crocheted netting that was meant to bring to mind fishnets. I crocheted the netting from cotton-poly sewing thread doubled up. I incorporated a trident into the filet crochet, which is repeated on both the front and back covers. I blocked it on a piece of blotting...board? paper? It's soft and thick and meant to absorb moisture and came with my book press that started life as a flower press.

I then sewed the netting to the bookcloth covering the boards with teeny tiny stitches. It probably took twice as long to crochet the netting as it did to the rest of the binding combined, but I really like how it turned out.

The bracelet I picked to attach the netting to is gold-colored to invoke the idea of sunken treasure. Rather than attaching the netting from one end to the other, I folded both ends to the middle and attached it like that so when you have the book open it lays more nicely.

The design of the endpapers looks like looped thread, and also reminds me of netting. I secured the bookmark to the bottom of the text block and let it hang from the top, which works better when the book is hanging from the wrist and doesn't get caught in the netting. I also sewed a little starfish charm to the end of the bookmark.

Technical details:

Sewn-on endpapers

Rounded but not backed

No headbands (I think I intended to, but forgot and then decided it didn't matter enough to try to pull the cover back off)

Things I liked about this bind:

I really like the girdle-book-on-a-bracelet design, it came out almost exactly how I had envisioned it.

Things I'd like to change/improve for next time:

I wasn't 100% pleased with how trimming went on these. It wasn't terrible, but I probably need to come up with a different solution than just a utility knife and a straight edge.

Crocheting the netting really did take so long. I'm not even done with the netting that's going on my copy yet, which is why all the pics are from the typesetter's copy. Probably would not want to do netting for anything larger than this one was.

Overall feels: Loved it! I enjoyed the story, the design came out pretty much exactly how I envisioned it, overall I'm well pleased.

[jak2gooberglub]

Me when characters are poisioned/hurt from the powers they posess:

Me when characters who get abilities got them in a traumatizing way and doesn't like to use them because of said trauma:

Me when the character who is super powerful is afraid to hurt anyone:

Me when a character who got powers in a traumatic way is shunned because of said powers:

Give me moreeee

[mythrilthread]

Wonderful @marvinhere over at Renegade Bindery collected a volume of tumblr “folktales”.

Here’s my spin on it!

A three-piece Bradel binding featuring:

🦀 covers in all the fun shades of tumblr blue with the post that started it all on the back cover;

🦀 logo linoprinted on dark blue linen spine;

🦀 crab party on the endpapers;

🦀 my first attempt at sewing double core endbands;

🦀 edges painted to look like ✨space✨

🦀 custom bookmark because more memes is always a good idea, right?

[zhalfirin]

A princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs

Full cloth binding, backed with french groove and paper onlays, coloured edge and french double core endands.

The typeset was part of Renegade's Tiny Books Bang event last year, but it took me forever to get enough distance to come up with my own cover instead of copying the wonderful bind that was exchanged in the event.

This wonderful typeset was provided by @tinwhiskerpress

Materials used:

case covers - grey board 2,4 spine stiffener - cardboard covering materials - commercial bookcloth (Duo brick, brown) paper onlays: bugra bütten (yellow, green), marbled paper (by Renato Crepaldi)

inner book bookblock paper - Schleipen fly 05 (115gsm) endpapers - marbled paper by @renato-crepaldi endbands - buttonhole silk (Gütermann), leather core (1 and 2mm) edge colouring - oak gall ink and interference chameleon acrylic ink (Nebula copper)

Size: ~A6

See WIP pictures here and some detail pictures here

[reputayswift]

Taylor Swift Songs as Books You Can't Put Down (3/?)

The 1 as Little Women "Sl*t!" as The Scarlet Letter Lavender Haze as Lessons in Chemistry My Tears Ricochet as The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes Snow On The Beach as Beach Read Renegade as Six of Crows

insp. (1 & 2)

[firebound-press]

Todays bind! Fools Gold, by @tigers1o1 !!

Personally, I absolutely adore the paper and bookcloth combination on this bind. I got the cloth a while back for free and I’ve been waiting for a chance to use it, and then my friend Cam got me this paper as a gift! It seemed way too perfect to not use!

This was a very exciting bind, because it gave me the opportunity to try something completely new, gilded edges!!

Although it didn’t turn out perfect, I’m still super proud of how clean it ended up. Plus, I personally think the flaws make it better :D

The typesetting here was very exciting for me. A few months ago Ty held a tattoo contest for the fic, and I couldn’t not use them when I saw the two finalist designs. So I went ahead and contacted the artists, and they both said I could use them!!

Title page design: @eldrigeonsss

Chapter header design: @sheeeeeeeepherd

Thank you both again for letting me use your beautiful work!

You can read the fic here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42798252/chapters/107512251

[piscesmoonpress]

Art Heist, Baby! by otrtbs (@otrtbs)

When James Potter answers a mysterious ad in his local coffee shop, the last thing he expects is to be thrown into a world of white collar crime, but how can he resist when the mastermind behind the operation has dark hair and brooding eyes and promises wealth beyond James' wildest imagination? He would do anything for that boy named after a star, including stealing millions of dollars of fine art.

Pairing: Regulus Black/James Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadowes, Alice Longbottom/Frank Longbottom Fandom: Harry Potter

Disclaimer: otrtbs no longer allows binds of Art Heist, Baby!. This edition was first typeset and bound in May of 2023. Please do not use this post as a permission to bind Art Heist, Baby!.

Art Heist, Baby! was one of the very first jegulus fics I read, and eventually became my second-ever bind. The original binding for this fic was done over the course of a single weekend, which makes me cringe a little now—but I am still so proud of this typeset and the bind itself, despite its flaws.

Half-Letter | 219,117 words | 609 pages

Title and Drop Cap Font: Bodoni 72 Body: Adobe Garamond Pro Accent(s): Gill Sans, Futura Condensed

Typset by me in Word.

Designed by me in Illustrator.

Materials

Cover Bookcloth: Duo in Blue Jean HTV: Siser Brand in Gold Metal and Powder Blue Endbands: Mettler Silk Finish Thread Endpapers: Chiyogami Paper

Eventually, I found that the structure of my previous binding was less-than-ideal, and I decided to rebind my copy. Given that I couldn't change the typeset, I spent a lot of time deciding on a cover design, and eventually settled on using Ivan Aivazovsky's Ship on Stormy Seas (a painting synonymous with this fic) as inspiration.

The process of turning the boat from this painting into something that could be used with a single shade of HTV was difficult, but I eventually settled upon a design I was happy with after messing around in Illustrator for a couple weeks.

When I removed the cover from this bind, I also trimmed and painted the edges, sewed double-core french endbands (two-tone, to match the bookcloth), and reinforced the spine (though I couldn't do much for the pre-existing swell). Overall, I am thrilled with how it looks, and with how my original typeset fits with my more developed design style.

Thank you to Nat, for writing such a beautiful (and heart-wrenching) story. Art Heist, Baby! is free to read on ao3, here.

[renegadeguild]

Edible Book Day 2024

the appetizers

A Commonplace Snack by Daemonluna

A collection of tropes and other ephemera, rendered in nori and rice paper. Sewn with a glass sweet potato noodle, ornamented with cilantro and lime.

This is how we roll (bamboo slips) by anonymous

This is the first book I have made since joining Renegade. I didn't think I'd get to make books and eat them too.

The (Not Actually) Matzah Plague Board Book by Noodle and Noodle's Auntie

10 Plagues by Noodle and Noodle's Auntie. Illustration by Noodle and Noodle's Auntie. Writing and Binding by Noodle. Materials: Gluten Free Matzo Substitute, fruit roll ups, fruit by the foot, sour belts, licorice, fruit rolls, sour sticks, cumin, water.

a fluffy breaduation by Sandy Kitty Bindery

i do not regret anything... except maybe the dentist bills ;)

Pancake Scroll by Zhalfirin

This was a lot easier than I had anticipated. A bit bland because I wasn't sure what I'd do the painting with and therefore didn't season the batter. It goes really well with a side of salmon and soy sauce though.

the mains

the iron chef secret ingredient was lasers by Lark

lasers are friends not food.

6/10, at least I chose turkey this year.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Thunder (Dragon's Thunder Press)

This was my first book bind ever. The case is French toast. The 2 signatures are each made of 3 omelet folios, and they're sewn with mozzarella string cheese strands. The end pages are each a slice of prosciutto, and they're pasted in with raspberry fruit syrup. Finally, the titling was done with black icing.

Sandwiches (And Books) Are Beautiful by Velvetwastaken

The ‘book’ ultimately failed to be readable as such due to a betrayal by the onion binding. But it tasted amazing, and thus I think still encapsulated the spirit of edible book day: good books are meant to be devoured.

and of course… … the desserts!

Mistakes were Marbled by anonymous

I baked a strawberry cake with buttercream icing. The buttercream set a bit too quickly for the marbled effect to work, and attempts to fix it caused structural damage, resulting in ... this. I would like half-points for retaining good flavor, despite appearances.

Brandy Snaps by Lottie

Brandy snaps for the pages, strawberry laces for thread. Complete with two weaver’s knots to tie the strawberry laces together

Book Cookies by six

Sadly not fully functional books - the cases are rigid sugar cookies baked into various open forms. The pages are edible wafer paper marked up here and there w/ an edible ink pen and the frosting quite tasty! Experimented with two different sizes and various page configurations. Fed some of them to various Renegade members. There were no fatalities.

Titles are overrated by Zhalfirin

I'm still baffled this turned out the way it did.

It's a delicious little baumkuchen chonker (app. A6 in size and about 6cm thick) cased in chocolate powdered marzipan.

Don't forget to vote for your favorite! And check out last year's winners here.

[ohmightydevviepuu]

fanbinding: let's sail away (an anthology)

a flatback casebinding! WOOT!!

(this is, to date, my first and most successful flatback after the demo i made in bookbinding class)

the binding flatback casebinding as demonstrated in introduction to bookbinding and custom cases by tom and cindy hollander. glued headbands. duo bookcloth in oatmeal.

did the cutout on my silhouette portrait. covered the cutout with the bookcloth, cut and cleaned up the fabric, and laminated the davey board to that layer before gluing the text block.

cutout design is a converted embroidery pattern from UrbanThreads traced with a foil quill using the silhouette portrait.

HTV is siser twinkle for the stars / metallic gold for the titles.

the story an anthology of short Captain Swan fics from sambethe, including two no longer online from my personal archive.

[finalfrontierpublishing]

So it's been a while since i posted any books - mostly because i've been hiding my progress like a little sneak.

I just finished this bind last night of The Desert Storm by @blue-sunshine-mauve-morning, or really it's volume 1 out of like ??? 15, maybe. Please take whatever i say with a pinch of salt (I have had 0 sleep for more than 24 hours, and that tends to make me a little very sleep-deprivation drunk a.k.a. unhinged). Okay, on to thoughts! The Desert Storm was foisted onto me by @celestial-sphere-press who told me under no uncertain terms that I WOULD FUCKING LOVE THIS SHIT. Well, I did. This more than 1 million word epic about Ben Fuckin' Kenobi is pretty much god-tier fanfiction. It reads like a goddamn novel. I can never think of canon again without thinking that this good shit should be canon. I read it and then consumed half of it within a week, and I have zero regrets. @blue-sunshine-mauve-morning, i absolutely love you and love your writing. It is the best thing since sliced bread. It is better than sliced bread.

I also had the benefit of @celestial-sphere-press saying, hey would you want to use the typeset? MY GOD, i am grateful. I love this fic, i would have typeset it if it hadn't been typeset but Des did such a beautiful job that i am absolutely in awe and thankful that she and the author allowed others to use it. Look at it - it's so beautiful. I only had to think hey, i just gotta design the cover and et cetera and so the book happened.

Please also check out @celestial-sphere-press 's amazing post here and here, who is the only person i know who's started and is almost complete in fanbinding this epic, and is also making an author a copy of the entire series.

Some stats, if you will.

96215 words || 380 pages

Title font: Ghaomiec

I took some inspiration from starblight bindery's lovely desert scape as well as this amazing cover of Dune which i own. I love that the landscape emanates Dune vibes while being oh so Tattooine - just sand and heat, relentless loneliness and melancholy. This fic centres around Obi-Wan Infinite Sadness Kenobi so it needed SAD VIBES TM, which i tried to deliver in desolate landscape form.

Also thank the heavens for Renegade members, who in a masterful stroke of Group Buy Saves Money, managed to source extra-out-of-production colours of Colibri and help a fair number of us get really cool limited edition versions of bookcloth. I am now a proud owner of a lorge stash of Duo and Colibri of which i am now sitting on like a shifty dragon with a hoarding problem. Good luck getting your bookcloth now, Folio Society, ha ha (gloating)! This particular bookcloth is Colibri Copper which has been wholly stashed for The Desert Storm series. I am leaning on transitioning to Malachite for Rise and Fall when I get to it.

The front cover design was done with a stock image and converted to a PNG, which i then fiddled with and did some HTV magic with. It was remarkably easier to weed than expected. I tried something new and ironed the design on the naked bookcloth first before gluing it to the boards, which was a new challenge in making sure everything was aligned.

Endpapers are marbled endpapers (Renato Crepaldi) which I got from Hollanders, which perfectly fit the colour scheme of the bind. The only hiccup was as I was cutting, I realized the sheet was running in the opposite direction of his usual papers and half the size, and only yielded 3 A5 size endpapers and so my heart went noooooooooo. oh well. i guess i will use it for quartos.

Endbands are my favourite - silk in 3 colours in the french doublecore style (as i was binding this i did not have the mental capacity to handle the difficulty of 4 strands). the truth is i usually only can do 4 when I have higher brain function and am willing to spend 80% of my time unraveling it from getting tangled.

I also forgot to mention I had mild fuck-ups, I got glue on the front endpaper which I had to hastily remove with wet cloth, and the back square is preposterously bad but I'm ignoring it for now.

Anyway, i've actually managed to complete a few other binds which have not been mentioned here as they've all been gifts/ surprises or event books in some form. I am SO EXCITED, also because I am travelling in the latter half of July to San Diego and L.A. and I get to meet some bookbinding friends in the flesh. Renegade is fucking amazing y'all. I am ready to embrace these crazy lads who have enabled me for the last 1 year, even when i'm the solitary (1) weirdo from my country of origin in the server. Also... potentially bookbinding trip early next year??? I am enthused.

[hooksbooks]

This is the second of two books I bound for @renegadeguild's Tiny Books Bang. The story is brilliant (like a confession) by kathkin (@penny-anna) and was typeset by @wolfsbanesparks. It's a Clark/Lois identity reveal story where Lois confesses her feelings about Clark to Superman. Let me tell you what, identity shenanigans is a trope I never get tired of no matter how many stories I read with it.

I had the idea to cover the book in blue bookcloth with the Superman symbol on the front, and then re-cover the book with white cotton shirting with a functional button placket so you could unbutton the shirting and pull it aside to reveal the Superman logo underneath. I thought about having the placket extend from the front to the back and having the symbol on the spine, but I was worried about longevity and if it would be awkward to hold the book open to undo the buttons so I ended up doing it just on the front cover.

I had some normal-sized shirt buttons I was planning on using, but luck had it that I found some tiny buttons at a garage sale the morning that I was going to sit down and sew the placket and buttonholes, so that was serendipitous.

I tried my best to balance the necessity of having enough wiggle room in the shirting so that you could pull it to the side and see the symbol underneath without having so much that it looked weird when the buttons were closed. I'm not sure I for sure succeeded--I think the book looks a little weird when buttoned shut. Possibly it would have worked better with shirting that had a bit of stretch in it rather than the 100% cotton that I used, or perhaps the book is just too small and it would have worked better in a larger format.

I used yellow polka-dot endpapers because the Superman symbol is very red-blue-yellow. I already had blue bookcloth and a red bookmark so I wanted yellow endpapers, and what I had was polka-dotted. I also sewed a charm in the shape of Clark's glasses onto the end of the bookmark.

Technical details:

Sextodecimo size (approx. 2" by 3")

Sewn-on endpapers

Rounded but not backed

Trimmed with a utility knife and a straightedge clamped down to my worktable

Things I especially like about this bind:

I'm really proud of the idea of opening up the "shirt" of the cover and seeing the Superman symbol underneath. It's a really fun idea, and I think I pulled it off as well as could be expected on such a tiny book.

The glasses charm is adorable.

Things I'd like to change/improve for next time:

The shirting pokes up weirdly at the top and bottom of the front cover when the buttons are closed. I don't think there's any way I could have improved things on this tiny of a book, but I probably wouldn't do it again unless the book was at least a quarto.

The shirting made the front covers quite thick. I added an extra spacer of cardstock between the cover and the endpapers to help the inside of the covers not be so lumpy, but I feel that they're still a little out of proportion. Likely this wouldn't be an issue on a book with a larger format.

Overall feelings: Fairly pleased. I didn't knock it out of the park, but the idea was good and I did a pretty good job.

[nocturnus33]

Let's talk about our fanbinding mistakes

Based on the responses of 135 fanbinders, my very informal consultation indicates that the most common errors we make are

Taking the wrong measurements. 23.7%

Messing up the case in. 20%

Finding a typo after all is said and done. 20%

Staining the book with adhesive. 17.8%

Plus, a 4,4% that said Case upside down (after making the inquiry I realized that it should be part of item n° 2 and not an independent item; duh my fault. So it is plausible to think that "messing up the case in" might be a 24,4%).

Now, let's talk about these mistakes and share our strategies to prevent them.

From my amateur experience:

To get the measurements right, in addition to measuring two or three times, I use an awl, a ruler and a square: I mark what I will cut with a fine pencil or with the awl. When I have used a thick lead pencil, sometimes I fail in a mm. The square is to make sure the angles are straight before cutting. My mistake is not always that I score wrong, but that it is not necessarily straight. Another very obvious tip is to make sure you have good lighting when measuring.

For the adhesive stains, it has helped me to always have two clean wipes within reach, one wet and one dry. I also have a Residue Eraser Rubber Cement Cleaner for when I discover it late.

And you? What helps you to overcome these mistakes? (or make fewer of them)

@renegadeguild

[frozen-orbit]

NO BUT THIS ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️😭😭😭😭

GIRLS WHEN A CHARACTER WHO ONLY KNOWS HUMAN CONTACT IN A VIOLENT/DEFENSIVE WAY LEARNS HOW IT FEELS TO TOUCH/BE TOUCHED BY SOMEONE IN A TENDER/LOVING WAY: 🥺😩🛐🫣🥹🫠🫂🫨😵😪😵‍💫😔😫🤯😨🫡🙇‍♀️😮‍💨🫢😶‍🌫️🥲💆‍♀️😍🥳🥰💃😟🧎‍♀️🤩☹️😱😣🧍‍♀️💥

Like Marissa Meyer had the opportunity to make the character with the ability to put people to sleep by touching them also the most touch-deprived/touch-starved AND SHE DID and i think that's insane of her.

Bonus points cause this kind of characters are usually male but in this case it's a girl 🤌✨