Learning to book bind a page at a time.

New to the bookbinding/ficbinding hobby and learning the ropes. Loving the digital but still uneasy at the physical. Posting here to keep track and share the good, the meh and the awesome.

[cuteknightbindery]

My MasterPost (for me and others):

Take head for this may not be updated as much as I'd hope.

Other Links: Tiktok, Insta

Random:

2025 End of the Year

Spreedsheets: ONE, TWO,

Ficbinding/Fanbinding By Fandom:

Stranger Things:

Just Because You've Done It Before Doesn't Mean You'll Do It Better - A03, Cover,

Resident Evil:

Mushrooms & Magnets - A03, Cover,

Umbrella Academy:

Best friends stick together - A03, Cover

Teen Wolf:

Academia AU, A03 - Cover, Typeset,

Sing Sweet Sparks - A03, Cover, Typeset,  

Cywscross (Collection) - A03, Cover, Cover2, Typeset,

Play It Again - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Naruto:

Violet Roses - A03, Cover, Typeset,

A Snake Among The Leaves - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Cry Havoc - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Snake in the Grass, Wolf at the Door - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Making Arrangement - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Doing the work - A03, Cover, Typeset,

In good company - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Ragnarok - A03, Cover, Typeset,

To die, to sleep (-to sleep. perchance to dream) (NarutoXLOTR) - A03, Cover, Typeset,

And death shall have no dominian (NarutoXLOTR) - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Avengers:

The guiding of death - A03, Cover, Typeset,

The devouring of hearts - A03, Cover, Cover2, Typeset,

RayShippouUchiha collection - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Would you do it all the same - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Kerravon collection - A03, Cover, Typeset,

BNHA:

Beethoven but it's just bakugo telling eri to kill herself - A03, Cover, Typeset,

A little Demonstration - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Aldera Files - A03, Cover1, Cover2, Typeset1, Typeset2,

Harry Potter:

Willing - A03, Cover, Typeset,

A New Place to Stay - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Fate be changed (HPXHobbit) - Cover, Typeset,

The Games They Play - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Xerosis - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Against my Nature - Cover, Typeset,

Any instruments - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Hated you from hello (HPXFFXV) - A03, Cover, Typeset,

You had me at hello (HPXFFXV) - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Wintertide (HPXKHR) - Cover, Typeset,

Auryn (HPXNARUTO) - Cover, Typeset,

ROTG:

The end is the beginning of the end - A03, Cover, Typeset,

The white wolf series - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Listen to your heart - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Handle with Care - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Jackrabbit - A03, Cover, Typeset,

188 hugs - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Tail of two pooka - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Icka M Chif: A Michifieiuos Anthology (Collection) - A03, Cover, Typeset,

DCXDP:

Like betta fish do - A03, Cover, Chapter Headers, Typeset,

A thing with Wings - A03, Cover, Typeset,

City Pigeons Bleed Green - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Tumblr dcxdp posts - Cover, Typeset,

Windyengel v1 (Collection) - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Windyengel v2 (Collection) - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Birds of a feather - A03, Cover, Typeset,

I'm a retired hero and my romantic interest is a crime lord - A03, Cover, Typeset,

The haunting of Danny Phantom - A03, Cover, Typeset,

One stop soup shop - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Could roses bloom - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Robins egg - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Batman:

Loading and Aspect Ratio - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Little menace - A03, Cover, Typeset,

The Great Ikea Game (BatmanXMLB) - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Borderline - A03, Cover, Typeset,

The Right Substitution is Key - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Foreign Objects - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Quija boy case files - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Alfred, I'm not convinced - A03, Cover1, Cover2, Typeset,

For the city sweetly whisper - A03, Cover, Typeset,

More Precious than gold - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Banshee in a Well - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Minimum Height Requirement - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Little Red and The Big Bad Hood - A03, Cover, Typeset,

1800-gotham - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Tumblr dc posts - Cover, Cover Screen Record, Typeset,

Hobbit:

Oak and Mistletoe - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Avatar:

Salvage - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Little Zuko V The World - A03, Cover, Typeset,

SpidermanXBatman:

Existential crisis mode - A03, Cover, Typeset,

The Flash:

Love Me - A03, Cover, Typeset,

One Piece:

The Next Right Thing - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Spiderman:

Just Keep Swinging (Anthology) - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Supernatural:

Grey - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Big Hero 6/ The Martian:

Big Hero Martian - A03, Cover, Typeset,

KHR:

The Hand you've Been Dealt - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Kingsmen:

Fallout - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Good Omens:

Nanny Knows Best - A03, Cover, Typeset,

Daredevil:

Counsel & Heartbreak (Anthology) - Cover, Typeset,

The Mandalorian:

The Mandalorian, his son and the Storm Trooper - A03, Cover, Typeset,

[cuteknightbindery]

This is a cute but super sad and melancholy fanfic called could roses bloom by BumblingBeesandWillowTrees (the wrong author name on the cover has been fixed). I love the Hanahaki trope a lot and this is such a unique take on it that really leans into the dead boys aspect. I actually shed a couple of tears reading this, like for real. The typeset and cover process wasn’t huge and I think I’m getting my grove with the process. I made the cover during my 30 covers in 30 days thing in November/ December last year (2025). I spent 44 minutes making the cover which was heavily inspired by a insta ficbind that was in turn inspired by a seed packet. I decided pretty early on in the design process that I wanted this to be a design that continues on in other Hanahaki covers regardless of the author or fandom. The additional pages such as the chapter page and title pages took about 15 minutes on canva. The typeset took 1 hour and 5 minutes to make. This is probably the quickest typeset I’ve ever made which is crazy. Together with the cover, pages and typeset - I spent about 2 hours and 5 minutes. I really like the style and think that larger font is better in quartos. I still do not have a printer so I can’t test out the printing to check out the fonts and I do not believe the font sizes truly look how they would on the sized pages in Affinity. I shall find out in future and possibly have to modify some typesets. Either way I am super happy with the typeset!

[cuteknightbindery]

Hi, I've been following you for a while, I LOVE to see someone in ficbinding circles more focused on typesetting (since that's the part I want to get better at myself), I've literally taken screenshots of some of your posts just to look at the pretty typesets 😅 not even for inspo, just to admire.

Do you use Affinity Publisher or Affinity by Canva for your typesets? (And do you have any advice for a beginner who has only used MS Word before 😅?)

Hi! That's so sweet! I do the exact same thing. I have whole albums dedicated to screenshots, videos and pics from other binders that I want to physically bind as like an inspo magazine one day. I haven't got a printer yet so I am locked in on covers and typesets. I really like the design process.

I used Affinity publisher for the typeset and make all my graphics using canva pro. My biggest advice would literally just be to give it a go. Make a list or spreeshett (including love my spreedsheet) of ones you would want to do and maybe pick some shorter ones as a start point. I started using google docs and that worked fine but I have noticed a huge difference using Affinity publisher so would def recommend giving the trial a go. I tend to do my cover 1st and base all of the other elements like fonts and images off of that.

[cuteknightbindery]

This is a cover for dcxdp fanfic We're longing for daylight by AKelaNakamura.

I went into this knowing an idea, a musing, a nonconcrete feel of what I wanted. I had the vibes settled but no actual certainty other than grave and Jason. I looked around for different images of a grave and was surprised by how hard it was to find suitably eerie graveyard photos.  Most were close ups of specific graves and just wouldn't work how I wanted it to. I did find one of a grave in a mossy forest which I messed around with the colours of to get a more eerie feel and added in a bunch of mist elements with various levels of fading. I knew I wanted a pic of Jason so I searched for different ‘guy knelt down’ and other similar things to find a photo or shadow image I could use. I found one that worked and removed the background placing him in front of the grave. I added in various small moss balls (colour changed to match the ground) around his legs to make him more part of it instead of just thrown on. I chose a very simple font for the title in the top righthand side with a handwriting font smaller underneath for the author name.

The image wraps round to about ⅗ of the back as well so for the spine I just copied over the title and author name and just changed the positioning and size. For the back I added a column in green and placed the summary on top in black and the qr code underneath. I don't really like the way the back looks and think I'd like to switch over the font to match and maybe add in some kind of texture, maybe vhs scratch, to the top as it doesn't feel like it fits as is. It was a quick but calming cover to make. I might also add in a few green wisps around the grave but not sure as I do like the look of the front. It's just the back I'm not fond of.

This took about 24 minutes to make in canva.

[cuteknightbindery]

This is a typeset for the megamind fanfic floragenesis by dalniente. This is such a unique fanfic for a unique fandom and the only one I have read from it. This is such an interesting way to explore the hanahaki disease in a not so potentially fatal way. A lot less sadness, amnesia and miscommunication. I really loved it and I am so glad to read such a cool take with logical characters. The cover is one I made during my 30 covers in 30 days thing last year and followed the same format as my other hanahaki cover. This is the plan. I want all the hanahaki fics I eventually do to follow the same style/format in both the cover and the typeset - just different colours and the flowers of the fic. This one was obviously blue. I made the other hanahaki fic typeset yesterday and plan to, as with the covers, follow this format with the typesets. I made two text separators - One for Roxanne (Megamind flower petals) and one for Megamind (Roxanne Dalia petals). I spent 1 hour and 18 minutes creating the cover on Canva, 17 minutes on the additional pages and finally 1 hour and 20 minutes on this typeset. In total, I spent about 2 hours and 45 minutes.

[cuteknightbindery]

These are the three typesets I made for the fantastic ROTG Fic series The White Wolf by @kayasurin.

ROTG - The White Wolf Volume 1: Birth of the white wolf & Of pooka and werewolves

 I really enjoyed making this typeset. It is the first volume in a set of 3 and this one contains the prequel and short stories for the overall main fantastic. I love the more feral nature of Jack and it is a super fun fic. This is also the first time I used a new fave font (look how cool!) which is super fun. It was a surprisingly quick typeset to make, fingers crossed I am starting to get more comfortable with the Affinity Publisher program. This typeset took about 1 hour and 25 minutes. It took about 5 minutes to get it all separated how I wanted. The additional pages took approximately 35 to 40 minutes to complete and finally the cover took about 3 hours to make in Canva (for all 3 covers) I am going to say each took an hour though realistically it would have been the longest for the first cover and then less for the other two. That would make this about 3 hours and 10 minutes total for the digital volume. Really like the vibes of the volumne and will continue it into the other two for cohesion. 

ROTG - The White Wolf Volume 2: The Death of Easter  

 This is the second volume in The White Wolf fanfic trilogy. This is also the second typeset done for the trilogy. The covers for the whole trilogy took 3 hours to make and while I am just dividing into 3 (1 hour each), I am very aware that the first cover would have taken much much longer and then I would have copied over certain formats. The typeset for this volume took 1 hour and 30 minutes. I have continued on the design elements like font choices from the previous one and will continue it into the final volume. The additional pages took 30 minutes for all 3 volumes so again while I am separating it into 10 minutes each even though the first one always takes the longest. So in total, 1h 30m + 1 h + 10m - 2 hours and 40 minutes to design in its totality. 

ROTG - The White Wolf Volume 3: Hungry Like The Wolf  

This is the last in The White Wolf Trilogy by Kayasurin. While it is not complete, the author included notes on how they planned to continue it if possible. As this typeset follows the following two fanfic typesets from the series, it is a quicker typeset to create. The fanfic typeset took approx 1 hour and 10 minutes and as mentioned in the 2 previous volumes - I have split the time of the additional pages and the covers into 3 even though the 1st one would have taken the longest with the other two following a very similar if not equal style. The covers took 3 hours for the three (1h each when divided) and the additional pages took 30 minutes to complete ( 10 minutes divided). In total, this volume took 1 h 10min + 1 h + 10 m = 2 hours and 20 minutes. I am happy with the style choices for the series though I am a little nervous about the readability of the seaweed script once printed - we shall see after I have bought my printer (future birthday gift for myslef!).

[cuteknightbindery]

Amazing time regression standalone fic called Lessons Learned (Lessons unlearned) by @cywscross avaliable to read on a03. I really like the style I have gone with for this typeset. It is very dark academia with a focus on Percy. The cover took me 42 minutes to make in Canva, the additional pages ( 3 chapter pages, quote/summary pages, etc) took 20 minutes and finally the typeset itself took me about 1 hour and 20 minutes. In total 2 hours and 22 minutes to make the entire project. I really like how it has come out though the fanfic has separating empty lines between each text line which I would prefer it not to have but I am just not spending ages going through the fic to sort it out and have instead made as small as possible. I did have to make the chapter and chapter numbers on a separate canva page and download transparent to place over as the text wrap settings for the chapter pages were played with using invisible shapes. Really happy with the typeset and love the fic.

Keep fanfic free.

[cuteknightbindery]

This is a quarto typeset for the fic more precious than gold by Drag0nSt0rm avaliable to read on A03. This is another case of creating a new copy of the previous typeset even though I did really like my previous one that I had made back in 2024 when I first got into the hobby. I am redoing these typesets for a higher print quality and as I am keeping a lot of the different design choices the same as before. As I wasn’t also planning and make these choices and the fact that the fanfic is 12,949 words long, it didn’t take long to make for a typeset. I spent maybe 10 to 15 minutes on the cover ages back (pre-timing) and used a lot of those elements and the typeset images when recreating or making new images to include. I spent 5 minutes making the title pages but it did take 10 to 15 to go through the old typeset (via Office Libre as google docs doesn’t let you copy your images from the doc) to recreate the text separators.

The typeset itself only took a little over 1 hour and 20 minutes to make.

This would be even less if I didn’t go through the fanfic and the typeset side by side to italicise all the different parts of the fic that were in italics (doesn’t copy over to Affinity). This means that I spent about 1 hour and 45 minutes to create. This does not include the 1st typeset being made which would have taken quite a while due to lesser program and still learning the basics of typesetting. Such a cute fanfic from an amazing writer!

[cuteknightbindery]

This was a super quick Typeset for doing the work by marbleglove as there are no separated areas of text needing an image to separate, there are no author notes, etc. This means that the typeset itself took me only approximately 30-40 minutes to make in total. Its a great look at an asexual character and a civilian in a violence based shinobi society. I designed 2 covers for this fanfiction, the first took approx 40ish minutes (it was pre-counting of time spent on different parts of the process) but had not finished that cover as I was not sure how I felt about it. I had found and edited an image of the gates at the uchiha compound and added in sky, birds and an image of a kneeling woman in a kimono. I ended up preferring the second cover I made because I had seen the image used and knew the design I wanted to do. The cover took a little under 30 minutes to make. I did add in the main elements of that 1st cover to the typeset at the beginning even though it does not really match the simplistic typeset but I did want to include it.

[cuteknightbindery]

This is one of the first typesets I made back in 2024 when I first got into the hobby. It is the ganfic for the city sweetly whispers by Drag0nSt0rm. actually really really like my original typeset however again, it is a case of the typeset not downloading at a very good quality for later printing. As a result I am redoing many of my first typesets. I am a little uncertain when it comes to font sizes in... well all of my quarto typesets made utilising Affinity but I shall see when I finally get the printer I want.

This is a great fanfic by the amazing drag0nst0rm. On A03, there are mental thoughts that are in italics which automatically happened in the google doc. This does not transfer over in affinity which annoys me quite a bit. For this typeset and fanfic, I do think it is an important aspect to keep. I changed the mental voices fonts - Mistral for Gotham and then partially through changing them over I decided to go back and change Bruces’ voice to Rage Italic. I did think partway through doing his that it was too similar to Gothams but actually decided pretty quickly that I like the implications that having had Gotham in his head since titchy would effect his mind heavily. I then gave Jason a font.

The cover took me about 20 to 30 minutes to make (pre-timing), the additional title pages and remaking the chapter separators took about 20 minutes and finally the typeset took me about 1 hour and a half to make. It would have been less if I hadn’t wanted to do all the little changes and the font changes for different voices. In total, the entire thing took approximately 2 hours and 10 minutes.

[cuteknightbindery]

This one drove me a bit crazy. Both finding the fic and making the cover. This fic has either been deleted or hidden on a03 but it is one I absolutely adored. I could not remember the name but have at multiple points scoured A03 for it remembering specific details utilising never able to find it. I finally found a mention on reddit and someone linked to an onedrive with it but it wouldnt download for me. I mentioned it to someone I've been doing a collaboration with and she had it! She sent me the link (to the exact same drive folder - though she didn't link it) and I figured out I needed to change the format of the files. I finally have the fic! It is reap what you sow! I found some good stills from the show of Slade and Oliver that I wanted to use but just couldn't get them to look how I wanted them too. I changed colours, paintified, they just never looked how I wanted. I found an image of a hand gripping the side of someone's waist. I spent quite a while doing all of this and when adding in some elements I saw a cool handprint element that I changed to red and added to it. I wanted it to be Slade's ‘scar’ on Oliver but it just did not look right so I then added it to another page as I wanted to use it at another point and … horrifyingly I really liked it on its own. So I added the title and author  around the fingers and palm which took about 5 minutes to do. I still do really like some of the stills I found so not sure what I will do in future.

This took about 1 hour and 5 minutes to make in canva. Well the messing around did, the final product took under 10.

This was quite quick as I was following the style of the previous cover. This time I took inspo from the comics and wanted to have an arrow outline with an image inside. I made an arrow frame and looked for a photo I liked from the many I'd found for that first cover. I found one I liked, changed the colour saturation and added the title to the edges of the arrow. Kept the rest super simple, same as the 1st volume.

This took about 10 to 15 minutes to make in canva.

[cuteknightbindery]

This is another redo typeset to try and get a better download quality. It is big hero maryian by althor42. I did like the first version that I made back at the beginning of my binding journey, it was just the quality for printing. This was a quick typeset, I have gotten better and quicker as well as having spent some time doing just the additional pages for different fics using the cover designs. I like the continuity. Each set of additional pages took approximatley 20 to 30 minutes. For this typeset took about 1 hour and 10 minutes to make. The cover took about 50 minutes to make in canva and the additional pages for this took 20 minutes to make. All together this comes to about 2 hours and 20 minutes to make.

This does include the original typeset I made and therefore influenced a lot of the choices that I made here. I have returned to slightly more simplistic (kinda) styles which I am enjoying.

[cuteknightbindery]

This is another Hanahaki cover I made for a star wars AnakinXObi-Wan fic.this is the fanfic Weeding out our wildfires by tennessoui. It's the first I ever read about this pairing and I love the fjc so much. It really explores the emotions behind it and considers the whole teacher/student thing a little more realistically instead of just brushing past it. For the cover, I had already decided that Hanahaki fics would be following the same cover format that I had made for the previous two of the trope. There are still a lot of things to change like the type of flower which I struggled with finding, I chose some small purple flowers as lilac petals was one of the specifics I could find and threw in some thistles for Anakin's potential flowers. I chose yellow for the main colour choices as Anakin makes me think of yellow, maybe because he is blonde. I could have chosen purple thinking about it now but it was the first change I made.  Ever even thought about a dif colour. I added in the blood splatters, chose the tags for the cover and found a couple of quotes. For the back, I added a flowers in the lung x-ray and then also made a window that showed the info from Obi-Wans file. I really like how it turned out and even though it followed the same format, it did take a while to make as there were lots of little changes to make. I still really like the format.

This took about 48 minutes to make in canva.

[cuteknightbindery]

This is another typeset from the amazing @araceil s work called auryn. It is always fascinating to typeset a fic and then look down and see the page count…310 pages! Yes, that includes the gallery and author notes but not the title pages. That is a lot of words and a high page count. I wonder sometimes do these amazing authors realise how many full on book sized fics they have created. This is such a cute fic and it remains amazing! The cover was a quick make taking less than 20 minutes and the typeset took approximately one hour and 50 minutes to make. It’s a simple typeset but it is still lovely and I kept the same main fonts and style as the other two typesets from Araceil that I made this week (Wintertide & The Hand You’ve been Dealt). I think I might quickly add in a ‘Other Works By The Author’ Page at the front.

[cuteknightbindery]

This typeset is another one of @araceil ’s fanfics called the hand you've been Dealt. This one was a khr SI fic with a fem gokuerda. The relayionship that was starting to develop between her and Hibari made me laugh so much! The cover with the authors art took me about 45 minutes to create on canva. The typeset took approx 1 hour and 15 minutes to make. It is a more simple design compared to some of my other typesets but this and the previous Araceil one (Wintertide) has made me rethink the way I do some of the typeset styles by not using a different master page for chapters and instead adding them in to the main text page same as all the others. It seems to be quicker but I have not done any font heavy typesets so I will see in future. This is a WIP but, as with all of their work, remains one held close to my heart as Araceil is the author that introduced me to KHR, Solo Levelling and Final Fantasy (though I never played this one) just so I could read their fics.

[cuteknightbindery]

This was a surprisingly quick typeset to create as I wanted to keep to a simple and understated style. It is wintertide by araceil. I also like to think I am starting to get a hang of Affinity publisher (knock on virtual wood). The author @araceil had truly horrible experiences on ff.net and a lot of their work has been removed from the internet. They did give me permission to bind for personal ownership though. The typeset took approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes to complete from start to finish. The cover took about 15 minutes at most due to how simple I kept it as I wanted to use the art from the Author. Got to love teenage me for keeping copies of her faves and having them printed in binders. Bookbinding really is a new level of that. Suprised it took me til now to find it. I hope to follow the same format for other fics of theirs as I really like the fonts and layout.

[cuteknightbindery]

Cover for An Internal Affair by nirejseki, robininthelabyrinth (nirejseki). This was a cover with a very specific image in mind which I just wasn't able to make the way I wanted. I had wanted to have the background being a man's suit with the focus being a lanyard that rested over the chest. You don't see the edges of the chest, the neck or anything similar. The Lanyard would then have Lens photo, the fic name, author name, his position and the location. I spent ages looking for a good background suit image but just could not find it no matter how hard I looked. I made a badge for len using one of the actors' photos and adding in different info. I messed around for a bit and added an image of Captain Cold with the cold gun pointing to the back. Gave it a bunch of different textures and added a star behind the gun. Threw a photo of Barry with ‘a rat?’ Written on it in the path of the gun and the summary in typewriter font (like a file). For the spine I added a shadow to make the yellow blocky title pop. This matched the flash logo and the badge police logo.

This took about 41 minutes to make in canva.