hello, i’m Final Frontier Publishing, a parody publishing house / bindery involved in fannish bookbinding. basically, i’m an amateur fanbinder who picked up bookbinding in July 2022 and largely bind fanfiction. i’m part of Renegade Bindery, a collective of binders that bind fanworks! i also belong to a subset of members under the Renegade Bookbinding Guild where i have committed to upholding the code of conduct here. i am mostly active here on tumblr. If you’re interested to see what projects i’ve done, you can refer to the ‘my books’ tab or click here.
my interests are varied and as such, the fandoms i bind in are diverse depending on what is my jam at the moment. i also have an interest in binding queer fandoms and fics which may not be as frequently seen in the bookbinding fandom sphere. i handbind fanworks mostly for myself, fandom friends and sometimes the body of work’s author.
i’m very grateful that people like my bindings and it’s such a compliment for me that people would like to commission my work. however, I currently do not take fanbinding commissions, and am unlikely to do so in the future. This is as (i) i work a full time hectic job and my time to bind is limited and (ii) i’m very much an amateur at work, and wouldn’t want to attach a monetary value to my projects, and (iii) i firmly believe in Renegade Bookbinding Guild’s ethos of non-profit fanbinding and gift economy. as such, i bind author copies as a way of giving back, as and when time permits.
Thoughts on author copies:
Author copy policy here.
If i've bound your work and you'd like an author copy, and won't mind that it might take me many months to get it to you depending on how long my to-bind list is, feel free to reach out to me. I hand-bind all my books from scratch and may not be able to make you an exact copy (depending on available supplies), but I will try my best to make you something I am proud of and hopefully something you will love. All author copies are gifts, and I do not expect any form of payment, inclusive of shipping, from the author.
Thoughts on learning to fanbind:
if you’re interested in learning how to fanbind - join us at @renegadeguild. we’re a great community of fanbinders who hang out on discord with different experience levels and everyone is very nice and extremely helpful. there are also free guides and lots of useful resources! i will be the first to admit that as a self-professed bad-at-art-and-craft person, i was very daunted at first while learning to bind, but i can promise you it’s less difficult (and less expensive) than you think!
Thoughts on learning to fanbind in Asia:
Learning how to bookbind in Asia is hard and case in point, I learnt largely through online tutorials and a brief course before my bookbinding teacher immigrated to Australia :sob:. I’m one of the mods of the Renegade satellite server for Asia, so if you’re a fanbinder located in Asia, please feel free to hit me up and commiserate about the difficulty in sourcing for supplies/classes/bookbinding/postage and shipping woes in general.
Group Star Wars Fanbinding Project:
@celestial-sphere-press started a group star wars fanbinding project in hopes of being able to give as many star wars authors as possible a copy of their work, and i’m so glad to be a part of it. this may mean i’m occasionally in your DMs/tagging you asking if hey can i make you some book? pretty please?
UPDATES (as of April 2025)
i have just resumed bookbinding after approximately a year’s hiatus. at this point, it will be difficult to estimate my current pace. i’m still currently attempting to finish the backlog of books i owe (with priority given to gifts i owe and author copies). I still wish to preserve the quality of the books i make, and as such, I would thank you for your kind patience in waiting for the book to be completed.
my ask box is always open, i do reply PMs and i love to chat about bookbinding! :)
The good news is you have a new book, the bad news is it’s not always what you wanted/visioned. And that is OKAY! It’s not a waste if you learnt something ❤️ Make sure to experiment in your craft- you may surprise yourself.
I started fanbinding around July 2020! Happy five years to me making fanfiction into books 🥳 To celebrate, I finally sat down and took a count of (almost) every fanbind I've made in the past five years.
A million thanks to Cass of Battenkill Rose Bindery for the Catalogue typeset that I've been using to keep track of my progress over the past few years, @roseserpentpress for their amazing book log template that made it easy-peasy to move the information to a Google Sheet, and of course @renegadeguild for, well, everything <3
Some of these you can find in my fanbinding tag, and a smaller subsection of those have been cross-posted to ao3. The rest have been mailed to friends, authors, or are just for me and my shelf <3
On to the stats!
Some basic numbers:
TOTAL BOOKS: 90
TOTAL UNIQUE BOOKS: 64
TOTAL COPIES: 26
TOTAL FICS: 58
TOTAL ANTHOLOGIES: 5
TOTAL GIFTED (usually to authors, sometimes to friends): 29*
*this number is higher than "total copies" because I sometimes only make one copy of a fic, then gift it to someone! (i.e. Fandom Trumps Hate books)
TOTAL FANDOMS BOUND: 19
TOTAL SHIPS BOUND: 21
TOTAL WORD COUNT: 3,421,358 (wowie!)
BY YEAR (unique books only, not including copies)
2020: 10
2021: 16
2022: 12
2023: 11
2024: 6
2025: 9
OTHER STATS/FUN FACTS
Non-fic books (still fandom-adjacent): 6
WC of longest fic bound (not split across several volumes): 205,361
WC of shortest fic bound: 1,821
WC of longest anthology: 97,454
# of times I've bound other people's typesets: 4
# of times I've bound my own work: 2
First book: On Stranger Tides by @theroyalsavage, finished 8/1/2020. Link to post on tumblr and ao3.
Latest book: motion on a circle by @runesick, finished 7/2/2025. Link to post on tumblr and ao3.
~
THOUGHTS! (warning: they are sappy)
Wow! It's a little wild looking at the numbers all laid out like this, especially the number of books per year. I started out this hobby the way I do most hobbies: feet-first, full throttle. Over the years, I haven't been binding as much in terms of quantity, but I also started experimenting more with my binding practices, techniques, and designs. Every time I make a book, I try to do at least one new thing, to keep things fresh!
In many ways, it's actually really difficult for me to talk about fanbinding? There's so much I could say, and I don't know if I could adequately express everything. I could start with the story of how I got into fanbinding, which is the story of how a lot of my binding friends got started, too--namely @armoredsuperheavy's seminal guide/manifesto on how to make fanfiction into books. I could talk about how I found ASH's work in June 2020, looking for something to take my mind off of the pandemic, national tragedy, my school assignments. I could talk about how in July 2020 I joined a discord server called "Bookbinding Discord" (or something similar? I can't remember exactly haha), which--little did any of us know--would later bloom into Renegade Publishing. I could talk about Renegade Publishing, the name for our little group a tongue-in-cheek reference to imprints and big publishing houses; how what was originally tongue-in-cheek became not so tongue-in-cheek when, a few years later, we officially became a 501c nonprofit and a fully established artists' guild. I could talk about how that group, our group, Renegade Guild, is now explicitly dedicated to making this craft as accessible and affordable to as many people as possible, in the spirit of fandom gift economy. I could talk about there's a name for what we do now, fannish bookbinding (or just fanbinding), how there is now acafan scholarship written about the practice of fanbinding, and how cool (and sometimes terrifying) it's been seeing the practice make its way across so many different platforms, influence so many different communities, even the publishing industry itself. Because I was there, Gandalf. I was there when it was just a few weirdos (affectionate, I am one of the weirdos) making fics into books. (It is still a bunch of weirdos making fics into books, btw <3).
I could talk about meeting friends from all over the world in hotel conference rooms and retreat centers, squeeing over fanfiction and talking about art and yelling about our faves. I could talk about the letters and postcards I still exchange with those friends today, how our lives intersect in the most delightful of ways. How I may not know what someone does for work or what their real name is, but I know their current obsessions are, their favorite characters, their ongoing creative projects. I could talk about how my relationship with fandom has been changed for the better--how I learned firsthand how stats and numbers are not indicative of the quality of my work or the impact it might have on a person. How those numbers are only stand-ins for someone--an author, a reader, a commenter. I remember meeting Renegade friends in person for the first time--the first time I'd met any online friends in person--and seeing so many people who had been faceless usernames and profile pictures. I remember thinking--oh, you're real. You're just like me. We're all just writing stories about things we love. I remember watching a friend in real time read a fic I'd bound of my own work and thinking--oh. You're real. You're just like me. We're all just reading stories about things we love.
I could talk about how the way I read and engage with stories has changed. How, when you sit down to bind something, you breathe form into it. How you become the creator of that form, the designer of its physical vessel. How fanbinding allows you to see the work in a new way; how suddenly a million delightful questions arise, all clamoring for attention. How should I design a title page, a typeset, a cover? What themes from the story do I want to highlight in the book's design, its construction? What form and size should the book take? When you bind a fic, sometimes the design choices you make will only make sense to two, maybe three people. And sometimes that's the point! Sometimes you want ginkgo leaves on your endpapers ;) And sometimes you want something that a wider audience can understand (although the little in-jokes are still present, for those who go searching for them). Then you ask yourself: How can I convey what the author wanted to convey via an entirely different medium, even to people who aren't familiar with the source material? What are the basic principles of a strong design? What makes something beautiful? The story is already beautiful (at least, that's one of my own metrics for choosing to bind a work)--how can I do it justice?
I could talk about how my understanding of and appreciation for media preservation has deepened. How making books is a race against time and constant attempts to remove NSFW art (often queer art, often art by POC) from the Internet. (Hell, even as I write this, there's been another crackdown on NSFW creators on game sites like Steam and Itch.io.) Every time I sit down to make a new book I ask myself: what information do I need to include in the book for future reference--fonts, provenance, number of copies made, who those copies went to and why? What web of relationships will someone in ten, fifty, a hundred years be able to glean from this book? What materials should I prioritize getting so that these books will last as long as possible? Where will these books go after my death? When you start thinking on long enough timelines, you're hit with the humbling realization of how fleeting these stories can be. Once you get over the existential dread (or do your best to, aha), it only strengthens your resolve. You realize all over again how fucking cool it is you get to bind them to physical meatspace, how you get to decide what you want to preserve. You remember: at the end of the day, these books are containers for the story. If the corners don't exactly line up, if there are glue stains on the cover, if you don't have the fanciest papers or equipment, so what! The point of the book is to give the story a home. It's okay if that home is a little wonky, so long as the foundation is there, so long as the bones are good. (Tell you a secret? I've maybe cased only a handful of books completely straight. They all still work perfectly fine :D)
I could talk about how this hobby has given me the courage to try things I never would've tried otherwise. How one love always enriches another. How this hobby is actually a gateway to a million other hobbies ("a million hobbies in a trenchcoat"--Renegaders, in the spirit of establishing provenance, I'm officially claiming being the first person to have coined our beloved "a million (although I think I say "dozen" in the post, haha) hobbies in a trenchcoat" adage. You can find the first instance of me saying this under point #3 in the link, although someone please feel free to challenge me on this, heh :3). In the name of fanbinding, I've found myself in weaving classes, in paper marbling classes, in boxmaking classes. I've volunteered as a docent at a printing museum. I've visited professional bookbinders and toured their workshops. I've found myself picking up books in used bookstores on design basics and typesetting practices and papermaking. I see the world a little differently, now that I know where to look. I could talk about how being in fandom often feels like you're a traveler on a long journey, always on the road. You spend a few months in one place, a few years in another; sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. I could talk about how fanbinding has made it so that no matter what my newest obsession is, I always have a home to return to--a craft for fandom itself, a craft that's taken me outside fandom, too.
I could talk about how I've fallen in love with writing as craft, writing as a form of connection, all over again. As someone who both writes and binds fanfiction, I know how special it feels to have someone bind your work. My fanbinding energy goes almost exclusively to binding other people's work, and I've only bound my own work twice. But I've also been lucky enough to have had two friends bind my writing, and gosh. Gosh, gosh. Every time, it feels like they've wrapped up my heart so tenderly and given it back to me. I want to give that feeling to every author whose work I've ever bound. A few years back I was able to start offering author copies, and it's honestly been one of the most rewarding things ever, to get to mail someone their own story. This kind of community building--book by book, story by story, is an integral part of why I do this (and also, it's a fun return to the physical roots of modern media fandom). I love making connections with someone over something we both love so much, over a shared act of creation. I love how stories can do that--how they allow you to reach people you never would've reached otherwise.
So I could talk about a lot of things, really. Mostly, though, I just wanted to say thank you--to my friends at Renegade, to every author who's ever written a story I love, to everyone who reads my write-ups and leaves nice comments on my work. I can't tag all of you, otherwise I'd be here all day, but from the bottom of my heart: thank you, thank you. Thank you so much.
TLDR; Happy five years, yippee!!! I'm so excited to keep making books <3
Now that @zillac's (kind of surprise haha) copy of Huzzah to the Hammersmith has arrived, I can post pics!
This is my second time using handwoven bookcloth and I had SO much fun with it. Cloth was woven on my rigid heddle loom using a green and gold linen/cotton/acrylic blend. Also, this was my first time making an obi!
As always, more details under the cut <3
THIS FIC IS PURE DELIGHT, Y'ALL. It's funny and hot and sweet and it hits you right in the feels when you least expect it. AND--get this!!!--it takes place at the Renaissance Faire!! Viktor is a tailor and Jayce is a blacksmith. Mel sets up them as stall buddies and you'll never guess what happens next! >:3
One of the recurring themes in the fic is Viktor's relationship with his chosen RenFaire-sona as a tailor. Naturally, I went FERAL in the comments about this and Zil and I got to talking about textile arts and history and some bonus Viktor backstory. Here are just a few of the lines that made me go insane:
Viktor says, “I am from Domažlice. It’s near the border, just a 20 minute drive from a German town where they have the world’s largest walking robot. They bring it out every year, for a festival called Further Drachenstich. It is an actor in a very old play about the struggle of good versus evil. There is a museum, because that festival began in 1590. It has the old fabric costumes that used to be worn by the previous actors. The current actor is, as I said, the world’s largest walking robot. It is also a 50 foot dragon.”
Viktor says, with the rehearsed nonchalance of an oft-repeated sentence, “I moved here to study after I lost my mother.”
Then, quieter, with less unaffectedness, “I still sometimes get very homesick.”
Jayce shifts, a little. Viktor doesn’t look at him. He traces a finger over the sticker, like he’s patting the dragon.
“Not here,” Viktor says, and he feels himself smile.
Okay. Viktor's home. Viktor's mother. The RenFaire as home. Home and textiles. Textiles and the RenFaire. The RenFaire and Jayce. Home as Jayce. Okay. Okay!!! OKAY!!!!!
Another thing that happens in the fic is Viktor makes Jayce a green linen shirt that Jayce sometimes does not wear (HUZZAH) and that Viktor sometimes does (hu-ZAYMN). Also, completely independently, around the time I was reading the fic, I had some green-and-gold linen on my loom. Again, complete coincidence! It was originally going to be for a bag, but my math wasn't mathing, so I was stalling on completing it because I didn't know what to make with it, and then I read the fic, and, well,
Like, how could I NOT use it???? Like what the fuck would I even be DOING if I didn't? Like, seriously??? I almost couldn't believe it. I laughed when I walked into my room and saw it sitting there, this puzzle I'd yet to figure out, the morning after I'd finished reading the fic. What is it the kids say these days? There is poetry in Everything? I can jayvik Anything? Yeah, that. Genuinely. Wtf.
Anyway! So I went with this as the bookcloth, lolllll. Backed with my usual Heat-n-Bond and some green Unryu tissue paper I had on hand! Here she is in the morning sunlight:
I also had an absolute BLAST with the typeset! This was supposed to be a 100% surprise bind, but the day I finished designing the title page I got literally so excited I immediately sent a screenshot to Zil, thus ruining the surprise HAHA. Still!! I had so much fun sprinkling in allusions to tailoring and blacksmithing eheh, from the graphics which were so fun to arrange, to the aforementioned destined bookcloth, to the metal corners on the cover.
Genuinely don't know what else to say here other than I love this fic so so much. I would love if you read it. You can find it here. Mwah!! <333
Did someone say Automatic Bookbindery Stats Calculator?!🧮
✨Ever wanted an organized place that after inputting data about the books you've bound, it easily calculates stats such as number of books you've bound per year and total number of books you've bound over the years, or total number of fanfics you've bound? Then look no further, this google sheet is set up to do this for you! Feel free to make a copy and try it out! ✨
🧮 Some stats automatically calculated include🧮:
Number of books made per each year
List of fandoms you've bound for
List of ships you've bound for
List of different books sizes you've bound
Total # of books
Total # of unique books
Total # of copies
Total # of fanfics bound
Total # of words bound
Total # gifted
And many more!
Okay, used cars sales person schtick aside, I personally had already begun this as an easier way to track what I've bound since I find this sort of stuff interesting, and I was already listing the fanfics I had bound in a google sheets to keep track of them... so then why wouldn't I just already start to calculate stats? Except originally it was p broken since I half-assed it, but a little while ago I finally found some time to hammer out all the issues (probably), so I believe now it's all set and ready to go. If you do use it and notice an issue do let me know, and also I do want to note it's been solely set up (so far) to take in already finished bookbinding projects.
new jayvik book yaaay! this is with soft hands: Viktor takes care of Jayce (and other stories): a collection of works by @sulkybender!
as usual, process + design chatter under the cut <3
This book was such a special one to make! I don't make many anthologies these days, but sulky's fics just hit that perfect note of tender + heartbreaking + loving that make you want to hold a loved one, so it was well worth the effort. And especially given the nature/tone of the collection, gathering all the different fics, arranging them, and binding them felt extra special :]
Two things I wanted to convey with this bind were: simplicity and movement. Sulky has a way of writing about points of time that stand all on their own, but also fit into this larger art-moment-movement for the boys. The moments are simple in action (a kiss, a fruit falling, a word shared), but layered and complex in what's moving under the surface. In every piece there are a number of small tragedies and triumphs that Jayce and Viktor go through together, and each of these moments flows organically from one to the other, each snippet like a lighted way station in the dark, sometimes layering up and winding around and doubling back, until you reach the end and oh, look at that, you're crying aha. I'm always reading these stories all cozy in bed--they always feel like the last thought you have before you fall asleep (and they often are, for me! LOVE reading a sulky fic right before I pass out sjdflksj).
In keeping with this idea of movement and fluidity, one of my favorite elements to design was the order of the fics + table of contents! I've used these hand-drawn ribbons in other binds and love how they add a little movement to a spread. I also really love how all of the titles are little poems in their own right, so I tried my hand a contrapuntal poem with their ordering. On the left are works from sulky's collection on ao3, "with soft hands: Viktor takes care of Jayce." On the right are other of sulky's works that I thought were similar thematically or were parts of other series (some of which include collection fics). On the whole, I'm quite pleased with the effect!
(For funsies, have a go at reading it both vertically and horizontally heh :3)
I also found some really neat one-line illustrations from Adobe Images of hands reaching for each other. I used these as the decorative elements between the two larger sections, and between each of the fics:
For materials, I found this gorgeous natural Japanese linen while on a recent trip and knew from the moment I saw it that I was going to use it for this bind! Endpapers are this pretty white paper I had in stash--it has gold and silver flecks + some really pretty wispy, thread-like inclusions.
Leaning more into the idea of movement + simplicity, I used some neutral-colored Gutermann silk threads for my first true gradient endband! This was my first go at a gradient, and while I'm still working out how to manage my tension (a constant battle with every bind, lol), I'm quite pleased with the colors :3
This was also my first time trying a set-in bookplate! I didn't get photos of the process lol, but I basically cut the first few layers of the bookboard into a square + sanded it down so that when I glued in the paper, it would lay flush with the rest of the cover. The image is from Aquarian Odyssey: A Photographic Trip into the Sixties by Don Snyder, and I thought it was really lovely and fitting:
Aaand that's all for today! Thank you so much again to sulky for their permission to bind. Sulky, I love reading your work, and I loved making this! I'm so happy to have your words on my shelf :D
And once more, for the road: you can read sulky's work on ao3, here <3
This was my contribution to the #averyspringaustenexchange made for the wonderful @ldm.binding!
So fitting that it is the 250th anniversary since Jane Austens birth. What kind of world would it be without her works? I dont want to fathom.
Another embroidery though this one was made months ago, Im so happy with how it came out. Really wanted a beautiful spring color so the cloth really pulled through!
"You want to go down this road?" asked Shadowheart. "At least do it well. If you need a fake date who’s pretty, charming, and distracting for both yourself and others? Who won’t take it too seriously, but also won’t fuck it up by being embarrassed the entire time? You don’t ask me. You ask Astarion.”
A year after their adventuring party officially disbanded to enjoy their fame and immense wealth to the full, tiefling wizard Rosalie (reluctantly) asks Astarion for some help with a large, fake-date, ex-girlfriend sized problem.
Now this... this is a bind that got away from me somewhat. The typeset is one of @besidekick's lovely typesets made for the 2024 Renegade Exchange. I had read Party Favours a while ago and loved it (such a fun Astarion/Tav dynamic, funny as hell, deeply tender, and I'm weak for a fake dating trope), so I immediately squirreled the typeset away for future use. Turned out that the future was about two weeks later when I attended the Renegade Binderary workshop on cover cutouts and thought, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to design a cover for Party Favors that incorporates the astrological elements of Rose's divination spell and a window cutout." Which was a good thought, actually, because this bind turned out incredibly well.
About the Bind
This particular bind is a legal quarto, printed on cream 20/50 lb long grain paper. It was also my second try at chisel trimming a text block, an attempt that mostly went off without a hitch.
Endpapers are a lovely chiyogami. Front and back covers each feature a window cutout to reveal some delightful foiled scrapbook paper that I scavenged from one of those weird collage pages that appear in every scrapbook pad for some reason.
The cover was my first attempt at foiling a full cover design. That was... a battle. But we eventually got foil onto the bookcloth. Now, did it take me three tries? Perhaps. But we... we don't need to talk about that part.
This was also my first in-boards three-piece bradel construction. (Lot of firsts on this bind.) Somewhat more involved than previous casebound binds, but it was so satisfying to assemble.
The front cover of the book features the English title of the book foiled in gold. Around it are Bible verses written in Cantonese Chinese (Genesis 11:8-9) foiled in silver.
The back of the book is like a mirror of the front except that it has the Cantonese title of the book foiled in gold, and around it is the English translation of the same bible verses.
“So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”
The third of Dr. Epitomereally’s graduation presents! Like epitomereally, I love LA, and this fic is just grounded in the real places of the city (including a few of my own haunts).
This book’s design started with the title page. LA at sunset, with that photograph, gave me the idea for the ombre color cloth and my own paste paper endpapers, which are purple at the top and dark blue at the bottom. The city skyline on the cover also serves as the section dividers, and I traced it from an actual photo of one of LA’s many skylines.
I also did cloth jointed endpapers, which are really growing on me as a technique. The end bands are silk—mostly two-bead on front, but I cheated and slipped in a little orange at the center. Then, for each chapter, the opener is a photo from the actual places mentioned in the book. And, of course, I had to include the playlist epitomereally put together for the fic.
Full cloth case binding with paper overlay and design in heat transfer vinyl.
I followed Amber Skies when it was being updated weekly, and read the latter half of it live. Even though I hadn't reread it in since, so much of the worldbuilding and the imagery stuck with me. So when I started thinking about internet-published texts to bind, Amber Skies was one of the first things to come to mind. Almost all of the styling of this book stems from me finding the black and white geometric patterned paper in paper source. It defined the "black and white with yellow accents" color scheme, and inspired the maze motif in the title page and chapter headers. The "maze" is meant to evoke the complex, confusing, and often deadly shafts and halls of Teleth Thadeyn, and the front page design is roughly the shape I imagined the megacity to be (although I would not be shocked to learn that I'm off base there, Heaven being at the top of a spire is a fun visual but not structurally sound). The yellow accents on the cover are all in a handwritten/hand-drawn style, meant to contrast against the stark black and white lines, representative of all of the people (and creatures) that have passed through Teleth Thadeyn and made their home their long after the death of the architects. The symbol on the back is the shaft-diver sign for danger, as described by Kali: "an inverted triangle with a cross through it."
Materials:
covers - 2 mm grey board
spine stiffener - paperboard
covering material - white linen bookcloth
overlay - screenprinted mulberry paper with geometric design
vinyl - siser easyweed yellow vinyl
endpapers - yellow fine paper with gold printing
endbands - faux double core french endband, with cotton embroidery floss
edge painting - yellow and orange acryllic paint
textblock paper - Church bookbinding paper, 20lb, cream, 8.5x11
Typeset: Designed in Scribus. The body font is Libertinus Serif, headings are in SaaSeriesDDOT. Maze images from Adobe Stock.
Cover Design: Designed in Photopea. Font is Permanent Marker.
If you've been following me for a while you may remember that I started this typeset in, ahem, November 2022. Finished it in October 2023. Finished binding it in 2025. Did I make it take 3 years on purpose? Or was it always second on my list of projects and I was totally going to do it soon?... I don't want to talk about it.
Blatant lie: I do want to talk about it.
What's fun about this bind is that I found the leather for it in Greece in spring 2024. It's shiny! It's sort of pearlescent! It's white! It's absolutely not made for bookbinding! I knew that at the time, but hear me out: it was shiny. It was sort of pearlescent. It was white. It was also prone to scuff marks and stretchy as fuck.
It was also, it turned out, about 1" too short to do a full cover.
So I abandoned my dream of doing this Beatles White Album style and added the stripe down the middle. (I then drew a harpoon on that stripe at the last second because I thought it looked too much like a flag.)
I used a hot stamping machine to make the patches for the spine. It was my first time trying that: in the future, I'm going to pare the leather before cutting the patch, as that gave me a lot of trouble and I was ultimately unsuccessful. So it looks a little bulky right here, but, such is life. I seriously considered listing the author as Merman Helville, but I refrained.
This was my third laced-cord binding (wherein the cords are laced in through holes in the cover board and then hammered--mostly--flat) and I've decided it will be my last. Will I stick to this? Who knows, that's what I said when I finished my first one and also my second one. I might try fake raised cords in the future, or sew onto cords but then only lace them in through one hole to keep the cover smooth. This would mean I still have to fray them out, though, which is not particularly fun. (It's improved by doing so while watching Black Sails.)
My goal for the typeset was to make it technically readable but absolutely impractical, and I think I have achieved this.
I still think the last page is tied with the "Oh fuck" halo as the funniest pages I've ever typeset.
Want to learn bookbinding, with an interest in fanfiction?
Figure out what tools you need - video by bitter melon bindery
But also, you can definitely bookbind with a lot of stuff you have on hand and on a budget - post by starblight bindery
Learn how to bind a square-back bradel bind - videos by DASbookbinding
Impose your own typesets - Renegade Community Imposer, maintained and coded by Renegade members
Some free resources put together by Renegade Bookbinding Guild
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still need your teeth around my organs by @damienthepious
My 2024 tiny books bang book (beautifully typeset by @just-a-pollicle) has cousins! I completed a copy as a gift for the author and one for myself just ahead of the 2025 bang.
The author copy features endpapers and an oxford hollow hand marbled by me.
My copy has the same floral endpapers as the first edition of this book.
I didn't get a good photo of it on any of them, but the southeast flora and fauna paper is double sided, there is a small stripe of the geometric yellow side on the back covers.
Using clear contact paper to transfer the vinyl made a world of difference in improving stencil quality.
Fanbinding: The Desert Storm (series) by @blue-sunshine-mauve-morning
MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU!
This is 1 of 2 posts for today, a massive project that I have hit a significant milestone for: completion of both my & the author's 15-volume set of the 1.1 million word The Desert Storm. This is the fic series that got me into Star Wars as an actual fan.
Four years after Order 66 and the fall of the Jedi Order, a grieving, struggling Ben Kenobi finds himself inexplicably taken back in time, crashing headlong into the foundations of fate. Grasping hope and vengeance with both hands, Ben rebuilds his identity and seeks to change the course of history: by saving Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi Order, the galaxy - and just maybe saving Obi-Wan Kenobi along the way.
My design for this typeset was significantly influenced by mem, who had begun a typeset before me and selected black & white images for the title pages, a trend I continued.
As this fic series has meteliculous attention to both canon & EU lore, I stuck with aurebesh characters for titles wherever appropriate, which occasionally gave me some fun opportunities for chapters & tables of contents like this:
For scene dividers, I used a image you can interpret either as twin suns, or as an eclipse.
While I committed to a more classic and less elaborate design for this series, I still rounded & backed every volume in the set. "Editioning" high numbers of similar books like this is often considered in bookbinding circles as necessary to practice skills (I am at 37/45 volumes), and I can certainly say that I have gotten much better at a number of things along the way. The largest book in this series is 616 pages; the smallest, 160 - and I needed to round & back both.
Further thoughts...
Blue_Sunshine (the author) has a fantastic skill for foreshadowing; reread of this series are a must. On top of that, character relationships are consistently and realistically fleshed out and developed. And critically for a "go back in time" story, Blue has a wonderful grasp of the dominoes - what changes trickle down and ripple out; and how that could come back to bite some people. Finally - if you live a badass Obi-Wan Kenobi, this is definitely a fic series for you. Also Blue is a lovely person & our little bits of correspondence has been such a bright spot for me.
Material notes: Duo oatmeal bookcloth, orange marbled jute from Sustain and Heal, hammermill cream paper, gold foil + paint for titles.
Leather on bookboard, with hot foil stamping on the spine. The endpapers are a Japanese wave design, partially as a reference to Canaan House being on the water, and is also a reference to the fact that this book was a birthday present for @eebeesee, who is a giant weeb. (Fun fact: I bought that paper in 2012 and have been waiting uh, 11 years, to find the perfect project for it.)
Process under the cut.
Remember two months ago when I said I wasn't wild about doing another paperback-to-hardback conversion? Well. More fool me. (I did try and find a sewn hardback to take apart, but apparently this book was not sold as a sturdy hardback. Cue rant.)
I've tried debossing with leather before, so obviously, for embossing, I decided I'd just pick the most complicated design possible. I had to modify the skull a bit--taking out the IX, which did NOT cut well, and I had to make the lines around the glasses thicker.
After several hours of cricut cutting and experimentation, here is the cover pre-leather. (I also had to floss the skull's teeth with an awl to get some fuzz out, which I found very funny.)
Then, leather:
As you can see, I lose a lot of details in the teeth there, so I went around the edges with a heated brass stylus.
I bought a special skull stamp for the spine: it definitely wasn't made for heat, because while it did serve the purpose, it also came with a metal handle which made handling it awkward. (Oven mitts did not give me the necessary amount of dexterity. I ended up sort of wrapping a paper towel around the handle. My cousin has since informed me that we do own fire resistant gloves, but I did not remember this at the time.)
The stamp was also a pain to get even: it had to be at juuuuust the right temperature and pressure, or you'd either get too much or too little, as shown. It was also pretty picky about foil, but the brass color matched the endband cloth and insides best anyway, so that worked out. (White was a definite no.)
The other fun bit of this was doing the edges: I did them with black foil, but as we established in my earlier foiling experiments, that's not the most reliable. I think I got the best results so far on the top, but kept getting flakes on the others. I ended up painting the outside edge with ink, and then foiling on top of that. The bleed onto the pages ended up looking pretty neat, but since I hadn't done it on the top, I didn't do it on the bottom so that it wouldn't look weird on the inside. I'm not sure the foil added as much gloss as I was hoping for so next time I might just do the ink.
It did mean that I had to separate all the pages twice; I ended up bringing this to my girlfriend's haircut appointment and working on it in the corner. I hope it was the most strangely specific thing the stylist had seen someone doing when they tagged along.
Late last year, my dear friend epitomereally did two amazing things: she became Dr. Epitomereally, and she wrote this fic.
As a graduation present, I decided to bind three of her fanfic for her, starting with this fic that I had begged her for permission to bind while I was getting a sneak peek as a beta reader as she was writing for @hderised . I kept the fact that she was going to be getting all three books a secret, and this weekend I got to give them to her at the Renegade retreat! (Pics of the other two will come soon).
Pillar of Salt is a dark, Draco-focused fic, with the central plot involving a morphed form of the mirror of Erised, and so mirrors are the main imagery in this bind.
This book was bound in black goatskin (a particularly stiff but easily skived instance), with foil quill decorations. The endpapers are perhaps my most subtle paste papers with gunmetal paste over plack paper. The edges are painted black and then splattered with the same gunmetal grey. The endbands are trebizond silk.
The title page was toner foil on black paper.
Epitomereally is a brilliant writer, and it was my enormous pleasure to bind this fic for her!
