Renegade Bookbinding Guild is a not-for-profit group of artists engaged in fanbinding—focusing on extremely limited edition fannish works, including fanfiction, meta, original fic, zines and other works. Most works are made in handmade editions of one or two copies. We are a transformative community connected by shared values, goals, work, and stories. We value fanfiction and fanwork in all its forms, and our fannish culture’s infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Members work self-directed, selecting works to bind individually. We are building a physical archive book by book, zine by zine, pamphlet by pamphlet, collected on our shelves, gifted to the author, exchanged as gifts among each other or given to friends.
Members of Renegade Bookbinding Guild agree to our Code of Conduct, which upholds the values of our community and can be accessed here.
@armoredsuperheavy started fanbinding independently in 2018. After their guerrilla bookbinding manifestos went viral in 2020, they created the fanbinding Discord server. So began the Renegade Bindery, our digital workshop and community space.
Renegade Bindery is on Discord, if you would like to join please check out the invite on our website. It is 18+ only, and it is not required to be a member of the Guild to participate in the discord.
Our site is maintained by volunteers of the Renegade Bookbinding Guild. The Guild was first established as Renegade Publishing August 17th, 2020, and we updated our name to the Renegade Bookbinding Guild on February 2, 2024.
For more ways to follow Renegade, visit our website.
2026 Binderary Giveaway for @arden-in-the-garden, @drsteggy, @herearedragons, @platinumink, @sugareey-makes-stuff, and @treblemaker07
198,075 words | 1,483 pages | 8 books | 6 authors
For binderary this year, I had a dream of binding a bunch of books using the same style—so I did a giveaway offering to make 1 book (or 2 mini books) each per fanfic author, and I am so so grateful to each one for the opportunity to bind their fics!!
All of the books are inboards bradel binds, which is one of my favorite types to bind because I LOVE building a book up rather than casing it in. I was surprised though by just how many different sizes I ended up making though—letter folio, quatro, octavo, and sextodecimo, with more size differences from whether spines were rounded or not! So even though there were multiple books, there was a TON more math than I usually have with multiple fics, since there were so many different versions and sizing to keep track of.
Each of the fics used pretty a near-identical typeset design within each page with custom title pages by book. I tried my best to find cover material and bookcloth that would match multiple fics, then mixed and matched from there so there were unique variations for each. This was my first time working with paper labels. I used Klucel G to coat the paper labels on the cover and on the spine—I didn’t notice much difference after the first application, but by the second I could feel the coating + do think it helped the paper!
Scrolling on Tumblr, I feel like my dash always has a bunch of fandoms I’m not involved in, so it was SUPER cool to get a peek into a bunch of new-to-me fandoms or ships! Between the 8 books, we had Merlin, Fallen London, Legend of Zelda, The Martian, Stranger Things, Teen Wolf… Fandom is about community, even those that I’m not personally a part of, and making authors’ copies is my favorite way to participate and share some of the love back. Had an absolute blast this year, so—no promises, but—hoping to do it again next February!
I know myself well enough to know I would not be very good at fanbiding and that would mainly frustrate me, so while I love fan binding and admire those who do it, I've never dabbled.
I have never regretted that decision more than I did waking up from the dream I recently had, where I excitedly bought a rare copy of the novel that Goncharov (1973) was based on, opened it up, and found that it was a hollowed out "book safe" for keeping valuables in.
@copperbadge were you looking for the Goncharov novel ?
I tracked down a copy of this invaluable classic and somehow got my hands on a near pristine copy secondhand from the 4th printing. It’s lost the dustjacket, alas, but that means I got it for like £5 and not the £4200 a first edition printing in fine condition goes for.
(Who’s the author? *looks at smudge on spine* uhhhh Mkkhill Montanann)
It looks right at home in my bookcase 🥰
Under the cut: a look inside at what the book holds:
Just kidding.
It holds only the air of regret and disappointment.
For this year's Fandom Trumps Hate auction, I won fanfic binding by the incredibly talented @brunheiffer, and the completed work arrived today! I am SO AMAZED!!! She bound three of my Good Omens garden-themed AU novellas in one stunning volume, and the details are exquisite. THANK YOU, Brunheiffer, for contributing your art, skill, and dedication to the auction, and for giving me this treasure to cherish.
The cover is so shiny! Lovely choice for endpapers, and every title page is wonderful.
Even the chapter headings were created with great care.
So it’s been awhile since I’ve bound anything, but when I read the Cursed Amulet Story by @sunderwight, I was like, I gotta make an actual, physical evil amulet now. Except the evil amulet is also going to be a book. And the book is like a diary by the guy trapped in the amulet.
The book is held in the brass frame (also made by yours truly) by friction; it pops out super easily so you can read it but it’s not going to fall out accidentally.
The typeset fit into exactly one piece of normal 8.5x11 printer paper, and if anyone else wants the file to make their own evil amulet, I’m happy to share.
A small bind of all the Murderbot short stories to complete the series on my shelf. First time painting the edges of a book with acrylic paint and oh boy, did I have a bad time with that.
A small pamphlet bind of "the tenderness of spring" by @smallhorizons! It felt appropriate to bind some trans fic this month ✨ This is my first time making my own bookcloth and I'm delighted with how well it turned out!
The Island of Doctor Moreau/Die Insel des Doktor Moreau - H. G. Wells
Fullcloth bradel binding with paper onlays
Tête-bêche binding
Materials used
case
covers - 1,5mm grey board
spine stiffener - cardstock
cover material - Colibri book cloth (golden amber)
paper onlays - chiyogami paper
title - heat stamped foil (black)
inner book
book block - museums paper
endpapers - satogami paper
partition marker - satogami paper
endbands - button hole silk (on pre-made cloth wrapped linnen core)
Oxford hollow - chiyogami paper
This is a reprise of the first glimmerglanger fic (and first star wars fic) I ever bound several years ago, as a gift for @mourningmountainsbindery. It was much earlier in my bookbinding journey, and you can tell! This time I had found some awesomely dramatic photo manips by @nobie which they allowed me to use for a dust jacket! I really enjoyed the effect from their addition.
I printed this on 28 lb linen finish paper which made it a very pleasing chonk. It also got silk endbands, crepaldi endpapers, a three color speckled edge, and colibri bookcloth with the title foiled in mando'a. Typeset is still my original version, but it got some better margins by virtue of printing it on legal quarto instead of letter quarto!
This was the first of my Marvel Trumps Hate binds from 2024 💀.
I did sunken cords, which was the first time I had done that in quite a while; I thought it'd work better since the text block was so thick, for the pages to have a little more to rest on than to hang from. It did make it a little bit stiff, though that should hopefully loosen up over time (I love leather for this.)
Cover is two layers of board, with leather.
It's painted instead of tooled because I really did try to tool it, but it was going to take a crazy long time and be less consistent. Normally I wouldn't do paint on a cover, just because it'd flake off, but since it was debossed I figured it'd be fine.
Along the way I did make an Exciting New Type Error, where the spacer was just a little bit loose and slid forward, but not enough to show on my light test stamps. The result was after two sessions of futzing to try and make them centered properly, I fucked up in a way I had not known to plan to avoid. Anyway. That's why there's now two patches.
Another fantastic Danger Days FunPoison fic by @liberxi , You Be My Detonator, with a positively charming story that I adore; what can I say, found family fucks me up in the best way. Cover design is literally a copied exploding warning sign minus the triangular border; the centering of the exploding object mimics the sun in the DD album cover, and the flatness of the red was to mimic the flat colour of the warning sign. Originally, the explosion was going to be in yellow, but I realized I could use gold foil, in which I had a lot more fun using and think it came out much nicer than a flat yellow. The title page image is taken from a file folder on images taken from the DD music video sets. It was a tricky book to design, considering that explosions doesn't necessarily bring a more cozy, found-family feeling vibe, but overall I like the way it turned out and think it fits well, especially considering what found family we are talking about.
Video of handling below the cut, and fic description as always:
You Be My Detonator by @liberxi (E, 50k)
Party Poison would never turn down another killjoy in need; even if said killjoy is the most annoying little shit in the Zones.
Meanwhile Fun Ghoul is only looking for a crew to hide out with for a couple of days. But he ends up finding a lot more than that - a family.
---
New and exclusive: The not-remotely-canon-related story of how Fun Ghoul joined the Fabulous Killjoys!
Nothing dramatic happens in this at all. It's literally just queer people in the desert being incredibly annoying and loving each other very much. If that's your thing.
I call this one The Bina Collection, and it is a surprise for @binart that was SUCH a long time coming.
Bina, I don't know if you remember, but I hope you won't hate me for not warning you ahead of this post!
A bit of context because as usual, I can't help yapping about my process.
By now, my huge Call Me Beep Me Excel typeset debacle is well known, but basically: I fell into the VLD fandom completely by accident at the beginning of October 2025. After this (tragic) event (for my sanity), I spent some time going from one AU to another, until I stumbled upon Bina's art.
SRPA was my first foray into canon-compliant VLD fancreations, and it was everything I wished for in a post-canon work. It also impacted me as what I consider a creative tour de force: I found Bina so strong for having completed such a massive story in spite of everything, from art to writing. I know many who would have given up.
As it turned out, SRPA was my 1000th bookmark on AO3. So, naturally, I had to bookbind it. Which is how I found myself asking for permission... in October 2025.
Yes, that's seven months ago. Stuff™ Happened. It's been hard to keep track.
And after Bina answered my enthusiastic (and very shy) request with an even more enthusiastic message, and told me her wish to have a tangible copy of her art, I thought...
Hey, I loved BPJ. Why not do BPJ too?
And then, as mentioned, Stuff™.
So I thought, you know, sometimes it's important to have reminders of our accomplishments, things that we can be proud of, things that brought joy to both us and the people around.
The Bina Collection was born.
I wanted to keep a coherent visual design for all, something to sort-of remind the good old sci-fi book collections I loved when I was a teen. I went for simple bradel binds, with suede bookcloth (with titles printed on it) for the backs. The covers are black paper, the titles are heat foiled with my laminated machine, and the illustrations are printed and laminated directly on the black paper. Making those was an adventure and a half, but I'm so happy with the result.
The font for the title is the NASA-like font Nasalization: it was the closest I found to the font Bina used for her own title pages!
And since I wanted a harmonised design, I went with my favourite lion pattern. Yes, the one I've already used twice. It's just so good.
This post is already quite long: I'm adding a cut here, you'll find all the details book-by-book beneath it.
Let's start with the one that started it all: SRPA - Space Rangers Partners' Adventures.
I did my best to gather all the comic pages from Bina's Tumblr and set them on black page to try and have a uniform background. After printing, I sewed using a black linen thread so that it wouldn't be too visible. An unfortunate guillotine calibration made it so you can still see the (unavoidable) white margins on some pages, but overall, the black pages succeed in "keeping everything together."
For the written part of the story, I typeset on Affinity Publisher, with the main font used being DilleniaUPC because I like typesetting with serif fonts, but I wanted something that looked more... modern? than good old Times New. I don't know, I liked the vibes.
Chapters are not numbered, but each has its own header with the illustrations Bina specifically made for them.
And as you can see, because I can't help it, I typeset the text messages differently. I love this kind of details.
Now, let's move on to my second favourite story, the one that gave me a taste for Langst: BPJ - Blue Paladin's Journey.
For this one, I knew I wanted to use my absolute favourite format, that I already used for Ikimaru's comics and my two lyrics collections, the vertical A4 folio. It makes SUCH FUN BOOKS.
Even if, as you can see, I miscalculated for this one and sort-of forgot that it wasn't as wide as the others; hence the cover being too close to the right side... Shhh. It was a conscious design choice, of course.
For the inside, I did the exact same thing as I did for SRPA: I gathered all the frames from Bina's Tumblr and arranged them on a black background. Let's be honest, it took forever, but it was very, very rewarding. I am so happy and proud to have a copy of BPJ (even if, let's be real, this format can be a pain because it doesn't fit on my bookshelves.)
Now let's move on to DTOK - Doomed Timeline Older!Keith Does Time Travel To Save Lance (And Also The Universe Less Importantly).
The doomed timeline may be tragic, and Lance is obviously suffering (...and Keith by extension), BUT it's still so incredibly funny to me. Coran and his stun laser are priceless.
This one is quite short compared to the others, and looking back, I shouldn't have done a bradel bind for it: a single-signature might have been enough. It still looks nice like this.
Same process as the two above: gathering the pages from Tumblr, black background, black linen thread. Simple, efficient. Nothing too fancy for a nice read.
And let's conclude with the story that ended up being my favourite, because of the taste for Langst I ended up developing thanks to Bina: WAHPCR - What A Healing Pod Can't Repair.
I don't think I can recommend this story enough, and yet, at first, I didn't plan to bind it. I was stuck: it was published earlier, and the links to images were broken, and Bina said that she found the art did not match her style anymore.
BUT, as mentioned: it is my favourite. And if I was doing an actual Bina Collection, this story should be a part of it. And I've already mentioned multiple times that archiving was important to me... So I confess. I fished out the illustrations from Tumblr, and included them in the typeset. If anything, it was a way to show all the work, the evolution, and the love poured into all these stories.
The title page has an illustration from Bina's Tumblr which, if I understood well, is not directly linked to WAHPCR. I didn't want to leave the title page without an illustration (I was still trying to keep a coherent visual design, remember!) and I found it fitting...
The font for the body of text is, once more, DilleniaUPC (following the same rationale as SRPA) and the chapter headers use the font Nasalization again, as well as free assets from PNGegg that I had actually used a year ago for my VRAINS anniversary notebooks and that I love. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to use them for a totally different project.
And... that's it!
It was an ambitious project, and in all honesty, I almost gave up on it after having Affinity Publisher crash on me too many times due to my laptop being old and so many images eating up all its memory. And then when I had to reprint the covers multiple times because I messed up with the foil. And then when—you know what, it doesn't matter, because I kept going even if it took me MONTHS. It meant a lot to me to complete this collection, and I'm glad I did.
(Me for Binderary: I'm never working on seven books at once again
Me for the Bina Collection: you know I'm sure I can do six books at once. 🙃)
So thank you so much, @binart, for all the work you've put into this, for everything you've given and keep giving to this fandom (hiatus or not) and for being so enthusiastic when I asked for permission to bind SRPA. Again, I hope you don't hate me for going a little overboard.
This project was a big adventure, and I'm so happy I could complete it.
As for everyone else, I can only encourage you to follow Bina, to read her stories on Tapas, on AO3, to maybe commission her, and most importantly: to shower her with love.
(By the way, Bina, all of these above? They are your copies. Let me know if you'd like more photos/a video flipping through the pages. And while shipping from France is terribly tricky for me right now, I'll be moving to the other side of the Atlantic in less than a year, so... Take as much care as you can and hold on till you can have them in hand? 💖)
Sunless Knights by MacBudgie / @mushroomlasagna - a Hollow Knight/Sunless Skies crossover!! Casebound in folio. One copy for me, one copy for the author. Both games have very unique aesthetics, so I had fun figuring out ways to incorporate the iconography into the design.
"Yes. Many people died in this house," Al-Haitham confirms. "Some of them are even buried on the land." And then, almost like an afterthought, he answers, "It is my house."
For @ajconstantine, an edition of her marvelous sci-fi au, Starlight on a Nightingale. Starship captain Crowley’s first officer takes on Aziraphale as a new medic. But oh no-there’s a strict no fraternization policy!
As Star Trek was my first fandom, I have a soft spot for sci-fi, and this was a wonderful story. I really wanted a glittery black for the bookcloth and finally found one. It goes so well with AJ’s art that I kept for the title page.
OMG!! The binding on Starlight on a Nightingale simply blew me away!
The cover is a deep, sparkling black like pinpricks of stars that I cannot stop admiring. The inside endpapers are a gorgeous, colorful galaxy, and every single detail—down to the computerized font of the table of contents and the art for the chapter headers—had me Muppet-flailing wildly.
I am dead. Dying. Deceased. 💀❤️
I just... wow. I'm not going to be able to get any work done now, far too memorized by that sparkling cover. Thank you, Brunheiffer.
Paperback to hardcover rebind, a birthday gift for a friend
My idea was to have the dust jacket featuring Six wearing her diviner dress, but the pages are ripped and underneath you can see peaks of her in her armor
