Book Arts

I thought I might mention some sites which deal with making books by hand. This is a really great hobby to pick up and if you’re an avid reader or book person it can be extremely rewarding. If nothing else, hand binding books makes it possible for you to own a copy of a book which has long since been out of print.

With a little ingenuity and the use of the Internet creating a copy of a difficult to obtain or out of print book is fairly simple. Using a HTML copy of a book on Project Gutenberg, you can copy and paste into a Word document. From there it’s an easy (but time consuming task) to format the text for printing. I like to do a landscape format and push the text to one side of the paper. This way I end up with a book which is about the same size as most trade paperbacks. (Keep in mind that in order to get text on both sides of the page and the paper, you will need to format twice. Even pages will have to be formatted to right side of the paper and a second copy of the book will need to be formatted so that the odd pages are on the left… or vice versa.) Once your pages are printed and cut, folded, or processed how you need them for the size and style of book you desire then you can use one of the binding techniques from one of the pages provided below. So far all I have used is either the Japanese stitch binding or square bound (glued) binding. Both have turned out nicely and are quite sturdy.


At Zum Gali Gali Rubber Stamps or Bind It Fast you can find instructions on how to do the Japanese Stitch binding. It’s pretty easy to do, extremely effective, and it can be used to make both paperback and hardback books.

MothTeeth offers clear basic instructions on how to make a hardback book.

Perfect bound site one and Perfect bound site two both offer instructions on how to make a glue binding paperback book. This method is very easy and making a (very) simple book press wasn’t that hard at all. I'M SORRY TO REPORT THESE TWO SITES ARE NOW GONE.

Last I thought I would point out the San Diego Museum of Art. The Museum has seven different sets of instructions on how to make some simple fun books.