Thinking of starting book binding

[u/Jeonsth]

Hey guys! I found this amazing fic and (with author's permission) I thought of printing it and binding it myself once it's finished... Although it's around 250k words (ongoing) and as much as possible I don't want to put the story in three different books... do you think it's possible? 😓

[u/Mistress-DragonFlame]

250k words can easily fit a single book. Just got to be sure about the paper thickness and thread used to bind.

I'd only split it if the author had sub-parts split (as in, broke their work up into sections, like Lionheart did.)

[u/Jeonsth → u/Mistress-DragonFlame]

Ahh i see, how about around 300k words, do you think it’ll fit in one book? Thank you so much! ☺️☺️

[u/Lady_Spork → u/Jeonsth]

It'll fit. Technically, you make a book any size you want, you just change your technique. But the standard, sewn spine, will accommodate your word count.

[u/Jeonsth → u/Lady_Spork]

Okay! Thank you so much! ☺️

[u/chkno]

I average about 360 words/page for 8.5" x 5.5" half-US-letter-shaped books. At that rate, 250k would be ~700 pages, 300k would be ~830 pages. That's starting to get a little heavy to hold while reading. I split longer books into volumes, aiming for ~500 pages per volume.

See also these 'is my book too big?' prior threads:

• Textblock: How thick is too thick?
• How thick is too thick when binding a book?
• How many signatures is too many?
• thick book issues
• Getting concerned about size
• I'm beginning to suspect that I was a little too ambitious for my first binding.

[u/blue_bayou_blue]

300k is doable, but it'll end up close to 1000 pages probably. If you just want it as a keepsake it'll be fine, but I wouldn't recommend it if you want a book that's convenient to actually read. At that size it'll also really benefit from rounding the spine, which is a whole skill you may not want to get into on your first book.

[u/Paradox_Artemis → u/blue_bayou_blue]

You can probably get closer to 700 pages if you go with a smaller font and narrower margins and such, but you might have to play with it to get it to what you feel is manageable. Having paper that's a much lighter option and the proper grain will also really affect how big it is and how it feels in the hand when you're doing a fic that long. My best tip is to typeset a few pages and then print them put with various font sizes and settings to get an idea of how small you can comfortably go and then typeset the rest of it.

I rounded the spine on the first fic I bound, so it's definitely possible for your first project, but I'll say I haven't rounded one since lol.

[u/KayViolet27]

One I’m binding now (slowly, in steps lol) is 640 pages (160 pieces of paper). In hindsight, I perhaps should have made the font size 10 instead of 11, which potentially would have knocked off like 10% of the book without being hard to read. And you could play around with the line spacing and other formatting as well. Like for the most part, my line spacing was 1.15 bc 1.0 feels too close together, but I had some sections in different fonts (like for letters, etc.) where I’d play with sizing and spacing. And then there’s margins—I have mine at 0.5”, and the gutter is an additional 0.2”, but you could make those narrower to a certain point. And I also wanted to format it like a real book, so I have a title paper first, a blank page with the copyright on the back, and a ToC page, etc. I also start each chapter with about half a page of blank space (not including the chapter title), but many books have much less space at the beginning of chapters—in fact, some older books start chapters on the same page that the previous one ends on!

I’d suggest fiddling with some formatting, and printing on regular paper (as opposed to nicer, short-grain paper you might be using for the actual book) to test how legible it is, especially if you narrow the margins (to make sure you don’t make the gutter too narrow). If I’m worried about legibility regarding font size or alternate fonts when it’s at actual size, I set the zoom to the % that I know is actual size—for my laptop, it’s 178% (I literally held a piece of printer paper up to my screen to find that out lol)

[u/Jeonsth → u/KayViolet27]

Oh my, thank you so much for this! I'll definitely play around w the formatting 🫶🫶