#binderary2023 is a go!
Feb. 2nd, 2023 12:18 amIt is the start of Binderary today! What, you may ask, is Binderary? It's a one-month challenge from the Renegade Publishing collective for the month of February, to challenge yourself to either make a set number of books, try out new techniques, or any combo of the above. Also, there are a ton of online workshops.
I was planning on maybe trying for peaceful mode, one book a week. But I have a LOT of things half-finishing or otherwise in progress... and somehow, now, I'm going to try to finish twenty books in a month. Will I make it? Probably not. Will I end up with fewer works in progress than I started with? ... it depends how many more things I start. But I will absolutely have more books complete or closer to than I did. There is no down side!
I've decided for myself that I could do any prep ahead of time up to and including gluing the text block of the book together. Typesetting the text into a book-format and doing the design is the easiest part for me, as is evidenced by the thirty-some in progress files I have just sitting here. Then printing, folding, sewing, trimming the edges is an optional step, with much paper-smushing in between each one. Gluing the spine and adding endpapers is where I stopped. That's usually where I stall out for a while. Making the case and gluing it in is the bit I am least confident with. (There is measuring! And cutting! And glue! I am not exact at these things!) I'm skipping over some details here, but you get the idea. By the end of Feb, ideally, I'll have a whole lot more practice.
Right now, I have thirteen books printed and all but one of them is sewn together. Seven of them are glued. I have four books that need printing still, and one more where I need to finish typesetting. I am undecided which ones I'll do for the last two, and might swap in some shorter pamphlet style folded books.
Behold, the pile in progress...

I was planning on maybe trying for peaceful mode, one book a week. But I have a LOT of things half-finishing or otherwise in progress... and somehow, now, I'm going to try to finish twenty books in a month. Will I make it? Probably not. Will I end up with fewer works in progress than I started with? ... it depends how many more things I start. But I will absolutely have more books complete or closer to than I did. There is no down side!
I've decided for myself that I could do any prep ahead of time up to and including gluing the text block of the book together. Typesetting the text into a book-format and doing the design is the easiest part for me, as is evidenced by the thirty-some in progress files I have just sitting here. Then printing, folding, sewing, trimming the edges is an optional step, with much paper-smushing in between each one. Gluing the spine and adding endpapers is where I stopped. That's usually where I stall out for a while. Making the case and gluing it in is the bit I am least confident with. (There is measuring! And cutting! And glue! I am not exact at these things!) I'm skipping over some details here, but you get the idea. By the end of Feb, ideally, I'll have a whole lot more practice.
Right now, I have thirteen books printed and all but one of them is sewn together. Seven of them are glued. I have four books that need printing still, and one more where I need to finish typesetting. I am undecided which ones I'll do for the last two, and might swap in some shorter pamphlet style folded books.
Behold, the pile in progress...

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Date: 2023-02-02 02:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-02-03 05:53 am (UTC)