Turning Paperbacks Into Library Hardcovers: The Plan

You know those old library books where there's no dust jacket and the cover art is printed right on the hard case? Glossy, a little worn at the corners, stamped on the back by the school library? That's what I want for my own books.

The plan is to take paperbacks, and eventually printouts of my own novels, and turn them into hardcovers with the art printed on the case. Nothing's been glued yet. This is me figuring out what it takes before I buy the wrong board.

Why manga size

I'm aiming for manga trim size, roughly 5 x 7.5 inches. It's small enough to hold in one hand, it stacks nicely on a shelf, and it's a familiar size from manga. A 400-page novel at that size makes a satisfying brick.

There's another reason, too. The novels I've been posting chapter by chapter on the site are readable on a screen, but I want at least one copy of each that lives on a shelf. A small hardcover feels right for a draft. It says "finished enough to hold" without pretending to be a real print run.

How case binding works

A hardcover is really two things built separately and then married together:

• The text block. All the pages, bound together along the spine. On a paperback conversion, that's the existing book with its soft cover taken off.
• The case. Two stiff boards for the covers, a thin strip for the spine, and a wrap that covers all three and folds over the edges.

The two get joined with endpapers, a folded sheet glued to the first and last page of the text block and then to the inside of each board. A strip of open-weave cloth called mullmullA strip of open-weave cloth glued across the spine of a book. It is what actually holds the pages to the hard cover at the hinge. (or super) goes across the spine first, so the hinge has something stronger than paper holding it.

Note

For a library-style look, the wrap is a printed sheet instead of bookcloth. Laminating it or giving it a clear coat keeps the ink from scuffing, which is basically what the old library editions did.

The printer can already handle the wrap

This is the part that made me think it's doable at home. My photo printer takes 13 x 19 inch paper, and a manga-sized case wrap fits on that with room to spare.

Rough math for one book, before I measure a real text block:

Piece	Roughly
Boards	a hair bigger than the page, about 5.25 x 7.75 in
Spine strip	the text block's thickness, maybe 0.75 to 1.25 in
Hinge gaps	two small gaps, around 0.25 in each
Turn-ins	about 0.75 in all around
Full wrap	about 13 x 9.25 in

That's one wrap per sheet, full bleed, art across the front, spine and back. I've already got the cover dimensions reference for game and movie cases. This is the same exercise at book size.

The supply list

What I've gathered so far, from reading and not from doing:

• Binder's board (grey board), around 2mm thick, for the covers.
• PVA glue, the bookbinder's kind that stays flexible when it dries.
• Mull for the spine, and headbands if I want the little striped edge at the top and bottom.
• Endpaper stock, something heavier than printer paper.
• A bone folder, a cutting mat, a steel ruler and a very sharp knife.
• If I sew: an awl, a needle and waxed linen thread.
• Something heavy to press it under overnight. A stack of other books, probably.

Sewn or glued

This is the decision I haven't made yet.

Sewn means folding the pages into little bundles called signatures and stitching them together through the fold. It's slower, but a sewn book opens flatter and lasts longer. That's how most real hardcovers used to be made.

Glued means the pages are loose sheets, roughened or fanned along the spine edge and glued. It's much quicker, and it's the natural fit for a stack of pages straight off a home printer. A paperback conversion is already glued anyway, so for those the question is mostly settled for me.

For my own printed novels, I haven't decided. Sewing makes the better book. Gluing makes the book that's more likely to get finished. That's the whole debate.

What's next

The sensible order seems to be: buy the board and glue, pick a sacrificial paperback, and do one conversion start to finish before touching my own manuscripts. After that comes printing a novel from the Kindle-ready HTML I already make and binding that.

I did something similar digitally once, stitching comic issues into trades. This is the version with glue on my fingers.